Fall Reading List

Check out some book recos below for whichever genre is striking your fancy! To me, all of these books have the best fall vibes and have beautiful vivid descriptions of autumn. Pick your poison!

Dark Academia: Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella

If you're looking for a book that has serves some dark, academia vibes with a little bit of everything genre wise, look no further.

Cadence Archer starts her semester at Harvard determined to find out what happened to her brother; a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who took his own life while at Harvard the year prior. This is a story of processing grief told through a beautiful mashup of historical fiction, romance, mystery, and paranormal elements. I loved this book so much, it was such a unique and fantastic debut.

Literary Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

This book is quintessential literary fiction. In each chapter, almost formatted like a short story, Olive is sometimes a main character and sometimes a only a notable background character. All of the stories are interrelated but discontinuous in terms of narrative, and take place in the coastal town of Crosby, Maine. Have you seen photos of Maine in the fall!? Gorgeous.

The sequel, Olive Again, had just as much heart as the first. I typically don't read two books in a series so close together but I just couldn't get enough, and had to keep reading!!

Gothic Lit: Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Plain Bad Heroines is an epic horror tale, and beautifully paced story of young love that weaves together stories of the past + present.

Don't be intimidated by this big book, once you hit the 150 page mark you'll be invested. Jumping between the past (1902 all girl's school, where two girl's fall in love and meet a horrible death), and present-day (a breakout author writes a book about the lovers' death) strikes a great balance of mystery, love, prose, and spook.

Witches: The Practical Magic Series by Alice Hoffman

First of all: yes, 'witches' is a genre.

I highly recommend this entire series, but I'm going to focus on my favourite of the bunch, Practical Magic's prequel, Rules of Magic. This is a coming-of-age story following Franny, Jet, and Vincent Owens as they learn about their family's history of witchcraft and discover their own powers (and curses) for themselves. Hoffman's writing is stunning: so vivid and her characters are so real. It's a great fall read, and I felt like I was in New England surrounded by beautiful fall foliage when reading it.

True Crime: We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper

This book is an incredible piece of investigative reporting into an unsolved murder at Harvard in 1969. Ambitious and charismatic 23 year old Jane Britton was found dead in her Cambridge apartment, and rumours about her murder are passed down through students at Harvard like folklore.

YA Thriller: A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

For her final year project, Pippa (Pip) Fitz-Amobi decides to take on the case of Andie Bell - a schoolgirl who went missing five years ago. Her disappearance and assumed murder was blamed on Sal Singh, Andie's boyfriend at the time. Everyone thinks he did it, but Pip isn't so sure.

Pip is the coolest Veronica Mars/Nancy Drew/murderino cross ever. Her character is so likable and her intentions are so pure you are rooting for her the whole time. I loved her budding friendship with Ravi, Sal's brother, and her craftiness and resourcefulness.

This is a great school based mystery that will keep you on your toes (and btw, you'll want the rest of the series nearby).

Classic: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

What better book to read before Halloween than one by a young female author that basically invented science fiction and the modern horror genre?

I find that classics can be really hard to get into: the vernacular is so different from what I'm used to reading. With Frankenstein, I felt the writing was so approachable and easy to read. Also, I'm fully obsessed with Mary Shelley knowing she was only 18 when she wrote this book, and it was written out of an informal competition with her future husband and Lord Byron on who could write the best horror story. After dreaming about a scientist who had created life and was horrified at what he had made- she had the inspiration for her story.