They say that it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but if you attempt to utter those words to someone in the throes of heartbreak you run the risk of getting slapped.
It takes a lot of time, and a whole lot more effort to get to the philosophical flip side of a break-up. The “you could’ve been together for years longer and then broken up”’, or the “time heals all wounds” and the inevitably juxtaposing “healing isn’t linear” of it all.
First, there comes the Bridget Jones-esque crying to Taylor Swift’s entire discography (it’s a cliché for a reason), Olivia Rodrigo’s albums for the not-so-teenage teenagers, or Sufjan Stevens’ soundtrack for the particularly masochistic.
Then, surrounded by friends, films, food, and disturbingly pink wine - the discussion begins. Ancient Greek philosophers would be fascinated by what is uttered between past, present and future heartbroken women sitting cross-legged on the floor of a messy living room.
The male experience of heartbreak often looks a bit different, through no fault of their own. While those with strong male friendships can benefit from similar debates across takeaway meals, the patriarchy tends to dictate that men should suffer in silence. Not on our watch.
Whether you’re surrounded by a strong support network after a bad breakup or not, turning to literature can always provide a welcome sense of collective community in the form of collective suffering. There’s immense relief to be found in the idea that you’re not the first person to go through this, and you certainly won’t be the last.
There’s no worse breakup than yours, and there’s no better one either - your heartbreak is relative and is always going to be immensely painful. No matter how you identify, we’ve curated a selection of the best books about heartbreak to provide some welcome comfort and solidarity. It’s universal. You’ve got this.
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
In this book’s title alone, Mason manages to encapsulate the journey of heartbreak. Filled to the brim with the highest of highs and rock-bottom lows, we follow the life of a nearly 40-year-old woman named Martha Friel. The seemingly put-together, bitingly witty and sardonic Martha falls apart when the man who had become part of the neatly kept furniture in her life decides to leave.
Yet while the catalyst is her husband of eight years packing up and moving out, the source lies deep below the surface. Thrust into the bohemian bosom of her dysfunctional childhood home, she must comb through the memories of her childhood and beyond to make a better life for herself. There’s no better way to describe this brilliant novel than as irrevocably real.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
A malady resulting from consuming something too whole and too quickly, heartburn is a painful, burning sensation felt just behind the breastbone which is often mistaken by first-time sufferers for a heart attack. Ephron’s titular double-entendre instantly sets the tone for this soul-changing 179-page novel.
Whether you’ve seen the motion picture adaptation starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson or not, picking up Ephron’s 1983 novel is an essential, side-splitting step in healing from heartbreak – especially for fans of gastronomical literary icons such as M.F.K Fisher. A roman à clef imbued with the pain, solidarity and humour of personal experience, we meet Rachel – a woman who, seven months into her pregnancy, has discovered her husband is in love with someone else.
The 38-year-old Rachel Samstat writes cookbooks, so it certainly makes sense that she navigates heartbreak through food. Oscillating between wanting her husband back and hoping he’s dead, we’re welcomed into the convoluted, hilarious psyche of Ms Samstat as she deliciously writes her way out of a broken heart.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
A messy breakup mixed with a spiralling identity crisis forms the basis of this fantastic debut by Candice Carty-Williams. The 25-year-old Queenie is straddling Jamaican and British culture while feeling like she fits into neither. She’s working for a national newspaper, but is constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle-class peers and only seems to land trivial writing tasks.
Queenie’s dream job isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and despite a string of one-night stands, she just can’t get over her ex. A downward spiral threatens to reach terminal velocity as Queenie looks for love and answers in all the wrong places. Filled to the brim with joy, gut-wrenching pain, humour and wit, Carty-Williams’ novel will leave you reeling in all the best ways.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Often considered the book about heartbreak, Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity does so much more for the soul than merely providing riotous laughter. A treatise on the healing power of music, record shop owner Rob wages a Scott Pilgrim-esque internal battle following his most recent break-up. But instead of metaphorically fighting ex-girlfriends to win the love of another, Rob’s on a redemptive journey to figure out exactly what it is that has consistently gone wrong.
Buy now £9.03, Amazon
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Since the publication of her best-selling memoir Everything I Know About Love and the immense popularity of her weekly ‘Dear Dolly’ column, Alderton has made a name for herself as a veritable Queen of Broken Hearts. Beloved for her acerbic wit which is somehow capable of pulling you close for a warm embrace, in Good Material, Alderton taps into the straight male experience of heartbreak and in turn reveals its devastating – yet ultimately, somehow always retroactively hilarious –universality.
Buy now £15.99, Waterstones
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
The one-word reviews which adorn the cover of Yanagihara’s best-selling A Little Life truly say it all. ‘Devastating,’ ‘Astonishing’, and ‘Extraordinary’ are certainly apt adjectives to employ for such a masterful novel, which tends to leave readers in floods of tears. As such, we wouldn’t recommend it if you’re not in the mood for a good old sob.
It’s a 700-page epic following the lives of four recent college graduates who settle in New York, and sees Yanagihara ask – to what end can a human being suffer before it is too much? A story of remarkable endurance, love and friendship, A Little Life is not for the faint-hearted but is most definitely a must-read.
Buy now £9.89, Amazon
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
Instantly devourable, Coco Mellors’ debut novel explores the breakdown of a relationship that was doomed from the start. Effortlessly beautiful, young and unbearably talented artist Cleo marries a much older, much richer and incredibly charming Frank – whom she meets on a stairwell following a New York party.
An exploration of the effects of intense, spontaneous romantic entanglement – not just on respective lovers, but on the family and friends they gain and lose along the way – Mellors constructs a biting novel which effortlessly charges through concepts of identity, derealisation, mental illness and human connection with silky-smooth ease.
Buy now £8.49, Waterstones
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
It’s hard to imagine that an entire decade has passed since 2014. It’s even harder to imagine that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah has been with us for that long. The award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun manages to craft a timeless narrative which follows protagonist Ifemelu from her early adolescence in Nigeria to her adulthood in America, and a move back to Nigeria later in life.
An epic treatise on the fallacy of Western utopias and the struggle to maintain a sense of cultural identity in an increasingly globalised world, Adichie writes of what it means to be Black in modern America with guts, humour and heart-wrenching romance.
Buy now £9.19, Amazon
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Translated from Japanese, Kawaguchi’s beautiful novel follows the stories of four separate individuals who enter a mystical coffee shop in Tokyo which has been serving meticulously brewed coffee for over one hundred years. Warm, caffeinated beverages aside, this shop also offers customers the ability to travel back in time to confront their past.
Buy now £9.99, Waterstones
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Baldwin’s groundbreaking 1950s novel continues to serve as a vital literary voice for queer representation. In a first-person, obscurely present-tense narrative, an American ex-pat named David tells us the story of his life from his home in the south of France. In under 200 pages, we learn of the breakdown of David’s marriage to Hella and his subsequent romantic entanglement with an Italian waiter named Giovanni. Forced to confront his concept of morality and a suffocating case of internalised homophobia, the level of raw candour in Baldwin’s novel was – and continues to be – monumental.
Buy now £7.09, Amazon
