“I don’t bury hatchets. I sharpen them.”
If you loved Netflix’s Wednesday and can’t get enough of her dark wit, gothic charm, and eerie adventures at Nevermore Academy, you’re in the right place. Wednesday Addams has become a modern gothic icon, and the series blends spooky mystery, supernatural twists, and sharp humour in a way that leaves fans wanting more. The good news? There are plenty of books like Wednesday that capture the same creepy, clever, and deliciously gothic vibes. Whether you’re drawn to dark academia settings, supernatural mysteries, or heroines with a sharp tongue and a knack for uncovering secrets, these stories will keep you turning the pages late into the night. From gothic fantasy to eerie boarding school mysteries, this list of books for fans of Wednesday will help fill the Addams-shaped void in your reading life. Join us as we dive into these perfectly spooky books to read if you loved Wednesday.
Ace Of Spades – Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Kicking off our list of books like Wednesday is this incendiary and utterly compelling YA mystery-thriller by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. Welcome to Niveus Private Academy, where money paves the hallways, and the students are never less than perfect. Until now. Because anonymous texter, Aces, is bringing two students’ dark secrets to light.
Talented musician Devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can’t escape the spotlight when his private photos are made public. Head girl Chiamaka isn’t afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the lengths she has gone to for power. Someone is out to get them both. Someone who holds all the aces. And they’re planning much, much more than just a high-school game…
The Gathering Dark – Tori Bovalino
A cemetery full of the restless dead. A town so wicked it has already burned twice, with the breath of the third fire looming. A rural, isolated bridge with a terrifying monster waiting for the completion of its summoning ritual. A lake that allows the drowned to return, though the claws of death have changed them. These are the shadowed, liminal spaces where the curses and monsters lurk, refusing to be forgotten.
Hauntings and a variety of horrifying secrets lurk in the places we once called home. Written by New York Times bestselling and other critically acclaimed authors, this anthology of stories sheds light on the scariest tales we grew up with, perfect for anyone who loved Wednesday.
The Mary Shelley Club – Goldy Moldavsky
New girl Rachel Chavez is eager to make a fresh start at Manchester Prep. But as one of the few scholarship kids, Rachel struggles to fit in, and when she gets caught up in a prank gone awry, she ends up with more enemies than friends.
To her surprise, however, the prank attracts the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a secret club of students with one objective: to come up with the scariest prank to orchestrate real, genuine fear. But as the pranks escalate, the competition turns cutthroat and takes on a life of its own. When the tables are turned and someone targets the club itself, Rachel must track down the real-life monster in their midst… even if it means confronting the dark secrets from her own past.
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Truly Devious – Maureen Johnson
Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth-century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with a frightening pseudonym: Truly Devious.
True crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: she will solve this cold case. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has clawed out of the grave. Someone has gotten away with murder. The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in Maureen Johnson’s Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, making for the perfect YA read after finishing off Wednesday.
Gallant – V.E. Schwab
Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal, which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet, when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, no matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.
Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant – but isn’t. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over them all. Now Olivia sees what has unravelled generations of her family, and where her father might have come from. Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world from the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?
The Raven Boys – Maggie Stiefvater
It is a freezing morning in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them – not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon learns that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Known as Raven Boys, Blue knows to steer clear of these sorts of boys.
Yet Blue is drawn to Gansey in a way she can’t entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, Ronan, and Noah. For as long as she can remember, Blue has wanted to she will cause her true lover to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
A Lesson In Vengeance – Victoria Lee
Felicity Morrow is back at Dalloway School. Perched in the Catskill Mountains, the centuries-old, ivy-covered campus was home until the tragic death of her girlfriend. Now, after a year away, she’s returned to graduate. She even has her old room in Godwin House, the exclusive dormitory rumoured to be haunted by the spirits of five Dalloway students – girls, some claim were witches. The Dalloway Five all died mysteriously, one after another, all on Godwin grounds.
Witchcraft is woven into Dalloway’s history. And before her girlfriend died, Felicity was drawn into the dark. She’s determined to leave that behind her now. All she wants to do is focus on her senior thesis and graduate. But when the enigmatic new girl, Ellis Haley, asks for her help in investigating the Dalloway Five, Felicity can’t refuse. And when history begins to repeat itself, Felicity will have to face the darkness within Dalloway – and in herself.
Catherine House – Elisabeth Thomas
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas is the perfect read for fans of Netflix’s Wednesday who crave dark academia and eerie boarding school vibes. The novel follows Ines Murillo, a scholarship student accepted into the exclusive and mysterious Catherine House, a secretive university that operates by its own unconventional rules.
At first, the school’s opulent Gothic architecture and luxurious lifestyle seem irresistible, but Ines soon learns that Catherine House hides unsettling secrets. The faculty are enigmatic, the rules are bizarre, and students vanish without explanation, creating a chilling atmosphere that blends suspense, psychological tension, and gothic intrigue. Like Wednesday, the story features a clever, independent protagonist navigating a world full of strange powers, hidden histories, and morally ambiguous adults.
Ninth House – Leigh Bardugo
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mother, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But, at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride.
Still searching for an answer to why she has been chosen, she arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might have conceived.
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
