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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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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Opening on Broadway in March, Every Brilliant Thing is the story of one person’s (played by Daniel Radcliffe) 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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No one could have anticipated a French book first published in 1995 to be one of the most viral literary trends of the last couple years. But the English translation of Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men has taken the world by storm.

Harpman’s novel follows a young girl raised in captivity with 39 adult women. While Bess Wohl’s Liberation isn’t dystopian, the 1970s setting may be just as alien to those who don’t remember the days before women could legally divorce their husbands or manage their own money. And like I Who Have Never Known Men, Liberation is sure to leave viewers with lingering questions: How have we come so far only to fight the same fights as our foremothers?

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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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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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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?

Get Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) tickets now.