All Shades Academia: Campus Novels

Written by: Aatia Davison

To me, dear reader, the campus novel is king! What better way to explore our own neuroses than through the claustrophobic and uneasy setting of an elite high school or college campus? The books on this list are so compelling. With all of their high drama and shadiness, you have to read them.

Babel, R.F. Kuang

In this novel, a cast of characters come together to study at Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel. There they study an obscure magic known as silver-working which harnesses silver to glean meaning from a translation. This book has elements of fantasy, but the magic is only part of what makes this Babel compulsively readable.

Plain Bad Heroines, Emily M. Danforth

Grim fun, that’s how Emily M. Danforth gothic novel sucks readers in. Plain Bad Heroines begins with a remarkable 19th-century woman and her journals. These journals are published and pass through the hands of students at an all-girls school in New England some decades later. These impressionable young girls, the readers, start to die off under mysterious circumstances. The deaths are the subject of a book, The Happenings at Brookhants. In the present day, we follow the author and the stars of the its film adaptation as the movie is in production. The book is filled with creepy goings-on, and very real characters.

Catherine House, Elisabeth Thomas

Catherine House, the fictional school at the center of this novel, has birthed some of the world’s greatest minds. Ines , the main character, is among its newest students, and despite the school’s strangeness, its highly selective admissions process, isolation and elitism, Ines thinks she may have found a welcomed fresh start. That is until tragedy strikes during the school year, then the school’s facade is permanently tarnished and the story ramps up from there.

The Idiot, Elif Batuman

1995 brings the advent of email and for Harvard freshman, Selin Karadağ, the world is new. She fumbles her way through all of life’s challenges typical of that age—academics, independent living, friendships and first love. She has a profound connection with Ivan, a mathematics student from Serbia who she meets in a Russian language class. The Idiot’s aforementioned awkwardness is what makes it so readable.

Sirens and Muses, Antonia Angress

Louisa is a college freshman when she falls for her roommate, the wild and mysterious Karina. Karina is involved with another student named Preston. Preston is deep into a feud with Robert Berger, a visiting professor who’s been the subject of controversy. Their relationships are upended following an incident and all four charcaters are thrust into the New York art scene.

The Maidens, Alex Michaelides

A follow-up to Michaelides’ twisty-turny psychological thriller, The Silent Patient, The Maidens centers around the magnanimous Edward Fosca, a Greek tragedy professor at Cambridge University. It seems like everyone loves Edward Fosca, but when a student is found dead on campus, Mariana, a local counselor, suspects that Fosca is behind it.

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

The Secret History is the ultimate campus novel as far I’m concerned. A country boy, one of the university’s working class students is initiated into a secret society. When one of their members dies tragically, tensions rise as the members are consumed with his death. The elitism of the characters in stomach turning; these are not people you would ever want to meet in real life, but they make an unforgettable story.

Bunny, Mona Awad

Weirdly this is the second campus novel on this list with characters called Bunny. Samantha is an MFA student who cannot bear company of her classmates, that is until she encounters a group of super rich girls, who host strange gatherings outside of class. Samantha drops her only friend to make room for the Bunnies in her life and things devolve from there. It’s feminine and dreadful like season five of Sex and the City.

The Gray House, Mariam Petrosyan, trans. Yuri Machkasov

Translated from the Russian, Mariam Petrosyan’s The Gray House, takes place at a school for students with disabilities and deformities. Its main character, keenly observes his classmates, their childish behaviors and bizarre rituals that give way to fantasies. As the story progresses, we find that these might not be just fantasies, and many dark secrets unfold.