Since Lily Allen surprise-dropped her first new music in seven years, I have literally had the album on repeat. Every time I listen to it, I pick up new details! Allen has such a talent for storytelling – listening to the album feels like sitting in a bar with a friend after their breakup as they reveal every single little thing their husband ever did wrong.
I have used my knowledge (obsession) of this album to create a list of books to read, based on your favourite song on West End Girl! If you haven't heard the album yet, go do it now! Then come back and read this blog.
The whole album
Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian
I tried to assign this book to one of the songs, but I couldn't link it to just one! I really feel it totally encapsulates the whole album.
The long summer holiday has begun on the campus of Edwards University in upstate New York. Simone is the star of the creative writing department, a renowned scholar, successful memoirist and campus sex icon. Ethan, her devoted husband, is a lecturer in the same department, though he hasn't published a novel since he was twenty-six. Their marriage is long, strong and happy. But, over the course of that aggressively hot summer break, both will stray. And, as others become involved, new sides to the story of this apparently flawless marriage will emerge.
Deliciously smart and bitingly funny, Seduction Theory is a novel about love and betrayal, truth and fiction, power and attraction.
'West End Girl'
The Industry Guide to Musical Theatre Auditions by Shaun Aquilina
🎶 That's when your demeanour started to change. You said that I'd have to audition, I said "You're deranged".
I don't know if I really need to explain this choice! When I typed 'West End' into the Readings search, this was the first title that popped up and I literally laughed out loud! I think this would be the perfect 'F-you' gift from Lily to David!
In The Industry Guide to Musical Theatre Auditions, sixteen directors, musical directors, choreographers, and casting directors, reveal what the casting panel is truly looking for. They discuss the whole audition process from submissions and first rounds to recalls, finals, and casting. They explain what makes an effective self-tape, how to stand out in a dance call, what song to choose, and how to work with a director. And they reveal the values that matter most to them when casting a performer so that you can be the artist and the professional they are looking for.
Available March 2026.
'Ruminating'
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
🎶 And now I'm ruminating, ruminating, now I'm in my head. Ruminating, ruminating all the things you said.
'Ruminating' is a song about a woman spiralling, not being able to stop the thoughts running through her head. She's on the edge of a breakdown. Listening to this song gives the same feeling as reading Sylvia Plath's only novel, The Bell Jar.
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under – maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies.
'Sleepwalking'
The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir
🎶 Course I'm angry, course I'm hurt. Looking back at it's so absurd.
First published in 1967, this book consists of three short novellas on the theme of women’s vulnerability – in the first, to the process of ageing, in the second to loneliness, and, in the third, to the growing indifference of a loved one.
All three stories in de Beauvoir's The Woman Destroyed fit the themes of West End Girl. But the third story fits the most for 'Sleepwalking'. ‘The Woman Destroyed’ is the story of Monique, trying desperately to resurrect her life after her husband confesses to an affair with a younger woman.
'Tennis'
Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee
🎶 Daddy's home for the first time in weeks. Got the dinner on the table, tell the kids it’s time to eat... So I read your text, and now I regret it... And who's Madeline?
I don't think I could find a better match for 'Tennis' than this book. The mention of dinner and the expectation of a wonderful night, Madeline and Maggie both start with an M … come on, I nailed it!
A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie. A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn't just heartbreak – it's cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.
'Madeline'
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
🎶 Do you two ever talk about me? Has he told you that he doesn't love me? I bet he tells you, tells you he loves you.
'Madeline' is definitely the perfect song for if Conversations with Friends was told from Melissa's point of view. And listening to this song reminded me how I felt reading about Francis and Nick!
Frances is a cool-headed and darkly observant young woman, vaguely pursuing a career in writing while studying in Dublin. At a local poetry performance one night, Frances and her best friend, Bobbi, catch the eye of Melissa, a well-known photographer, and as the girls are then gradually drawn into Melissa’s world, Frances is reluctantly impressed by the older woman’s sophisticated home and tall, handsome husband, Nick.
However amusing and ironic Frances and Nick’s flirtation seems at first, it gives way to a strange intimacy, and Frances’s friendship with Bobbi begins to fracture.
'Relapse'
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein
🎶 If I relapse, I know I stand to lose it all. Can you bring me back when I'm climbing up the walls?
The Days of Abandonment tells the story of one woman’s headlong descent into what she calls an absence of sense after being abandoned by her husband. Although her husband hasn't left her, listening to 'Relapse' gives the same feeling as reading this book.
Olga’s days of abandonment become a desperate, dangerous freefall into the darkest places of the soul as she roams the empty streets of a city that she has never learned to love.
'Pussy Palace'
Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
🎶 I didn't know it was your pussy palace, pussy palace, pussy palace, pussy palace.
When I think of what a 'Pussy Palace' might be like, I think of Christian Grey's place! Need I say more?
When literature student Anastasia Steele interviews successful entrepreneur Christian Grey, she finds him very attractive and deeply intimidating. Convinced that their meeting went badly, she tries to put him out of her mind – until he turns up at the store where she works part-time, and invites her out. Unworldly and innocent, Ana is shocked to find she wants this man. And, when he warns her to keep her distance, it only makes her want him more.
