Blog Tour & Feature: Demonology for Overachievers by Lily Anderson

Item: Demonology for Overachievers
Author: Christy Jane

Crushed on by Christy Jane, on September 21, 2026, in Blog Tour, Feature, New Releases / 1 Comment

Blog Tour & Feature: Demonology for Overachievers by Lily Anderson

I started following Lily Anderson back when we were both in the Bay Area. My book club at the time went to one of her launch events, which was also close to the beginning of my own blogging journey. She was a school librarian with musical theater tattoos and strong opinions about Kevin Costner films, and I was a reader who had just started figuring out what it meant to be part of a book community. It was the right author at the right time. That was 2016 and I have not stopped reading her since. So to say I am excited about her latest book is an understatement. Read on to see why you should be a Lily fan, too, and check out Demonology for Overachievers, out tomorrow!

Demonology for Overachievers

by Lily Anderson
on September 22, 2026
Bookshop
Goodreads

Dark academia takes a fresh twist in this YA novel, where a determined high school senior strikes a bargain with a demon to win a coveted scholarship—only to discover her rival has made the same deal.

Merritt Maldonado has done everything right. But for every club she’s founded, tree she’s planted, and sport she’s played, her academic nemesis Linus Lexington has been right there. By her side. Copying her every move.

And now they're neck and neck for a coveted full ride scholarship. Desperate to gain an edge, Merritt finds herself making a deal with a demon. But when other applicants start dying in gruesome ways, Merritt realizes the demon is killing off her competition. And to make matters worse, she finds the demon’s mark on Linus.

Now Merritt and Linus' souls are tied to the same deadly demon. With bodies piling up, they have to work together to break the pact, stop the killings, and maybe admit that the bond they share isn't just supernatural...

From the Bay to Demondale: A BookCrushin Love Letter to Lily Anderson

Lily’s debut, The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You, is a Much Ado About Nothing retelling set at a school for geniuses, full of Doctor Who references and enemies to lovers banter. Not Now Not Ever followed it in 2017, another Shakespeare-adjacent contemporary about a girl who runs away to a nerd camp and finds her people. Lily has always written heroines who are deeply specific and deeply themselves (and deeply my kind of girl haha), and Elliot Gabaroche is one of the best of them.

Then Undead Girl Gang in 2018, which became one of my most favorite books ever. Mila Flores brings back her dead best friend using an ancient grimoire and a tube of lip gloss, and what follows is an intersectional feminist mystery with some of the best audio narration I heard that year. Rebecca Soler gave every character their own voice and I flew through it. Five stars. Still one of my favorite audiobooks.

In 2021, Lily made her adult debut with The Throwback List, about a Black biracial bisexual woman who loses her marketing job and starts ticking off a bucket list from her teens while documenting it on Instagram. It is warm and funny and queer and exactly what you want from Lily. Scout’s Honor, her Printz Honor-winning YA, about Ladybird Scouts who are secretly warriors who protect the world from interdimensional monsters, which is an incredible premise executed perfectly (what does Lily know that we don’t…). Also that year we got some Buffy revival with the Disney buy and Big Bad, the Buffy alternate universe novel where the Mayor won and Demondale is a safe haven for vampires and Jonathan and Anya have to save the world from the Slayer, launched into the world and is still my fav of the new Scooby canon. Killer House Party and Showstopper are her most recent reads, both continuing her streak of YA horror comedy that is genuinely funny and genuinely scary and genuinely everything I love about her writing.

Every single one of these books has wit and a protagonist who knows exactly who she is even when everything around her is falling apart. That is the Lily Anderson signature and it has never wavered. It is also maybe who she is? She is a pop of sunshine who can always make you laugh.

Now we have Demonology for Overachievers, which is Lily at her most Lily. Merritt Maldonado has done everything right, founded every club, planted every tree, played every sport, and her academic nemesis Linus Lexington has been right there copying her every move the entire time (rude). When they both end up making deals with the same demon to win the same scholarship and the other applicants start dying in gruesome ways, they have to work together to stop it. Enemies to lovers, dark academia, literal demons…Sign us up!!!