Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Top Ten Books Set in a Boarding School


Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted at The Broke and the Bookish. Today's topic is Top Ten Books With X Setting. One of their examples is boarding school, which made me laugh and I knew instantly that would be my topic. I read a lot of teen books, and at my job I run a book group called the Not-So-Young Adult book group, which is a book group for adults in which we read and discuss books written for teens. We have kind of a running joke about boarding schools because it seems like there are just SO MANY books set in boarding schools. It's kind of a thing. Oh, and there are never any adults around and the kids are all running wild and it sounds AMAZING. I feel like I've read a ton of books that take place in boarding schools!

Here are my favorites, in no particular order:

1. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

2. Winger by Andrew Smith

3. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

4. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

5. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

6. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

7. The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

8. Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

9. The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth LaBan

10. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Oh man, I totally want to re-read all of those again right now. And also The Secret History, which I was reminded of by making this list, but which actually takes place at a college. It's interesting how many of these are pre-blog (the ones with no links), yet they still came easily to mind when I thought about boarding school books.

Have you read many books set in boarding schools? What are your favorites?

6 comments:

iloveheartlandX said...

Harry Potter, probably my favourite boarding school book ever!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/top-ten-tuesday-70/

Giovanna said...

I started reading Belzhar a while ago, but I couldn't get into it. Hopefully next time I can finish it! Great Top Ten My Top Ten Tuesday!

Ola said...

A Great and Terrible Beauty is a great example of a book set in a boarding school, I'm not a big fan of the book, but the setting was great and worked really good with the story.

Barb said...

You've just reminded me I've always wanted to read The Tragedy Papers. Nice list.

Anonymous said...

Harry Potter is the only boarding school series on your list I know of (and have read). All the others are new to me. The only other boarding school books I've read are by Enid Blyton (Mallory Towers & St. Clare's).

Lindsay said...

I can only think of one book I've read set in a boarding school ("A Study in Charlotte" by Brittany Cavallaro, the recent Sherlock Holmes spin-off) -- maybe because I don't read much YA. It's funny... I was actually surprised to see Harry Potter on your list. I guess I don't think of Hogwarts as a boarding school, which is crazy because obviously it's the best boarding school EVER!