If you haven’t dipped into the world of Korean dramas yet, this is your sign to do so.
With K-dramas now readily available on streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu, the popularity of K-dramas has exploded globally—and with good reason. Most dramas only have one season, ranging from 10 to 20 episodes, making them the perfect thing to binge without getting completely overwhelmed. This fixed time also allows for some better pacing, storytelling, and best of all…neatly tied up endings (no surprise cancellations here!!).
As Bong Joon-ho said in his Golden Globe acceptance speech for Parasite: “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
And we couldn’t agree more! K-dramas are just so good, from the production quality to the acting to the fashion to the product placements (an infamous staple of dramas). The tropes we know and love are done well, and each show has a unique soundtrack (also known as OST) that will stay with you long after you finish watching.
Much like books, there’s a K-drama out there for every person, whether you want a romantic coming-of-age, a historical comedy, or an edge-of-your-seat thriller. So now presenting: our list of book recs based on some of the most popular Korean dramas out there. Let us know what you’re currently watching and what you plan on reading next!
K-Drama-Inspired YA Book Recs
TO READ AFTER BINGE-WATCHING
1. Crash Landing on You
📚 Read A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
Crash Landing on You is one of the most loved dramas—and with good reason. The consistent tension, the great pacing, the lovable characters…we might just have to go rewatch. Plus, how can you not root for Se-ri and Jeong Hyeok to end up together, despite their extremely different backgrounds? This unlikely romance reminds us of the relationship between Malik and Karina in A Song of Wraiths and Ruin—even when faced with dangerous consequences, sometimes love still prevails.
For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom.
But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition.
When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a heart-pounding course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?
2. Vincenzo
📚 Read Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
Vincenzo (corn salad icon) is one of our favorite anti-heroes. His decisions are never black-and-white, marred with moral complications and feelings—but that’s what makes the show so good. And what’s better than one anti-hero? A band of them, as found in Realm Breaker.
A strange darkness grows in Allward.
Even Corayne an-Amarat can feel it, tucked away in her small town at the edge of the sea.
She soon discovers the truth: She is the last of an ancient lineage—and the last hope to save the world from destruction. But she won’t be alone. Even as darkness falls, she is joined by a band of unlikely companions:
- A squire, forced to choose between home and honor.
- An immortal, avenging a broken promise.
- An assassin, exiled and bloodthirsty.
- An ancient sorceress, whose riddles hide an eerie foresight.
- A forger with a secret past.
- A bounty hunter with a score to settle.
Together they stand against a vicious opponent, invincible and determined to burn all kingdoms to ash, and an army unlike anything the realm has ever witnessed.
3. Start-Up
📚 Read If You, Then Me by Yvonne Woon
Silicon Valley-esque setting? Check. Love triangle? Check. A female protagonist trying to breakdown the male-dominated tech industry? Check. Dal-mi of Start-Up and Xia of If You, Then Me have big dreams and ambitions in an industry that would rather see them fail, which means they have to work twice as hard to succeed.
What would you ask your future self? First question: What does it feel like to kiss someone?
Xia is stuck in a lonely, boring loop. Her only escapes are Wiser, an artificial intelligence app she designed to answer questions as her future self, and a mysterious online crush she knows only as ObjectPermanence.
Until one day Xia enrolls at the Foundry, an app incubator for tech prodigies in Silicon Valley, and suddenly anything is possible. Flirting with Mast, a classmate also working on AI, leads to a date. Speaking up generates a vindictive nemesis intent on publicly humiliating her. And running into Mitzy Erst, Foundry alumna and Xia’s idol, could give Xia all the answers.
And then Xia receives a shocking message from ObjectPermanence. He is at the Foundry, too. Xia is torn between Mast and ObjectPermanence—just as Mitzy pushes her towards a shiny new future. Xia doesn’t have to ask Wiser to know: The right choice could transform her into the future self of her dreams, but the wrong one could destroy her.
4. It’s Okay to Not Be Okay
📚 Read Almond by Won-pyung Sohn
One of the reasons that It’s Okay to Not Be Okay stands out is because of how mental health is addressed in it—each lead is dealing with their own demons, and slowly find ways they can help each other heal. In Almond (a book that RM and Suga of BTS were seen reading), this coming-of-age story also centers on coming to terms and coping with one’s past.
This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster.
One of the monsters is me.
Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say “thank you,” and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.
