3 Books to Trigger Some SERIOUS 90s Nostalgia

Being a 90s kid was great. As those Facebook nostalgia posts regularly remind us, we were the last generation to play outside and we were free from the pollution of texting and the internet. We had mysterious Pogs, troublesome Tamagotchis, decent mid-budget movies, and only mildly-embarassing fashion. We also had our future stolen from us, but hey, we didn't know that yet! Our parents were still telling us we could have a comfortable 2.4 kids life and any career we wanted. 

Suffice to say, when times are tough, nostalgia is a comforting tonic. There's been a trend for books that trigger our nostalgia recently - so I've rounded up three that should send you back to the 90s so hard your hair will re-perm itself. 

Practical Magic

The Practical Magic trailer was at the beginning of a VHS video I loved, so I saw it a LOT. Inevitably, I was rather underwhelmed when I eventually rented the movie from LoveFilm (I am not nostalgic for LoveFilm, by the way). 

It was fine. Sandra Bullock was good, Nicole Kidman was feisty and I hadn't watched The West Wing yet, so probably didn't appreciate Stockard Channing as much as I should have done. I liked it well enough, but I wasn't rushing off to read the book it was based on, any more than I was going to read a Miss. Congeniality novel.

(That's a lie, I'd 100% read a Miss, Congeniality novel, in fact I'm now slightly mad that one doesn't exist.) 

But this popped up on sale at the start of November, and I was noodling around in search of spooky reads. I expected a cute little romance. That's not what I got, as it turned out. 

Practical Magic is dark, emotionally heavy story of sisterhood and family. The sisters aren't really spellcasting witches, but live a life of magical realism - something they both try to escape along with their personal traumas. One sister runs, and one embraces the PTA, picket-fence life. The children from the movie are teenagers here, struggling to figure out their identities at the same time their emotionally stunted mother and aunt are trying to do the same.

The prose is a strange mix of dreamy, fairy-tale interrupted by pure Americana. While the flowers in their garden make their neighbours weep for lost love in one scene, the next has clinking glass bottles of coke and cheese pizza. 

If you go into this expecting something a little different, I think you'll be Charmed. 

(Sorry, sorry, wrong sister-witch franchise!)

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

"I hear nothing! Not a sound on the streets of New York. Just the beat of my own heart..." 

If you know where the rest of that quote is going, then this is the book for you. 

I talk of You've Got Mail, the 90s rom-com in which enemy bookshop owners fall in love via dial-up internet. It's still popular in the broadband era because of A) the magnetic chemistry of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, B) it being a loose adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and C) the dog, probably. 

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy doesn't have A, but it does have B and C. It also has a surprisingly complex fantasy world of old gods and undead realms, which reveals itself to you purely via vibes and is only reluctantly explained. That doesn't matter though, because misunderstood ranger Hart and put-upon undertaker Mercy are writing letters to each other via a magical delivery service, while their real-world selves snipe at each other in the mortuary. There is a real pleasure in unpicking the mysteries of the fantasy world and the subplots, while relaxing in the familiarity of this trope-filled romance.   

X-Files Origins: Devil's Advocate 

If you asked me "Emma, what was the best thing about the 90s?" then even now, at 34, my answer would still be "The X-Files". I loved Mulder. I loved Scully. I would have bargained off a good deal of my soul for the will-they-won't-they love story to be answered with a resounding 'yes'. 

I also read all the spin-off novels. And the novelisations. And tie-ins, novelty books, and... you get the idea. With the recent rather underwhelming return of the series, the possibility of more spin-off novels didn't seem likely, and as a result I missed out on this series. 

X-Files Origins is a two-book YA series that focuses on Mulder and Scully as teenagers, dealing with the first supernatural mystery they ever faced. This book is Scully's story, as she grapples with her long-standing issues of religious faith, her sister's new age beliefs, and the strange dreams and visions that are haunting her and other teenagers in town. It's not the answer to her life-long sceptisism, but it plants the seed. 

I will confess, I don't often get on with YA fiction, so there were parts I had to push myself through, but it's worth it for an X-Files book in the year of our lord 2022.