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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

******SPOILERS********

Now I knew almost from the get go who was gonna die and did it. The book doesn’t hide it very well. Yet I can’t deduct any stars from my review because this book does a really good job of confusing the fuck out of you.

The energy between Oliver and James…. The tension, the stress, the questions I have…

M.L. Rio left me with the bluest of balls after the rollercoaster I read through.

Only for the end to come to Oliver staying with Meredith??!?!? Now let’s not get me wrong. I love Meredith. I’m drawn to the damsel in distress vibes and sex exude. It really spoke for Oliver’s character how drawn she was to his comfort. My only issue is that Meredith deserved better than staying Oliver’s rebound. She must know how big James’ shadow is (especially after that last kiss).

Overall I would read this again only to hope to feel the tension, excitement, and dread that I felt during the first read through.

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Maddie & Hassen: Not gonna lie, one of my favorite couples so far. Maybe it’s the soft spot I have for Hassen and his big heart that makes him an a-hole. Maybe I like red flags. But Maddie standing up for him and being on his level made me love her too. Better than Lila’s story (iykyk).

Claire & Evren: I really liked the cute holiday aspect but the love story with Claire and her boo seemed really quick and not a satisfying final moment. I guess they can’t all be epic lovestorys. It is really crazy to read how much of an ass Bek was though. Poor Claire.

Stacy & Pashov: Let me just say it was weird to read this book that follows an almost fatal head injury for Pashov and have Stacy be the one upset that he can’t remember her. She has to fall in love with the new him rather than making the story about learning to rewin his affections. It relied entirely too much on his willingness to make her unconditionally happy. Ruined the storyline for me.

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The Ultimate Dark Academia Book Recommendation Guide Ever

The title of this post is clickbait. I, unfortunately, have not read every book ever. Not all of these books are particularly “dark” either. However, these are my recommendations for your dark academia fix. The quality of each of these books varies. I have limited this list to books that are directly linked to the world of academia and/or which have a vaguely academic setting.

Dark Academia staples:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Dead Poets Society by Nancy H. Kleinbaum

Vita Nostra by Maryna Dyachenko

Dark academia litfic or contemporary:

Bunny by Mona Awad

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

White Ivy by Susie Yang

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates

Attribution by Linda Moore

Dark academia thrillers or horror:

In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Dark academia fantasy/sci-fi:

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

The Betrayals by Bridget Collins

Dark academia romance:

Gothikana by RuNyx

Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake

Dark academia YA or MG:

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Crave by Tracy Wolff

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Dark academia miscellaneous:

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip

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⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Georgie & Vektal: Georgie has ganas (cajones, a huge fn sack). First to want to hijack a real life alien spaceship, but then to take responsibility of all of these females when you’re in the same boat as them? Damn. Honestly Georgie’s feeling of responsibility kind of ruins her character. Why spend your honeymoon burying bodies?

Liz & Raahosh: I’m gonna turn a blind eye to Raahosh literally forcing a cootie on Liz because they are so cute together. How fiercely she defends him when he’s exiled. (But also was Vektal not the biggest asshole for trying to separate them?)

Kira & Aehako: This book would have been a lot shorter if Kira had given in to Aehako’s come-on’s from the get go like she wanted to. The only thing that held her back was herself and that bugged me. Points for outsmarting the bad guys tho. Really feels like their relationship is focused a lot of either of them just straight up being anxious. Not the vibe for a love story.

Harlow & Rukh: My favorite couple. Harlow isn’t in an easy situation meeting Rukh but she understand resonance enough to know choosing him means ride or die. She’s willing to give up the comfort of the tribe and her friends to be with a man who can’t speak. And she’s so in love with him, and so down for him that it melts my heart.

Tiffany & Salukh: Tiffany deserves Salukh. He was so gentle and patient and kind. Even amongst his peers. He’s probably the top rated guy on this roster. I love that he helps with her demons.

Lila & Rakon: They were so CUTE until Lila got all doubtful and retreated. The fact that they had to come back together all awkward killed the cuteness.

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2/10 Kind of Cringe

You take a story about a girl who’s husband doesn’t love her and a man who is somehow just obsessed. Add a quirk like green eyes and red hair and you have what? A love story?

