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Five Signs You Might Be Crushing on a Book

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Five Signs You Might Be Crushing on a Book

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Five Signs You Might Be Crushing on a Book

Book crushes come in many forms, nearly as many as IRL crushes.

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Published on February 13, 2025

Photo: Lucas George Wendt [via Unsplash]

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Photo: Lucas George Wendt [via Unsplash]

Have you ever developed a crush… on a book itself? Was the experience of reading itself enough to make you giggly, lightheaded, short of breath, flushed, self-conscious but also delighted? Feeling like you’d tapped in to some story that felt impossibly tailored for you, hitting all your narrative buttons? That you then denied all “psh! it can’t be!” even as you tried to play it off like you weren’t hanging on every word on every page you couldn’t turn fast enough?

Book crushes come in many forms, nearly as many as IRL crushes. These are just a few, but perhaps you’ll find something familiar in the reading experiences described…

Infatuation

Y: The Last Man wasn’t my first book crush—that honor goes to Alanna: The First Adventure, when I was nine—but it was the first one where I realized what was happening in real time. I was 21, whiling away my summer working at the Bodies Exhibition at New York City’s South Street Seaport, and I needed some reading material for the slow periods. I picked up the first trade of Y, and within minutes I had to put it back down, my heart racing. Something about it hit too close to home: the premise was completely in my wheelhouse, the kind of what-if that I’d pondered but never dared to try and write; Yorick and 355 and Beth and Hero talked like my friends and I did; every female character was a different shade of witty or badass in all the ways I wished I could be. The story was cinematic, the stakes heartstring-tugging, and I was half-convinced this was some elaborate punking, that Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra were inexplicably paid to write and draw the story that I didn’t realize I craved, as both a reader and a writer.

It was that first flush of infatuation, yes, but it was also “I feel seen.” I couldn’t get enough; I tried to ration out the other nine trades based on the rest of the summer and my meager paychecks, but it was a losing battle. I was a goner ever since that first panel hit me like Cupid’s arrow.

Book-Throwing Passion

Lots of people have their “the one book I threw across the room,” which can be prompted by anything from a frustrating cliffhanger to bad characterization to problematic content. Or, perhaps, inarticulate delight.

I’ve written about how I can’t get enough of getting fooled by Megan Whalen Turner’s maddeningly brilliant thief Eugenides, but that doesn’t mean that I go along quietly each time it happens. There has been at least one moment in every book from The Queen’s Thief series that, upon learning the latest clever bit of narrative misdirection, I will slam the book onto my lap, sit up on the couch, and yell something akin to “THEY FUCKING GOT ME AGAIN.” Think of it as the book equivalent to the passionate slap in a romantic comedy—I just love it so freaking much that I’m angry about it, and nothing will fix it but pulling the book back up to cover my face and read furiously, or page back through a key scene to go over it with fresh eyes. Sometimes I have to shove the book aside like I can’t even look at it, pace the room, talk aloud to my confused pup about how I could have missed the mention of the secret passageway or thrown inkwell, and eventually sigh and succumb to finishing the book knowing that Gen’s plan worked.

But Is There Fanfic?

Connie Willis’ Crosstalk was one of those books I looked forward to from the moment I knew about its existence, namely for the screwball comedy premise of being able to read people’s thoughts. A spec-fic rom-com in the style of Nora Ephron? Cue the heart-eyes.

The only wrinkle was, a book so cognizant of tropes had one glaringly obvious one smack in the middle of its own text: Heroine Briddey’s boyfriend Trent, who suggests they get this experimental procedure that will allow them to connect telepathically, is so clearly a jerk from the start. The fact that Briddey can’t hear Trent’s thoughts, but seems instead to be on the same frequency with her grumpy, nerdy coworker C.B. Schwartz, only makes it more obvious. Hallmark and Lifetime have taught us to recognize the formula: Trent is clearly the ill-fitting partner who seems to get her but really doesn’t, and perhaps even has bad intentions for their relationship; it’s not a question of if he’ll lose out to the story’s true romantic hero, but when.

The lack of any redeeming qualities for Trent made it a tad difficult to appreciate any plot tension in Crosstalk—but in terms of romantic tension? Wowee. With Briddey and C.B. dancing around inside each other’s heads, with him mentally and sometimes physically comforting her with his teachings on how to build a fortress in her mind, I was flipping pages and yelling “KISS ALREADY!” The moment I finished the book, with the romantic tension barely resolved and if anything even more stoked, there was only one place I could go: Archive of Our Own. I had to know if someone else was as emotionally frustrated by Briddey and C.B.’s slow burn and if they had thrown a match on it.

At the time, mere days after the book’s publication, of course the answer was no. But in the two years since, there are a grand total of… three Crosstalk fanfics! Bless this little fandom, which exemplifies the ideal situation where the source material leaves you wanting more—and then you go and write the next chapter.

