The Best Books To Read Based on Your Mood

In postwar Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment between wounded Cal Jenkins and secretive Margaret Salt — ignited amid V-E Day’s wild celebrations — plants a seed that will haunt two families for generations. While Cal’s wife Becky speaks with the dead and Margaret’s husband battles overseas, a secret takes root. Decades later, the truth surfaces, forcing both families to reckon with passion, betrayal, and redemption.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There — warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts — asking what it means to be the children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange’s monumental gifts.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

In this heartrending debut, the acclaimed author of If They Come for Us traces three orphaned siblings left to raise one another. Kausar, the youngest, grapples with loss while charting her own understanding of gender; Aisha desperately tries to hold on to her sense of family; and Noreen does her best as sister-mother while creating a life on her own terms. As Kausar grows up, she must choose whether to remain in the life of love, sorrow, and codependency she’s known or carve out a new path.

From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American — “in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR).

Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation — awkward but electrifying — something life changing begins. Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t.

For anyone who has loved and lost, and lived to tell the tale, this gorgeously written debut is a love story told in reverse, a modern novel with the heart of a classic: truthful, tragic, and ultimately full of hope. Out of Love moves backward in time, weaving together an already unraveled tapestry, from tragic ending to magical first kiss. Each chapter jumps further into the past, mining their history for the days and details that might help us understand love; how it happens and why it sometimes falls apart.

Jane Austen’s beloved final novel of romantic tension and second chances. Now a Netflix film starring Dakota Johnson and Henry Golding. At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot reunites with Frederick Wentworth, the naval captain she was persuaded to reject eight years ago. Now wealthy and accomplished, he still feels the sting of her rejection. A brilliant satire and deeply felt love story.

“A love story for those who love Severance (both Ling Ma’s book and the unaffiliated Apple TV+ series) . . . ambitious, challenging, and brilliant.”  —Elle

Girlie Delmundo is the world’s greatest content moderator, and she’s getting promoted to elite VR moderator at Fairground. The perks are incredible — she can finally solve her family’s problems and forget the past. But when she meets William Cheung, the company’s enigmatic co-founder, and falls unexpectedly in love, she discovers that history can’t be moderated and the future is impossible to control.

The New York Times bestselling author of I’m Still Here chronicles her journey to live as her full self in a society that limits Black women. Weaving personal narrative with social commentary, Brown explores the mechanisms that restrict who Black women can be and the moments she chose self-possession as justice work. An invitation to define yourself not as a vessel to improve the world, but as free in spirit, hope, and joy.

Sula and Nel are born in the Bottom — a small town at the top of a hill. Sula is wild, and daring; she does what she wants, while Nel is well-mannered, a mamma’s girl with a questioning heart. Growing up they forge a bond stronger than anything, stronger even than the dark secret they have to bear. Strong enough, it seems, to last a lifetime — until, decades later, as the girls become women, Sula’s anarchy leads to a betrayal that may be beyond forgiveness.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning novel about twin sisters who choose to live in two different worlds — one Black and one white. The Vignes twins grew up in a small Southern Black community before running away at sixteen. Years later, one lives with her Black daughter in their hometown. The other secretly passes for white. Separated by miles and lies, their fates remain intertwined as their daughters’ lives intersect. “A story of absolute, universal timelessness … For any era, it’s an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it’s piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be … ” – Entertainment Weekly

In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the activist, speaker, bestselling author, and “patron saint of female empowerment” (People) explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want.

An audacious darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization’s collapse. Fifteen years after a flu pandemic wiped out most of the world, Kirsten travels with the Traveling Symphony, a troupe performing Shakespeare for scattered survivors. But at St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet. Spanning decades and moving through time, this suspenseful, elegiac story explores the relationships that sustain us.

When a demonic presence awakens in a Mexican silver mine, Alba must turn to the one man she shouldn’t trust. Fleeing plague-ridden Zacatecas in 1765, she seeks refuge at her fiancé’s family mine. But something cold and angry stirs beneath her skin. Elías, haunted by his past, should ignore his cousin’s betrothed — yet he can’t as she deteriorates and danger escalates.

Ryland Grace wakes up millions of miles from home with no memory and two dead crewmates. Humanity’s survival depends on him completing an impossible mission — but he can’t remember what it is. As his memories return, he must solve an extinction-level threat hurtling through space. Or does he have to do it alone? “If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.” —The Washington Post

In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities — and explosive tensions.

From the Booker Prize–winning author of Atonement, a genre-bending novel exploring what can truly be known. In 2014, poet Francis Blundy reads a new poem at dinner. A century later, in a flooded England, lonely scholar Thomas Metcalfe searches for that lost poem. When he finds a clue, a story of entangled loves and brutal crime emerges, shattering everything he thought he knew.

A wild, sweeping novel imagining an alternate secret history of Korea — loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and social media perils. What if Korea’s government-in-exile still existed, secretly working toward unification? Soon Sheen discovers an unfinished manuscript connecting famous figures to this grand project. A raucously funny feat blending Korean history, American pop culture, and our tech-fraught lives.

Two starcrossed magicians engage in a deadly game of cunning in this spellbinding novel. The circus arrives without warning, open only at night. Behind the scenes, Celia and Marco duel — trained since childhood for a competition where only one can survive. But they tumble into love, triggering dangerous consequences that leave everyone’s lives hanging in the balance.

National Bestseller & Longlisted for the National Book Award 

Meet Catalina Ituralde: wickedly wry, heartbreakingly vulnerable, and utterly unforgettable. A Harvard senior and undocumented immigrant, she’s craving a great romance while infiltrating elite subcultures with an anthropologist’s eye and an interloper’s skepticism. But as graduation looms and her life in Queens unravels, the clock ticks toward an abyss. Can she save her family? Herself? What does it even mean to be saved?

Where do you get an abortion in 1960 Georgia when your town’s midwife goes to your church? Seventeen-year-old Doris heads to Atlanta with her teacher, Mrs. Lucas, seeking help from her brash friend Sylvia. Waiting for the procedure, Doris is scandalized by — yet drawn to — Sylvia’s world: celebrities, civil rights leaders, queer women, atheists. A funny, poignant story about what Black women owe themselves.

Summer 1986: Nina Jacobs is determined to lose her virginity before college and avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages. At Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where Manhattan society congregates, she pines for the charismatic Gardner Reed. After she’s introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges into pursuing him, oblivious to warning signs. A chillingly compelling coming-of-age tale about gorgeous excitements that can be lethal.

An electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself  — a profound saga of queer love, friendship, and precarity in twenty-first-century America. Sneha graduates into a recession with an entry-level job in Milwaukee. She sends money home to India, dates women, and develops a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling dancer. But as secrets surface and struggles mount, her friend Tig proposes a radical solution to save them all.

What happened to feminism in the twenty-first century? Sophie Gilbert identifies an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when feminist energy collapsed into hyper-objectification and infantilization. Mining music, film, TV, fashion, and tabloid journalism, she recounts a harrowing era of paparazzi leering, reality TV cruelty, and internet porn’s rise. A blistering indictment of early 2000s misogyny that still shapes us today.

A bitingly funny novel about your late 20s as you stare down 30 — when do you tire of hangovers, dead-end jobs, and late nights at bars?

Harley, Róise, and Maggie navigate messy romances and entry-level chaos in Belfast, always finding their way back to each other and their ramshackle house. But as they approach thirty, fault lines emerge and their home crumbles. Must they decide if growing up means letting go? An exuberant ode to friendship and not having it figured out.

A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three. “O’Donoghue deepens the familiar coming-of-age premise with riveting moral complications.” —People

A hilarious new essay collection from Samantha Irby “engages readers with her characteristic combination of laugh-out-loud moments, heartfelt passages and plenty of awkward experiences …. Quietly Hostile will delight established fans and newcomers alike (Parade).”

After thirty-six years of unhappy arranged marriage, divorced Suresh and Lata Raman start new paths. Suresh navigates online dating until meeting a mysterious younger woman. Lata enjoys independence but is caught off guard by a flirtatious professor. Their children hide secrets too. Over three August weeks, the family will uncover truths about love, loyalty, and second chances.

Bringing to these pages both his masterly storytelling skills and his abiding faith in humanity, James McBride has written a novel every bit as involving as The Good Lord Bird and as emotionally honest as The Color of Water. Told with insight and wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that love and faith live in all of us.

In the vein of Lebowitz’s acclaimed Netflix limited series, Pretend It’s a City —The Fran Lebowitz Reader brings together two of the famed author’s bestsellers, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies.

In “elegant, finely honed prose” (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life — its fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Fran Lebowitz is always wickedly entertaining.