Your library card unlocks a whole lot more than books.
Forget the season’s “It Girl” purse—the hottest accessory you can have is a library card. Gen Z and millennials are hitting the stacks at higher rates than their parents, and once you see what’s hiding behind that piece of plastic, it’s not hard to understand why.
Build your to-read list—without the receipts. First things first: The library has books, obv. The Wake County Public Libraries catalog boasts more than 174K searchable items—meaning your next BookTok impulse buy can cost you exactly $0.
Take the library to go. More earbuds and screens than bookmarks? Thousands of audiobooks and e-books put the collection in your pocket, while digital magazines and comics give your screen time a literary upgrade.
Borrow Wi-Fi—really. Wake County library cardholders can check out Chromebooks and mobile hot spots for up to seven days at participating branches—perfect for working remotely, studying in the park or getting online without shelling out for more tech.
Parlez-vous free? Skip the pricey language-learning apps and brush up on your bilingualism with Transparent Language, an online platform that meets library cardholders where they are.
Stop the subscriptions. Your card can cover movie night too—so you can skip the seven-day free trial you’ll inevitably forget to cancel. Hoopla and WCPL’s Films on Demand give cardholders streaming access to education videos and blockbuster films—think the likes of Clueless, Titanic and Catch MeIf You Can.
But wait, there’s more. Borrow a blood-pressure monitor, snag seeds for your garden, or sit down with a librarian for help with your job search or college application. Turns out, checking out is very much in.
“Is Tamara there? Are you sure?” Horror movies have mastered the art of making you want to climb inside your own skin. Psychological thrillers? Not so much.
After tearing through roughly 50 of them over the past year—from BookTok sensations to Goodreads recs—I learned one thing: Most don’t actually live up to the hype. Too often it’s just: Surprise! Everyone’s evil!
These aren’t those books. If you’re looking for that rare thriller that actually earns the gasp, the goosebumps and the 2am lights out, consider this a collection of the ones I’d happily erase from my memory just to experience again for the first time. And, yes—for audiobook lovers—narrators absolutely factored into my rankings.
Listen for the Lie| Amy Tintera READ IF you want sharp humor with a side of murder. “A podcast ruined my life so I’m buying a chicken.” First line = hooked—and somehow it only gets better. From the POV of a woman who can’t remember if she murdered her best friend (seriously), Tintera’s razor-sharp, darkly funny thriller—paired with a perfectly snarky narrator—is slick, modern and twisty as hell, while also making one of the genre’s riskiest narrative choices feel completely natural.
Jar of Hearts| Jennifer Hillier READ IF you’re down for some serious emotional devastation. Where a lot of thrillers can feel cheap, Jar raises the stakes—earning its darkness by slowly reconstructing the protagonist’s entire psyche and survival logic. So by the time you realize the full truth, it lands emotionally instead of just mechanically, all with a narrator who doesn’t sound like a Victorian ghost trapped in a gramophone.
Guess Again| Charlie Donlea READ IF you want to lose to a book. Wickedly clever, relentlessly twisty, impossible to outsmart, every time you think you’ve solved it, Donlea pats you on the head and says, “That’s adorable. Guess again.” I’ve never read a thriller orchestrated this brilliantly—even the twists have twists.
All the Dangerous Things | Stacy Willingham READ IF you love a slow burn that actually pays off. I’d been burned by enough “if you liked…” recs that my expectations were basically buried with the dead bodies—then this one pulled me absolutely under. If All Her Fault wrecked you, this one belongs next in your queue.
None of This Is True| Lisa Jewell READ IF you think you can figure out who to trust (spoiler: You can’t). Psychologically slippery, unsettling, addictive and unreliable to its core, Jewell delivers a masterclass on unreliable narrators where everyone is lying and somehow you still trust all of them anyway—and love every second of it. Bonus points if you’re mad for British narration.
Little Secrets | Jennifer Hillier READ IF you’d do almost anything to save your marriage. Where Jar is emotionally wrecking, Secrets is psychologically savage (and unexpectedly funny). With an uncanny gift for making her characters feel like your friends, Hillier writes people so convincingly that even their most shocking choices feel completely, terrifyingly human.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder | Holly Jackson READ IF you’re nostalgic for Nancy Drew, only with a body count. Law & Order enters the high school chat—in the best possible way. Equal parts Nancy Drew and psycho-thriller, Jackson’s whodunit is clever, nostalgic and much darker than it first appears.
The Business Trip| Jessie Garcia READ IF you want an airport read… in the best possible way. Fast, cinematic, impossible to put down, Garcia’s high-concept page-turner is exactly the kind of fast-moving, wildly readable ride that keeps saying, “just one more chapter”—until your flight lands and you’ve forgotten to get off the plane.
The Housemaid| Freida McFadden READ IF pure mindless popcorn suspense will fix you. Get in losers—nothing is what it seems. What starts as a housekeeping job in a seemingly perfect home quickly spirals into a compulsively readable nightmare. And, yes—the book is better than the movie. Sorry, Sydney.
He Started It | Samantha Downing READ IF you think your siblings are a lot. On a family road trip where every mile makes the family more unhinged, Downing turns sibling rivalry into psychological warfare. Wickedly funny, wildly original and unlike any I’ve read, it balances pitch-black humor with genuine suspense.
The Boyfriend| Freida McFadden READ IF you want to feel better about your own dating choices. Tinder turns to terror in one of McFadden’s few thrillers that truly fooled me. Modern, chaotic and deliciously deceptive—I bought every single misdirection.
“I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.” The Ron Burgundy era is real—and books are having a moment.
But let’s be honest: You’re not always sitting down with a hardcover. Enter audiobooks—the overbooked, screen-fatigued multitasker’s dream, letting you clock pages on the commute, at the gym, cooking… even on the toilet.
While nothing replaces the texture (and smug “I’m kind of a big deal” satisfaction) of a classic tome, audiobook apps are the modern-day workaround for busy brains and tired eyes. And they’ve evolved. Think in some cases: multivoice narration, cinematic pacing and performances that hit more like a podcast-meets-movie moment (hey, Colleen Hoover’s Reminders of Him).
Yes, Audible still runs the show—but a wave of free and lower-cost ops means you can listen smarter, not just more. Case in point: The library’s Libby app, a sleeper hit with a deep bench of free titles—your only cost is a little patience (and those waitlists move faster than you’d expect).
Here, we break down which apps are worth downloading depending on your vibe, budget and how main character you’re feeling.
