There’s a certain atmosphere and a special kind of enjoyment in going to see a movie based on a favorite book: recognizing scenes, comparing characters, forming your own impressions—whether you’re disappointed or, on the contrary, delighted—and so on.
And right now is the perfect time to catch up on your reading, because the next two years promise to be packed with film adaptations. Hollywood has turned to the bookshelves with unprecedented enthusiasm: psychological thrillers, dystopias, war dramas, and even cult classics. Many thought it impossible to adapt beloved novels—ones that had already grown so dear to readers—for the screen.
UA.News has compiled a list of six books worth reading right now—while there’s still time to form your own opinion before the film adaptation shapes it for you.
“Verity”
Author: Colleen Hoover
Genre: Psychological thriller
Release Date: October 2, 2026
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett
After the staggering box office success of *Leave If You Love Me*, Hollywood couldn’t help but turn back to Collin Hoover. The next film adaptation was *Verity*, directed by Michael Showalter.
The story follows Lowen Ashley—a writer on the brink of financial ruin who is suddenly offered her dream job: to finish a series of novels by the famous author Verity Crawford, who is unable to write herself following an accident. Loven moves to the Crawford estate and almost immediately finds a manuscript that resembles Verity’s own autobiographical notes. What’s written there is impossible to simply ignore: it’s either the confession of a person without any moral boundaries or a sophisticated manipulation. Lowen can’t figure out where fiction ends and truth begins—especially since something she hadn’t planned at all begins to develop between her and Verity’s husband. The ending divides readers into two irreconcilable camps—and this debate has not subsided since the book’s release.
“Clara and the Sun”
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Genre: science fiction, philosophical prose
Release Date: October 23, 2026
Starring: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams
Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro and director Taika Waititi are a rather intriguing duo—it’s impossible not to expect something special from them. Jenna Ortega, best known for her role as “Wednesday,” plays Clara’s artificial friend. The first footage from the film was shown at CinemaCon 2026, and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. The author wrote this novel in 2021—and it immediately made its way onto dozens of publications’ lists of the best books of the year.
Clara is an artificial friend created to keep children company. She lives in a store window and watches the street: the people, the movement of the sun, and the small scenes of human life, which she pieces together into her own picture of the world. Clara adores the Sun—for her, it’s not just a source of light, but something much greater, almost sacred. When a girl named Josie takes Clara home, a bond forms between them that goes far beyond a child-toy relationship. But Josie is sick, and her mother makes a decision that calls everything into question: what it means to be human, where the line between love and manipulation lies, and whether true attachment is possible for someone who has no soul—or, conversely, does have one.
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1”
Author: Suzanne Collins
Genre: dystopia, young adult
Release Date: November 29, 2026
Starring: Joseph Zada, Elle Fanning, Ralph Fiennes, Jesse Plemons, McKenna Grace
Lionsgate ordered the film adaptation even before the novel was published—that’s how confident they were in its success. And for good reason. Suzanne Collins’ book was released in March 2025 and immediately soared to the top of every possible bestseller list. Director Francis Lawrence directed most of the films in the original trilogy and knows this world inside and out.
The story takes place 24 years before the events of the first book, during the 50th Hunger Games—also known as the Second Quarter Quell. At the center is a young Haymitch Abernathy, whom fans of the original trilogy know as the cynical, alcoholic from District 12. But what was he like before he broke? What happened during those Games, and why did they leave such an indelible mark? Collins returns to the theme that made her famous: how a totalitarian system grinds people down, how propaganda shapes reality, and what price the survivors pay.
*The Seven Men of Evelyn Hugo*
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: historical fiction, drama
Release Date: Estimated 2027
Starring: Casting has not been officially announced
This adaptation is one of the most eagerly anticipated among readers. Netflix announced the project back in 2022, and since then, speculation has been rife: Who will play Evelyn? Who will play Celia? There are countless fan-casting suggestions, but no official casting announcements have been made yet. Anna Kendrick, known primarily as an actress but who has already proven her directing talent in *The Woman in the Hour*, was recently announced as the director.
The novel was published in 2017 and initially went almost unnoticed. But over time, thanks to BookTok, everything changed. The book spent over 120 consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s total book sales have surpassed 24 million copies.
The story follows Evelyn Hugo—a legendary Hollywood actress from Cuba who had a dazzling career in the 1950s and ’60s, married seven (!) times, but kept her true life a complete secret. In her twilight years, she decides to give her one and only interview and chooses a little-known journalist, Monique Grant—a woman she has never met before and with whom, as it turns out, she is connected in a much deeper way than it first appears. This is a book about the price a person pays for the right to be themselves—and how that price varies depending on the era, gender, and skin color.
*Under the Glass Bell*
Author: Sylvia Plath
Genre: autobiographical novel, psychological fiction
Release Date: approximately 2027
Starring: Billie Eilish, Carey Mulligan
This film adaptation is perhaps the boldest project on our entire list. Sylvia Plath’s *The Bell Jar* is considered one of the most difficult novels to adapt for the screen: too personal, too introspective, and too reliant on the narrator’s voice to be easily translated into the language of film. The previous adaptation from 1979 was panned by critics and has long since been forgotten. Now, Sarah Polley—an Oscar winner for her screenplay for *The Heartbreak Kid*—is taking on the directing duties. And in the lead role is Billie Eilish, for whom this is her first feature-length film role.
A brilliant student named Esther Greenway lands a prestigious internship at a New York magazine, after which she finds herself in the city of her dreams. But instead of a sense of triumph, she feels a growing emptiness and an inability to answer the simplest of questions: who she wants to be and what she wants from life. Plath wrote this novel a month before her suicide in 1963, and the book remains one of the most accurate depictions of depression in all of world literature. It’s a book worth reading not because it’s being made into a movie, but because it’s important in its own right. Because it’s not so much about the clinical aspects as it is about the kind of story that makes the reader begin to understand differently what’s going on inside a person who appears perfectly normal on the outside.
*The Nightingale*
Author: Christine Gennah
Genre: war drama, historical fiction
Release date: estimated 2027
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Shira Haas
Christine Genn’s book *The Nightingale* has been translated into dozens of languages and read by millions of people around the world. Sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning will play sisters in the film—marking their first-ever on-screen appearance together.
The drama is set in France in 1939. Two sisters: completely different personalities, completely different fates. Vianne is a wife and mother trying to survive in an occupied country, gradually making compromises she would have refused to make just a year ago. Isabelle—the younger, more impetuous sister—joins the Resistance and becomes a liaison for Allied pilots. This is a story about how ordinary people make decisions in circumstances where every choice comes at a price. It’s about the courage shown by women whose names don’t appear in official records. And it’s about sisterhood—complex, painful, and unbreakable—as the only support in a world falling apart. Be sure to read it before watching the show!
