Wednesday Addams, a part of the eclectic and ghoulish Addams Family, has a TV show of her own now, Wednesday (2022). This listicle is for fans who’d love to indulge in books with the same flavor as this dark academia-themed murder mystery.
There’s much to love about Netflix’s Wednesday (2022) – from the snarky, pitch-black humor to its ghoulish characters. The eight-episode series is a part horror story and part murder mystery with all the classic high-school drama tropes. The morbid and macabre Wednesday Addams is a little nerd with pithy one-liners, but she must navigate school cliques and killings with equal efficiency.
Here is a list of five books to read if you find yourself longing for more of Wednesday’s eldritch-tinged dark academia, atmospheric castles and peculiar mysteries.
1. Gideon the Ninth–Tamsyn Muir (2019) (The Locked Tomb #1)
The first instalment in Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb trilogy follows rival necromancers and their bodyguards competing against each other to rise to the position of the Emperor’s right-hand necromancer, called the Lyctors. Each necromancer-bodyguard pairing must unravel the increasingly deadlier mysteries surrounding their contest as they discover secrets about their Houses, their relationships, the Lyctors, and the grand decaying castle which seems to be designed to kill them.
What would Wednesday fans find here? Well, it’s the characters! The book is chock full of idiosyncratic characters, each with their unique voice. Gideon is an irreverent meatheaded jock forced to work alongside her long-time enemy, liege-lord, and goth-extraordinaire Harrowhark Nonagesimus in the competition. Harrowhark wants to win the competition. Gideon only helps because she’s promised her long-yearned-for freedom in return. The book ends with an appropriately gruesome conclusion, too, for all the fans of bloodcurdling finales. The questionable dynamics between Gideon and Harrow are also a plus. Their deliciously twisted push-pull won’t let you shake off the feeling of unease for days afterward.
2. A Deadly Education–Naomi Novik (2020) (The Scholomance #1)
Welcome to Scholomance, a disagreeably sentient school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death. There are no professors and little protection for the student wizards. There are, however, monsters – who will eat the magical bodies of the students the way a child inhales candy. In this deadly, cutthroat world, there are no friends save strategically important ones. Survival is more important than grades, and our only guide is Galadriel, an angry, sarcastic young harbinger of death who is doing her best to survive and study, which is easier said than done. Did I mention she’s prophesied to bring about uncountable death and destruction?
Of course, survival means more than just getting the upper hand over the monsters roaming the hallways. It also includes smooth-talking politics, navigating allies and seating arrangements and courting interested groups for support and protection. The first book of a trilogy, A Deadly Education, will fill the conflict-ridden Nevermore Academy-shaped void left in our hearts.
3. A Series of Unfortunate Events–Lemony Snicket (1999-2006)
A whirlwind of a series, this one is in keeping with the darkly comic tone of Wednesday. We follow the three Baudelaire children–Violet, Klaus, and Sunny–through the aptly named series of unfortunate events. These three intelligent and charming children just happen to have the worst luck possible. Be warned, readers! If things can go wrong, they will. They will go wrong beyond our worst imaginings.
Lemony Snicket’s deadpan narration is a thing of wonder. These books have lines of jaw-dropping brilliance. The reality that the Baudelaires face is grim–each mundane little development becomes a predestination, a fixed noose around their futures. While they are still marketed as children’s books, A Series of Unfortunate Events has much to give to adult readers. The Baudelaires find no help from grown-ups. The world and those who live in it are equally terrible. For older readers, as the unfortunate events slowly grow in absurdity, the books reflect the banality, tragedy, and absurdity of growing up.
4. The Magicians–Lev Grossman (2009)
Lev Grossman’s The Magicians is wonderfully dynamic and more sophisticated than the usual genre fare. Quentin Coldwater, a wickedly smart but incredibly cynical and depressed teenager with an uncertain future, suddenly finds that he has been accepted in Brakebills, an elite and exclusive school of sorcery. Cynic he may be, Quentin has been forever obsessed with the magical land of Fillory. Now, his dreams are coming true, yet he finds himself unfulfilled. A pastiche of and a response to Narnia and Harry Potter, The Magicians is an absorbing story populated with characters who are privileged, rich, and terrible people.
For the most part, they are stewing in a thick, viscous potion of ennui and angst. The magic is particularly wonderfully designed. More than Latin words and vague wand-waving, learning magic requires hard work and diligence. Magical events include shape-shifting, necromancy, reversal of entropy, interdimensional travel, time travel, wards, and more. Magic stems from pain and solves nothing of internal lack. If you’re skeptical about the world and its possibilities, this is the book for you.
5. Neverwhere–Neil Gaiman (1996)
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is a whole lot different in its plot and setting than the dark academia-flavored whodunit mysteries of Wednesday. Richard Mayhew finds himself immersed in a fantastical realm of magic, danger, and strange characters when he slips between London’s cracks and lands in the streets below London. In the dark belly of the city, he meets angels, assassins, armored knights, monsters, and monster hunters.
What makes this book perfect for fans of Wednesday is Gaiman’s intricate world-building, which creates a disorienting sense of the weird world and illogical logic, much like Wednesday’s fantastical exploration of the paranormal and the extraordinary. Gaiman’s language is tricksy and charming and uniquely British. His images are vivid. His characters are vicious and gentle by turns. The protagonist and the antagonist share the same goal, which makes it all the more compelling. Gaiman has created a fantastically warped and weird world. It’s an absolute gem of a book.
