Every year, I love highlighting a good YA earworm title. It’s a book title that either shares its exact name with a familiar song or a title that is so close to the title or chorus of a well-known bop that it gets stuck in your head each time you read the title. There were quite a few in the fall last year when I rounded up 2021 titles, but in the months since, even more 2021 YA book titles that are earworms have popped up.
Add these four YA books to your TBR/TBLT — that’s “to be listened to” — lists and enjoy a soundtrack to your reading life. Descriptions of the books come from Goodreads. Apologies in advance if you’re singing some of these for the next several days.
If you know of other 2021 titles that aren’t on this list or the linked list above, drop ’em below. Stick to this year’s, as I’m in the midst of compiling 2022’s for a late fall post.
Even More 2021 YA Book Titles That Are Song Titles
All The Lonely People by Jen Marie Hawkins
Let’s start it off with the Beatles, shall we? I saw this book cover while perusing 2021 releases and have now been singing “Eleanor Rigby” nonstop. The book is about a love for the Beatles and the grave of Eleanor Rigby, so the title is a perfect fit.
Book Description: When 17-year-old Jo Bryant lost her father three years ago, he began appearing to her in dreams, beckoning her to the grave of Eleanor Rigby. This isn’t the weird part, since he was the lead singer of an internationally acclaimed Beatles cover band. What’s weird is that she’s almost certain he isn’t really dead. Jo has long wondered about her father’s past and his mysterious death in a London hotel, but she can’t shake the feeling that something’s being kept from her. So when her mother offers to do a “kid swap” with a London friend, Jo leaps at the opportunity to go overseas for the summer, under the pretext of scoping out colleges.
Once in London, Jo meets Henry, a broody, Beatles-hating photographer who understands what it’s like to lose a parent. He gets on her last nerve, but he’s into an intriguing mix of quantum physics and pseudoscience. Soon, Jo realizes that Henry might have the key to finding her father. Armed with an atlas of Britain’s supernatural ley lines and a tenuous friendship, Jo and Henry set out to follow a breadcrumb trail to the grave, which just so happens to sit on one of the most powerful ley lines in Liverpool. But Henry’s family has dark secrets of their own, and the truths they must unravel could destroy who they thought their parents were, and what they’ve grown to mean to each other.
Spells Like Teen Spirit by Kate Williams
The third book in Williams’s “The Babysitter’s Coven” series, about witchy babysitters saving the world from evil before bedtime, is a fun play on the classic Nirvana jam. What maybe I love most is this series has had very ’90s covers to them, so the homage here only adds to the nostalgic, off-beat angle.
Book Description: Ever since Esme met Cassandra Heaven and discovered the truth about their shared legacy–that they’re Sitters, supernaturally-gifted teens tasked with protecting the innocent from evil–her life has been moving at 90 mph. During the day, she chases wild toddlers, and at night, she employs a different skill set for a different kind of demon. Like, literal ones. And sometimes, it’s almost fun. Her spells are getting better, her telekinesis is on point, and now that Esme’s dad and her best friend Janis know the truth, she’s no longer lying to the people she loves. She’s also learned that there’s a way to undo her mother’s curse, and with the Synod out of the picture, she might even have a chance to do it.
If she could just figure out how. But she can’t, and even with her mom living at home again, Esme can’t shake the feeling that she’s failing. Throw in the fact that Pig is still gone, Esme’s crush is also MIA, and that it’s cold, slushy February, and she’s in bummer city.
Esme needs a serious pick-me-up, and Janis has a plan: a Galentine’s stay-cation, with the Sitter friends Esme and Cassandra made at the Summit for a serious girls weekend. Except, things are getting weird in Spring River again. Esme and Cassandra just discovered a new band, and not in a good way: these guys reek of Red Magic, and their music sucks too. Trouble is brewing, and if Esme’s not careful, this show might be her last–and no one likes a one-hit wonder.
Spin Me Right Round by David Valdez
Without question, the title of Valdez’s book gets the song in my head immediately. But in addition to the song, I get images from the film The Wedding Singer going, too.
The book isn’t about that movie or the timeframe of that film. Instead, it’s set in the 80s and is a twist on Back to the Future.
Please marvel at this music video. It’s just….80s-tastic.
Book Description: From lauded writer David Valdes, a sharp and funny YA novel that’s Back to the Future with a twist, as a gay teen travels back to his parents’ era to save a closeted classmate’s life.
All Luis Gonzalez wants is to go to prom with his boyfriend, something his “progressive” school still doesn’t allow. Not after what happened with Chaz Wilson. But that was ages ago, when Luis’s parents were in high school; it would never happen today, right? He’s determined to find a way to give his LGBTQ friends the respect they deserve (while also not risking his chance to be prom king, just saying…).
When a hit on the head knocks him back in time to 1985 and he meets the doomed young Chaz himself, Luis concocts a new plan-he’s going to give this guy his first real kiss. Though it turns out a conservative school in the ’80s isn’t the safest place to be a gay kid. Especially with homophobes running the campus, including Gordo (aka Luis’s estranged father). Luis is in over his head, trying not to make things worse-and hoping he makes it back to present day at all.
In a story that’s fresh, intersectional, and wickedly funny, David Valdes introduces a big-mouthed, big-hearted queer character that readers won’t soon forget.
We Can Be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley
“We Can Be Heroes” is the name of the podcast that plays a prominent role in McCauley’s sophomore novel. I don’t know from the description whether or not it’s an allusion to David Bowie and given the story’s heavy themes, about a group of girls trying to solve a mystery, and the genre braiding, I suspect it is. It makes sense once you see the music video.
Book Description: “Welcome to Bell, proud home of Bell Firearms for two hundred years, and where five months ago, the teen heir to the Bell fortune took his father’s guns to school and killed his ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Queen.” —WE CAN BE HEROES PODCAST
Beck and Vivian never could stand each other, but they always tried their best for their mutual friend, Cassie. After the town moves on from Cassie’s murder too fast, Beck and Vivian finally find common ground: vengeance. They memorialize Cassie by secretly painting murals of her around town, a message to the world that Cassie won’t be forgotten. But Beck and Vivian are keeping secrets, like the third passenger riding in Beck’s VW bus with them—Cassie’s ghost.
When their murals catch the attention of a podcaster covering Cassie’s case, they become the catalyst for a debate that Bell Firearms can no longer ignore. With law enforcement closing in on them, Beck and Vivian hurry to give Cassie the closure she needs—by delivering justice to those responsible for her death.