Tunnel Vision

My husband and I decided to plan our honeymoon for about a year after our wedding, to put some time between this giant party we had thrown and a nice relaxing trip to look forward to once we were past the first heady months of being newlyweds. It so happened that in addition to looking forward to our Spain trip, I also had a new Megan Abbott thriller to count down the days to: Give Me Your Hand, a typically twisty and disturbed novel about two female scientists with a bloody history jockeying for the “one girl spot” in a study on premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMS that makes you kill. Despite being announced at least six months ahead of publication, there were no excerpts to be had, and no way for this sci-fi/fantasy reviewer to get her hands on an ARC. So, I preordered… for the last day of our honeymoon. While we were checking out of our Barcelona Airbnb and beginning the long slog to the airport for twelve hours of travel, I had my nose buried in my ereader and the opening pages of Give Me Your Hand. It took all my self-control to wait until we had lifted off to actually read—then I squeezed my husband’s hand, said, “What a dream honeymoon,” and ignored him for the rest of our flight.

I inhaled Give Me Your Hand in four hours, curled into the same position in my cramped seat. I probably got up to use the bathroom at some point but I’m sure I took the book with me. I read it so fast that I gasped at the first twist I had somewhat guessed but didn’t think she’d actually do, gasped at the secondary twist that recontextualized the entire novel, reached the end… then realized I had read so fast that some of the details didn’t stick, and had to turn around and start over from the last third.

I’m Not Worthy

Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire was the hardest to pin down, because it’s a mix of multiple book-crush styles. First there was the initial intimidation of the opening lines—trying to ascertain the premise of this alien universe while my eyes kept tripping back and forth over the poetry of “here is the grand sweep of civilization’s paw, stretched against the black between the stars…” I was ready to proclaim this book too smart for me, or to put it aside and try again another day, when I found myself adjusting to the cadence of the omniscient third-person narrator, cataloguing the unfamiliar words that were the (world)building blocks of the Teixcalaanli empire—and, most shockingly, recognizing myself in these humans who had evolved lightyears beyond my world.

What started as the expectation of being dazzled by a space opera bearing no resemblance to anything in the present instead became the oddest connection across space and time—to Mahit Dzmare’s loving memorization of Teixcalaanli poetry, to Three Seagrass’ balancing act between professional ambition and personal creativity, even to Thirty-Six All-Terrain Tundra Vehicle’s gauche self-naming. These supposed aliens were people… and while I was realizing this, Martine was weaving a political epic that was thrilling from its quietest moments to its bloodiest. It’s the kind of writing that makes me feel raised up as a reader and like I’m not worthy enough as a writer. I can’t stop bringing this book into conversations, the way you might shoehorn in a mention of someone who gets your heart racing, even when they have absolutely no connection to the matter at hand. I want every person to have my experience with this book, or something entirely different—but above all I want them to read it, so we can find each other, clasp hands, and squeal over our book crush together.


If you’ve experienced any/all of these, then congratulations, you’ve got a book crush! Now—I told you mine, you tell me yours. icon-paragraph-end

An earlier version of this article was fist published in February 2019.

About the Author

Natalie Zutter

Author

Natalie Zutter is a writer and pop culture critic based in Brooklyn. In addition to her work at Reactor, she writes about SFF for Lit Hub and NPR Books as well as contemporary romance and thrillers for Paste Books. Find her on Bluesky, Instagram, and Twitter.
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1 year ago

It only just now occurs to me it is good I can’t put together “five books I read on my honeymoon” or I’d be even more divorced than I am now. All I read was Nor Crystal Tears.

(Less a demonstration of a rudimentary grasp that I should pay attention to my then-wife and more reflection that Niagara Falls had a terrible lack of bookstores. That relationship’s doom may have been overdetermined)

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Amber D
1 year ago

I absolutely love this article!

Biggest book crush I’ve ever had was The Rook by Daniel O’Malley. Omigosh I fell into the obsessive kind of crush where I couldn’t think about anything else. Anything that wasn’t Myfanwy Thomas and the world of the Checquy was an absolute bother. I dreamed about it. I woke up thinking about it. It’s the book that I use to check compatibility with people – I give them the book and tell them that if they like it, they’ll probably like me.

I’ve reread it about seven times now and it never fails to fascinate and consume me, so I suppose we’ve moved beyond the crush stage. We’re in luuuuuurrrrrrve.

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1 year ago
Reply to  Amber D

And OMG- the second book, Stiletto!! Still in love with Myfanwy and hate the Grafters more than a little, even though I kinda also like them now.

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1 year ago

While I’ve crushed on many, many books over the years (including Martine’s brilliant A Memory Called Empire), my hardest and most immediate book crush came 15 years ago with Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. From the gaucheness of the teenage main character choosing to listen to Led Zep’s Houses of the Holy in Saint-Saveur Cathedral, to the archaeological sites I am familiar with, to the sweet cross-over moments with old Fionavar friends: this was the only book I have ever immediately reread upon completion. Kay smashed my buttons.

