Jason Dessen is a perfectly ordinary physics professor living a perfectly ordinary life in Chicago, which in thriller terms means he is about three pages away from everything going catastrophically wrong.

One night, Jason is kidnapped by a man wearing a creepy mask. Jason wakes up to discover that reality has hit shuffle. He’s no longer a mild-mannered professor; instead, he’s a world-famous physicist who invented a miraculous device known as “the Box”, which can access alternate universes. As Jason tumbles through realities—many of them lethal—he learns an important lesson: the multiverse is infinite, but most versions of Chicago end badly for you. Also, running while confused is a surprisingly transferable skill across universes.

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In case you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a bunch of extremely rich people made consistently terrible decisions while dressed impeccably, The Great Gatsby has you covered: a story about love, wealth, illusions, and the dangers of throwing parties for people who won’t even stay to help clean up.

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Ferriss opens his bestseller with a seductive premise: escape the 9 to 5 grind, join the “New Rich,” and redesign your life so you work less and live more. Naturally, this is extremely appealing to anyone who has ever stared at a spreadsheet and wondered if pigeons have a better work-life balance. His tone is confident—borderline smug—but in a way that makes you think, “Annoying… but what if he’s right?”

The book is structured like a productivity boot camp mixed with a travel brochure for your dream life. Ferriss introduces the DEAL framework (Definition, Elimination, Automation, Liberation), which sounds less like a philosophy and more like a suspiciously aggressive board game.

Still, the book succeeds in what it arguably sets out to do: it makes you question everything. Why do we work the way we do? Why do we equate busyness with importance? And most importantly, why are we answering emails at 10:47 p.m. like it’s a moral obligation?

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June Hayward is a struggling writer whose career has the structural integrity of a damp tissue. Rather fortunately, she happens to be with Athena Liu — literary darling, national treasure, and human embodiment of “effortlessly excellent” — on the night Athena dies in a freak accident involving pancakes. June mourns appropriately for approximately three seconds before noticing Athena’s freshly completed manuscript sitting on the desk like a gift from the Career Fairy. June takes it, because of course she does, and embarks on a new literary career as Juniper Song.

By the end, June has lost her career, her reputation, and her grip on reality, but she still thinks she’s the real victim — which, honestly, is the most accurate depiction of online discourse ever written.

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Lord of the Flies is what happens when you give a group of schoolboys freedom, no supervision, and zero Wi-Fi. When a plane crashes on a deserted island, stranding a bunch of British boys who were presumably on their way somewhere with proper adult oversight and tea. Miraculously, no grown-ups survive. Tragically, the boys do.

They build shelters (badly), maintain a signal fire (inconsistently), and reassure the littluns that the mysterious “beast” on the island probably isn’t real. But things spiral fast, and when they do, the schoolchild in the boys rapidly disappears.

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Oliver Twist is the story of what happens when a very small boy makes the catastrophic error of politely asking for more food. Sweet, polite, and apparently terrifying to the adults in charge of the workhouse, they react to his request as though he’s asked for the moon, the stars, and a side of pudding.

So starts his unplanned adventure which sees him stroll to London, get arrested, rescued, kidnapped again (London was wild back then), accidentally shot (a bit inconvenient), and swept up into a cast of characters who range from “unexpectedly kind” to “could use a hug and perhaps a sunny holiday.”

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Eat, Pray, Love is the story of what happens when you have a perfectly respectable life on paper and decide instead to have an existential crisis with a passport.

Freshly divorced and spiritually singed, Elizabeth does what many of us consider daily but rarely commit to: she sells her belongings and embarks on a year-long journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia. Some people buy new bedding after a breakup. Elizabeth buys three international plane tickets. Exactly the kind of plan you come up with when you’re both catastrophically heartbroken and holding an advance from your publisher.

The book is part memoir, part travelogue, part spiritual scavenger hunt, and part reminder that sometimes the best way to find yourself is to pack a suitcase and hope the universe knows what it’s doing. If it does, you too might get a bestseller out of it.

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The Secret History is what happens when a normal college student accidentally enrolls in Advanced Pretentious Chaos with a minor in Murder.

At first, everything seems idyllic for our small clique of students: they read ancient texts, drink expensive liquor, and behave like philosophy majors who’ve never heard the word “consequence.” Then they take their classical studies a little too seriously. In an attempt to recreate a Dionysian ritual – because apparently normal extracurriculars were just too mainstream – they accidentally kill a farmer.

Enter Bunny, who discovers the secret and decides blackmail pairs beautifully with free lunches. The group’s anxiety escalates from “this is bad” to “we absolutely cannot live like this,” and they arrive at the most reasonable conclusion possible under pressure: Bunny has got to go…

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Jack Torrance, a writer with anger issues, brings his family to his winter caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, a place with more ominous vibes than a clown convention held at midnight. Fortunately, the hotel chef notices Jack’s son Danny has psychic ability – “the shining” – and casually warns him that the Overlook is full of bad leftover energy, but that he should just… avoid the scary bits. Unfortunately for them all, the hotel has other plans – specifically, nudging Jack little by little toward “unhinged homicidal maniac.”

What follows is a spectacularly stressful game of hide-and-seek through the hotel, and an inter-family “argument” of ginormous and terrifying proportions.

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Our 4-minute Unserious Book Review of Gone Girl, where Nick and Amy Dunne’s marriage is the literary equivalent of a beautifully wrapped present that turns out to contain a live scorpion wearing a party hat.

At first glance, they’re the perfect couple: witty, attractive, and smug in that way only fictional New Yorkers can truly master. But once they move to Missouri – where dreams go to take a long nap – things unravel faster than a cheap jumper in a tumble dryer. Before Amy goes on a road trip of vengeance, armed with a wig, a fake identity, and the kind of meticulous planning that would make CIA recruitment come running. And then there’s her ex, Desi Collings…

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