It is time to think about back to school!  Not shopping, but reading!  Whether you call it campus fiction or campus lit, these books remind us what it was like to be in school (for better or worse!).  You may think of titles like The Secret History by Donna Tartt or Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, but there are a whole host of books set in academia awaiting you.  Here are a couple of our favorites:

Deanna’s Pick:  For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing

“I just finished this creepy prep school thriller and I loved it!  Teddy Crutcher has been named “Teacher of the Year” at the prestigious prep school Belmont where he works.  Teddy has an interesting approach to teaching these privileged kids – he is not afraid to teach them lessons “for their own good”.  So now there have been a few suspicious deaths at Belmont and as readers, we are left wondering just how much Teddy knows about them.  And then Fallon, one of those students he taught a “lesson”,  returns to the school as a substitute and the fun really begins.   I don’t want to tell you too much about the plot – there are so many fun twists and turns and I don’t want to give anything away.  And I don’t want to spoil the fun, because this was a real page-turner – not just trying to figure out what is going on and who is doing it, but hoping that perhaps Teddy gets taught a lesson of his own.  If you like that campus lit genre, if you like unreliable narrators, if you like a little attitude with your suspense, then give this one a try.”

Jessica’s Pick: Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo

“My pick is a little of a darker mystery, set on a famous college campus. The book takes place primarily at Yale University and the town of New Haven, though there are flashbacks to the main character’s life in Los Angeles. I don’t necessarily like to rely on an author’s biography in fiction, but Bardugo did attend Yale, and that likely informs her vivid description of the people and places there. Our main character is Galaxy “Alex” Stern. Alex is a very troubled girl: after a tragic incident in her pre-teens she spirals off into objectification, using and selling drugs, and some very bad relationships. She does, however, possess the rare talent to see Ghosts, or Greys as they are referred to in the book, and they haunt her everywhere she goes. This “talent” gains her the notice of Lethe, one of the nine “secret societies” at Yale University, well-known in the real world as somewhat sinister in nature, but in the world of the book, the secret societies actually do possess certain types of dark magic that members practice and wield to maintain the power and status of the ultra-rich and powerful. These societies break the rules of this magic all of the time, and in doing so, attract ghosts from the underworld. So Lethe decides they will recruit Alex’s talent to keep the Veil, that is the liminal space between the living and the dead, intact. In return for Alex’s talent, they provide her with a full ride to the University. Of course, Alex is terribly lost and on the verge of giving up halfway into her freshman year, when the mysterious death of a New Haven townie on campus draws her in to a web of secrets, intrigue, and murder. Bardugo brilliantly weaves mystery, thriller, horror and fantasy into an atmospheric, coming-of-age tale full of sadness, redemption and a little hope amid the darkness.”

If these sound interesting to you, check out more suggestions that will take you back to class below.

Happy Reading!