Then on Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s sixteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him alone and on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school and begins to bully Yunjae.
Against all odds, tormentor and victim learn they have more in common than they realized. Gon is stumped by Yunjae’s impassive calm, while Yunjae thinks if he gets to know the hotheaded Gon, he might learn how to experience true feelings. Drawn by curiosity, the two strike up a surprising friendship. As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life in danger, it is Yunjae who will step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become a most unlikely hero.
5. Sweet Home
📚 Read Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
We don’t know about you, but some of us had to watch Sweet Home through our fingers because that monster apocalypse? It’s no joke. Song Kang, please come save us all. Jane in Dread Nation also finds herself in the fight of her life when she’s caught in the middle of a conspiracy and must face soldiers that have risen from the dead.
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.
In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.
But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.
But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.
But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.
And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.
6. Itaewon Class
📚 Read With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Life has not been easy for Park Sae-ro-yi and Emoni Santiago, and you can’t not root for these protagonists. We love an underdog story, and we’re here to follow Sae-ro-yi and Emoni’s respective foodie dreams till the end.
Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela.
The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.
Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.
7. Hotel del Luna
📚 Read Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Ghosts! All the ghosts! Hotel del Luna and Cemetery Boys are not only both paranormal fantasies, but also deal with the haunting question—how can you let go of the past in order to move forward?
Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.
When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.
8. True Beauty
📚 Read XOXO by Axie Oh
The theme of True Beauty is to embrace your true self and to surround yourself with others who uplift this side of you as well. But it’s never that simple, and there are plenty of secrets and insecurities that act as obstacles to building these bonds with yourself and others. Jenny in XOXO also faces similar obstacles, as she has to navigate through secrets and drama in order to nail down her feelings and what she actually wants.
Jenny didn’t get to be an award-winning, classically trained cellist without choosing practice over fun. That is, until the night she meets Jaewoo. Mysterious, handsome, and just a little bit tormented, Jaewoo is exactly the kind of distraction Jenny would normally avoid. And yet, she finds herself pulled into spending an unforgettable evening wandering Los Angeles with him on the night before his flight home to South Korea.
With Jaewoo an ocean away, there’s no use in dreaming of what could have been. But when Jenny and her mother move to Seoul to take care of her ailing grandmother, who does she meet at the elite arts academy she’s just been accepted to? Jaewoo.
Finding the dreamy stranger who swept you off your feet in your homeroom is one thing, but Jaewoo isn’t just any student. Turns out, Jaewoo is a member of one of the biggest K-pop bands in the world. And like most K-pop idols, Jaewoo is strictly forbidden from dating anyone.
When a relationship means not only jeopardizing her place at her dream music school but also endangering everything Jaewoo’s worked for, Jenny has to decide once and for all just how much she’s willing to risk for love. XOXO is a new romance that proves chasing your dreams doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your heart, from acclaimed author Axie Oh.
9. Record of Youth
📚 Read Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi
Coming-of-age is tough. Record of Youth is all about the struggles of trying to achieve your dreams, without letting familial expectations and disappointment get in the way. Emergency Contact shares this same sentiment of the struggles of young adulthood—especially when you add the complications of love on top of that.
For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind.
Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him.
When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.
10. Goblin / Guardian: The Lonely and Great God
📚 Read A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer
An immortal being who wanders the Earth trying to find the person who can free him from this painful, everlasting fate, only he ends up falling in love with the person who can do so? Sounds extremely complicated. Sign us up. The dynamics of Goblin are similar to those in A Curse So Dark and Lonely, where the stakes are high but the feelings are complicated.
Fall in love, break the curse.
It once seemed so easy to Prince Rhen, the heir to Emberfall. Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he knew he could be saved if a girl fell for him. But that was before he learned that at the end of each autumn, he would turn into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. That was before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.
Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother barely holding their family together while constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, she learned to be tough enough to survive. But when she tries to save someone else on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s instead somehow sucked into Rhen’s cursed world.
Break the curse, save the kingdom.
A prince? A monster? A curse? Harper doesn’t know where she is or what to believe. But as she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what’s at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.
11. Hello, My Twenties! / Age of Youth
📚 Read Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen
Hello, My Twenties! may be the quintessential slice-of-life drama to watch. And if you love stories centered on coming-of-age and the growing pains of the teen years and young adulthood, Loveboat, Taipei is the book for you. It’s a bit messy, but that’s why we love it—we wouldn’t expect characters on their own for the first time to act any other way.
