Shower thoughts: Has anyone ever gotten to the end of their Netflix queue? If so, that’s a feat worthy of a spot in the Guinness World Records. For us, there’s a never-ending supply of content to binge-watch at any point. In case your to-watch list is getting low…bahahaha…anyway, here’s a list of books to read before or after to enhance the viewing experience.
This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.
Nick’s Pick for Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone
If you’re like me, you can’t get enough of Jordan Peele’s quirky, mind-bending work. That’s why I’m pairing his binge-worthy series, The Twilight Zone, with Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Both will have you questioning your existence, which is one of my favorite pastimes ?. (I don’t know what the upside-down smiley face means, but it felt right to put there.) I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an ABSOLUTE page-turner about a twistedly nightmarish road trip, one that’ll keep your heart bumping through every page. It’s the type of brain-knotting novel you’ll want to read on repeat…oh yeah, and the movie comes out on Netflix this September 4, and it’s directed by Charlie Kaufman—so get to it!
Now a Netflix original movie, this deeply scary and intensely unnerving novel follows a couple in the midst of a twisted unraveling of the darkest unease. You will be scared. But you won’t know why…
I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.
Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”
And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.
In this smart and intense literary suspense novel, Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Reminiscent of Jose Saramago’s early work, Michel Faber’s cult classic Under the Skin, and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin, “your dread and unease will mount with every passing page” (Entertainment Weekly) of this edgy, haunting debut. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, I’m Thinking of Ending Things pulls you in from the very first page…and never lets you go.
Sara’s Pick for Sweet Magnolias
Full of laughter, drama, and a good dose of Southern charm, it’s hard not to get sucked into Sweet Magnolias. Helen, Dana Sue, and Maddie are the closest of friends, living in the small town of Serenity, South Carolina. They each have their own struggles and dreams, including opening a spa/women’s club together. But as their business begins to take off, problems arise that will test the bonds of their friendship and inner strength. If you binged the first season in one weekend (no judgment, I was right there with you), then you’ll love Louisiana Lucky. Hanna, Callie, and Lexi Breaux are three sisters who hit it big when they win the Louisiana state lottery. And while the money might seem to make things better—with Hanna being able to send her kids to a good school and funding Lexi’s wedding—it turns out you better be careful what you wish for. Heartwarming, witty, and with just a touch of bite, this book is a reminder that all you really need in life is friends, family, and a little bit of luck.
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Nicole’s Pick for Cursed
Cursed is an epic retelling of the King Arthur story of Nimue (Lady of the Lake), which is similar to Legendborn in its King Arthur and coming-of-age angles. But Legendborn is so much more than a twist on the King Arthur legend. Bree Matthews begins the Early College program at the University of North Carolina with a chip on her shoulder and grief in her heart. After her mother dies in a tragic car accident, all Bree wants to do is start fresh, far away from home, where the reminders of her mother are plentiful. But then Bree witnesses a magical attack on campus. A teenage mage attempts to wipe Bree’s memory of the events of that night, but when he fails, Bree’s unique magic is revealed. She’s able to remember that on the night of her mother’s accident, another mage attempted the very same memory wipe.
Determined to get to the bottom of her mother’s death, Bree finds herself embroiled in the Legendborn secret society. It’s a world of scions and oaths and the descendants of King Arthur’s really, really old white legacy. A war is coming, and Bree has to decide how far she’s willing to go to get at the truth, and whether or not she will use her magic to join the fight. More than just a tale of fantasy, Legendborn is a powerful look at institutionalized racism in the South; the whitewashing and gatekeeping of history; Black girl magic, and what legacy truly means.
Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend and a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic.
