 Hello friends. Today we're going to be discussing a very important topic and that is dark academia. I like to think of myself as an authority on dark academia. I have read so much dark academia in my life. It's actually ridiculous. Every time there's a dark academia list I've read pretty much all of them and so I wanted to make a definitive list of my top recommendations. This isn't every dark academia book I've ever read. This is just the ones I think are the best. Everything on this list is either like a high four or above. So everything here is a four or five star for me and they're all, I think, great recommendations that hit on different areas of dark academia. I'm also very picky on what constitutes dark academia. It's not a term to be thrown about, willy nilly. No, no, but it's not the funny. At the end of the day, is it? It's serious. A good guy to murder series, for example, takes place for the characters at school and it's got a murder, not dark academia. Vicious. I see Vicious by V.E. Schwab on some dark academia list. I don't think it has dark academia vibes. Dark academia is a moment. It's an essence. It's like this intangible feeling that you can't just, you can't assign to anything. So I've also given them all names. Don't ask me why. I've just done it like, you know, the something. They're all the something in this video. So shall we just get through my recommendations? These aren't in any particular order. I've tried to like variate the types of dark academia we've got going on. Shall we just get into it? First we have got the classic. This is the number one. This is the banker. This is the one that never loses. This was the no-brainer. This was the banker. This was the one that couldn't fail. This was one that's never failed. First one is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. If you like dark academia, you're looking to get into more dark academia. If you haven't read this yet, do it. If you don't know my personal story of this book, is I went through a couple years. I'll say three or four years from when I was like 15 to like 18 19 where I stopped reading. I like read one book and that's I was not reading. And then I read this book and it changed everything for me. I read maybe 10. I was starting to get back into reading. I think I'd read 10 to 15 books the year before. And then this was my first book of the year. I want to say in 2019. Is that correct? I don't know. I went on to read 80 books that year, which I don't think I've ever done in my life. And this really made me fall back in love with reading. So if you haven't read this, we're following this group of characters and they're very fucked up and messy. So you know that one of the main characters, one of the main friends is dead. He's dead, girl. He's dead. And then we go back through the story of their meeting and their relationships. It's very slow. It's like dense. It's strange. It's odd. I love the secret story, but I am tentative to ever reread it because I'm so scared it wouldn't match up to it for me. But I think this is like the OG dark academia. Like it's perfect. It's got those pretentious characters like you need some pretentious characters when it comes to dark academia. You've got like weird professors. You've got like people so obsessed with academia and learning and like the art of learning. And they're so pretentious and like fucked up and awful. And I think they're great characters. And this is one of my favorite. I won't tell you when or like who it happens with, but dream sequences are hard to do. This has a dream sequence in it that I loved. I ate it up. I was like, wow, that's literature. So yeah, it's been a very long time since I read this, way before I even started my channel. But I love it. It's a modern classic. You know, I might say classic. I don't know if it's this class as a classic, but I bet it is. And like, oh, that's classic. That's classic. It's classic. You know what I mean? A classic. Classic. Not debatable. Not afraid to beat. You know, it is a bit intimidating. It's 600 pages long, but it's got this like aura about it that I don't think anything else has really touched. So it's been a long time since I read it, but I do really recommend it. Then we have got the fantasy. We've got some other fantastical ones on this list, but this is like the, I don't know, I think other than the other fantasies that I love, even maybe I prefer to this, but I don't think of them as like the fantasy. I think this is the fantasy dark academia. And that is ninth house and hell bent. Like when I saw these on my shelf, I take the just jacket off. All of my Leigh Bajigo ones have the, just the spines. I love ninth house. I recently read hell bent last month and I enjoyed it. I didn't, you know, it was like a full star, but ninth house is like five star, five star, five star plus. We are following Alex Stem who is recruited to go to Yale and kind of like watch over the secret societies there who all deal in the magic. So they're all doing, again, like fucked up shit. And it's up to her to kind of go to their like, I don't know the word, I forgot what the word is, but like, no, when they do magical stuff, I make sure they're not doing anything wrong. But then a murder happened on campus and she starts investigating that. We have ghosts. We have other paranormal things in the later books. And I love it. To me, this is like peak Leigh Bajigo. I'm like, Leigh just carry on writing this. Honestly, it was supposed to be like seven books and now it's only a trilogy. Not very happy about that. But I love the writing. I think Yale is a great dark academia setting. I think she really pulls on the setting to like bring, bring the book to life, you know, you got those autumn leaves like the dark academia is like, it's right there. I love it. I love Leigh Bajigo's writing. I love Alex Stem's character. I love Darlington. I love, I've forgotten her name. Doors. I love doors. And I just think she's really succeeded in making a series that it feels, you know, it's fantastical, but it's still dark academia and has a really good limit on the magic system, right? For anything with a, with a mystery element and magic, like you have to have a really constrained magic system so that you know the rules you're playing by. And I feel like she's done that really well. Then we have got the YA. I think this is my only YA recommendation. And that is the truly devious series by Maureen Johnson. Starts with truly devious, then we have the vanishing stare, then we have the hand on the wall. This is like the OG trilogy. I see this is like a contained series. And now she's coming out. I think