There wasn’t much build up. The sex scenes were skimmed more than anything. And I wasn’t understanding the love? Like he admitted to HUMAN TRAFFICKING and she’s like “okay but he’s not mean to /me/“.

And the arc with the mom seemed to be for nothing. Some sort of closure that both of them have met each others parents? Okay.

Then the last chapter keeps “fast forward 6 month”. Little imagination there.

And what happens with Grayson? Nothing? Just wanted to poach a whore off his brother? They had that scene about her seemingly being cool enough with him to complain about Grayson fucking her roommate.

Overall felt written mainly for the sex. And it wasn’t enough.

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10/10 WTF IS REAL

Let me just say wow. So many unanswered questions.

Samantha is friends with Ava, who saved her from being the loneliest girl on her campus of Warren.

A clique in her school call themselves Bunny and it’s super uncomfortable to watch them per each other and group hug in public. Sam is so bothered by it she makes it a point to laugh about it with Ava.

Until the Bunnies invite Sam to a night in their Smut Salon.

Then Sam becomes part of their world. Even participates in their creepy Frankenstein rituals where they turn BUNNIES into MEN. The ultimate goal here is to find someone fuckable and/or datable.

The process of creating Darling hybrid Bunny-Men can be gorey. Heads popping and ax chopping and such. To combat this the Bunnies are on pills, and it fucks them up royally. Hence the weird petting and hugs.

One day while their walking to one of their favorite places in town, Sam is abducted into an alley by Ava. Sam doesn’t even remember who Ava is.

The Bunnies find Sam and scare Ava away. Sam spends the rest of the night searching for Ava with a boy from her school in his car until she gives up and goes back to the Bunnies.

They tell Sam she’s finally ready to perform a Darling transformation of her own.

In the attic Sam fails at making a Darling from her bunny

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8/10 In my FEELS

Tally is now a Special Circumstances agent (against her own will but I guess we dont care about that)

I just want to gloat that I was right about her and Zane being end game. BUT! I was /gutted/ by how they ended up. And their last kiss was /that/??? FUUUHCK THAAHT.

Also I was so wrong about the sizzle not being there David. Although Tally didn’t feel as strongly for David at the get go, he loves her. He made that painfully obvious at the end of the last book. And I realized that David held a flame for her through all her transformations. Through everything she went through, to David she was still Tally. He waited for her. That speaks volumes. Maybe Zane was her choice, but David was always going to be there.

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7/10 love triangles!!

Tally is pretty and she has everything she ever wanted when she was ugly. She has friends, she goes to parties, she’s even pretty popular. But all that she went through with the Smokies make her anxious. She has this constant nagging from the past wherever she is.

Then she meets Zane. And he feels that anxiety too. For months before meeting her he’s starved himself to maintain the clarity from the fuzzy-headedness that pretties live with. And with one kiss they go down a rabbit hole that they can’t come back from. They take the “pretty cure” that the Smokies sneak in for them. 2 pills meant for Tally that she splits with Zane.

Special Circumstances is keeping a close eye on them and even have them permanently cuffed and tracked. It takes a lot of planning for them to break free and break out of the city.

They get separated outside of the city. And Tally finds herself in a sectioned off area of land that houses barbaric and savage looking peoples. They live without electricity or modern tech of any kind and they think of the Pretties as Gods.

Tally comes to realize that these people are caged like livestock for experimentation and breaks free from their reservation, vowing to come back to rescue them.

And finally reunited with Zane, she doesn’t have very long to appreciate him being alive. If at all.

It’s even more complicated with David there… but has he always been this ugly?

The book ends when an unexpected tracking device gets set off and the Specials are on their way. Tally must choose between Zane and David and ultimately chooses Zane.

The rest of the Smokies flee whilst Tally and Zane stay behind and get captured. And who shows up with Special Circumstances but Shay, now a Special herself. Her revenge for Tally’s selfishness through book 1 (I don’t think she acted selfishly in book 2) ?? She gets to turn Tally into a Special herself. Well fuck.

