Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway (not that one), is having a moment. She’s the main character of the popular 2020 novel Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, adapted as a film directed by Chloé Zhao in 2025. O’Farrell writes Anne (called Agnes in the novel) as a woman with great interiority and depth who occupies a world of nature and magic foreign to that of her workaholic husband.

But before Hamnet centered Shakespeare's wife on screen, she was already making waves on Broadway. Anne Hathaway is a main character in & Juliet, the jukebox musical that starts where Shakespeare’s most classic love story leaves off — with a new ending that Anne herself pitches to her husband. Hamnet fans who loved exploring the world of Shakespeare from a woman’s perspective have the chance to do so again through & Juliet.

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Some of the best books come with sprawling, messy friend group dynamics, and mystery author Lucy Foley is a master of them. In her bestseller The Guest List, she gathers a wedding party on a remote island off the coast of Ireland and lets the simmering tensions work themselves out, employing multiple narrators with differing sympathies that keep readers on their toes.

Gina Gionfriddo’s play Becky Shaw is also interested in the unique tensions among a complex group of people. When newlyweds Suzanna and Andrew try to set up his coworker Becky with her brother Max, complications ensue. What begins as a harmless night brings out more than any of them could have bargained for. The title character is actually inspired by Becky Sharp, the morally gray protagonist of the 19th-century novel Vanity Fair.

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Every Brilliant Thing is the story of one person’s attempt to chronicle everything that makes life worth living in the face of darkness. Though the subject matter is heavy, the experience of the show is ultimately meant to be joyful, as the audience reflects on the beautiful things in their own lives.

The play’s heartfelt handling of mental illness brings to mind Matt Haig’s book The Midnight Library, which earned international acclaim when it was published in 2020. After a suicide attempt, Nora Seed enters a limbo world in the form of a library and goes on a fantastical journey through the different versions of what her life could have been. All the alternate lives she steps into, however, lead her to realize she loved her original life, warts and all.

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Dark academia queen R.F. Kuang’s latest book Katabasis is all about a descent to hell. In fact, the title is literally the Greek word for “a journey to the underworld.” Kuang researched mythology stories from all over the world to craft the novel, which means she must have read the famous Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The long-running musical Hadestown is all about Orpheus, Eurydice, and their own journey to hell, brought to life with stunning Broadway magic. If Katabasis fans were moved by Kuang’s portrayal of hell, they will be captivated by Anaïs Mitchell’s unique, jazzy take on the Greek myth that preceded all other stories of couples braving the underworld together.

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One of the most popular new books of 2025, Samantha Sotto Yambao’s Water Moon takes readers on a cozy fantasy journey into an alternate world that resembles our own. Cheerful, knowing Hana and reluctant, disbelieving Kei make the perfect push-and-pull couple, growing closer the more they rankle each other.

Maybe Happy Ending may be more sci-fi than fantasy, but Water Moon fans can’t help but see the similarities. Oliver and Claire, two retired robots in a near-futuristic Korea, bicker like only enemies-to-lovers can. They break out of their familiar world into one both magical and dangerous to them, and when they come to the end of their journey, they must take a leap of faith neither could have believed possible. It’s the perfect musical for readers who enjoyed Yambao’s book.

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The biggest draw of Moulin Rouge! The Musical — aside from the pop-filled score and the glamorous set to rival the movie it’s based on — is the forbidden romance between Christian and Satine. Romance readers know this trope well. It's part of the success of Ali Hazelwood’s romantasy book Bride, about a vampire who reluctantly enters a tense political marriage with a werewolf, her kind’s mortal enemy.

Though Moulin Rouge! isn't a fantasy story, there’s plenty of common ground between the novel and the Broadway musical for romance lovers. Both Satine and Misery swear they would never fall for someone like Christian or Lowe, setting up their inevitable chemistry. It’s only a matter of time until their connection, obvious to us, becomes undeniable to them.

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Since its publication over 30 years ago, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History has cemented itself as one of the foremost novels in the dark academia genre. The book is characterized by its university setting, its tragic arc, and its highly unreliable narrator, Richard Papen, who idolizes his classics professor and his elite, handpicked group of classmates.

Though Proof may not be dark academia, per se, the play is full of similar themes that may attract Secret History fans. The new revival of this Tony- and Pulitzer-winning play features Don Cheadle and Ayo Edebiri in their Broadway debuts as father and daughter. Cheadle plays Robert, a brilliant mathematician whose death puts a weight on his daughter Catherine (Edebiri) to prove herself, making her something of an unreliable narrator to the friends and family who check up on her.