there's been the box in the woods and nine liars, I want to say, but they're like, I see them as spinoffs, this original trilogy. So in this, we're at Ellingham Academy, a famous private school in Vermont. And it was founded by this rich dude. And the idea is you bring really bright, intelligent students there who like want to specialize in a particular subject. And you give them like free reign to learn about their particular speciality. But then the creator of the school's wife and daughter were kidnapped many, many years ago. And Stevie, our main girly, is like a true crime girl. She like wants to solve true crime stuff, particularly the Ellingham mystery. I've read quite a lot of YA, Dark Academia, and they often don't hit for me. But I think this hits. I really love the setting, the school setting surrounded by these trees is really, really vivid. A part of Dark Academia for me is the setting. Like, does your setting capture that vibe? And like, there can be two books set at the same school almost, and one will capture the vibe and one won't. I think the mystery that spans across all the books is actually really, really well done for YA. If you're looking for YA, if you're looking to start Dark Academia, but don't want to start somewhere too, I don't know, intimidating, this would be my recommendation. But I think this has a great atmosphere. It's not afraid to, like, murder people. Like, sometimes YA thinks we can't have murder. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. And I just saw that actually really well written. So I really enjoyed these. If you're looking for a YA recommendation, this is my top one. Then we've got The Revenge. This is more leaning thriller-wise. This is They Never Learned by Lane Fargo. So in this, we're following a teacher who murders shitty men, basically. Good for her. This is kind of the story of, is she gonna get away with what's happening? Like, is she gonna get away with killing all these people? Like, you're kind of like, yes, what was wrong? It's just they're all really bad people that she's killing. But is she gonna get away with it? And then we're also following a young student who is at the school at the same time and kind of her interactions with shitty men in student culture. So you're kind of following both perspectives. And I love this. I really love this. I really, really love this. I just love women. No, this is like a really twisty thriller. It has some really, you know, shocking twists that really still stand out to me as being really well done. And yeah, I mean, look at the cover. Look at the cover. Is that not the vibes that we're looking for here? I mean, come on. It's fun to have a murderer that you're rooting for. So often murder mystery books that I read. If it's from like a detective's point of view, you're rooting for them to take down the murderer. But unless you are rooting, kind of, for the murder. I mean, not fully, but it's an interesting character to follow. And I think it really examines like misogynistic culture in academia really, really well from both of those perspectives that I mentioned. So yeah, this is like ill leave you gagged. It's one of those books that has like a halfway twist that I love. Oh, I think about it all the time. I love a good halfway twist that completely upends the book and like puts us on a different path. So that's why I loved this. Now we have, I called this the epic because I just think it's epic. Like I think it's going to go down in history as another great. And it's one of my favourites. It is Babel by Arif Kwong. Now I want to admit to you something. Thomas started becoming a reader. He just DNF'd this like a hundred pages in. I don't want to talk about it. Like I actually, that's actually a problem. It's been the worst wake of my life actually. Oh, I'm so sorry. If you don't know, this is one of my favourite books. This is my favourite book of last year. And we're following Robin who goes to Oxford for translation. So this is fantastic again. But I feel like its fantasy is a little bit of life to note the night pass if I had to pitch it. Because sometimes you can forget. Like the only fantastical element is silver working and translation. Like you write, it's difficult to explain, but you write two words that like have the same meaning, but also separate connotations. And it will like power something. You write that on silver. That makes sense. But really this is a book about colonialism in the UK and how our systems and how our public institutions, like things like universities are deeply entrenched in blood really and colonialism. And I thought it was a fascinating look at that. I absolutely loved it. I've spoken about this like 10,000 times. We don't need to need to talk about it again. But I really, I just love it. I just love our Kongs writing in this. It perhaps, I've heard some people say it's a bit like heavy handed and it is, I'm going to admit that here. It is, but I don't mind that. But I can see how other people wouldn't enjoy it. But I love, I mean, enjoy the aspect on the book. I'm really upset. But it has footnotes. I love the footnotes. I need to read more books with footnotes because I just think footnotes, I love them. They're just an added little element of camp to me. I just, I love a good footnote. I love Babel. I think it is going to go down in history as just incredible. I mean, I love it. I love what it says. I love the characters and the journey that they go on. It's incredible. We love Babel in this house unless you're Tom. Switching to one that I absolutely love, but no one else that does. The misunderstood Catherine House. Catherine House by Elizabeth Thomas. Elizabeth Thomas, when are you going to write another book? Because I need it. I will be there. I will be there first in the queue because I love Catherine House. Okay. I love it. I love it. I don't, it's like one of the lowest rated books on Goodreads I've ever read. I don't get it, guys. What are you doing? Everyone loves me. Well, the old bastard hates me, but they're just wrong. So Catherine House is this school. It's a very prestigious school which you go to and you have no contact with the outside world for three years. So that sounds like, okay, we're really focusing on studies, but like Catherine House is a bit fucked up. And we've got a main character who is kind of like coasting through this all. She's a little bit disconnected from it. She's like trying to figure out what's going on, but also she just wants to live a life and I think people don't like that. And I just love it. I just love it. It's like a descent into insanity. I love it. I love Catherine House. It's