I love how the author made Shay her fre-nemy. Shay is a good friend. She shares her secrets and her friends and her knowledge. Shay trusts Tally completely (enough to have given her the location of the Smoke in the first book!). And Tally betrays that trust over and over. She treats Shay like she’s second rate. Ngl, Tally is a shit best friend. /Shay/ should have been the one to find Valentino 317 with Tally. /Shay/ should have been the first one she told about the cure! Just because things didn’t happen one way doesn’t mean Tally couldn’t have communicated better. Shit and selfish main character Fr.

Also, in this book I really loved the dynamic between Tally and Zane. They were really good for each other. Somehow I feel like she will go back to David, since she thought about him a lot in New Pretty Town. But her relationship with Zane became codependent, was not based on any lies, AND they said they loved each other???? Cmon. That has to be end game.

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6/10 dystopian reality

Tally Youngblood just wants to be pretty. Ultimately that’s the life goal of this world. At 16 you get the operation to make you pretty so you could join the New Pretties across the river in Nee Pretty Town.

Being so close to her 16th birthday, all of Tally’s friends had aged out of Uglyville. She’s lonely until she meets Shay. And instantly they’re best friends. They love to sneak out of the dorms at night and play tricks or wander the ruins of past society nearby.

And Shay is kind of odd. She’s not as excited for her upcoming 16th birthday as she should be. She makes a lot of snide remarks about becoming pretty. It’s almost as if she’d /prefer/ to stay ugly.

One day Shay tells Tally she’s leaving the city. She’s headed for a place where people don’t turn pretty. Following a mysterious David that Tally has never met.

Tally stays behind… and her 16th birthday comes…. And Special Circumstances hijacks her operation and tells her she’ll never be pretty unless she betrays Shay and reveals the location she ran away too.

So off Tally goes, with a tracking device that will reveal the location of Shay once activated.

Pretty quickly she finds her, living amongst a society of free city people. Old uglies that she can barely stand to look at.

Tally immediately through herself into the labor of their community projects. She even developed a close relationship with David (much to Shay’s dismay). And on one of the best nights of her life, she accidentally triggers the tracker.

All hell breaks lose and Tally is left with Davidto free the captured people of the Smoke.

By the time they locate their people, some are dead and Shay is… pretty?

David’s mother thinks she can reverse the effects of the “pretty haze”. But the cure is untested and Shay won’t try it.

So off Tally goes. To give herself up to Special Circumstances and become pretty. The end.

And I personally couldn’t get over how two-faced Tally was throughout almost the entire book. The truth didn’t come out until the absolute last second. And she couldn’t come clean from the get go. I was so frustrated with her lies.

Her sizzle with David didn’t hit me too hard. But it was cute. /A lot/ of hand touches and hand holding. She was betraying him the whole time though, it made me so mad for him. A relationship built on lies.

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7/10 unexpected ending

We follow Evercloud and his gang while he searches for Iolana (the Ancient Chera) who was taken by The Messenger at the end of the last book.

Iolana and The Messenger are on their way to Hammlin, where The Messenger received his name and blessing from The Holy (The Great Tyrant). And the whole time he is falling for her. From the very beginning he is at the mercy of how sweet and kind and caring she is. He even claims at one point that he loves her. (Gave me the ick the whole time).

We discovered Captain Nesbit. A mortal who loved Iolana in a past life and was cursed to be a dog by Densa. He implies heavily that Evercloud IS Densa, but no one can prove this as fact.

In the end, The Messenger kills his mother and revealed that HE is in fact Densa. (So who tf is Evercloud).

Now we can wait to see if realizing his true identity turns him back over to the dark side.

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8/10 captivating storyline

I thought this would just be the story of Evercloud. A kid raised amongst bears. Buts it’s so much.

A bear named Eveneye finds a young human boy tied to a tree and saves him from a descending pack of wolves.

To protect his human cub, he challenges the king of bears for the throne and wins. He raises his human amongst the bears and hopes he will one day build a bridge of peace between humans and bears.

Then reveals the story’s of the ancients. Fire Bakhnar, Water Chera, Earth Densa, and Wind Tenturo. Who created all living creatures and eventually man. Thwarted by an evil with powers that rivaled theirs, the Great Tyrant ran the ancients into oblivion and rules the humans of today as The Holy.

Evercloud and his companions set out to find the lost Ancients.

Then the story does a 180 and we’re following the story of a boy named Edgar. We follow his heartbreaking story to the end, where no one receives a happy ending. Edgar becomes blind and lonely, kept company by an alcoholic father. Until one day The Holy speaks to him.

