Books
13 Relationship Books That'll Make You Believe in Love Again, Unless Your Heart is Actually Made of Ice
INT. YOUR BEDROOM — NIGHT
Sound of muffled weeping. A huge pile of blankets on the bed shifts slightly, and we realize that YOU are buried beneath them, sobbing into the fuzzy stomach of your childhood teddy bear. An old-fashioned radio plays softly, attempting to woo you out of your heartbreak: "buckets of rain . . . buckets of tears . . ."
Heart trampled? Feel like you'll never believe in love again? What you need is a good old-fashioned love story to distract you from your woes and to make you believe that if those people found each other and clung to each other through thick and through thin and through irate parents and through castration (sorry, should have prefaced that with SPOILER ALERT), maybe, just maybe, there's someone out there for you.
'The Princess Bride' by William Goldman
Sometimes the only way to feel again is to read a story about a princess. Extra points if she falls in love with someone she considers “beneath” her.
'North and South' by Elizabeth Gaskell
It’s basically a lesser Pride and Prejudice. Fine, that’s reductive — there’s a lot of poverty and misery and important social justice stuff packed between these pages — but there’s also a pair of lovers who hate each other until they realize they’re meant for each other. (Just like Pride and Prejudice.)
'I Capture the Castle' by Dodie Smith
You probably know this author best as the lady behind 101 Dalmatians, but this classic coming-of-age love story is another of her masterworks. Love triangles and high jinks ensue. People kiss. People grow up.
'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel García Márquez
Passionate love doesn’t have to take place between sticky, rebellious teenagers to be memorable. Márquez’ tale of lovers reunited after 50 years apart is one of the most compelling love stories of the past century.
'Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne'
It’s no surprise that the poet John Keats wrote some of the most romantic love letters of all time, but this collection is made even more poignant and tragic by the fact that Keats died before they could ever truly be together. “You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour…” he writes. Ouch.
'Zelda' by Nancy Milford
… or any other biography about the epic love story of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre. These two crazy kids were one of the brightest, wildest couples in American history, and while they had massive troubles, they were the embodiment of the phrase “soul mates.” The two just got each other, despite everything that went wrong.
'Endless Love' by Scott Spencer
When you want to get lost in a truly consuming romance — fire and ice and passion and death — but still long for some of that teenage naïveté that marks the most epic love stories (see: Romeo and Juliet, The Fault in Our Stars), this one’s for you. I’m not pointing fingers, but someone burns down someone else’s house.
'The Letters of Abelard and Heloise'
He was a philosopher, she was his pupil. Commence illicit affair, pregnancy, scandal, castration, monkhood, and joining a convent. If you’ve ever longed for forbidden love in the Middle Ages, this’ll change your mind.
'100 Love Sonnets' by Pablo Neruda
Ever wished for a million ways to say “I love you”? Neruda’s here for you. Compare your love to “a daughter of the sea” or “oregano’s first cousin”; tell them that they’re a “messy chestnut” or “a week of amber.”
'Gildead' by Marilynne Robinson
Robinson gets serious props for writing a novel from a dying man’s perspective and really capturing the glory and anguish of capital-L Love. There’s so much till-death-do-us-part creeping from these pages toward the man’s young wife and younger son that it’s heartbreaking to read.
'My Poet' by Naeem Murr
This is an essay, not a full-length book, and you can read it right here. I heard Naeem Murr read this essay aloud with his lover sitting in the front seat, and it was one of the most romantic things I’ve ever (vicariously) experienced. It’s also hilarious.
Diving headfirst into a pile of Nicholas Sparks novels
Want a cheap and easy cure for your broken heart? Collect all the Nicholas Sparks novels you can find, cover them in marshmallows and chocolate sauce and furry blankets, and dive right in. Read one after another and call your doctor — teeth aching and belief in movie-worthy love restored — in the morning.
Check Out: The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
Diving headfirst into a pile of Jane Austen novels
BUT SERIOUSLY. If you want your happy ending to feel satisfying, you have to work for it, and that means plenty of lovers’ quarrels, epic misunderstandings, and long walks over the moors in the rain. Cap it all off with a marriage proposal, just because. Austen will have you updating your OkCupid account in no time.
Check Out: The Complete Novels of Jane Austen