a little bit culty, okay. On the back it says you are in the house and the house is in the woods. You are in the house and the house is in you. Oh gosh. I just love it. I think it plays with this dark academia genre or subgenre so well. I think its atmosphere is incredible. The idea of being, the way it's written is so interesting. I love it. I felt like I was in a dream reading this. It's so unique. It's so different. I believe she's misunderstood. I don't think this is for everyone to read, but I love it. Then we have got the documentary. This is a mixed media one. I did hesitate, is this dark academia? I think it is. I think I'm just a bit fussy with my dark academia. But this is True Crime Story by Joseph Knox. If you don't know, this is a book about a young woman who went missing after a university party and like 10 years or so, one I want to say. The documentary maker is doing interviews with her closest family and friends to try and piece together what happened. So it is all told through just interviews. These are all just interviews with people and there's a few like emails and photos and stuff but it's predominantly interviews. I would recommend the audiobook for this. I really loved the audiobook for it and I just think this is a really unique take on the dark academia genre again. This has some really good twists again. It has some really interesting ways that it plays with the mixed media and plays with, how do I say this? That's not even anything. It plays with the conventions of a book, right? Not even just a mixed media book, like a book in general. It plays with the conventions and brings characters in that like wouldn't necessarily be characters like Joseph Knox, the author, is a character in this and I just think that's such a fun way to play with the conventions. At the end of the day, dark academia can be fun. We all love reading dark academia because it's kind of got like element of fun to it, right? It's dark, it's messed up but at the end of the day, everything is so amplified in dark academia. Like in Secret History, the people they love for study academia or like the atmosphere is like intensified. Like autumn leaves ramped up to a 10 on the trees, do you know what I mean? And so I think this plays with it in really fun and unique ways. Then we've got the flashback because this one only has dark academia, it's flashbacks but it's the it girl by Ruth Ware. I didn't love this, this is really one of my least favourite Ruth Wares but I always enjoy Ruth Ware. But this is one of my least favourites because I don't love dual timelines and I did enjoy this once, the flashback had ended, however because they end about two thirds the way in I would say. But what I would say is that its dark academia nurse is very vivid and I think done well at NIST. So we're following Hannah who found her best friend's body 10 years ago when they, I think they were Oxford, Oxford or Cambridge, it's one of the UK biggans. Yeah it's Oxford. So she found her body and then 10 years or so on she's starting to wonder whether or not the right person was put away for her friend's murder because she was instrumental in blaming that person and saying that's the person who killed my best friend. So I didn't love this as much as the Ruth Wares, I think the ending though is really really strong and I think if you're wanting an Oxford setting, I mean we've got like Babel but that's fantastical. If you're wanting an Oxford setting that's like a thriller, this would be my recommendation. And my final recommendation, I have called, let me let me consult the sheets, hang on. The it's a really solid version of dark academia but it's not necessarily unique. I think this is such a solid dark academia book but it's not necessarily doing anything different. I think of it as like a natural continuation of books like The Secret History and If We Were Villains, like it's very similar in its tropes and the way it plays out to them but I think it's a very solid version with great writing and that is In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead. So again let me not get this plot confused. We've got six friends, one unsolved murder that happened when they were at school and they're at a college reunion so it's very similar. Is it creative and unique? I'm genuinely curious. And now? Something I did enjoy about the flashbacks in this because again it's got flashbacks when they're at school, the present day is at the reunion. When they're at school it jumps around in time so it'll go from like year one to year three to year two to year four to year three to like it will jump around in time to like a relevant past moment that relates to something that's happening in the present at the reunion and I thought that's a perfect for me. That is a perfect way of doing split timeline because my problem is when they've got two timelines competing for dominance but that past timeline being not in a natural sequence shows that it's like supporting what's happening in the present timeline and I loved it. You guys know if you watched a vlog recently I didn't love The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead but I loved this and I'm hoping that Last Housewife was just a blip for us and I will go on to really enjoy Midnight is the Darkest Hour which is a one coming out this year but I just think this is like a very, it does everything right. For me it does everything right that a dark academia murder mystery thriller needs to do you know it like hits it at the park for me but I don't think it's doing anything that hasn't been done before but I think if you've read those other books I think this does a good job of paying you know respect the conventions but also not feeling like a copy it's very difficult to explain but yeah I would really recommend the writing of this I remember I had such a fun time reading it I think I read it in like October last year and that was a perfect setting so yeah I really recommend picking this up it's solid or what it does so there we have it everyone now it's all my top dark academia recommendations let me know if you've read any of these what you've thought if you hated Captain House get out no it's probably two thirds of you no um let me know what you thought of any of these and please let me know any other dark academia books that you'd recommend based on me enjoying these some I might have already read and just not included in this list because these are my top recommendations but let me know some of your recommendations I'd love to know if you got to the end of the video comment a sack of books emoji and I'll see you very soon in another video bye