You're Gonna Need a Bigger Bookbag!

What better way to celebrate 50 years of the film than by reading Peter Benchley’s classic book that started it all? The dynamics between the people of Amity get fleshed out even more in the book, and they’re just as compelling as the suspenseful shark encounters. My boyfriend likes to reread this book every year, and I think some of the highest praise one could give a book is that it’s worthy of rereading.

In the vein of Jaws, a small town gets attacked by malevolent, aquatic wildlife in this eerie horror novel by Trang Thanh Tran. After a horrific hurricane, Noon’s Louisiana hometown becomes plagued by red algae blooms, mutated wildlife, and rising waters. When Noon gets enlisted to help capture the creature drowning residents, she teams up with a hunter’s daughter and tries to process the buried secrets gnawing away at her.

While a shark isn’t the predator in this chilling novel by Alma Katsu, the story does fall into the aquatic horror genre. This book also shares another neat connection with Jaws, as it’s inspired by historical events from the early 1900s, just as Benchley drew inspiration for his book from a series of shark attacks in 1916. After a number of passengers aboard the ill-fated Titanic experience uncanny deaths and disappearances, they begin to believe sinister forces may be at work. A few years later, Titanic survivor Annie works as a nurse aboard the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, and makes a disturbing discovery.

This novel is for the shark lovers out there. It may also appeal to the many Jaws fans who became terrified of sharks because of the film and crave the catharsis of a book with a nicer shark. In 1995, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls off a cruise ship in the Pacific Ocean and ends up getting rescued and delivered back to his mom by a massive shark. As time passes and Nainoa develops strange abilities, his family begins to view this miracle as the work of ancient Hawaiian gods. Yet these beliefs may cause fractures in the family, too.

This atmospheric thriller by Silvia Moreno-Garcia promises the 1970s coastal setting and shark-hunting themes of Jaws. In Baja, California, Viridiana finds an escape from the tedium of her life when she gets hired as the assistant to a wealthy American writer. As Viridiana gets caught up in the luxurious lives of this American family, things take a dark turn after an unexpected death and an ensuing investigation.

Like Jaws, deadly shark attacks take place in this book by Peter Nelson. However, unlike Jaws, this is a work of nonfiction, and the events sadly did happen in real life. Nelson’s captivating biography explores the tragic sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945, which caused over 1,000 men to struggle to survive in shark-infested waters. He also spotlights 11-year-old Hunter Scott’s remarkable history project that posthumously restored honor to the ship’s captain. Fun fact: watching the film Jaws was the anticipatory event to the Hunter’s project.