Songs for the Girls who Feel Fictional

If you follow my on Instagram, then you probably saw this reel about why I’m always reading. When I made this reel, I was deeply entrenched in that feeling of wondering what it would be like if I was fictional. If you aren’t much of a fiction person, that probably sounds insane, but it makes sense to me.

I always wonder about being fictional. I used to dream about it a lot. I suppose I still dream about it, but I’m able to balance it better against the fact that God’s storytelling is so much better than any human author.

In a way, I think there are some of us—maybe just a handful—who sometimes feel like we are fictional. Sometimes our lives are really good and we like to imagine that we’re in that rosy season where the protagonist is living her best main character life. Other times, our lives turn into nightmares and we pretend that we’re just in that scene where it’s darkest before dawn breaks.

Whatever the case, this playlist is for those girls. The ones who dream about being fictional; who wonder when their love interest is going to show up; who live in daydreams and fantasy novels; who are the biggest hopeless romantics; who love their lives but wouldn’t hesitate to jump into the pages of fiction for just a single day.

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Fictional by Khloe Rose

I fall in love with boys I see on a TV screen
The ones in books who are as perfect as they can be
I spend all of my time imagining
What it would be like if they existed

I cannot tell you how many times this song has lived on repeat. I don’t remember when I first heard it, but I know that every time I hear it I feel seen in a way that is so cathartic. This song makes me feel like I’m not crazy for falling head over heels for yet another fictional character.

There are a lot of people who don’t get it. They don’t understand how you can read a book and come away from it feeling like those characters are real. They don’t relate to the concept of falling for someone who never existed in the first place.

This song is for all the girls who felt a need to hide that part of their soul. It’s for the girl who worries that people will call her crazy for giving her heart to stories instead of reality. It’s for the girl who wants to apparate into the pages of her favorite stories and only visit reality on the weekends.

It’s for the girls who wonder if her standards are too high, if a real man could ever compare, and if her heart will ever feel safe inside of hands made of flesh and bone.

Foolish One by Taylor Swift

Foolish one
Stop checkin’ your mailbox for confessions of love
That ain’t never gonna come
You will take the long way, you will take the long way down

This song hit me so hard the first time I heard it. When I got to the end, my jaw nearly dropped because Taylor sang the exact words that I so desperately needed to hear.

It would be so easy to write this song off as being for the delulu girls. But I don’t think there’s anything delusional about dreaming of love, of declarations of love, of grand romantic gestures. If you’re a hopeless romantic, you can’t help it. You long for those intimate, romantic moments underneath a sky full of stars, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Foolish One is for the girls who don’t realize they’re chasing the wrong boy—who don’t realize they won’t have to chase the right boy.

Angels Like You by Miley Cyrus

It’s not your fault I ruin everything
And it’s not your fault I can’t be what you need
Baby, angels like you can’t fly down hell with me

I found this song on Instagram as I was watching bookish reels. It was one of those sped-up, pitched-up remixes. Eventually, I settled into listening to the original, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

To me, this feels like the song equivalent of the “I love you, but you’re real and I’m fictional” concept that us fiction girls are obsessed with. You fall, even though you said you wouldn’t this time, and then you wonder why it hurts. You fall for the bad boys, the protective boys, the “touch her and you die” boys. They comfort you in a way that you didn’t know you needed.

The In Between by Khloe Rose

I’m not the girl that you think you want and
You’d hate me too, if I was ever honest
I got used to the secrecy

I swear, every single song by Khloe Rose feels like it was made for the fiction girls, and this one is no exception.

I imagine this is the song for the girls who are deathly afraid of commitment. You’ve been hurt before—maybe a lot of times before—and you don’t give your heart away to just anyone. If the dating is secret, then there’s no pushback, no obstacles, no reasons why it can’t possibly work. You want love, who need love, but feel like you’re the problem. You believe you break everything you touch, and you’re waiting for the one who will tell you that that’s a lie.

Do or Die by Natalie Jane

As we go up in flames in the sky
I’d sacrifice
Me myself and I
Cause you and you and I we’re do or die

This is a relatively new song (it dropped August 25th, which just so happens to be the day before I’m drafting this post). But, honestly, this song perfectly embodies that ride-or-die energy that I think we all wish we had. We all want to have someone who would literally die for us, who would rather die with us than live without us.

The first time I heard this song, it made me think of Dom and Letty from the Fast and Furious movie series. (I also thought of Jace and Clary, but that’s a whole other conversation). They’re the kind of couple who are in it for life. They are so committed to each other. They have that “I’d risk it all for you” feeling that I, personally, am incredibly attached to.

I don’t know if I really relate to this song, but it is one that I play a lot while daydreaming about characters, stories, and love, so I think it counts as one for the fiction girls.

Slow Dance in a Parking Lot by Jordan Davis

Slow dance with you
Spinning you around by the Walmart sign
And moving our feet over the painted white lines
Getting close to you

I’ve loved this song since 2020. It embodies that young adult feeling of wanting to just drop everything and dance in the rain (or a parking lot). To me, this song is like the golden standard of the blissful love moments where nothing else matters except you and him.

I think this is also the song for the Taylor Swift girls. We’re the girls who want to kiss in the rain and need reassurance that when he said forever he actually meant it. We’re the girls who want the fictional love—the careless, reckless, wild kind of love that’s spontaneous and passionate and real.

The Other POV by Khloe Rose

If that’s my destined role in this
Then I already know who wins
‘Cause she was always who you’d choose
I’m just the other point of view

This is the song for all the girls who are never the first choice. You want someone to just choose you for one time in your life because you’re so tired of being the backup. You know he wasn’t the one, and a part of you always did, but you still wonder if it could’ve worked if she never came back into his life. You don’t want to be with someone who’s thinking of someone else, but you’re so lonely.

This is for the girls who knew they didn’t stand a chance from day one. You’re the August to his James. You were destined to fail before you ever started. You’re villainized like you chose this, and you’re tired of trying to tell your side when nobody believes you.

Late at nights, you sit by the moon and pray that someday you’ll meet someone who won’t make you out to be the villain, who will see you as the heroine everyone else discarded. You dream of the boy who will sweep you off your feet and won’t compare you to his ex because when he’s with you, he can’t remember her name. You lie awake and dream about the day when he will tell you he loves you and chooses you, always you.

Timeless by Taylor Swift

And I’d die for you in the same way if I first saw your face
In the 1500s off in a foreign land
And I was forced to marry another man
You still would’ve been mine

This is the ultimate fiction girl song. It is the embodiment of the “I would love you in every universe” trope that holds your heart. It’s the song that makes you ache for the love that would transcend time and space.

You read fantasy because it’s where you find your Knight in Shining Armor. You live in your books to escape reality and find love with boys who can’t hurt you. You know that one day you’ll find your person, but until then, you’re content to love the boys made of ink and paper.

For more songs, check out my playlist

Let’s Talk!

Do you feel fictional sometimes? If given the chance, which book would you jump into? Which song is your favorite on this list? Which songs need to be added? Let’s talk all things fictional and music in the comments down below!