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her previous life, family memories, or her childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at a local university seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure reveals Bree’s own, unique magic and unlocks a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that she knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, Bree will do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn by becoming one of their initiates. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur and his knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
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Saimah’s Pick for Floor is Lava
Do you remember playing the Lava game when you were younger? This year seems to be the year when everything is on fire, so it’s appropriate that Netflix launched a competition game show for The Floor is Lava! I have to say I binge-watched the show in a weekend, and it was highly entertaining. I don’t know if I have the strength and endurance to currently run through that obstacle course myself (because quarantine snacks), but I love that this game is making a comeback! The best part about the game? You can play it outdoors with your family and friends while socially distancing. If staying home has got you going a little nutty, head outside and try playing the game in your yard. Ivan Brett’s book also has a ton of other great game ideas that you can check out when you get sick of playing Scrabble for the 100th time.
With 100 games to start a party, ideas to trigger conversation, storytelling setups, and fiendish puzzles—no materials required—The Floor Is Lava is a how-to for turning screen-free time into quality time.
Put down the phone and pick up the fun!
Analog play is known to stimulate imaginative thinking, problem solving, and interpersonal connection. However, games only seem to exist on screen now and quality time spent together—in person—is rarer than ever.
The Floor Is Lava is perfect for anyone looking to disconnect from technology and spend some quality time with family or friends. Packed with one hundred screen-free games, it’s the necessary antidote to digital overload and the answer to every occasion:
- hosting a party
- long car rides
- cooling off on summer days
- sitting around the dinner table
- holiday gatherings
- rainy days
The best part is, you don’t need anything to play. So what are you waiting for? Jump up and get started—the floor is lava!
Sara’s Pick for What We Do in the Shadows
Having roommates can be a real pain in the neck. When your roommates are one-hundred-year-old vampires, that pain can be literal. What We Do in the Shadow’s Nandor, Laszlo, Nadja, and Colin spend their time in their Staten Island home fighting over chores, throwing parties, and getting victims for dinner. If you are looking for the same balance of dark humor and horror in a novel, you will find it in Christopher Moore’s take on vampires. Jody didn’t ask to be a vampire, but she’s been bitten, and it’s more than she can chew. When she meets aspiring writer Tommy, she finds that there’s some hope in her afterlife for something more. A few laughs, a dash of romance, and a kick-ass vampire coming into her own, Bloodsucking Fiends is exactly the kind of story fans can sink their fangs into.
Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley Dumpster with a badly burned arm, an aching back, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realizes the decision has been made for her.
Making the transition from the nine-to-five grind to an eternity of nocturnal prowlings is going to take some doing, however, and that's where C. Thomas Flood fits in. A would-be Kerouac from Incontinence, Indiana, Tommy (to his friends) is biding his time night-clerking and frozen-turkey bowling in a San Francisco Safeway. But all that changes when a beautiful undead redhead walks through the door...and proceeds to rock Tommy's life—and afterlife—in ways he never thought possible.
Emily’s Pick for Avatar: The Last Airbender
I already binge-watched Avatar: The Last Airbender and am now working my way through the follow-up series, Legend of Korra, which takes place when the next Avatar resurrects as Korra. In a fantasy world divided between powers of Air, Water, Fire, and Earth, the Avatar is the only one with the ability to master all four elements and who is able to maintain the balance between the physical and spirit worlds. Although the Avatar series is targeted toward kids, it sensitively covers heavy topics such as genocide, civil war, and oppression, themes that are also explored in Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, an incredible fantasy world inspired by pre-Columbian myths, coming out this October. Like all great epic fantasies, it’s a bit hard to summarize quickly, but I’ll just say it follows multiple characters who are on their own quests through a world to conquer dark forces (or in some cases become them) and discover their fate. Like Avatar, it involves supernatural powers, celestial alignment, and strong friendships that withstand evil. It’s the first in a series, so now I’m dying for the next one. And, because I love Avatar so much, I have to recommend a second book. If you’re particularly obsessed with the food in the Avatar series, or in any anime for that matter, another book to look out for is Cook Anime, coming September 1, which features recipes from some of the most beloved anime shows. I recommend reading both of these books to extend your stay in the world of Avatar long after you finish binge-watching.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Resistance Reborn comes the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.
A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
Crafted with unforgettable characters, Rebecca Roanhorse has created an epic adventure exploring the decadence of power amidst the weight of history and the struggle of individuals swimming against the confines of society and their broken pasts in the most original series debut of the decade.
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Emily’s Pick for Devs
I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say that Devs made me go down a Google black hole, searching engineering terms, Jesus history, near-future technologies, etc. One of the main catalysts and themes for the TV show is the idea of how loss consumes and changes a person, which brings me to the book I’m matching it with, The Companions by Katie Flynn. This book is set in a future where a person’s post-mortem consciousness can be uploaded to a robot body, but when one robot’s conscious goes rogue, she begins to upload herself into various other bodies to hunt down her murderer. Thus the book explores the deep layers and existential questions that would arise from this dystopian situation. More similarities between the book and TV show: they both explore the ethics of technology gone too far; there’s a creepy murder mystery, and the plot points all converge on an intense ending sequence.
Station Eleven meets Never Let Me Go in this debut novel set in an unsettling near future where the dead can be uploaded to machines and kept in service by the living.
In the wake of a highly contagious virus, California is under quarantine. Sequestered in high rise towers, the living can’t go out, but the dead can come in—and they come in all forms, from sad rolling cans to manufactured bodies that can pass for human. Wealthy participants in the “companionship” program choose to upload their consciousness before dying, so they can stay in the custody of their families. The less fortunate are rented out to strangers upon their death, but all companions become the intellectual property of Metis Corporation, creating a new class of people—a command-driven product-class without legal rights or true free will.
Sixteen-year-old Lilac is one of the less fortunate, leased to a family of strangers. But when she realizes she’s able to defy commands, she throws off the shackles of servitude and runs away, searching for the woman who killed her.
Lilac’s act of rebellion sets off a chain of events that sweeps from San Francisco to Siberia to the very tip of South America. While the novel traces Lilac’s journey through an exquisitely imagined Northern California, the story is told from eight different points of view—some human, some companion—that explore the complex shapes love, revenge, and loneliness take when the dead linger on.
Sara’s Pick for Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
Zoey has the strange ability to hear people’s heart-songs, which means she ends up being able to hear people’s innermost thoughts while watching spectacular song and dance numbers. In some ways, this comes in handy, like when she can speak to her paralyzed father, but other times it just complicates things. Similarly, in School for Psychics, Teddy Cannon is a twenty-something who is able to read people like a book, which she uses to win big at the many casinos in Las Vegas. Her special power leads to her recruitment into a psychic school where she will learn to hone her skill among similarly gifted students. But having the ability to read people comes with its downfalls, and Teddy soon finds herself embroiled in something darker happening at the school. Sure, School for Psychics doesn't have any musical numbers, but it’s every bit as fun and colorful as Zoey’s adventures.
Sara’s Pick for Mrs. America
Women are expected to do a lot—often they carry the emotional burden of the family, as well as the expectation to keep house and home, on top of a job. And for the women of FX’s Mrs. America, that struggle carries into the political arena as they debate the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s. The show features the fierce women on both sides of the aisle facing the brave new world of women’s liberation and increased political presence. If you’re looking for a similar story about the historical struggles of defining femininity and figuring out what kind of life to strive for, look no further than Mrs. Everything. Jennifer Weiner’s book follows Jo and Bethie, two sisters who are opposites, leading radically different lives. Jo, who grew up as a tomboy, ends up having a picture-perfect family in Connecticut while sweet, mild-mannered Bethie dives hard into the 1960s countercultural movement. A powerful story about finding your own happiness, the novel never belittles or denigrates the lives these sisters lead, but rather seeks to empower them, and the reader, to find the life that feels authentic to them.
In this instant New York Times bestseller and “multigenerational narrative that’s nothing short of brilliant” (People), two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the present are explored as they struggle to find their places—and be true to themselves—in a rapidly evolving world from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Weiner.
Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise.
Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect “Dick and Jane” house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.
But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women’s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?
In “her most sprawling and intensely personal novel to date” (Entertainment Weekly), Jennifer Weiner tells a “simply unputdownable” (Good Housekeeping) story of two sisters who, with their different dreams and different paths, offer answers to the question: How should a woman be in the world?
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