Top Ten Tuesday: Awesome Theme Songs for Brilliant Books

I’ve been looking forward to this week’s Top Ten Tuesday for SO LONG. Because I am cool. This week, The Broke and The Bookish have suggested a theme which incorporates three of my favourite things: books and music. If I write it while eating biscuits, I will be in heaven. I have opted to provide theme songs for some of my favourite YA books and, if I do say so myself, I have done an excellent job.

Book: Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom
Song: Fire Department by Be Your Own Pet

This is a band I really love, and I think the shouty “you can call the goddamn fire department/ That’s the last time I ever let you in” chorus is a perfect match for Parker’s unforgiving attitude to those who wrong her.

Book: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Song: Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC

This would be the perfect accompaniment to one of the big action sequences from Illuminae and I will not let anyone tell me otherwise.

Book: Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill
Song: Rip Her to Shreds by Blondie

I’ve always liked the supremely bitchy idea of this song, although now that I am a grown-up and above this sort of behaviour, I like to think of it as satirical, parodying that stereotypical idea that women just want to bring each other down. In real life, I don’t think this is the case, but it certainly is in Louise O’Neill’s terrifying dystopia.

Book: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Song: Last Hope by Paramore

I’ve mentioned before that the last part of Mockingjay broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces and I think this song goes perfectly with how Katniss develops throughout the trilogy. The lovely quiet bit two thirds of the way through this song, when Hayley Williams sings “And the salt in my wounds isn’t burning anymore than it used to/

It’s not that I don’t feel the pain, it’s just I’m not afraid of hurting anymore,” for me, completely sums up Katniss.

Book: Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Song: Lover, You Should Have Come Over by Jeff Buckley

Look, Simon has a love of Elliott Smith which is discussed at length in the book. I find it unthinkable that he wouldn’t be a fan of Jeff Buckley too. This song, to me, sums up that palpable yearning that Simon has for Blue in the early chapters. It is also basically the most beautiful goddamn song ever written.

Book: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Song: Stop by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Two of the things I loved about Six of Crows were the squad mentality and the thinly veiled air of menace which pervaded the whole book, and nobody does this things better in music than Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I am now completely obsessed with a mental image I have of Kaz, Inez and co swaggering in slow motion, looking moody, with this playing in the background.

Book: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Song: Damn Damn Leash by Be Your Own Pet

I said I loved this band, okay? Also, this song is almost perfect for the collar-related events late in the book. But Damn Damn Collar would be a stupid name for a song.

Book: Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard
Song: The Hunger by The Distillers

When I have had a bad day or am particularly annoyed, this is my go-to song. It starts off in a deceptively yearning style, and then everything goes crazy and Brody Dalle just starts howling. I feel this captures Mare’s rage in a supremely appropriate way and, now that I have made this connection, I actually like Mare more.

Book: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Song: Cold Hard Bitch by Jet

This song could easily apply to the unnecessarily evil female villains in any number of YA fantasy novels (Red Queen, A Court of Thorns and Roses, for example), but I like ADSOM best so I’m using it as a gleefully villainous theme tune for Astrid, who is a genuinely frightening creation.

Book: The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
Song: The Only Way Is Up by Stornaway

This is a bit of a weird one but I completely and utterly love Stornaway’s version of this song and I think the kind-of shrugging, ‘let’s get on with it’ attitude it evinces is ideal for the final part of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, when life goes on despite all the carnage which has happened around the central characters. I just think it fits.

This has been my favourite TTT ever, the end. I’ll be blog-hopping to see what everyone else has come up with too.