20 Books That Will Turn Reading Into Your New Favorite Hobby

AJ Graves is stuck working in a video rental store, with slim odds of escaping her small town. Then in walks Noah Drew, the heir of the Drew acting dynasty, and her life changes forever. The two forge a deep bond first as friends, then as acting partners—until one day, Noah disappears without a word. Seven years later in New York City, AJ finds herself cast in the same TV production as Noah, by then a well-known Hollywood heartthrob. Unable to stay away from each other, AJ and Noah are forced to confront the truth of what happened years ago—and the devastating secret that will send their lives careening apart, even as fate continues to draw them together.

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Natalie’s charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. Until one morning she wakes up and her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity and her children are dirty and strange. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

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The Everygirl Book Club’s January pick, The Compound, is the perfect book to get you out of a slump. This page-turner follows Lily, who wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside 19 other contestants competing on a popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Compound the longest. When the producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily makes it to the end, she’ll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams—but what will she have to do to win?

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In 1965, the world is changing, and Frankie McGrath dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. But war is just the beginning for the veterans. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

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In the early 2000s, young Lily Chen meets Matthew. He is everything Lily is not: easygoing, a native East Coaster and heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily is flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of ex-scientists. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love. In 2021, 15-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can’t shake the sense she’s hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than answers.

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Scarlett, a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, prefers keeping her head down and recovering from her injury. Aquatics golden boy, Lukas thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes. So they start an arrangement. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling, but as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship.

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After finding out her fiancé is in love with his childhood best friend Petra, Daphne is stranded in a small town and living with the only person who could possibly understand her: Petra’s ex, Miles. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan—posting deliberately misleading photos together to get back at their exes. But it’s all just for show, because there’s no way Daphne would fall in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex… right?

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When Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn, she’s immediately mistaken by everyone for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—only now she’s here without her husband, at rock bottom. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster, except for Phoebe, which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

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Clementine has a plan: work hard and find someone to love. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. And then she finds a strange man standing in her late aunt’s apartment. The kind of man that she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future. Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

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For cynical August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her.

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As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, Linus Baker is tasked with traveling to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days. But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. As long-held secrets are exposed, Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

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After Tova’s husband died, she began working at the aquarium. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, especially since her son, Erik, vanished on a boat over 30 years ago. Tova becomes close with Marcellus, a giant octopus living at the aquarium. When Marcellus forms a friendship with Tova, he deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.

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As a witch, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic. She follows the rules…with one exception: an account where she posts videos pretending to be a witch. Then, a message arrives, sending her to Nowhere House to teach young witches. As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a family she didn’t know she was looking for.

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Ryland is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very long time and his crew is dead. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

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Piranesi’s house is not ordinary: its rooms are infinite, and its corridors endless. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides and the pattern of the labyrinth itself.There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

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Michelle Zauner tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school, struggling with her mother’s high expectations of her, and months spent in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond over food. As she grew up, moving for college, working in the restaurant industry, and meeting her husband–her identity began to feel ever more distant. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, that forced a reckoning and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

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After her mother dies in an accident, Bree joins a residential program for bright high schoolers. But on her first night, she witnesses a demon feeding on human energies. A mysterious mage who calls himself a “Merlin” attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory. She’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the secret society, Legendborn, as one of their initiates.

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For 20 years, Sciona has devoted every moment studying to be the first woman admitted to the High Magistry. However, her colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant. But her new assistant was once more than a janitor—Thomil was a hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Together, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first.

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The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job. Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes. Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her.

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In this heartbreaking and hilarious memoir, Jennette McCurdy opens up about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

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