Feature: The Maine x YA Reads

I began blogging when I was 18, first joining LiveJournal and sharing general thoughts. Much of my blogging revolved around what music I was listening to or what concerts I went to. Later, I blogged solely about music. Sometimes I miss it. When I first listened to You are Ok, the latest album by The Maine, it made me feel A LOT of things. I mean, every listen still makes me feel a lot of things. I listen to the album when I’m running. When I’m driving, with the windows down. When I’m feeling sad. Or happy. There’s literally something for everyone here. It also reminded me of some of my favorite reads, so I decided to pair each track with a book that made me feel the way the song did. Sometimes it’s the music, sometimes it’s the lyrics. I knew immediately that I wanted to pair the ending track, Flowers on the Grave, with The Serpent King. Every single lyric in that song is applicable to the book (from my lens) – but so is the musical tone. Check them out below!

You are Ok & Matching YA Reads

Track 1: Slip the Noose

Featured lyrics: I was on the verge of breaking down
Then you came around
And not a second too late

YA Read: Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer

Track 2: My Best Habit

Featured lyrics: To begin, I’m not sorry
For myself or any part of me
I won’t beg on your pardon, you see

YA Read: Ignite the Stars by Maura Milan

Track 3: Numb Without You

Featured lyrics: You are the violence in my veins
You are the war inside my brain
You are my glitter and my gloom
I am so numb without you

YA Read: Even If I Fall by Abigail Johnson

Track 4: I Feel It All Over

Featured lyrics: (Feel it all over)
All the pretty faces in love and wide awake
Tonight I feel so make-believe
(Feel it all over)
Chances worth the taking just a touch away
Do you believe what you can’t see?
(Feel it all over)

YA Read: What You Left Me by Bridget Morrissey

Track 5: Heaven, We’re Already Here

Featured lyrics: So alive, we could die
As we drive all night in the afterlife
Through and through, by and by
Everything I love is right here tonight

YA Read: Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith

Track 6: Forevermore

Featured lyrics: I never really, really ever felt so adored before
Never really ever felt this type of vulnerable
Don’t have to hide, don’t have to fear
All you have to be is here
And never really, really ever felt so adored before

YA Read: Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

Track 7: Tears Won’t Cry (SHINJU)

Featured lyrics: In a mystic place where tears won’t cry
We’ll borrow happiness just for the night
Where all our tears won’t cry
Oh, and nothing can hurt you

YA Read: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Track 8: One Sunset

Featured lyrics: One sunset left in England
So go on then, trouble
One sunset ’til I see her
In her red sundress

YA Read: The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

Track 9: Broken Parts

Featured lyrics: Fractured in fragments
Us fragile things
Falling to pieces
But we’re all the same broken
Fractions and halves of
Some greater thing
Falling to pieces
But we’re all the same broken parts

YA Read: A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti

Track 10: Flowers on the Grave

Featured lyrics: ‘Cause you don’t plan life, you live it
You don’t take love, you give it
You can’t change what is written
So when fate cries, you listen

YA Read: The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner