If you love stories where ambition curdles into obsession, power is cloaked in Latin, and the campus grounds feel just a little too quiet after dark, these books centered around academia will pull you into their ivy-covered webs and refuse to let go. Whether you’re into fantasy-based dark academia or a traditional university setting, you will get a Master’s degree in amazing storytelling.
My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan
Ella’s plans have always been to go to Oxford, and now, she’s getting that chance. After a run-in with a local who ruins her day, she discovers this same man is her literature professor. An unexpected connection fires up between them and a passionate relationship ensues. But as Jamie encounters a life-changing event, Ella must decide if she will still to the path she’s on or if her life deserves a new dream.
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Babel by R.F. Kuang
Set in the 1800s, Oxford is a place where language is magic and translation isn’t just academic, it’s revolutionary. Robin Swift, a Chinese orphan raised in Britain, is caught between his loyalty to the elite institution that gave him everything and the anti-imperialist group that demands he take it all down. With silver bars that bend reality and a plot that tackles colonialism, power, and rebellion, this book asks: can change come from within, or does it require burning the whole place down?
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The Secret History by Donna Tartt
This book has readers in a chokehold and for good reason. The Secret History focuses on a group of elite classics students at a Vermont college fall under the spell of their enigmatic professor, only to slowly spiral into obsession, betrayal, and murder. Told with haunting prose and psychological precision, this one makes you wonder just how far you’d go for knowledge or for the approval of an intense group of friends.
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Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Devon and Chiamaka are thriving at their elite private school until someone named “Aces” starts leaking their darkest secrets. With razor-sharp commentary on race, privilege, and power, this page-turning thriller will have your heart pounding and your mind racing. It’s the kind of book you stay up all night reading, gasping with every twist, and texting your friends “YOU NEED TO READ THIS.”
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I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
When Bodie Kane returns to her elite boarding school to teach a course, she gets pulled back into the decades-old murder of her roommate and starts to question everything she thought she knew. With an icy campus setting, a tangled web of memory, and a mystery that won’t let go, Rebecca Makkai delivers a sharp, unsettling interrogation of justice, narrative, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.
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These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
Paul and Julian’s relationship starts as an intense intellectual friendship but slowly morphs into something obsessive, destructive, and violent. Set in 1970s Pittsburgh and dripping with tension, this story digs deep into what happens when admiration turns toxic and intimacy gets weaponized.
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Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Catalina got into Harvard. That’s the dream, right? But as an undocumented student about to graduate, she’s haunted by questions of belonging, survival, and who gets to have a future. With razor-sharp insight and biting humor, she navigates secret societies, romance, and existential dread in equal measure. If you’ve ever felt like an outsider clawing your way through elite spaces, Catalina will hit close to home in the best way.
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The Cloisters by Katy Hays
When Ann lands a dreamy summer gig at The Cloisters, she gets more than she bargained for. She never anticipated the seductive secrets, eerie artifacts, and colleagues who blur the line between academic obsession and something far darker. Queue the mysterious death and a lost deck of tarot cards that set the stage for an unraveling you won’t see coming.
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Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown
Back on campus for her sister’s graduation, Maya expects nostalgia and champagne toasts but what she gets is heartbreak and suspicion when Naomi turns up dead. The deeper Maya digs, the more the ivy-covered facade of Princeton cracks, revealing sinister secrets, elite societies, and a history of silenced whispers. It’s eerie, addictive, and full of scandal.
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Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Wallace is used to keeping people at arm’s length. Trust isn’t immediate as a Black, queer male in a predominantly white, Midwestern grad program. But on a late-summer weekend everything starts to change. Friends become strangers, tension simmers under small talk, and one complicated encounter with a straight white classmate might just undo the carefully constructed life Wallace has tried to build.
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Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang
Immaculate Conception is a mind-bending novel about obsession, fame, and the magnetic pull of female friendship. Art-school besties Enka and Mathilde blur the lines between intimacy and obsession. When Enka marries a billionaire funding a tech that lets people absorb someone else’s trauma, things get ethically messy and you won’t be able to look away.
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Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
At first glance, Hailsham feels like a dream boarding school, filled with poetry, art, and close-knit friendships. But as Kathy looks back on her childhood, a disturbing truth about her past and her purpose slowly comes into focus. Ishiguro builds a world so gentle and quiet, the horror sneaks up on you.
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