Books like “The Secret History”

What to read after “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
If We Were Villains
M. L. Rio · 2017
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
Seven acting students at an elite Shakespeare conservatory are so close they share every role. When one of them is found dead during their final year, the friends must decide what story to tell the police. Ten years later, one of them finally explains what really happened.
2
Vicious
V. E. Schwab · 2013
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
Victor and Eli are brilliant, lonely college roommates who turn a theory about near-death experiences into something real. Ten years later Victor leaves prison to hunt the friend who became his enemy, each armed with dangerous powers and neither willing to stop.
3
The Atlas Six
Olivie Blake · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
Six talented magicians are invited to the Alexandrian Society, a secret fellowship that guards lost knowledge. Only five can be initiated at the end of the year, and the recruits must decide how far they will go to keep their places, and whom they are willing to betray.
4
The Magicians
Lev Grossman · 2009
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
- Found Family
Quentin Coldwater is recruited to a hidden college of magic in upstate New York, where years of study leave him restless and still searching for meaning. When he and his friends find a way into Fillory, the enchanted land from his childhood books, its dangers turn out to be very real.
5
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger · 1951
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Unreliable Narrator
Expelled from prep school and drifting through New York before going home, teenager Holden Caulfield narrates a few days of restless encounters. He rails against adults he calls phonies while quietly grieving a brother and his own place in the world.
6
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
John le Carré · 1974
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
After a mission fails, George Smiley is quietly brought back to find a Soviet mole inside British intelligence. Working from old files and a few wary colleagues, he sifts the careers of his former friends to discover which of them is the traitor.
7
Ninth House
Leigh Bardugo · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
- Morally Grey Character
Galaxy Stern, the lone survivor of a brutal murder, is offered a place at Yale by the secret societies that run the university's magic. Her task is to watch their rituals, but when a local girl dies, Alex must use the very power she fears to find the killer.
8
A Deadly Education
Naomi Novik · 2020
Similar atmosphere: “Dark Academia”
- Dark Academia
- Found Family
The Scholomance is a magic school with no teachers, where students learn spells while monsters pick them off between lessons. Galadriel 'El' Higgins, feared for the dark power a prophecy says she will wield, has to survive to graduation and the hungry things waiting in the dark.
9
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold · 2002
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon is murdered near her home and watches from her own heaven as her family and her killer's neighbours try to carry on. From that distance she follows her parents' grief, her sister growing up and a small town's slow reckoning with what happened.
10
Looking for Alaska
John Green · 2005
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Found Family
Miles Halter leaves his quiet Florida home for a boarding school in Alabama, drawn by the last words of famous people. There he joins a tight circle of friends, falls for the reckless Alaska Young, and is forced to reckon with loss and guilt.
11
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Shelby Van Pelt · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Found Family
Tova Sullivan cleans the local aquarium at night and talks to Marcellus, a clever giant Pacific octopus. When Marcellus works out the answer to a loss that has haunted her for years, a drifting young man arrives in town, and three quiet lives slowly knit together.
12
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
Janie Crawford tells her friend the story of her life: three marriages, a long search for love and independence, and the storm that changes everything. Set in the Black towns and farms of Florida, the novel follows her from a silent girl to a woman who speaks for herself.