What to Read Next, Based On Your Favorite Song from Evermore

Buckle up, we're getting existential and a little sad.

If August is for folklore, then November is for evermore. I had originally meant to post this way earlier but… it was a lot harder to come up with 17 more distinct book recommendations that fit specific scenarios and hadn’t already been recommended on my folklore post.

I pondered and researched and pondered some more and finally have come up with a list that I feel pretty good about, if I do say so myself. So here are 17 book recs for each song on evermore.

willow

Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler

For this one, I really leaned into the vibes of loving someone who is absolutely going to ruin your life. They keep you at arm’s length, yet you’d jump through hoops for them. Rinse and repeat.

Synopsis

For twenty-six-year-old Adelaide Williams, an American living in London, meeting Rory Hughes was like a lightning bolt out of the blue: this charming Englishman was The One she wasn’t even looking for.

Does he respond to texts? Honor his commitments? Make advance plans? Sometimes, rarely, and no, not at all. But when he shines his light on her, the world makes sense, and Adelaide is convinced that, in his heart, he’s fallen just as deeply as she has. Then, when Rory is rocked by an unexpected tragedy, Adelaide does everything in her power to hold him together—even if it means losing herself in the process.

champagne problems

Dream State by Eric Puchner

Did you feel an intense amount of catharsis the first time you heard the words “She would have made such a lovely bride, what a shame she’s fucked in the head,” or are you well-adjusted?

Synopsis

Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws’ lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task—an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie’s shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garrett’s friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s never imagined.

gold rush

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny

Gold Rush perfectly encapsulates the feeling of falling in love with someone you know you have to share – be it someone with a robust dating history, or someone who’s in the public eye for whatever reason.

Synopsis

Jane falls in love with Duncan easily. He is charming, good-natured, and handsome but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in his small Michigan town. Jane sees Duncan’s old girlfriends everywhere—at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away.

While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world’s most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she did not have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, a woman with shiny hair and pale milkmaid skin, still has Duncan mow her lawn. His coworker, Jimmy, comes and goes from Duncan’s apartment at the most inopportune times. Sometimes Jane wonders if a relationship can even work with three people in it—never mind four. Five if you count Aggie’s eccentric husband, Gary. Not to mention all the other residents of Boyne City, who freely share with Jane their opinions of her choices.

But any notion Jane had of love and marriage changes with one terrible car crash. Soon Jane’s life is permanently intertwined with Duncan’s, Aggie’s, and Jimmy’s, and Jane knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But could it be possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of Jane’s eyes?