Hear the Cicadas official soundtrack (plus Part 1 annotation)

Several readers have emailed me asking for a playlist for Cicadas: A Totally Ordinary Epic Love Story, a book that has music at the core of its throbbing heart. It was the world’s easiest request, because of course I’ve been thinking about the soundtrack since I started writing the book in 2021.

This is the “official” version, the one most faithful to the timeline, which means the songs fit one strict criteria: They were released in roughly the year before the story takes place. For example, ...