Sunday, June 15, 2025

Six top high school novels for adult readers

Miriam Gershow is the author of Closer, Survival Tips: Stories and The Local News. Her writing is featured in The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review, among other journals. She is the recipient of a Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Oregon Literary Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She is the organizer of “100 Notable Small Press Books,” a curated list of the year’s recommended books from independent publishers.

[The Page 69 Test: The Local News]

At Lit Hub Gershow tagged "a half dozen books worth the trip back into the classrooms and corridors of high school." One title on the list:
Lisa Lutz, The Swallows

If you loved Rebecca Makkai’s boarding school mystery, I Have Some Questions For You, put The Swallows at the top of your list. This novel has it all: fish-out-of-water new teacher Alexandra Witt; Stonebridge Academy and its buildings named for writers (Wilde Bathhouse and Woolf Hall among the best); a story of escalating, vicious gender wars told in the voices of students, teachers, and administrators; campus maps, text messages, lesson plans, student notes; and dual unfolding mysteries. What is this mysterious organization, The Darkroom, that lurks unseen at Stonebridge? And who is the stalker who takes an interest in Witt? If this all sounds dark, in Lutz’s hands, it’s nearly gleeful. Best known for her Spellman File books, Lutz brings her signature wit and pace to The Swallows. It sweeps you up and gallops along.
Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue