5 Books to Read Before You See the Movies This Fall

We know you’ve been busy with your beach reads this summer, but you have some more work to do, if you're the type of lady who likes to read the book before seeing the movie. Namely, check out these five fantastic novels which are getting their film adaptation release this fall. 

We all have that artist who opened our eyes and ears to the power of music (if yours was Britney, we support that). For journalist and author Sarfraz Manzoor, it was Bruce Springsteen. Manzoor recounted his coming-of-age alongside the Boss’s music in his 2007 memoir, Greetings from Bury Park, and he co-wrote the movie’s script inspired by his own life story. Javed (Viveik Kalra) struggles to navigate racism as the son of Pakistani immigrants living in England, but Springsteen’s music begins to inspire his own creative aspirations. Manzoor’s story is worth the read and will enlighten your movie-watching experience even further.

In the first It movie, a group of children is terrorized by Pennywise, a psycho clown who exploits their fears and phobias, based on Stephen King’s terrifying 1986 novel. Cool, cool. This sequel—also based on the 1986 book—is set decades later, as the characters come back together when Pennywise returns to their hometown in Maine. Read the book first, if only to have some idea of what happens before you spill your popcorn all over yourself in the theater. 

Donna Tartt’s 2013 novel, often referred to as a Dickensian masterpiece, is about Theo Decker, a young orphan struggling to make his way in a cruel world when he gets involved in the world of art forgery. Read the book because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and see the movie to watch Ansel Elgort, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson and more bring Tartt’s vividly drawn characters to life on the big screen. 

Based on title alone, you might be expecting a Bugs Bunny–esque whimsical cartoon—but the film actually goes to a much darker place, and the source material is a nonnegotiable must-read. Christine Leunens’s 2004 novel, Caging Skies, is about a young boy named Johannes (newcomer Roman Griffin Davis), growing up in the Hitler Youth program. At the same time, his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl in their house, changing the family forever. And did we mention Johannes’s imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi, also the film’s writer and director)? Yeah, this one is heavy, for sure, but it also blends satire with dark comedy to examine humanity at its worst. Add to cart, ASAP.