I loved Gilmore Girls. Whether it was Lorelai’s fast-talking pop culture references on a caffeine trip or the tender mom and daughter relationship with its inevitable ups and downs, the show had an authentic heart. The romances too. I mean, Jess Mariano. Enough said.

Why I Love Gilmore Girls

Still, as much as I adored Lorelai’s carefree swagger, I identified most with Rory. She was the go-getter, the A student, the perfectionist who wasn’t afraid to take on a challenge. She pushed herself to every limit, even if that meant making more than a few mistakes along the way. Opinionated and flawed, she believed a woman deserved the same opportunities as any man. Yeah, I saw a lot of myself in her.

What I appreciated most about Rory Gilmore though was her open-mindedness. She was a strong young woman who loved to learn and she loved to read. She was every writer’s dream, a reader who will read just about anything. No matter how you define well-read, as someone who reads a lot of books, as someone who reads books across all genres, or both, Rory Gilmore was it.

The Rory Gilmore Reading List

Rory Gilmore read a lot, a whole lot. Buzzfeed counted 339 books she referenced over the course of the show. It looks like I have a lot of work to do if I want to catch up to my favorite TV character, but here is a list of the 43 books she’s read that I’ve read … so far!

How many of Rory’s books have you read?

A – G

• 1984 by George Orwell
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Candide by Voltaire
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• The Divine Comedy by Dante
• Don Quixote by Cervantes
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

H – R

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
• The Iliad by Homer
• Inferno by Dante
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

S – Z

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• The Shining by Stephen King
• Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
• A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
• Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
• The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

When Bookworms Unite

Now, let me get back to Jess. The two came together not only because they had undeniable chemistry but because they shared a love for the written page. She turned him to Howl by Allen Ginsberg and he turned her to Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. They talked about The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Othello by William Shakespeare, and Ulysses by James Joyce.

How were these bookworms not a match made in heaven?

Why Rory Gilmore and Jess Belong Together

The truth is that Jess was a rebel without a cause back in his high school days, ultimately dropping out of school and moving to California to live with his estranged dad. Not that Rory was a saint. She had her own identity crisis when she had an affair with a married man and dropped out of Yale. Still, when Rory and Jess reunite in Season 6, all that chaos melts away.

Jess pulled his act together and inspired by Rory, he wrote his own novel, The Subsect, a book I wish were real so I could read it! Rory could hardly believe it. You saw her face light up with hope. She was just as inspired by him in that moment as he was by her when he decided to turn his life around. Still, somehow she turns away this man who loves her to chase a man who treats her like dirt, sleeps with another girl, and ultimately marries another woman. What did she ever see in Logan anyway?

Here’s hoping the screenwriters will lead Rory down a better path if there is ever a second Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. I am excited to see how many more books Rory Gilmore has read since the last season. Not only that, I am eager for Rory and Jess to write a new chapter. That’s one I want to read!