Edgar becomes The Messenger, a sort of missionary assassin on behalf of The Holy (aka The Great Tyrant).

Back to the story of Evercloud. He makes new companions of the Floyd family and eventually succeeds in finding Tenturo.

But just when you think there will be a happy ending.. all hell breaks loose.

The plot twist made my jaw drop. On to book 2!

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5/10 mostly a love story

This story follows a mute named Raina Bloodgood. Which I really love the inclusiveness of this in the character. And it doesn’t affect much of the plot.

Raina is a witch of the vale in the North lands of Teressia ruled by the Frost King. Once a year on Collection Day the Witch Collector comes through and takes a witch of his choosing to join the effort to protect the vale.

8 years ago, the Witch Collector tools Raina’s older sister. She decides it’s time he’s paid for her loss. Using the God Knife she inherits from her father, she plans to hold the Witch Collector hostage and eventually kill the Frost King.

Plans go sideways when the kingdom of the East invaded the vale, slaughtering innocents from town to town on their way North to abduct the Frost King.

Raina is thrown into an unexpected alliance with the Witch Collector when they become the only two surviving people of the East raids.

Now Raina must swallow her pride and accept help from the Witch Collector so he will show her they way to her sister, and last living relative.

Along the way tension builds. But wait, the tension has always been there. From the second Raina sees his face for the first time, she is gripped with a force of wanting. Apparently, the Witch Collector has been admiring her for years from afar as well.

I would say the unexpectedly fast way the characters fall all over each other kills some of the vibe in the book. I craved more “will they/won’t they” and in this book it was always obvious they would.

And honestly, the whole book could have been some crazy foreplay to the sex scene that takes place in one of the final chapters. It almost felt like the whole book was written just so the author could write some steamy smutty gunk and call it love.

I am not interested enough to jump into book 2. Maybe one day I will revisit.

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6/10 overrall ending :( for lack of /feeling!/

The concepts that the author creates for the fundamental rules and operations of this world is amazing. She does an awesome job tying all the pieces together at the end. Bring up parts of books 1 and 2 that didn’t seem as important as they were.

I only wished it wasn’t so rushed. I wanted more Orion, maybe more Liesel? I wanted more passion. It seems to go a little too smoothly, a little too quickly.

This series has incredible concepts but doesn’t have the depth I craved from it.

Don’t confuse that for meaning I was not so immensely intrigued and obsessed with this series.

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7/10 Budding Romance

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7/10 Imaginative World

This book was interesting to get started. The author writes how the mc thinks and honestly sometimes it was real fast for me. But it’s interesting how she subtly but aggressively makes jibes about how powerful she is.

It takes us into the Scholomance, a school of young magic kin from 13-18 who live in the school all 4 years with no communication with the outside world so they can learn craft. Upon graduation you have to fight your way out the graduation hall to freedom and rejoin the real world. Success rate looks about 50% coming out alive.

Main character, Galadriel, or El, has demonstrations of her intense evil power in the book and their so glossed over. She doesn’t revel in any of it. The maw mouth? Those images of that scene will fill my brain til I can cleanse my mind.

Orion gives off just MC vibes and I really felt the bond form between him and El since their first encounter. I was all for an introduction of romance and I was facepalming how they decided to end things. I was just starting to get those bubbly butterfly feelings for him until that final twist.

Overall for book 2 I’m hoping for El getting some of the recognition she deserves and hopefully a successful graduation with minimal death, and possibly boyfriend?

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8/10 action

Was all over myself with the cute love interest scenes. Loved loved loved Calypso.

Excited for book 6!

Just to give this more depth this books were fast paced and exciting. And my favorite part is that Percy isn’t always the hero. He’s kind of awkward and sometimes stubborn. Towards the end, maybe he isn’t even who we thought he was.

But one this that’s undeniably the truth is that he is loyal. And that’s what kept me reading. The love triangles and angst and confusion gave me intense butterflies, but wanting to see him come out on the other side of the war was what kept me going through boom after book.

And I was not disappointed. The final scene in Olympus couples with Athena’s blessing and the /lake scene/.

I /cannot wait for book 6/.