Book Recommendations if Your Hogwarts House is Slytherin

Slytherins, let me hear you make some noise! To conclude my week of Hogwarts House recommendations, I’m giving book recommendations to all my fellow Slytherins. Of course I had to save the best house until last, so that’s why I’m talking you through the very best books for the ambitious and the cunning.

You can find Gryffindor recommendations here.

You can find Hufflepuff recommendations here.

You can find Ravenclaw recommendations here.

SLYTHERIN

❝Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends.❞

CONTEMPORARY

• People Like Us by Dana Mele

Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she’s reinvented herself entirely. Now she’s a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl’s body is found in the lake, Kay’s carefully constructed life begins to topple. 

The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay’s finally backed into a corner, she’ll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make…not something that happened.

For the self-reliant Slytherins . . . the ones who knows if you want something done right, do it yourself.

• Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra & Dhoinelle Clayton

Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama. Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette’s desire to escape the shadow of her ballet-star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever.

When every dancer is both friend and foe, the girls will sacrifice, manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best.

For the cutthroat Slytherins . . . the ones who aren’t afraid to play dirty.

• Clique Bait by Ann Valett*

Chloe Whittaker is out for revenge. Last year her best friend Monica’s life was unceremoniously ruined by the most popular students at their high school, so this year Chloe plans to take each and every one of them down. She traded her jeans and T-shirts for the latest designer clothes, deleted everything on social media that would tie her to Monica (and blow her cover), and carefully devised a way to befriend the members of the popular clique. Now all that’s left to do is uncover their deepest, darkest secrets and reveal them to the world.

Chloe has the perfect plan…that is, until she begins to fall for one of the people she’s determined to destroy.

For the Severus Snapes of Slytherin . . . the ones can be ruthless with the best intentions.

CLASSICS

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Set in the period following the Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861, a time of intense social change, it’s the story of a woman who refuses to be fettered by social conventions, the wife of a government bureaucrat who falls in love with a rich army officer & leaves husband & child for her love.

For the new age Slytherins . . . the ones who are bold enough to break away from tradition.

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.

For the prideful Slytherins . . . the ones who have yet to learn they aren’t untouchable.

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence.

For the Tom Riddles of Slytherin . . . the ones who will do anything to get what they went — even if it costs their soul.

FANTASY

• The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

For the morally grey Slytherins . . . the ones who realise that their ends will always justify the means.

• A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

For the Draco Malfoys of Slytherin . . . the ones who are in a constant power struggle and have no choice but to adapt to survive.

• To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.

The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?

For the Slytherins with a good heart and a bad reputation . . . the ones who know that they are not what other people make them out to be.

That brings my week of playing Sorting Hat with books to an end. Let me know whether you agree or disagree with any of my picks in the replies.

*On writing this, Clique Bait has yet to be released, but I‘ve read the original version on Wattpad. Whilst I’m sure the published version will have changes, I’m maintaining it is very Slytherin.

read it and weep,