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James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, one of the most popular books of 2023, is set in Chicken Hill, a bygone neighborhood of mostly Black and Jewish residents in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. McBride’s book explores how these two communities shared the common ground of their oppression by white people despite their differences.

The 1975 musical Ragtime deals with strikingly similar themes. Ragtime centers a Black pianist from Harlem, a Latvian Jewish immigrant on the Lower East Side, and a wealthy white matriarch from New Rochelle. Their lives collide in seismic ways, lining up with major historical events and figures from the turn of the 20th century.

If you like the Ragtime musical, you can also read its source material: E. L. Doctorow's same-named 1975 book.

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Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods is a slow-burn mystery, told from the perspective of a remote summer camp's workers in the days after a teenage girl goes missing in 1975. Moore’s setup exposes the tricky social dynamics around the wealthy Van Laar family, the summer camp kids, and the local town residents are often relegated to the sidelines by the needs and wants of the upper class.

Readers who are drawn to haunted teens, small-town intrigue, and a slowly unraveling mystery in a period setting are the perfect audience for Stranger Things: The First Shadow. This prequel to the popular Netflix series, set in 1950, earned critical acclaim and numerous awards for its special effects, and you don't need prior Stranger Things knowledge to enjoy the play.

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Tayari Jones’ most recent novel, Kin, has been topping bestseller lists since it was released earlier this year, but readers may already know her from her previous hit, An American Marriage. Deeply personal and unfathomably sad, the book follows a young couple separated by the unjust carceral system. When Roy is arrested for an assault he didn’t commit, his life is forever changed by a stay in prison that never should have happened.

The Fear of 13, starring Adrien Brody and Tessa Thompson, follows a similar story. Lindsey Ferrentino’s play is based on the life of Nick Yarris, a Pennsylvania man who served 22 years on death row before a DNA test exonerated him. Yarris’s wrongful conviction is another tale of heartbreak, despite his eventual release, and the show is adapted from his memoir and a documentary of the same name.

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Grady Hendrix’s sharp, funny prose mixed and enticingly chilling concepts have made his novels a staple for any horror lover. In How to Sell a Haunted House, readers praised his laugh-out-loud writing and his willingness to get ridiculous, which just feels right for a plot involving creepy haunted puppets.

The Rocky Horror Show could be considered the ancestor of all campy horror that exists today. Written by Richard O’Brien to satirize the sci-fi and B-horror movies of the 1950s, it rocketed into cult classic status thanks, in part, to its immortalization in the 1975 film adaptation. The musical's star-studded new Broadway revival is sure to appeal to Grady Hendrix fans, horror comedy fans, and old and new audiences alike.

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Emily Henry has taken over the romance genre in recent years. Her book Funny Story is no exception — it was voted the top romance book of 2024 on Goodreads. Funny Story follows a pair of opposites, Daphne and Miles, in an unlikely situation who grow to appreciate that they just might be what the other one needs.

For readers looking for a sweet, opposites-attract love story on stage, look no further than Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). In this Broadway musical, easygoing Brit Dougal crosses paths with no-nonsense Robin, a New Yorker who’s got places to be. Like Henry’s books, Two Strangers has all the makings of a good rom-com, with catchy songs to boot. And isn’t all romance made better by a little song and dance?

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Readers devoured the latest installment of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games saga when it was released in 2025. This prequel tells the story of Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss Everdeen’s mentor, who was forced to participate in the Hunger Games 25 years before the events of the main series.

In Sunrise on the Reaping, the Hunger Games are a flimsy screen for a larger political game within the nation of Panem. It’s not too different from the way the Americans and Soviets use the game of chess as a political standoff in the Broadway musical Chess, set during the Cold War. Like Haymitch, Chess’s Anatoly (Nicholas Christopher), Freddie (Aaron Tveit), and Florence (Lea Michele) are all fighting against the manipulations of the state. There are games, sure, but the action is all in the political intrigue swirling around the players.

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Liann Zhang’s debut novel, Julie Chan Is Dead, became an international bestseller and made NPR’s “Books We Love” list in 2025. The story follows Julie Chan, a down-on-her luck cashier who finds her estranged influencer twin dead and decides to step into her life. In ditching her paycheck-to-paycheck grind, Julie chases the modern American dream: one filled with minimal work, Manhattan high-rises, more free products than anyone could ever use.

But as Julie discovers, the American dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a lesson each generation must re-learn, as Arthur Miller knew when he wrote the now-classic Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman is buried under the weight of expectation, spinning lies and exaggerations to make it seem like he’s living the dream while becoming more and more detached from reality.