The 8 Great Books Getting Us Through Vaccine FOMO in April

Here at Glamour, our vaccine FOMO goes something like this: If you’re feeling hopeless, buy a book. If you’re feeling ecstatic, buy a book. If you are bored and have started hearing the word AstraZeneca in your dreams, buy six or seven books. What’s the worst that can happen—you support a writer? You give your future self a gift? God forbid, you enter a hidden dimension of emotion and experience that quietly rewrites the script of your existence. 

This is how we rationalize filling our homes with every new candy-colored hardback, every jewel-like debut novel, and certainly every single book Reese Witherspoon has ever recommended. These stories beckon our weary, screen-strained brains to venture into the seedy nightlife of London and Manhattan, the small-town love of a young schoolteacher and an older man, and the comforting glow of an Asian supermarket. It’s almost a cliché that stories help us travel while in the comfort of our own homes. These books help us forget that so-close-but-so-far vaccine FOMO feeling and access a sense of joy and wonder. 

These are Glamour’s picks for the best books in April—each one is so good that for the first time since spring 2020, you’ll want to slow down time.