Specifically the Archie Horror imprint stories.
Read it with your book club →Read the comic book series after the show
You already know the story, so the comic book series can give you what a show has no room for: what the characters are thinking, the scenes that were cut, and the ending as it was written. If you loved the show, read this next.
5 more books for people who loved Riverdale
Riverdale takes wholesome Americana and drips poison into every corner, watching small-town teenagers wade through noir conspiracy, Gothic horror, and melodrama so heightened it becomes operatic. The show treats adolescent emotion as genuinely apocalyptic while layering murder plots, cult intrigue, and family secrets thick enough to suffocate. These books share its commitment to treating teenage life as a theater of extremes, where every relationship carries mortal stakes and every secret festers into something monstrous.
We Were Liars
Riverdale wraps family secrets in beautiful surfaces until everything collapses, and this novel does the same with a wealthy clan summering on a private island. The narration withholds and misdirects, keeping you off-balance as teenage romance and family politics twist into something darker. It treats adolescent passion as legitimately destructive, not a phase to outgrow, and builds to a reveal that recontextualizes every scene before it. The prose stays clean while the moral architecture underneath grows increasingly Gothic.
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Dare Me
Riverdale understands that teenage girls can be as ruthless as any noir detective, and Abbott writes cheerleaders with the same moral complexity. The novel treats high school hierarchy as genuinely dangerous, where loyalty and ambition lead to violence and obsession bleeds into every friendship. A coach arrives and destabilizes everything, much like how Riverdale uses adult corruption to ignite teenage chaos. The sentences are tight and controlled even as the emotional temperature climbs toward fever pitch.
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The Cheerleaders
Riverdale turns a small town into a trap where past tragedies echo into the present, and this mystery operates on the same principle. Five cheerleaders died in separate incidents years ago, and the protagonist begins to suspect they are connected in ways the town wants buried. It layers conspiracy and cover-up while keeping the focus on how grief warps a community and how teenage girls navigate systems designed to silence them. The pacing moves fast but lets dread accumulate slowly.
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Sadie
Riverdale gives its teenagers the investigative drive of adult detectives hunting down predators, and this novel follows a girl tracking her sister's killer across the country. The structure alternates between Sadie's journey and a true-crime podcast covering her disappearance, creating the same layered storytelling Riverdale uses to build mythology. It refuses to soften the violence girls face or the systems that fail them, treating rage and grief as engines for action rather than obstacles to overcome.
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Goodbye Days
Riverdale understands that one mistake can unravel an entire community, and this novel watches a text message lead to a car crash that kills three best friends. The protagonist must navigate guilt, grief, and a potential manslaughter charge while the town turns his tragedy into public spectacle. It treats teenage emotion as genuinely consuming rather than exaggerated, and it builds courtroom tension alongside the slower devastation of losing everyone you trusted. The moral questions resist easy answers.
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