As they embark on a passionate love affair, Ana discovers more about her own desires, as well as the dark secrets Christian keeps hidden away from public view …
'4chan Stan'
A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women by Siri Hustvedt
🎶 I think you're sinking, you're protecting a lie. And you don't want her thinking that you'd cheat on your wife.
'4chan Stan' is about uncovering a cheating husband and his lies; it's about femine rage and disgust, with a bit of added humour. I mostly chose this book based on the title, but A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women is also very fitting with its content.
In this trilogy of works collected in a single volume, Hustvedt brings a feminist, interdisciplinary perspective to a range of subjects. With clarity, wit, and passion, she exposes gender bias, upends received ideas, and challenges her reader to think again.
'Nonmonogamummy'
Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott
🎶 I've been trying to be open. I just want to meet your needs. And for some reason I revert to people pleasing. I'll be your nonmonogamummy.
Ex-Wife is 'Nonmonogamummy' if the roles were switched and it was the husband who didn't want to be open any longer!
New York, 1924. Patricia and Peter are a thoroughly modern married couple. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work. Both believe in ‘Love-Outside-Marriage’. Until they don’t. Or, really, until he doesn’t. So when Peter pushes for divorce with increasing violence, Patricia has to forge a new life as a single woman: as an ex-wife.
'Just Enough'
Why Can’t I Let You Go? by Kelly Skeen and Dr. Michelle Skeen
🎶But you, you give me just enough hope to hold on to nothing.
I'm not saying things might have been different if Lily Allen had maybe done some therapy, or even just read a book on trauma and letting go, but...
This book will help you gain a greater awareness of the trauma bonds that prevent you from getting the love, safety, and security you desire. In Why Can't I Let You Go, relationship expert Michelle Skeen will help you identify your attachment style, core beliefs, and the harmful behavior patterns that are keeping you stuck in toxic relationships.
'Dallas Major'
More by Molly Roden Winter
🎶 So I go by Dallas Major ... Yes, I'm here for validation and I probably should explain. How my marriage has been opened since my husband went astray.
More is another book that could relate to multiple songs on this album, but I thought it works best for 'Dallas Major' in the sense that it's about being in a open relationship and trying to date other people.
Molly and Stewart decide to open their marriage. They set ground rules: don't date an ex; don't date someone in the neighbourhood; don't go to anyone's home; and above all, don't fall in love. In the years that follow, they break most of their rules, even the most important one. They grapple with jealousy, insecurity, and doubts, all the while wondering – can they love others and stay true to their love for each other? Can they make the impossible work?
More is an electric debut that offers both steamy fun and poignant reflections on motherhood, daughterhood, marriage, and self-fulfilment.
'Beg for Me'
Liars by Sarah Manguso
🎶 Why won't you beg, beg, beg for me?
Liars would be Lily's story if she had rejected the role on the West End and stayed in New York, leaving the ambition to her husband. But the husband still leaves in Liars … And he certainly doesn't beg his wife to let him stay.
When Jane, an aspiring writer, meets filmmaker John Bridges, they both want the same things: to be in love, to live a successful, creative life, and to be happy. When they marry, Jane believes she has found everything she was looking for, including – a few years later – all the attendant joys and labors of motherhood. But it's not long until Jane finds herself subsumed by John's ambitions, whims, and ego; in short, she becomes a wife.
As Jane's career flourishes, their marriage starts to falter. Throughout the upheavals of family life, Jane tries to hold it all together. That is, until John leaves her.
'Let You W/In'
Divorcing by Susan Taubes and David Rieff
I could tell myself you've changed, do it all again, be deluded.
Much like in Divorcing, 'Let You W/In' is about the devestation and anger felt when realising your marriage is over and that there's no coming back.
Dream and reality overlap in Divorcing, a book in which divorcing is not just a matter of marital collapse but names a rift that runs right through the inner and outer worlds of its brilliant but desperate protagonist. Can the rift be mended?
A stunning novel about childhood, marriage, and divorce by one of the most interesting minds of the 20th century, and back in print for the first time since 1969.
'Fruityloop'
The Angry Women’s Choir by Meg Bignell
🎶 'Cause it's not me, it's you. It's what you've always done, it's what you'll do.
'Fruityloop' is about accepting the person she loved is not who she thought they were. While the melody of the song sounds beautiful and sweet, the lyrics tell the story of female rage and shifting the blame from oneself to the man who is truly at fault. The Angry Women’s Choir is very fitting for this song!
When Freycinet Barnes steps outside her carefully ordered calendar and is accidentally thrown into the generous bosom of the West Moonah Women's Choir, she finds music, laughter, friendship and a humming wellspring of rage. With the ready acceptance of the colourful choristers, Frey learns that voices can move mountains, fury can be kind and life can do with a bit of ruining.
Together, Frey and the choir sing their anger, they breathe it in and stitch it up, belt it out and spin it into a fierce, driving beat that will kick the system square in the balls, and possibly demolish them all.
