If you liked
Books like The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
The Secret History invented the modern dark-academia mood: a cloistered Greek class, a murder announced on page one, and Donna Tartt's slow reveal of how the beautiful and the cultured talk themselves into the unforgivable. If you have been chasing that specific feeling ever since, these come closest.
The shortlist
What to read next
The Goldfinchby Donna Tartt
“The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 2013 review. Theo Decker, thirteen, survives a Metropolitan Museum bombing that kills his mother and ends up with a stolen painting that defines the next decade of his life. Pulitzer Prize 2014.”
A Little Lifeby Hanya Yanagihara
“A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara 2015 review. Four college friends in New York, slowly narrowing onto Jude St. Francis and what childhood trauma does to the rest of an adult life. Man Booker Prize shortlist and the most-discussed contemporary American doorstop.”
Babelby R. F. Kuang
“Babel by R. F. Kuang 2022 review. An alternate 1830s Oxford where the British Empire is powered by silver bars enchanted with the lost meaning between translated words. Nebula and Locus Award winner.”
The Atlas Sixby Olivie Blake
“The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake 2022 review. Six powerful magicians are recruited for the Alexandrian Society. Only five will be initiated. The first Atlas trilogy book and the canonical BookTok-era dark academia romantasy.”
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrowby Gabrielle Zevin
“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 2022 review. Three decades of creative collaboration between two video-game designers. The breakout literary commercial novel of 2022 and one of the canonical contemporary novels about friendship and work.”
Yellowfaceby R. F. Kuang
“Yellowface by R. F. Kuang 2023 review. A struggling white novelist witnesses the accidental death of her successful Asian-American novelist friend and steals her unfinished manuscript. Kuang's contemporary satirical novel about race and publishing.”
FAQ
Common questions about The Secret History read-alikes
- I want more Donna Tartt.
- The Goldfinch is the only other place to go, and it is worth it. It took the Pulitzer and trades the New England campus for a stolen painting and a much bigger canvas, but the obsessive interior voice is unmistakably the same writer.
- What is the closest dark-academia match?
- Babel and The Atlas Six are the two purpose-built dark-academia novels here. Babel weds the campus setting to empire and translation; The Atlas Six locks six magicians in a library and lets them turn on each other. Both owe an obvious debt to Tartt.
- I want the intensity and the doomed friendships, not the campus.
- A Little Life is the book to brace for. It follows a group who meet in college into adulthood and pushes the emotional stakes far past anything Tartt attempts. Devastating rather than eerie, but the closed-circle intimacy is the same.
- I want the cleverness in a lighter register.
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Yellowface both center brilliant, prickly people and the damage they do to each other. Neither has a body in the woods, but the pleasure of watching sharp minds self-destruct is intact.
The original