You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
A little disappointing, but I’m not sure what I was expecting. Some of the stories were incredibly compelling and well done, but others were a little lacking. I am not sure each author was well suited for short stories, but I must say that a lot of these were so freaky to read right before bed. Worth the read for sure, but I wouldn’t get expectations too high!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Car accident, Murder, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is a “Dark Academia Anthology” with barely any proper dark academia. Because just because a story is set in a school/college or follows a professor or a student, doesn’t make it an automatic fit into the dark academia genre.
That being said, I had extremely high hopes for this but oh well.
• <b>1000 Ships by Kate Weinberg</b> ⭐️⭐️⭐️
-A very basic student-teacher affair that has a twist of revenge. It is a prologue or first chapter, I believe, in the
author’s debut novel.
-Good, just not that special.
• <b>Pythia by Olivie Blake</b> ⭐️
-A very wordy sci-fi story about AI called Pythia that is unnaturally humane.
-Would be a very very trashy and boring Black Mirror episode. SO boring.
• <b>Sabbatical by James Tate Hill</b> ⭐️
-A professor finds himself involved in searching for another professor who’s been missing for years.
-Comically bad!
• <b>The Hare and the Hound by Kelly Andrews</b> ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Follows the mc who is haunted by a past tragic mistake and a misfortunate prophecy that involves meeting a bunny, a girl, or possibly both in one body, or is there more to it?
-For fans of surrealism; I personally loved it.
• <b>X House by J. T. Ellison</b> ⭐️⭐️💫
-A new professor joins a school in which murders have been occurring one after the other.
- The plot twist was good, but the story lacked depth and good build-up to the end. Lost potential..
• <b>The Ravages by Layne Fargo</b> ⭐️
-Sapphic relationship where one person is cheating and the other finds out and seeks revenge.
-Zero dark academia! It felt like a parody.
• <b>Four Funerals by David Bell</b> ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
-A professor blames himself for a school shooting that resulted in four funerals, which he attends.
-Very interesting discussion on the effect professors could have on students and the blurred lines between fiction and reality in the mind of writers.
• <b>The Unknowable Pleasures by Susie Yang</b> ⭐️⭐️💫
-A student is obsessed with a relationship she believes is happening between a professor and a student.
-Fun read but very anticlimactic. Again, where is the dark academia?
• <b>Weekend at Bertie’s by M. L. Rio</b> ⭐️
-Two people find their colleague’s body at her home and plot stealing her money.
-Horrible. Horrifying. Terrible. Bad writing, bad plot, pointless narrative, and what exactly is dark academia about this?
-<i>M. L. Rio’s novel If We Were Villains is amazing, though.</i>
• <b>The Professor of Ontography</b> ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Best going into this one knowing nothing. Very spooky, intriguing, and heartbreaking.
• <b>Phobos by Tori Bovalino</b> ⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Secret society trials that get more and more horrific.
-Reminded me of <i>The Secret History</i> in its depiction of pretentiousness and academic privilege.
• <b>Playing by Phoebe Wynne</b> ⭐️
-A church organist suspects that the church’s elder people dying of accidents are actually being murdered.
-Very predictable, monotonous, and have I asked..Where is the dark academia??
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Death, Toxic relationship, Mass/school shootings, Toxic friendship
Minor: Classism
This is a “Dark Academia Anthology” with barely any proper dark academia. Because just because a story is set in a school/college or follows a professor or a student, doesn’t make it an automatic fit into the dark academia genre.
That being said, I had extremely high hopes for this but oh well.
• 1000 Ships by Kate Weinberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️
-A very basic student-teacher affair that has a twist of revenge. It is a prologue or first chapter, I believe, in the
author’s debut novel.
-Good, just not that special.
• Pythia by Olivie Blake ⭐️
-A very wordy sci-fi story about AI called Pythia that is unnaturally humane.
-Would be a very very trashy and boring Black Mirror episode. SO boring.
• Sabbatical by James Tate Hill ⭐️
-A professor finds himself involved in searching for another professor who’s been missing for years.
-Comically bad!
• The Hare and the Hound by Kelly Andrews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Follows the mc who is haunted by a past tragic mistake and a misfortunate prophecy that involves meeting a bunny, a girl, or possibly both in one body, or is there more to it?
-For fans of surrealism; I personally loved it.
• X House by J. T. Ellison ⭐️⭐️💫
-A new professor joins a school in which murders have been occurring one after the other.
- The plot twist was good, but the story lacked depth and good build-up to the end. Lost potential..
• The Ravages by Layne Fargo ⭐️
-Sapphic relationship where one person is cheating and the other finds out and seeks revenge.
-Zero dark academia! It felt like a parody.
• Four Funerals by David Bell ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
-A professor blames himself for a school shooting that resulted in four funerals, which he attends.
-Very interesting discussion on the effect professors could have on students and the blurred lines between fiction and reality in the mind of writers.
• The Unknowable Pleasures by Susie Yang ⭐️⭐️💫
-A student is obsessed with a relationship she believes is happening between a professor and a student.
-Fun read but very anticlimactic. Again, where is the dark academia?
• Weekend at Bertie’s by M. L. Rio ⭐️
-Two people find their colleague’s body at her home and plot stealing her money.
-Horrible. Horrifying. Terrible. Bad writing, bad plot, pointless narrative, and what exactly is dark academia about this?
-M. L. Rio’s novel If We Were Villains is amazing, though.
• The Professor of Ontography ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Best going into this one knowing nothing. Very spooky, intriguing, and heartbreaking.
• Phobos by Tori Bovalino ⭐️⭐️⭐️
-Secret society trials that get more and more horrific.
-Reminded me of The Secret History in its depiction of pretentiousness and academic privilege.
• Playing by Phoebe Wynne ⭐️
-A church organist suspects that the church’s elder people dying of accidents are actually being murdered.
-Very predictable, monotonous, and have I asked..Where is the dark academia??
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
I really enjoyed the majority of the short stories in this collection. I think there were a few that didn't really live up to my expectations of dark academia. My favorite was The Professor of Ontography. My least favorite was Weekend at Berties. It definitely started to get me in the fall mood.
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What a selection of stories. As always with anthologies, some stories will work better for you than others. None I actively disliked, some I just felt didn’t really fit into the dark academia genre, but were still good or ok for what they were!
It was the stories that shone that I loved. My favourites were- The Professor of Ontography (so creeped out I can’t deal), The Hare and the Hound, The Unknowable Pleasures (I want to know!) and Pythia.
1000 Ships- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (perfect dark academia vibes, quick, fast paced and so annoyingly a prequel to an existing book which I now very much want to read!)
Pythia- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (for a short story, this somehow felt very long, packed with a lot of complexity, yet somehow read fast? It makes no sense I know. I think I understand this, but do I? It’s classic Olivie Blake, and at the heart of this, it’s a love story with layers of obsession and intelligence.)
Sabbatical- ⭐️⭐️ (a decent short story, quick to read and I wanted to see where it went but I question if this is dark academia. Cowlishaw, the blind rep and the cat were the highlight.)
The Hare and the Hound- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (this was good, very good, good as in I could not stop turning the pages quick enough. Did it’s job brilliantly!!)
X House- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (this puts the dark in dark academia.)
The Ravages- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (FUN!)
Four Funerals- ⭐️⭐️ (another decent short story for what it is, but this was the second story I questioned whether this fitted into the dark academia genre, hence why it’s not a 3 or above)
The Unknowable Pleasures- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (But I wanted to know!!! The tension and longing built, the voyeuristic obsession of Sophie watching them, I thought I’d get answers! A different ending could have made this extraordinary but maybe the ending is wildly appropriate. Sometimes we just don’t want to know.)
Weekend at Bertie’s- ⭐️⭐️ (Whilst good, I finished this story and felt something was missing, almost as if I got to the end but it wasn’t an ending. Good, but I’m not sure what this was beyond a fever dream of madness.)
The Professor of Ontography- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (I’m completely traumatised.)
Phobos- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (dark ritual trope and how far people will go, finding they’ll surprise themselves in the end. Very solid, this would have been fantastic as a long drawn out story).
Playing- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (a decent short story, entertaining, and I liked the musical emphasis.)
It was the stories that shone that I loved. My favourites were- The Professor of Ontography (so creeped out I can’t deal), The Hare and the Hound, The Unknowable Pleasures (I want to know!) and Pythia.
1000 Ships- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (perfect dark academia vibes, quick, fast paced and so annoyingly a prequel to an existing book which I now very much want to read!)
Pythia- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (for a short story, this somehow felt very long, packed with a lot of complexity, yet somehow read fast? It makes no sense I know. I think I understand this, but do I? It’s classic Olivie Blake, and at the heart of this, it’s a love story with layers of obsession and intelligence.)
Sabbatical- ⭐️⭐️ (a decent short story, quick to read and I wanted to see where it went but I question if this is dark academia. Cowlishaw, the blind rep and the cat were the highlight.)
The Hare and the Hound- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (this was good, very good, good as in I could not stop turning the pages quick enough. Did it’s job brilliantly!!)
X House- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (this puts the dark in dark academia.)
The Ravages- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (FUN!)
Four Funerals- ⭐️⭐️ (another decent short story for what it is, but this was the second story I questioned whether this fitted into the dark academia genre, hence why it’s not a 3 or above)
The Unknowable Pleasures- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (But I wanted to know!!! The tension and longing built, the voyeuristic obsession of Sophie watching them, I thought I’d get answers! A different ending could have made this extraordinary but maybe the ending is wildly appropriate. Sometimes we just don’t want to know.)
Weekend at Bertie’s- ⭐️⭐️ (Whilst good, I finished this story and felt something was missing, almost as if I got to the end but it wasn’t an ending. Good, but I’m not sure what this was beyond a fever dream of madness.)
The Professor of Ontography- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (I’m completely traumatised.)
Phobos- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (dark ritual trope and how far people will go, finding they’ll surprise themselves in the end. Very solid, this would have been fantastic as a long drawn out story).
Playing- ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (a decent short story, entertaining, and I liked the musical emphasis.)
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I really really enjoyed this! I found so many new potentially good authors that I want to read books from. My favorite stories were: 1000 ships, the hate and the hound, the ravages, the professor of ontography and Phobos. Absolutely loved those!