8 Books Like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind may not be based on a book, but these fantastic reads are the next best thing. 

still of clem and joel on the train from eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
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  • Photo Credit: Featured still from 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' via Focus Features

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a highly unique sci-fi romantic drama. Written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, the film follows Joel Barish, played by Jim Carrey, a normal man who has discovered that his estranged girlfriend, Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) has erased all of her memories of their relationship. Furious and heartbroken, Joel decides to undergo the same procedure. As he lies sleeping, the employees of Lacuna erase Clementine from his brain, but the more he remembers her, the less he wants to forget her.

If you love stories of romance that play around with space, time, and the very meaning of love, Eternal Sunshine is the ideal movie for you. if you’re already a fan of it, here are eight books sure to satisfy you. 

Nine Kinds of Naked

Nine Kinds of Naked

By Tony Vigorito

Chaos theory says that a tiny, almost invisible event can have earth-shaking consequences, like a butterfly flapping its wing leading to a hurricane across the ocean. In Nine Kinds of Naked, Tony Vigorito imagines how several eccentric characters deal with the oddities of chaos theory. 

A traveler works a nifty trick with a playing card, and a tornado strikes a small Illinois town; a woman is born during the tornado and later meets the man who set it in motion; a millennium later, a man is set to be stoned to death; and back in the present day, a man finds himself unable to speak in anything other than the present tense.

Nine Kinds of Naked
Idaho Winter

Idaho Winter

By Tony Burgess

Idaho Winter is a boy who, through no fault of his own, is loathed by everyone in his town. To be fair to him, his life isn't exactly delightful. His father feeds him roadkill for breakfast, the locals avoid him like the plague, and even the parents of the town encourage their kids to bully him. Things begin to change when he meets a young girl named Madison who isn't afraid of him. 

But when Madison is attacked by dogs meant to harm Idaho, Idaho decides to run away from home. Only then does he discover that his lifelong suffering was the design of a writer who has made his book meaner than all the others to help it stand out on bookshelves. Now, Idaho wants to change his ending before he's written off forever.

Idaho Winter
The Made-Up Man

The Made-Up Man

By Joseph Scapellato

Stanley had known it was a mistake to accept his uncle Lech’s offer to apartment-sit in Prague. The whole thing was just a thinly veiled setup for one of his weird, borderline sociopathic performance art projects. Stanley can take it. He's got a high tolerance for nonsense and hijinks. As the operation unfolds, however, it becomes clear there’s more to this performance than he expected. 

There are chalk outlines of bodies in the hallway. Actors are pretending to be his parents. And now there's a man who looks a lot like Stanley who's acting out the worst moments of his life. The lines between reality and performance are beginning to blur irrevocably. 

The Made-Up Man
The Day the Sun Died

The Day the Sun Died

By Yan Lianke

One dusk in early June, in a town deep in the Balou mountains, Li Niannian discovers something strange about his home. At night, when everyone is supposed to be settling down for the night, they're walking into the streets and fields. These people are dream-walking, carrying on with their daily business as if it were just another day and they were still awake. 

As more and more people succumb to this strange ailment, it's up to Li Niannian to figure out what's happening before the town descends into total carnage.

The Day the Sun Died
The Ground Beneath Her Feet

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

By Salman Rushdie

Vina Apsara is a beloved singer who is used to a life of fame and glamour. When a devastating earthquake overwhelms the nation, Vina goes missing. Ormus Cama, her lover, is left devastated. Their epic romance is narrated by Ormus's childhood friend and Vina's sometime lover, her "back-door man," the photographer Rai. 

Telling the story of Ormus and Vina, he finds that he is also revealing his own deeply hidden truths. Around these three voices, the world begins to shift and unveil tears between the real and unreal. There is something going on beneath the surface that humanity might not be ready to face.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet
The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

By Milan Kundera

One of the defining novels of Czechoslovakian literature, Milan Kundera's magnum opus depicts the changing face of a nation amid the Prague Spring and Russian invasion. Tomáš is a playboy surgeon who lives for his work and his sex life. He thinks little of the world around him, caring only about his young wife Tereza. 

After the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union, everything changes, and he must choose how he wants to live his life.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not

By Alyson Derrick

What would you do if you forgot the love of your life ever even existed? Stevie and Nora thought their love was special, the kind of once-in-a-lifetime romance that people write novels about. They planned to marry, leave their small, hyper-conservative town, and move to California, where they'd never have to hide their love from the world again. But then Stevie has a terrible fall, and when she regains consciousness, she can't remember anything from the past two years. 

Now, Nora is a total stranger to her. Stevie finds herself in a life she doesn’t quite understand, one where she’s estranged from her parents and dating a boy she feels nothing for. Nora is alone and watching her great love live without her. Can they beat the odds and regain what was lost?

Forget Me Not
Q

Q

By Evan Mandery

Our intrepid hero is a writer of zero success who meets Q on a visit to the cinema. It's instant love, and over the following weeks, the two of them begin to fall in love. Not even the hostilities of Q’s father can disturb their blossoming passions. They're destined to be together. 

But then, one day, a man informs our hero that he can't marry Q. He claims to be our hero's future self, and he says that he must leave Q before his life is ruined forever.

Q

Featured photo: Still from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind via Focus Features

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