The Scholomance works because the school is trying to kill everyone, El would rather not be rescued thank you very much, and the slow burn with Orion builds across three books of shared near-death experiences. If you want dangerous institutions, grumpy heroines, and the specific tension of "we might die but also I might have feelings about you," keep reading.
We focused on books that share at least two of the Scholomance's core ingredients: hostile environments, protagonists with dangerous power they'd rather not have, institutional rot, and relationships forged under pressure. Some are academies. Some are courts or manors or military installations. All of them understand that the scariest monster is the system you're trapped inside.
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Start HuntingThe Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Rin claws her way into Sinegard, the most elite military academy in the empire. The academy section has the competitive, brutal energy of the Scholomance. Then war breaks out, and book one's second half shifts into something much darker. If El's "I have destructive power and everyone is afraid of what I might become" arc is what you connected with, Rin's version of that same conflict is turned up to maximum and the consequences are permanent.
Three books, completed, no pulling punches. Rin channels the power of a god and it costs her sanity, her relationships, and eventually her humanity. The academy is just the beginning. What comes after makes you wish she'd never left it.
Babel by R.F. Kuang
An academic institution that looks like a gift and turns out to be a cage. Robin Swift is brought to Oxford's Royal Institute of Translation, where language is literally magic. The school isn't trying to eat him (unlike the Scholomance), but it IS using him. The found family that forms among the students and then fractures under political pressure is heartbreaking.
Less action, more intellectual horror, and the "institution as antagonist" thread is razor-sharp. Kuang makes you love the library, the late-night study sessions, the friendships, and then methodically shows you what all of it is built on. If the Scholomance made you think about systems that consume the people they claim to protect, Babel takes that idea and won't let go of it.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Yale's secret societies practice real magic, and Alex Stern (street-smart, traumatized, able to see ghosts) is sent to monitor them. The "dark school" here is an Ivy League campus hiding genuinely dangerous rituals. Alex is grumpy in a different register than El: less sarcastic, more feral. The supernatural mystery pulls you through, and the power dynamics between Alex and the entitled legacy students mirror El's outsider status in the Scholomance.
Bardugo writes privilege as a weapon. The students performing rituals have safety nets, connections, lawyers. Alex has none of that. She has ghosts and rage and a refusal to pretend the system is fair. The mystery is good. Alex's voice is better. New Haven becomes as much a character as the Scholomance itself.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Blackcliff Military Academy makes the Scholomance look like it has a reasonable student mortality rate. Laia infiltrates as a spy. Elias is trapped inside as a soldier. The institution is explicitly designed to create weapons, and the training sequences are brutal. The slow burn between Laia and Elias is built on mutual danger, similar to El and Orion.
Four books, completed, and the ending earns every page. Tahir doesn't let the academy be the whole story. The world outside Blackcliff is just as hostile, and the empire that built the school is the real enemy. If you want the Scholomance's "institution that consumes its students" energy plus a romance that develops under constant threat, this is your series.
Zodiac Academy: The Awakening by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Twin sisters discover they're fae royalty and get dropped into a magical university where every powerful student wants to destroy them. The academy is the entire setting: classes, rivalries, testing, factions. Fair warning: the first book is a bully romance, and the FMCs take serious punishment early on. The enemies-to-lovers builds across all eight books. Block out a month.
More romance-forward and spicier than the Scholomance, less literary, but the "surviving a dangerous school" core is the same. The magic system is tied to zodiac elements, the power scaling gets wild, and the found family the twins build is hard-won. If you bounced off the bully elements in book one, that's valid. If you pushed through, the payoff across eight books is significant.
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
The Great Libraries house sentient books that can turn into monsters. Elisabeth is raised among them and knows how dangerous sorcerers are. Then she's forced to work with one. The "magical institution hiding dangers" thread connects to the Scholomance, and Elisabeth's stubborn competence echoes El's energy. Lighter in tone, more humor, and the demon servant Silas is worth the read alone.
Standalone, which means you get resolution in one book. The enemies-to-lovers between Elisabeth and Nathaniel is built on her conviction that he's evil and his growing realization that the girl trying to fight him with a sword is the most extraordinary person he's ever met. The libraries are gorgeous, dangerous, and deeply weird. If you want Scholomance energy with more warmth and a faster romance, this is it.
House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig
Not an academy, but the same "trapped in a place that's killing people and nobody will address it" energy. Twelve sisters in a manor by the sea. Four have died. Annaleigh is trying to figure out what's happening while attending midnight balls that feel increasingly wrong. The gothic atmosphere is suffocating in the best way.
If the Scholomance's "the building itself is hostile" element is what you want, this delivers it through horror rather than fantasy. The manor feels alive and wrong. The midnight balls are beautiful and then they're not. Craig builds dread the way good horror writers do: by making you doubt what's real before anything overtly terrifying happens. The twist lands. Standalone, satisfying, and deeply creepy.
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Katsa has been Graced with killing since she was eight. Her uncle uses her as a weapon. When she meets Po, another Graceling hiding his real ability, they form an uneasy alliance. The "heroine with dangerous power she didn't ask for" throughline connects directly to El in the Scholomance. Katsa's journey from enforcer to independent person is one of the best "reclaiming yourself from an institution" arcs in fantasy.
The romance is slow, respectful, and built on equals. Po never tries to contain Katsa or soften her edges. He falls first and he's honest about it. The power dynamics between two Gracelings who could destroy each other but choose not to mirrors the El/Orion tension of "we're both dangerous and that's why this works." Three books in the same world, each following a different protagonist.
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Mare discovers she has powers she shouldn't have and is thrown into a world of dangerous, powerful people who all want to use her. The training and testing elements early on have academy energy, and the "outsider with abilities that scare people" thread mirrors El. The power reveal scene is one of the best in YA fantasy.
Gets more political-thriller than academy as the series progresses. The betrayals come fast. If you liked the Scholomance's "nobody in this building is safe and alliances shift constantly" feel, Red Queen delivers that in a court setting. Mare is not always likeable and the series is better for it. Four books, completed, and the ending commits to its choices.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Not a school, but Jude's experience as a human in the fae court has the same hostile-environment-survival energy as the Scholomance. Everyone around her is more powerful. The institution (the court) wasn't made for her. She survives through intelligence, stubbornness, and a willingness to play dirtier than anyone expects.
The enemies-to-lovers with Cardan is built on mutual contempt that shifts so gradually you can't pinpoint when it happened. Three books, completed, tight as a drum. If El's "I refuse to be what everyone expects me to be" energy is what you love, Jude takes that same defiance into a world of fae politics where being human is considered a disability and she turns it into a weapon.
Tell us what you love and what you avoid. Every book gets scored: how much of what you love is in it, and whether anything you avoid is hiding inside.
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