By Emily Sharp

Let’s address the elephant in the room: Scorpios always get a bad rap!

Of course, there’s something to be said about their moodiness and cult-like devotion to the people, places, and things they love. But they are also the quintessential water sign, predisposed to high emotions and deep connections. Scorpios are incredibly intuitive but secretive (it comes from being so in touch with their feelings), which is why it’s hard to pick good books for them (no matter how hard you try, they’ll always have a better book in mind) but we’re going to do it anyway.

Here’s a look at the best books for the Scorpios in our lives.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

A story about a woman on a semi-luxurious, year-long bender? It’s a great frame for a book but, in truth, this is Moshfegh’s exploration of how we process grief and why grieving might not be compatible with our fast-paced, occasionally cruel society and contemporary work habits. I am shocked Moshfegh is a Gemini because she describes the inner life of a Scorpio perfectly in this novel.

We Keep the Dead Close by Becky Cooper

The vibe of Becky Cooper’s 2020 book is true crime meets dark academia meets the story of a woman’s fight for justice. The wide range of topics covered in this book mixed with its haunting undertones paints a picture of what everyone expects Scorpios to be: mysterious, devious, and dangerous. But Cooper’s careful reporting of her own life and Jane Britton’s tragedy reveals the genuine heart at the center of our mysterious water sign friends.

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

Ghosts is filled with dark humor and haunting reflections on mortality punctuated by sarcasm, and it is written with the biggest heart I’ve found in a book in a long time. It’s the perfect blend of beauty and bite that Scorpios of all sorts will resonate with—even if they do not publicly admit to it.

(PS. Check out Dolly’s interview about Ghosts on Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books!)

The Girls by Emma Cline

You might think a novel fictionalizing the Manson Family Murders could skew a little too dark, even for our dear Scorpios. But if we’re being honest, this is the most logical fit for our list. While Cline’s debut does revolve around murder, it’s not the center of the story. At its core, this novel considers how we learn to develop different forms of love for different types of people, but are sometimes stunted in the process. Scorpios are also secretly very loyal, despite their loner reputation.

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts

Do you ever correlate things like a scent with a certain place, or a movie with a memorable moment in your life? To me, the research I conducted on the HIV/AIDS epidemic while in college is forever tied to the period of time when I felt most in tune with my Scorpio moon. Scorpios are fixed signs which is another way of saying they latch on and become fixated with things that alight their passions. Witnessing the dedication of the activists and doctors as well as the strength of early HIV/AIDS patients in the face of uncertainty and mistreatment, as documented by Shilts (who too succumbed to the disease in the 1990s), is something that I believe can appeal to all Scorpios.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Did you expect me to make a book list for the moodiest, broodiest sign and not put one of the world’s saddest novels on it? Regardless of which sign each of Yanagihara’s four main characters actually are, they each exhibit some variation of Scorpios’ primary traits: ambitious, honest, jealous, determined, sensitive, secretive, and strategic. Most importantly, it just feels like a book Scorpios would like, which—for all intents and purposes—is enough to include it in this list.

++

Emily Sharp is the Associate Editor of Moms Don’t Have Time to Write and the Associate Acquisitions Editor at Zibby Books. She writes and manages a weekly political Substack newsletter called Emily For President but most importantly, she’s trying to be funnier on Twitter.

Your Official Reading List for Scorpio Season