“Our cousins have done this program,” Sophie whispers. “Best kept secret. Zero supervision.”
And just like that, Ever Wong’s summer takes an unexpected turn. Gone is Chien Tan, the strict educational program in Taiwan that Ever was expecting. In its place, she finds Loveboat: a summer-long free-for-all where hookups abound, adults turn a blind eye, snake-blood sake flows abundantly, and the nightlife runs nonstop.
But not every student is quite what they seem:
Ever is working toward becoming a doctor but nurses a secret passion for dance.
Rick Woo is the Yale-bound child prodigy bane of Ever’s existence whose perfection hides a secret.
Boy-crazy, fashion-obsessed Sophie Ha turns out to have more to her than meets the eye.
And under sexy Xavier Yeh’s shell is buried a shameful truth he’ll never admit.
When these students’ lives collide, it’s guaranteed to be a summer Ever will never forget.
12. So I Married an Anti-Fan
📚 Read Not Here to Be Liked by Michelle Quach
Enemies-to-lovers never gets old in our opinion. The moment when the characters realize that they might actually be falling for the other person? We see it coming, but it makes us smile every time. Eliza of Not Here to Be Liked and Geun-young of So I Married an Anti-Fan start off in the same place, as actual haters of their love interests, until their feelings get turned on their heads. Again, we’re not surprised, but we love watching it unfold.
Eliza Quan is the perfect candidate for editor in chief of her school paper. That is, until ex-jock Len DiMartile decides on a whim to run against her. Suddenly her vast qualifications mean squat because inexperienced Len—who is tall, handsome, and male—just seems more like a leader.
When Eliza’s frustration spills out in a viral essay, she finds herself inspiring a feminist movement she never meant to start, caught between those who believe she’s a gender equality champion and others who think she’s simply crying misogyny.
Amid this growing tension, the school asks Eliza and Len to work side by side to demonstrate civility. But as they get to know one another, Eliza feels increasingly trapped by a horrifying realization—she just might be falling for the face of the patriarchy himself.
13. Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-Joo
📚 Read Throw Like a Girl by Sarah Henning
In this household, we stan Kim Bok-Joo. How can you not root for her, as we follow her coming-of-age story of figuring out her relationship to love, femininity, and supposed passion of weightlifting? Throw Like a Girl is also a sports story that stars a headstrong protagonist who you want to see triumph from beginning to end.
When softball star Liv Rodinsky throws one ill-advised punch during the most important game of the year, she loses her scholarship to her fancy private school, her boyfriend, and her teammates all in one fell swoop. With no other options, Liv is forced to transfer to the nearest public school, Northland, where she’ll have to convince its coach she deserves a spot on the softball team, all while facing both her ex and the teammates of the girl she punched… Every. Single. Day.
Enter Grey, the injured star quarterback with amazing hair and a foolproof plan: if Liv joins the football team as his temporary replacement, he’ll make sure she gets a spot on the softball team in the spring. But it will take more than just a flawless spiral for Liv to find acceptance in Northland’s halls, and behind that charismatic smile, Grey may not be so perfect after all.
14. While You Were Sleeping
📚 Read Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon
What would you do if you could see the future? It’s a complicated question, and one that us at Team Epic Reads is glad we don’t actually have to answer. But the leads of While You Were Sleeping and Instructions for Dancing have to face this dilemma head-on and answer a true moral question: can they actually prevent their loved ones—and themselves—from getting hurt?
Evie Thomas doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.
As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything–including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he’s only just met.
Falling for X is definitely not what Evie had in mind. If her visions of heartbreak have taught her anything, it’s that no one escapes love unscathed. But as she and X dance around and toward each other, Evie is forced to question all she thought she knew about life and love. In the end, is love worth the risk?
15. Romance is a Bonus Book
📚 Read Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant
Sometimes you just want to get a little meta and read/watch something about writing and books, and Romance is a Bonus Book and Happily Ever Afters are our go-tos. Seeing how the love stories of Dan-Yi and Tessa unfold off the page makes our heart soar and we’re forever rooting for their happily ever afters.
Sixteen-year-old Tessa Johnson has never felt like the protagonist in her own life. She’s rarely seen herself reflected in the pages of the romance novels she loves. The only place she’s a true leading lady is in her own writing—in the swoony love stories she shares only with Caroline, her best friend and #1 devoted reader.
When Tessa is accepted into the creative writing program of a prestigious art school, she’s excited to finally let her stories shine. But when she goes to her first workshop, the words are just…gone. Fortunately, Caroline has a solution: Tessa just needs to find some inspiration in a real-life love story of her own. And she’s ready with a list of romance novel-inspired steps to a happily ever after. Nico, the brooding artist who looks like he walked out of one of Tessa’s stories, is cast as the perfect Prince Charming.
But as Tessa checks each item off Caroline’s list, she gets further and further away from herself. She risks losing everything she cares about—including the surprising bond she develops with sweet Sam, who lives across the street. She’s well on her way to having her own real-life love story, but is it the one she wants, after all?
16. Beyond Evil
📚 Read Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
A mystery is afoot and there are murder(s) to be solved. In Beyond Evil and Truly Devious, the past comes back to haunt the present, as the protagonists are tasked to get down to the bottom of some gruesome killings that have rocked their surrounding communities.
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. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”
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 the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.
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. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester.
But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.
17. Strong Girl Bong-soon
📚 Read Faith by Julie Murphy
Both Faith and Bong-soon have more to them than meets the eye—Faith can fly and Bong-soon has super strength. So when people start disappearing in their respective neighborhoods, it’s up to them to confront their hidden powers and decide how much they’re willing to risk.
Faith Herbert is a pretty regular teen. When she’s not hanging out with her two best friends, Matt and Ches, she’s volunteering at the local animal shelter or obsessing over the long-running teen drama The Grove.
So far, her senior year has been spent trying to sort out her feelings for her maybe-crush Johnny and making plans to stay close to Grandma Lou after graduation. Of course, there’s also that small matter of recently discovering she can fly….
When the fictional world of The Grove crashes into Faith’s reality as the show relocates to her town, she can’t believe it when TV heroine Dakota Ash takes a romantic interest in her.
But her fandom-fueled daydreams aren’t enough to distract Faith from the fact that first animals, then people, have begun to vanish from the town. Only Faith seems able to connect the dots to a new designer drug infiltrating her high school.
But when her investigation puts the people she loves in danger, she will have to confront her hidden past and use her newfound gifts—risking everything to save her friends and beloved town.
18. When My Love Blooms
📚 Read Where the Rhythm Takes You by Sarah Dass
Tbh, we think second chance romance is an underrated trope. Yes, not everyone is deserving of a second chance, but sometimes the issue is right place, wrong time—which is why when people do reconnect again, you’re just hoping that the universe is on their side this time. When My Love Blooms and Where the Rhythm Takes You takes on this trope and has us wondering whether flames really can be reignited again.
Seventeen-year-old Reyna has spent most of her life at the Plumeria, her family’s gorgeous seaside resort in Tobago. But what once seemed like paradise is starting to feel more like purgatory. It’s been two years since Reyna’s mother passed away, two years since Aiden—her childhood best friend, first kiss, first love, first everything—left the island to pursue his music dreams.
Reyna’s friends are all planning their futures and heading abroad. Even Daddy seems to want to move on, leaving her to try to keep the Plumeria running.
And that’s when Aiden comes roaring back into her life—as a VIP guest at the resort.
Aiden is now one-third of DJ Bacchanal—the latest, hottest music group on the scene. While Reyna has stayed exactly where he left her, Aiden has returned to Tobago with his Grammy-nominated band and two gorgeous LA socialites. And he may (or may not be) dating one of them…
19. The Heirs
📚 Read Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra & Dhonielle Clayton
The over-the-top drama of The Heirs and Tiny Pretty Things is addictive. Granted, given that they’re both set at elite, privileged private schools, we only expect the most outlandish antics. And truly, the characters are going through it, facing pressures from their family, their classmates, and themselves.
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.
20. Reply 1988
📚 Read Love, Creekwood by Becky Albertalli
Both Reply 1988 and Love, Creekwood have ensemble casts, which means you will simply never get bored. Both are slices-of-life with a little bit of everything—love, friendships, family drama, and school troubles—all wrapped up in characters you’ll fall in love with.
Fall in love all over again with the characters from the bestselling Simonverse novels in this highly anticipated epilogue novella.
It’s been more than a year since Simon and Blue turned their anonymous online flirtation into an IRL relationship, and just a few months since Abby and Leah’s unforgettable night at senior prom.
Now the Creekwood High crew are first years at different colleges, navigating friendship and romance the way their story began—on email.