Books for Back to School

September is all about going back to school. The temperatures are dropping. (It's only been in the 80s here this week! It must be autumn.) I can smell sharpened pencils and watch football on TV. So the perfect books for fall reading (aside from football books, which I did last year), are books set in boarding schools or colleges. Here are a few that you may want to try out if you're looking for some seasonal reading this fall:

Looking for Alaska
by John Green

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave "the Great Perhaps" even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . . After. Nothing is ever the same.

Amazon | Goodreads

Love Story

by Jennifer Echols

For Erin Blackwell, majoring in creative writing at the New York City college of her dreams is more than a chance to fulfill her ambitions—it’s her ticket away from the tragic memories that shadow her family’s racehorse farm in Kentucky. But when she refuses to major in business and take over the farm herself someday, her grandmother gives Erin’s college tuition and promised inheritance to their maddeningly handsome stable boy, Hunter Allen. Now Erin has to win an internship and work late nights at a local coffee shop to make her own dreams a reality. She should despise Hunter . . . so why does he sneak into her thoughts as the hero of her latest writing assignment?

Then, on the day she’s sharing that assignment with her class, Hunter walks in. He’s joining her class. And after he reads about himself in her story, her private fantasies about him must be painfully clear. She only hopes to persuade him not to reveal her secret to everyone else. But Hunter devises his own creative revenge, writing sexy stories that drive the whole class wild with curiosity and fill Erin’s heart with longing. Now she’s not just imagining what might have been. She’s writing a whole new ending for her romance with Hunter . . . except this story could come true.

My Review | Amazon | Goodreads

The Education of Hailey Kendrick
by Eileen Cook

Hailey Kendrick always does exactly what's expected of her. She has the right friends, dates the perfect boy, gets good grades, and follows all the rules. But one night, Hailey risks everything by breaking a very big rule in a very public way...and with a very unexpected partner in crime. Hailey gets caught, but her accomplice does not, and Hailey takes the fall for both of them.

Suddenly, Hailey's perfect life - and her reputation - are blowing up in her face. Her friends are all avoiding her. Her teachers don't trust her. Her boyfriend won't even speak to her for long enough to tell her that she's been dumped.

They say honesty is the best policy--but some secrets are worth keeping, no matter the cost. Or are they?

My Review | Amazon | Goodreads

 Infinite Days

by Rebecca Maizel

Lenah Beaudonte is, in many ways, your average teen: the new girl at Wickham Boarding School, she struggles to fit in enough to survive and stand out enough to catch the eye of the golden-boy lacrosse captain. But Lenah also just happens to be a recovering five-hundred-year-old vampire queen. After centuries of terrorizing Europe, Lenah is able to realize the dream all vampires have -- to be human again. After performing a dangerous ritual to restore her humanity, Lenah entered a century-long hibernation, leaving behind the wicked coven she ruled over and the eternal love who has helped grant her deep-seated wish.

Until, that is, Lenah draws her first natural breath in centuries at Wickham and rediscovers a human life that bears little resemblance to the one she had known. As if suddenly becoming a teenager weren’t stressful enough, each passing hour brings Lenah closer to the moment when her abandoned coven will open the crypt where she should be sleeping and find her gone. As her borrowed days slip by, Lenah resolves to live her newfound life as fully as she can. But, to do so, she must answer ominous questions: Can an ex-vampire survive in an alien time and place? What can Lenah do to protect her new friends from the bloodthirsty menace about to descend upon them? And how is she ever going to pass her biology midterm?

My Review | Amazon | Goodreads

There are a lot of books set in schools! Here are some others to try:

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins   My Review | Amazon | Goodreads
Babe in Boyland by Jody Gehrman   My Review | Amazon | Goodreads
Wildefire by Karsten Knight   My Review | Amazon | Goodreads
Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney   My Review | Amazon | Goodreads
The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson   My Review | Amazon | Goodreads
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling   Amazon | Goodreads
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card   Amazon | Goodreads
I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter   Amazon | Goodreads
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead   Amazon | Goodreads
Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins   Amazon | Goodreads
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray   Amazon | Goodreads
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart   Amazon | Goodreads
Dreams of Significant Girls by Cristina Garcia   Amazon | Goodreads
The Ivy by Lauren Kunze   Amazon | Goodreads
Frost by Marianna Baer   Amazon | Goodreads

How many of these have you read? Did you like them? What are some other books set in schools that you'd recommend?