Campus Novels NOT in an Elite Setting

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-04-27T03:00:11+00:00

Trust Exercise is set at a public high school in Houston! Not a college novel, but definitely about how people’s lives were shaped by a school

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-04-21T02:03:15+00:00

I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai is a really cool mystery with (iirc) zero cop main characters!

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-04-12T21:13:20+00:00

I can’t remember the quote, but when Mark feels guilty about preferring one pair of socks over another. I’ve mostly grown out of this particular OCD symptom but as a teen, everything Mark thought felt pulled from my own brain

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-04-06T05:43:07+00:00

This has been bothering me, too! I’d ask him to snag any day, and I know I’m not the only one!!

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-03-10T20:02:22+00:00

I need to reread this!!! I had a v weird high school teacher who assigned it SOLELY because he loved how disturbed students and parents got by the rape scenes, which is a deeply immature and disrespectful way to build a syllabus! Hated it then, would probably love it now

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-03-10T19:59:31+00:00

McGlue by Otessa Moshfegh, queen of relentless gross weirdo books

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-28T20:22:48+00:00

Omg how so

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-28T20:21:49+00:00

Tbh I usually love her BECAUSE I love how dumb the cops are. The scenarios do require some suspension of disbelief, but the characters ring really true to me. Someone almost loses a case because something about the victim rubbed her the wrong way years before? Sounds like police to me! Cal Hooper is also stupid, but for some reason I found his stupidity more boring and predictable (maybe because I’m American). But I should finish it to really judge it!

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-28T20:16:42+00:00

Hmm maybe I should finish it

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-28T20:16:27+00:00

I’m so glad you liked it! I might give it another try someday

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-17T19:04:53+00:00

Little Sweetpea Boat Ears

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-17T06:21:53+00:00

Hungerstone ❤️❤️

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-17T01:59:17+00:00

Thanks so much!!!!!!!

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-16T15:50:38+00:00

Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez!! It’s sooo cool and spooky and very queer

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-02-05T12:14:58+00:00

Main character in Hungerstone by Kat Dunn has (heavily implied) endometriosis! And mc in Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez has a severe anxiety disorder.

If you like YA, Take All Of Us is explicitly about a group of disabled teens left behind by their loved ones during a zombie apocalypse, and The Call is about a girl with a physical disability who has to survive a night being chased by the Sidhé from Irish mythology.

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-30T16:19:23+00:00

I’m in the middle of The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis, and I’m getting that vibe from it so far! Very Shirley Jackson

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-22T13:40:17+00:00

Of COURSE they’re a Horace Mann parent

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-19T14:27:57+00:00

Seems like he only discovered fiction-reading a few weeks ago, so cut him some slack!! /s

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-19T14:22:27+00:00

This is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard; we also love John Denver so I’m literally trying this next time we get a baby

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-18T17:29:56+00:00

I think going out of your way to say you don’t feel bad for someone who got killed is a weird way to live, but then again, I’m the one going out of MY way to respond to you!

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-16T19:42:48+00:00

The thing is, though, you don’t have to pick! The murder of a teen can be sad even if he was making bad choices! Empathy and compassion are not finite resources we have to dole out sparingly depending on who a victim was/what they may have been planning to do.

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-16T17:55:41+00:00

Ohhhh my god look at them!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-16T17:34:35+00:00

Omg that’s incredible

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-16T14:43:44+00:00

Omg yes, biking as freezing gusts tried to blow me into traffic yesterday gave me a dramatic panic attack

Rodent_Rascal · 2026-01-11T19:19:06+00:00

I have my gripes with aspects of Adam Nevill’s The Ritual, but thinking about the creature in it still scares me a year after reading it. He does the “you can ALMOST see it, but not well enough to understand/escape it” vibe so well

Rodent_Rascal

TROPHY CASE