A Book Guide For The Movie Lover

Photo taken from @thingsgirlslike on Pinterest

The new year brings new hobbies and based on the fact that you clicked on this article, reading more was at the top of your resolutions list (it was on ours too.) It can be hard to escape our screens when even in our free time we turn to endless scrolling and content bingeing. But the right book can get you lost in the same drama, suspense and even humor as a movie or TV show. And with books you don’t have to worry about an actor you hate ruining a character for you! VALLEY is here with a book guide not just for the movie lovers but for anyone looking for a good read.

Photo taken from @robynswrld on Pinterest

“Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”

By: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Good Reads Summary: “Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?”

Genre: Fiction, Romance, Historical Drama

Similar Movies and TV Shows: “Daisy Jones and The Six”, “Love Simon” and “The Summer I Turned Pretty”

Photo taken from @maeve on Pinterest

“The Silent Patient”

By: Alex Michaelides

Genre: Fiction, Mystery

Good Reads Summary: “Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….”

Similar Movies and TV Shows: “Criminal Minds”, “Shutter Island” and “Gone Girl”

Photo taken from @jeydamae on Pinterest

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” 

By: Gabrielle Zevin

Good Reads Summary: “In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.”

Genre: Fiction, Coming-of-age

Similar Movies and TV Shows: “How I Met Your Mother”, “Stuck in Love” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Sometimes it’s okay to watch the movie before you read the book. But that doesn’t mean don’t read the book! If you’re in a reading slump, an easy way to jump back in is reading the book of a movie or TV show you’ve already watched. Most of the time they are pretty different and more often than not, the book is better. Here are VALLEY’s favorite books that have been adapted on screen.

Photo taken from @loveekim on Pinterest

Where The Crawdads Sing 

By: Delia Owens

Good Reads Summary: “For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.

But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.”

Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Romance

Similar Movies and TV Shows: “Don’t Worry Darling”, “Where The Crawdads Sing” and “The Girl on The Train”

Photo taken from @kategoins on Pinterest

Daisy Jones and The Six

By: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Good Reads Summary: “Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend. The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies.”

Genre: Fiction, Romance, Music

Similar Movies and TV Shows: “Daisy Jones and The Six”, “Almost Famous” and “Begin Again”

Photo taken from @yana on Pinterest

Normal People

By: Sally Rooney

Good Reads Summary: “At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal…”

Genre: Fiction, Romance

Similar Movies and TV Shows: “Normal People”, “One Day” and “Love Rosie”

Let VALLEY know what you’re reading and if you try any of our recs by tagging @VALLEYmag on X!

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