If Sasha’s conscription by Farit Kozhennikov, the gold-coin “tests,” and the Torpa Institute’s remorseless drills hooked you, you’ll feel a dark kinship with Quentin Coldwater’s years at Brakebills. The training is beautiful and punishing—think the Antarctic semester where magic becomes survival—and the faculty’s cool control echoes Farit’s manipulations. While the metaphysics differ, that sense of study as self-erasure and remaking—of exams that change what you are—lands with the same unsettling charge you felt in Vita Nostra.

If the Torpa Institute’s impossible assignments and Sasha’s sense that the world’s logic is tilting beneath her feet gripped you, Piranesi’s vast House—with its endless Halls, Tides, and Statues—will feel hauntingly familiar. Piranesi’s meticulous rituals and notes mirror Sasha’s obedience to bizarre instructions, while the enigmatic “Other” recalls Farit’s cool, coercive mentorship. As the House yields its meanings, identity itself becomes the puzzle—much like Sasha’s ultimate transformation.

If the way Sasha’s studies bend her mind through syllables, speech, and a terrifying final “recitation” fascinated you, Embassytown explores that obsession to the hilt. Avice Benner Cho’s city depends on the Ariekei, whose Language shapes truth itself; when humans alter how it’s spoken, consciousness and society warp. The novel’s semiotic brinkmanship echoes Torpa’s premise: that what you can say—and survive saying—redefines what you are.

If Sasha’s narrow, suffocating student life and the dawning dread of what Torpa is really grooming her to become stayed with you, Hailsham will chill you in a quieter register. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy’s schooling looks gentle on the surface, but every “creative” exercise hides a purpose as dehumanizing as any of Farit’s commands. The close, reflective voice and slow-burn revelations mirror the psychological claustrophobia you admired in Vita Nostra.

If Sasha’s obedience to Torpa’s bizarre directives—and the way those tasks unspool her sense of self—mesmerized you, the Biologist’s descent into Area X will do the same. Hypnotic commands, a "tower" that is really a tunnel, and the Crawler’s living script all echo the Dyachenkos’ motif of language as metamorphosis. As in Sasha’s journey, discovery here is inseparable from shedding who you were.