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Books to Match Your Taylor Swift Era: Folklore (2020)

Wander the forest with these ethereal books

By Kristen BarenthalerPublished 8 months ago 8 min read

Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett

When teens Zorie and Lennon, a former couple, are stranded in the California wilderness together, they must put aside their differences, and come to terms with lingering romantic feelings, in order to survive.

Yolk by Mary H. K. Choi

Jayne and June are nothing alike. Their family moved from Seoul to San Antonio and finally New York. The sisters don't want anything to do with each other... until June gets cancer. And Jayne becomes the only one who can help her. Now, flung together by sickness, bound by family secrets, they learn more about themselves and each other than they may be willing to confront.

Don't Ask Me Where I'm From by Jennifer De Leon

It's fine that Lilliana's best friend, Jade, is all caught up in her new boyfriend lately. It's fine that her inner-city high school is disorganized and underfunded. It's fine that her father took off again, and she's left with her increasingly crazy mom, her heathen little brothers. But it turns out before he left, he signed Liliana up for a school desegregation program called METCO. At Westburg, Liliana-- half-Guatemalan and half-Salvadorian-- must struggle with being a minority. The only way to survive is to whiten up. When she discovers the truth about her father-- he's undocumented and he's been deported back to Guatemala-- nothing is fine. And Lili is done changing who she is, denying her culture and where she came from.

Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

Be careful of the dark, dark wood... Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even. Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it's this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman -- the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago -- and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he'd been missing. But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver's presence. And it's not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn't know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own -- secrets he'll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn't the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago. For as long as there have been fairy tales, we have been warned to fear what lies within the dark, dark woods and in Winterwood, author Shea Ernshaw, shows us why.

When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert

With her family splintered and her future a question mark, Beth's friends-- Grace Nakamura, Brandon Lin, Sunny Chen, and Jason Tsou-- are all she has. She's certain she'll never be able to tell Jason how she really feels about him, so friendship will have to be enough. Then Beth witnesses a private act of violence in Jason's home, and the whole group is shaken. The group makes a pact to protect Jason, no matter the sacrifice. When their fierce loyalty isn't enough to stop Jason from making a life-altering choice, Beth must decide how far she is willing to go for him-- and how much of herself she is willing to give up.

P. S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Lara Jean didn't expect to really fall for Peter. She and Peter were just pretending. Except suddenly they weren't. Now Lara Jean is more confused than ever. When another boy from her past returns to her life, Lara Jean's feelings for him return too. Can a girl be in love with two boys at once?

We'll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han

The summer after her first year of college, Isobel "Belly" Conklin is faced with a choice between Jeremiah and Conrad Fisher, brothers she has always loved, when Jeremiah proposes marriage and Conrad confesses that he still loves her.

A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey

After graduation, everything Lila Reyes had planned for her life fell apart. Her worried parents make a new plan for her: Spend three months with family friends in Winchester, England, to relax and reset. But with the lack of sun, a grumpy inn cook, and a small town lacking Miami flavor (both in food and otherwise), what would be a dream trip for some feels more like a nightmare to Lila. Until she meets Orion Maxwell. A teashop clerk with troubles of his own, Orion appoints himself as Lila's personal tour guide. Soon a new future is beginning to form in Lila's mind-- one that would mean leaving everything she ever planned behind.

Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Aspiring choreographer Sophie Orenstein, eighteen, wonders if seventeen-year-old Peter Rosenthal-Porter, gifted pianist, best friend, and secret crush, will love her back after receiving her kidney.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

An all-new series from the masterful, #1 New York Times bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater! Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them--until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can't entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little.For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn't believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

Cursed by Thomas Wheeler

Nimue grew up an outcast. Her connection to dark magic made her something to be feared in her Druid village, and that made her desperate to leave. . . . That is, until Red Paladins slaughter her entire village, and Nimue's fate is forever altered. Charged by her dying mother to reunite an ancient sword with a legendary sorcerer, Nimue is now her people's only hope.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847, the year before the author's death at the age of thirty, endures today as perhaps the most powerful and intensely original novel in the English language. "Only Emily Brontë," V. S. Pritchett said about the author and her contemporaries, "exposes her imagination to the dark spirit." And Virginia Woolf wrote, "It is as if she could tear up all that we know human beings by, and fill these unrecognizable transparencies with such a gust of life that they transcend reality. Hers, then, is the rarest of all powers. She could free life from its dependence on facts, with a few touches indicate the spirit of a face so that it needs no body; by speaking of the moor make the wind blow and the thunder roar."

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Orphaned at an early age, Gillian and Sally Owen are raised by an aunt who deals in sorcery. The girls long for the normal life and leave home as soon as they can. Years later tragedy strikes and it is then they realize that magic is their gift, not their affliction.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home.

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose. Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life--steady boyfriend, close family--who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex-Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after a motorcycle accident. Will has always lived a huge life--big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel--and now he's pretty sure he cannot live the way he is. Will is acerbic, moody, bossy--but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living. A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn't have less in common--a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Cohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend's marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan. But when she wakes up, she's suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It's the same night -December 15 -but 2025, five years in the future. After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can't shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn't the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind. That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.

Folklore (2020)

1. "The 1"

2. "Cardigan"

3. "The Last Great American Dynasty"

4. "Exile" (featuring Bon Iver)

5. "My Tears Ricochet"

6. "Mirrorball"

7. "Seven"

8. "August"

9. "This is Me Trying"

10. "Illicit Affairs"

11. "Invisible String"

12. "Mad Woman"

13. "Epiphany"

14. "Betty"

15. "Peace"

16. "Hoax"

Deluxe Edition

17. "The Lakes"

listliterature

About the Creator

Kristen Barenthaler

Curious adventurer. Crazed reader. Librarian. Archery instructor. True crime addict.

Instagram: @kristenbarenthaler

Facebook: @kbarenthaler

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  • Timothy Hermes8 months ago

    These stories sound interesting. The one about Zorie and Lennon surviving in the wilderness together with their past feelings is gonna be a wild ride. And Jayne and June dealing with cancer and family secrets? That's bound to be emotional. I'm curious about Lilliana too, having to face being a minority and the truth about her dad. As for Nora in Winterwood, the woods' mystery has me intrigued. What do you think will happen in each of these?

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