Throughout August, the FYA Book Clubs swooned and cried their way through Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park. In celebration of this painfully beautiful novel, we decided to award it the highest tribute possible: a mixtape.

I’ll be honest, this playlist pretty much wrote itself thanks to the musical references peppering the pages. Eleanor and Park’s relationship unfolds over a soundtrack of ’80s new wave and punk, and this mixtape is a catalog of every single band or song mentioned in the novel, in chronological order. It’s also, hopefully, a portrait of first love… and first heartbreak.

So grab some tissue and a copy of Watchmen and let the music whisk you away to a school bus seat in 1986.

  1. “God Save the Queen” – Sex Pistols
  2. “Assimilate” – Skinny Puppy
  3. “Kung Fu Fighting” – Carl Douglas
  4. “Something I Learned Today” – Hüsker Dü
  5. “How Soon Is Now?” – The Smiths
  6. “Romeo and Juliet” – Dire Straits
  7. “This Charming Man” – The Smiths
  8. 8. Holiday in Cambodia – Dead Kennedys
  9. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” – Joy Divison
  10. “Rise Above” – Black Flag
  11. “867-5309/Jenny” – Tommy Tutone
  12. “Forever Young” – Alphaville
  13. “Summer of ’69” – Bryan Adams
  14. “Bad” – U2
  15. “In Between Days” – The Cure
  16. “Cruel Summer” – Bananarama
  17. “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” – Simon & Garfunkel
  18. “Helter Skelter” – The Beatles
  19. “Rio” – Duran Duran
  20. “Who’s Johnny” – El DeBarge
  21. “Bitchin’ Camaro” – The Dead Milkmen
  22. “Alison” – Elvis Costello
  23. “Steppin’ Out” – Joe Jackson
  24. “Roadrunner” – Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
  25. “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” – The Smiths

(Just close your eyes and pretend that Spotify is a Walkman.)

Sarah lives in Austin, and believes there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure, which is part of why she started FYA in 2009. Growing up, she thought she was a Mary Anne, but she's finally starting to accept the fact that she's actually a Kristy.