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1 year ago

Another category might be the “Feels like it was made just for me” category, where a book feels extremely special in a really personal way that might be kind of inexplicable. For me, “Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke felt extremely personal in a way that is hard to describe. Like, I felt like it was somehow exactly the book for me even though I didn’t know beforehand that I wanted to read a book like that. I don’t even recommend it that often because it is odd and I don’t want someone to read it and not like it. I feel protective of it.

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1 year ago

I am totally crushing on all the books by Katherine Addison- I have them on my ereader, so I can read with the lights off and fall asleep to them. The Goblin Emperor is great, but hoo boy! wait til you get inside Thara Celehar’s head in the next 2 books!

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1 year ago
Reply to  sue a

Oh my gosh yes!

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K Cyr
1 year ago

I mean, every couple of years I come back to One Piece, which a series of comic books about a found family of orphans and feral teens off on adventures saving each other again and again as they quest for the treasure of the One Piece. I adore that it’s so long (over 1000 chapters now), but every time I catch back up I just sit there grieving for the lack of new content. It’s one of the few series that I gasp aloud and cry over and cackle and just express vocally every twist and turn. I love these dorks so, so much.

Also, since somebody brought up the Memory Called Empire books, I can’t help but mention my current crush on C.J. Cherryh’s series that preceded them. I’m rereading the first book, Foreigner, and I love this human translator for an alien species so much you guys. I’ve been carrying my little brick of a paperback everywhere I go and reading snatches whenever I can, even if it has to happen while I’m actively walking from one place to another. I read Martine’s duology a few years ago and all it made me think of was that I wanted to reread the Foreigner books again. I mean no insult, I just see people talking the series up and have to mention the inimitable Bren Cameron, translator for the Atevi, and his wild adventures as sole human translator between his tiny island of humans and the Atevi native to the planet these humans crash landed on some decades previous. It’s a deeper dive tens of books long into this concept of a translator for two radically different cultures and it doesn’t get talked about enough.

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1 year ago

Oh! Oh! Here’s one! Back in 2011 I was part of the jury for the Otherwise (at the time, known as the Tiptree). 2011 in general had a lot of very grim books and it seemed like the works submitted for the award were among the grimmest. So when Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens came in, a comedy, I fell on it with bleats of glee.

In retrospect it had a couple of hundred deaths plus there was the girl who spent most of the book with a dinner tray stuck in her head. Nevertheless, by comparison it was a ray of sunshine.

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1 year ago

My favorite reread author is Jack Vance, with the 5 Demon Princes books and 4 book Tschai cycle, concluding in The Pnume as absolute life companions.
The world building is sublime, the characters not to complex, but really sympathetic, and Adam Reith finally gets his girl, i can reread it although, or maybe because i know what will happen ;-)

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Dan in Seattle
2 months ago

Two ‘throw the book across the room’ moments, one from genre, one not.

China Mieville set up the operating rules in ‘The City and The City’ so well, so believably, that when a mysterious character suddenly and violently breaks the fundamental tenet of those rules, I was agape. As in, my mouth hung open. As in, “You SOB, you got me”. If you’ve read the book, you know the moment I mean.

In ‘Lonesome Dove’, somewhere in the middle of the book Larry McMurtry suddenly and without any foreshadowing kills off a beloved and integral character. I REALLY wanted to throw the book across the room: “You can’t kill him!” You SOB, you made your point about how unexpectedly and randomly violence occurred in the old West. Again, if you’ve read the book, you’ll know the moment and who I mean.

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Dan in Seattle
2 months ago

I don’t have a ‘books I read on my honeymoon’ story, but I love to tell the genre-related movie story.

In May 1977 Star Wars was the unexpected breakout hit. In those Ancient Days a movie played in only one theater in a city (no multiplexes). There were literally lines around the block waiting for showings, you couldn’t buy tickets in advance. We dearly wanted to see it but were both in school and working to pay for it, and couldn’t spend half a day on a movie. So we decided to wait until September when the crowds would die down. (In those Ancient Days a movie would stay in a theater until it stopped drawing audiences, for as long as a year).

We got married in mid-July. Honeymooned on the Washington State coast, where it was of course raining, so we went into the nearest small city, Astoria in Oregon, and drove around. And there, on a Saturday afternoon, was the Liberty Theater with ‘Star Wars’ on the marquee – and no lines. I turned to my wife and said “do you want to see a movie?” “Hell, yeah.” The perfect Saturday afternoon popcorn movie.

When we returned everyone asked us “How was the honeymoon (wink wink nudge nudge)?”

“It was great!” we exclaimed. “We saw Star Wars!”

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