14 Books Set in the 1980s, From Malibu Rising to Trust Exercise

The Vanishing Half ($17, originally $27) (POPSUGAR Book Club's 2020 Book of the Year!) takes place from the 1954 through to the '90s, and follows two Black identical twin sisters who run away from their small southern town together at 16, but ultimately go on to live vastly different lives apart. After leaving Mallard, Desiree goes on to become a mother to a dark-skinned daughter she later brings back to her childhood home — much to the light-skinned community's dismay and intrigue — while Stella lives in LA, passing as white alongside her white husband and daughter. Brit Bennett's multifaceted bestselling novel explores identity, race, and family relations through five decades between the estranged sisters, who are more connected than they realize.

Four siblings grapple with the fame they've gained as a result of being a rockstar's chidren in Malibu Rising ($17, originally $28), which mainly takes place in 1983 on the night of supermodel and surfer Nina Riva's annual end-of-summer party. Flashing back through the preceding decades through to Nina's house up in flames, Malibu Rising detangles a web spun of family secrets that reveal themselves one after another throughout the night of the party.

Set in 1988, My Best Friend's Exorcism ($15, originally $17) follows best friends and high school sophomores, Abby and Gretchen. The pair have been friends since fourth grade, but when Gretchen becomes possessed, their tight bond is tested in ways beyond anyone's wildest imagination. In My Best Friend's Exorcism, Grady Hendrix manages to tell a story about friendship that's dark, funny, and relatable — with a bit of the devil and '80s nostalgia thrown in.

Eleanor & Park ($11, originally $19) takes place across one school year in 1986 in which Eleanor and Park, both 16, navigate their first love. The coming-of-age story has both heavy and lighter moments — in the way that first love itself does — and is rife with '80s pop culture references.

In Oona Out of Order ($21, originally $27), Oona finds herself at a crossroads on the eve of her 19th birthday on New Year's Eve 1982, wondering what should she do with the rest of her life. Before she has the chance to consider her two present options — go to school in London or pursue music in Brooklyn — she faints and wakes up 32 years in the future. But that's not the only time it happens: Oona will skip around in time on each New Year's Eve becoming a fresh version of herself at a different age.

In Silver Sparrow ($11, originally $17), Tayari Jones weaves a tale of one man and his two families — the public one and the private one. Throughout the novel, which is set in Atlanta in the 1980s, James Witherspoon's two teenage daughters — one from each of his families — develop a friendship, but only one of the girls knows that they're sisters.

In Tell the Wolves I'm Home ($10, originally $17), 14-year-old June loses her uncle, godfather, best friend, and confidant, Finn, in 1987 to AIDS. As she grapples with the loss of the only person she felt she could be herself around, she crosses paths with Toby, a friend of Finn's who also misses him and needs a new person to confide in in the wake of the loss.

Although Ready Player One ($11, originally $17) takes place in 2045, Wade Watts — along with everyone else — spends most of his time within the OASIS, a virtual world that allows you to visit decades of the past. When the OASIS creator dies, Wade and other players race to solve puzzles he embedded within the virtual world, and spend time poring over pop culture to solve them all and win the ultimate prize: control over OASIS and its creator's fortune.

Jacqueline Woodson's Red at the Bone ($13, originally $16) spans several decades of one family's history, from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre to a night in 2001, where 16-year-old Melody is making her entrance at her coming-of-age ceremony, wearing a dress originally made for her mother to wear at her own ceremony 16 years prior. The 1985 ceremony never took place due to Melody's then 16-year-old mother being pregnant with her, and so, Woodson's story of how each of Melody's family members came to be in this very moment in 2001 unfolds.

Emotional and tender, The Prettiest Star ($27) takes place at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the summer of 1986, when 24-year-old Brian travels back home to the small town in Ohio he was so desperate to escape six years prior. However, throughout his six years living in New York City, he watched AIDS take the lives of many of his friends and his boyfriend Shawn, and soon, he'll be lost to it, too. During his summer back at home with his estranged family that is mostly unwilling to accept his being gay or ill, Brian films a series of videos that Shawn asked him to make, to ensure those who died from AIDS are never forgotten.

Colson Whitehead calls his fourth novel, Sag Harbor ($12, originally $17), autobiographical, as some of its events mirror those of his own childhood summers spent in the Hamptons. In the book, 15-year-old Benji stays at his family's home at Azurest, a historically Black beach resort within the predominantly white town. Despite his anxiety and struggles to fit in, Benji hopes that the summer of '85 is when everything will change for the better.

In Zadie Smith's Swing Time ($13, originally $17), two mixed-race young girls meet in 1982 at a community tap class in London. Although both have aspirations to be dancers, Tracey is the one with the talent to pursue it as a career, while the unnamed narrator is the one clever enough to make it out of their neighborhood, assisting a famous pop star who gives her a view into the lives of the one percent. In the novel, Smith passes commentary on multicultural societies, family relationships, race, and identity through the story of a tight childhood friendship that ends abruptly in adulthood but is never fully forgotten.

Trust Exercise ($14, originally $27) shares the experiences of students at a highly competitive performing arts high school in the early 1980s, particularly the young love story between Sarah and David. As the events of the novel narrated by both Sarah and David unfold, it's found that their experiences and those of their classmates and beloved teacher, Mr. Kingsley, may not be as true as the reader is originally led to believe.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo ($9, originally $17) tells the story of the now-reclusive Old Hollywood starlet, who at 79 is ready to tell the true stories of her life as an actress, her seven marriages, and her various personal scandals. Evelyn chooses unknown journalist Monique Grant to write the tell-all biography in present day, and as the pair sit to discuss Evelyn's glamorous (and not-so-glamorous) life through the decades, it becomes clear to Monique why she was specifically chosen for this opportunity that will transform her career. The biography will alter the public memory of the famous Evelyn Hugo, but that's precisely what she wants: to take back the narrative and make crystal clear that she never claimed to be a good person.