imagine this: you are wandering around your local independent book store, hot caffeinated beverage of choice in hand, when you spot A Book. it has everything you're looking for -- a dark, moody cover; a $19.99 price tag; and, most immortantly, a blurb that reads "perfect for fan's of donna tartt's cult classic The Secret History (1992)". donna tartt's cult classic The Secret History (1992) is your favorite book, so naturally you shell out nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents, shotgun the remains of your hot caffeinated beverage of choice, and head home to curl up in your immaculately curated reading nook and crack up open what will surely become your new favorite book. but then...no, it can't be...not again...!
(you think)
yeah. we've all been there. But be there no more -- on this poorly formatted webpage you will find my personal directory of that elusive genre known as "Dark Academia", helpfully subdivided into those that are actually good and those that suck major ass. (books that I have not yet read will be categorized based on my personal level of pessimism about their quality and are therefore subject to recategorization.) let's start with the good ones -- take it away, table!
| TITLE: | AUTHOR: | READ: | DARK? | ACADEMIA? | GAY??? | BIG COOL HOUSE? | TOXIC CLIQUE? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Once Upon a Time at Bennington College" | Lili Anolik | X | X | ||||
| The World Cannot Give | Tara Isabella Burton | X | X | X | X | X | |
| Possession | AS Byatt | X | X | ||||
| The Things We Do To Our Friends | Heather Darwent | X | X | X | |||
| The Divines | Ellie Eaton | X | X | X | X | ||
| The Virgins | Pamela Erens | X | X | X | |||
| The Likeness | Tana French | X | X | X | X | ||
| The Secret Place | Tana French | X | X | X | X | ||
| Engleby | Sebastian Faulks | X | X? | ||||
| The Magus | John Fowles | X | X | ||||
| The Line of Beauty | Alan Hollingsworth | X | X? | ||||
| The Orchard | David Hoppen | X | X | X | X | ||
| Hangsaman | Shirley Jackson | X | X | X | X* | ||
| A Seperate Peace | John Knowles | X | X | X | X* | ||
| Admission | Jean Hanff Korelitz | X | |||||
| The Group | Mary McCarthy | X | X | ||||
| These Violent Delights | Micah Nemerever | X | X | X | X | X | |
| Belladonna | Anbara Salam | X | X | X | |||
| Kala | Colin Walsh | X | X | ||||
| Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | X | X | X* | X | ||
| The Old School | Tobias Wolff | X |
alright, not so bad. now for the drivel: the rest of these are bad, or not at all like The Secret History, or bad and not at all like The Secret History. rather than going through the particularities of what qualities they have or lack, I've included a general rating of each book's quality and relevence.
| TITLE: | AUTHOR: | READ: | IS IT GOOD? | IS IT LIKE TSH? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Lessons | Naomi Alderman | X | 1/5 | 3/5 | |
| Dark Rooms | Lili Anolik | X | 1/5 | 1/5 | |
| Bunny | Mona Awad | X | 1/5 | 2/5 | |
| The Stranger Diaries | Elly Griffiths | (3.88) | |||
| The Lake of Dead Languages | Carol Goodman | X | 2/5 | 5/5 | |
| The Most Dangerous Place on Earth | Lindsey Lee Johnson | (3.40) | |||
| Babel | RF Kuang | (4.23) | |||
| A Lesson in Vengeance | Victoria Lee | X | 2/5 | 3/5 | |
| The Furies | Katie Lowe | (3.02) | |||
| The Swallows | Lisa Lutz | (3.66) | |||
| People Like Us | Dana Mele | (3.52) | |||
| The Maidens | Alex Michaelides | X | 1/5 | 4/5 | |
| Special Topics in Calamity Physics | Marisha Pessl | X | 2/5 | 4/5 | |
| If We Were Villains | ML Rio | X | 2/5 | 4/5 | |
| The Night Climbers | Ivo Stourton | (2.99) | |||
| The Truants | Kate Weinberg | X | 2/5 | 3/5 | |
| The House at Midnight | Lucie Whitehouse | (3.16) | |||
| Sleepwalking | Meg Wolitzer | X | 1/5 | 3/5 | |
| The Bellweather Revivals | Benjamin Wood | (3.61) | |||
| Black Chalk | Christopher Yates | X | 1/5 | 4/5 | |
| We Wish You Luck | Caroline Zancan | (3.18) |