This is one for the YA readers out there.
There's something about books with well-drawn characters with emotional depth set in a school or boarding school that hits a sweet spot for me. Some favourites include Alice Oseman's books, E. Lockhart's "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" and "Again Again", "Magic for Liars" by Sarah Gailey, "And We Stay" by Jenny Hubbard, Maureen Johnston's "Truly Devious" series, Melina Marchetta 's books and "Looking for Alaska" by John Green. "Fangirl" also gave me the vibes, as did "The Bell Jar".
I think my fondness for this trope began with older classics like "Bright Island", "The Getting of Wisdom" (Australian), and Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers series. There's also a few favourites where the action is mainly set outside the boarding school but still gave me that buzz of pleasure, eg. "Sabriel" and "Among Others".
"A Deadly Education", "A Great and Terrible Beauty" and Morrigan Crow were OK, but didn't give me the same feels. I'm not big on series where the focus is on supernatural/magic rather than personal/emotional struggles, or maybe it just depends on how well the characters are written (which is why the Libba Bray surprised me cos I usually enjoy her books). I also don't like anything spicy or too focussed on romance. And I definitely don't like TERFs, so no HP please.
Any recommendations?
by riloky
1 Comment
How about Enid Blyton’s schoolgirl series? They’re from quite a while ago but I loved them when I was a girl. The Twins at St. Clare’s and the Malory Towers books. They are YA but a lot of fun and a real time travel into a completely different universe! (Which, apparently never actually existed, as many English girls then discovered to their shock)