Top Ten Back to School Books

Do you have the back to school blues? Forget about your own classes and lose yourself in these fictional schools for awhile.

1. THE JESSICA DARLING BOOKS by Megan McCafferty

Jessica Darling just gets me. She’s snarky, smart, and thinks she hates everyone she attends high school with since her best friend Hope moved away. Basically, she’s my spirit animal.

2. THE PRINCESS DIARIES SERIES by Meg Cabot

One of the best fictional high school experiences comes from Mia Thermopolis, Albert Enstein High School student and Princess of Genovia. Mia has to balance pining after her best friend’s brother and getting detention for smashing a cheerleader’s cell phone with princess lessons and causing national incidents by suggesting that Genovia install parking meters. And you thought your extracurricular activities were intense!

3. VAMPIRE ACADEMY SERIES by Richelle Mead

Welcome to St. Vladimir’s Academy, where the living vampire Moroi hone their magic while half-human, half-vampire dhampirs learn the skills to become their bodyguards. Dhampir Rose Hathaway and her best friend, Moroi princess Lissa Dragomir, are brought back to school by Rose’s hot mentor Dimitri Belikov after a brief stint on the run. Upon their return they’re greeted by a bitchy new mean girl, intensive training, and some disturbing occurrences.

4. THE GALLAGHER GIRLS SERIES by Ally Carter

Cammie and her friends attend the Gallagher Academy, an elite institute dedicated to turning young girls into spies. What starts as a super light series where Cammie tries to (unsuccessfully) date a boy not privy to her spy status quickly escalates into a darker series with a decent amount of danger and intrigue—including a secret society dedicated to taking Cammie out.

 5. THE PRIVATE SERIES by Kate Brian

Reed ditches her boring suburban life in favor of attending Easton Academy, an elite boarding school that hosts the Billings Girls. The Billings Girls are the best of the best—the smartest, prettiest, richest girls in the school—who have the tendency to get in the worst, most dangerous trouble you can imagine.

6. SAVING FRANCESCA by Melina Marchetta

Francesca is stuck attending St. Sebastian’s, a previously all-boys school made co-education by four girls (Frankie included) and one girl’s bathroom. Frankie dislikes most of her classmates at first, but finds a family of friends to lean on while her mother sinks deeper and deeper into depression.

7. HEX HALL SERIES by Rachel Hawkins

Sophie’s a girl with magical powers being shipped off for a school for people with like abilities. Sound familiar? There’s a catch—Hecate “Hex” Hall is a reform school for witches, faeries, werewolves, and other paranormal beings that have found themselves in trouble.

8. BOY TOY by Barry Lyga

Here’s an uncomfortable school story! Josh’s life began falling apart at the age of twelve, when a wildly inappropriate relationship with his teacher caused him to push a friend too far. Now on the verge of graduating high school and met with that friend once more, Josh has to sift through his distorted memories and try to deal with what happened to him.

9. THE MOCKINGBIRDS by Daisy Whitney

When Alex is date raped at her quiet boarding school, she isn’t sure she has anyone to turn to—until she encounters The Mockingbirds, a secret society of students dedicated to exacting rational justice against wrongdoers in the fairest sense of the word.

10. THE HARRY POTTER SERIES by J.K. Rowling

This list wouldn’t be complete without the series that brought us Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There’s a part of every Harry Potter fan that hopes to get an acceptance letter to Great Britain’s famous magical institution (or deeply laments the lack thereof…). With professors like McGonagall, Lupin, and Dumbledore, you can’t get a better magical education anywhere in the world. Bite me, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang!