Today I’m doing something fun! Often, when I’m listening to music, I try to match it with whatever book I’m obsessed with at the moment. So that’s what I’m going to be doing: putting my music on shuffle and finding books to match with whatever songs come up!

The plan:

1. Go to my saved songs on Spotify and put them on shuffle.
2. Match whatever comes up with a book!
3. Try not to skip songs…

Let’s see how this goes!

(Hi it’s me popping in from the end of the post to mention that I made a Spotify playlist of all of the songs in this post, to make it easier to follow along if you want!)

🎶 “It Comes Back to You” by Imagine Dragons 🎶

listen || “All the things that you had lost will find their way to you”

📖 I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver 📖

This song is so soft and hopeful and gives me many of the same feelings as I Wish You All the Best! Throughout this book, Ben does learn that the things they thought they’d lost – such as family, stability, happiness – do come back, even if it’s in ways they didn’t expect.

🎶 “Can’t Look Away” by Seafret 🎶

listen || “I keep looking at you and it feels like / I’ve been staring at the sun”

📖 Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling 📖

Rereading Harry Potter recently has made me aware how often Harry uses sunlight/fire imagery to describe Ginny, so those two were the first thing that came to mind when I heard this song!

🎶 “Young” by The Chainsmokers 🎶

listen || “We both know I go too far like when I wrecked your car / And almost fought your father when he pushed me in the yard”

📖 The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater 📖

This song is so Ronan Lynch it HURTS. That’s the main reason I have this song saved, not gonna lie. Those lyrics are things that actually happened in the series at some point. Plus, the lines “Don’t worry, my love, we’re learning to love / But it’s hard when you’re young” in relation to Ronan make my heart do things.

🎶 “Temporary Love” by Ben Platt 🎶

listen || “We don’t have to hide our love away and / Both of us are gonna make mistakes ’cause / Leaning on somebody’s never easy”

📖 Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston 📖

This song SCREAMS Alex and Henry. The lines in the chorus – “Now your heart is in my hands, I won’t give it up / This is not a temporary love” – basically sum up their entire relationship and I’m SOFT. (It also helps that this album came out around the time that I read this book, so I associate a lot of Ben Platt’s songs with these two. The song “Grow As We Go” also fits them painfully well.)

🎶 “Wasteland, Baby!” by Hozier 🎶

listen || “And I love too / That love soon might end / And be known in its aching” 

📖 This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone 📖

The apocalyptic imagery associated with a relationship in this song is the perfect level of emo and romantic and dramatique that Red and Blue embody in this book. I think they would approve.

🎶 “High Hopes” by Panic! At the Disco 🎶

listen || “Mama said fulfill the prophecy / Be something greater, go make a legacy”

📖 King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo 📖

Idk man, this song has such Nikolai Lanstov energy! I can imagine him listening to this song when he’s pumping himself up in the morning to go out there and run a kingdom.

🎶 “The Driver” by Bastille 🎶

listen || “This thing, it’s a family affair / It’s drawing out my weakness”

📖 Vicious by V.E. Schwab 📖

The sound and the mood of this song, more than the lyrics, really fit with Vicious in my mind. It’s intense, angry, and definitely gives me the vibes of Victor and Eli trying to murder each other for years!

🎶 “Never Let Me Go” by Florence + the Machine 🎶

listen || “And the arms of the ocean are carrying me / And all this devotion was rushing out of me”

📖 Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno 📖

(I avoided going with the obvious answer of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.) The atmosphere and ocean imagery of this song fits perfectly with Summer of Salt, which is extremely atmospheric and ocean-y!

🎶 “The Waves” by Bastille 🎶

listen || “We never, never give up on the lost boy life / So here we are, escaping from the world outside”

📖 Radio Silence by Alice Oseman 📖

One of my favorite songs by my favorite artist for one of my favorite books?? It’s more likely than you think. The sense of disassociating in the middle of a party where you’re starting to wonder what you’re doing there is SO Radio Silence. Also, I feel like Frances and Aled would like this song, so there’s that.

🎶 “When We Were Young” by Adele 🎶

listen || “You look like a movie / You sound like a song / My God, this reminds me of when we were young”

📖 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 📖

I’M SO GLAD THIS SONG CAME UP BECAUSE I AM INCAPABLE OF LISTENING TO IT WITHOUT CRYING ABOUT EVELYN AND CELIA. This was one of the first songs that went on my Evelyn Hugo playlist and it’s one of those songs that I can no longer separate from that book at all. I’m emotional.

🎶 “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons 🎶

listen || “You take me to the top, I’m ready for / Whatever it takes”

📖 Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo 📖

This is another song that I can’t listen to without thinking of this book. This is SUCH a Kaz Brekker song. He would truly do whatever it takes to be at the top. Plus these lines – “I’m just a product of the system, a catastrophe / And yet a masterpiece, and yet I’m half-diseased” – oof. Kaz, is that you??

🎶 “Sleepover” by Hayley Kiyoko 🎶

listen || “You wanna be friends forever? / I can think of something better”

📖 Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli 📖

If you know what I’m talking about in relation to this book…you know what I’m talking about. 👀 This is totally a song that Leah would listen to while sad that her feelings aren’t requited.

🎶 “River” by Bishop Briggs 🎶

listen || “How do we fall in love? / Harder than a bullet could hit ya?”

📖 Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir 📖

This one might be a stretch, but when I listened to this song, I immediately thought of the messy, complicated relationships between this book’s two main characters, who I will ship until I DIE.

🎶 “Ribs” by Lorde 🎶

listen || “You’re the only friend I need / Sharing beds like little kids / Laughing ’til our ribs get tough / But that will never be enough”

📖 You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour & David Levithan 📖

What YA coming-of-age book DOESN’T this song fit, I ask you?? Since I had to pick something that I haven’t already mentioned, I’m going with this book, since it perfectly fits with this song’s line “It feels so scary, getting old.”

🎶 “Overthinking” by Orla Gartland 🎶

listen ||  “And I think my brain is breaking / And it’s just myself I’ve been blaming / It’s frustrating”

📖 I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman 📖

This song immediately makes me think of Jimmy, one of this book’s main characters, and his struggle with anxiety. Even the line “But I’m here for the music” fits him perfectly!

🎶 “Everybody Lost Somebody” by Bleachers 🎶

listen || “I think pain is waiting alone at the corner / Tryna get myself back home”

📖 Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian 📖

The more appropriate song for this book would be a Madonna song, but I don’t have any saved so I guess this will do! I think the whole idea that “everybody lost somebody” fits this book and these characters perfectly.

🎶 “Perfect Places” by Lorde 🎶

listen || “All of our heroes fading / Now I can’t stand to be alone / Let’s go to perfect places”

📖 The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee 📖

This is SUCH a Monty song. He’s such a party boy and he tries to find fulfillment through that but he can’t! Also, if he lived in modern day, I feel like he would love Lorde.

That was fun!! I did end up having to skip some songs that I just couldn’t think of anything to match with (why are so many songs about dysfunctional relationships??)…as well as a fair few Broadway songs. But other than that, I think I did pretty well!

Now I’m not going to be able to listen to any of these songs without thinking of these books.

What songs do you associate with your favorite books? Would you match any different books with these songs?

x Margaret 

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