Books
15 Books to Help Get You Through a Breakup
Ways to get over a breakup: 1) Let the agonizingly slow march of time pass you by 2) Find someone new to love and/or flaunt in his face 3) Key his car — with a baseball bat 4) Find a new hobby, like gardening or poetry or black and white photographs of his new lover taken with a hidden camera 5) Read.
If you've just stumbled through a breakup and are feeling a bit jagged around the edges, reach for No. 5. It's a great way to distract yourself from whatever's going on in your love life, and it'll also keep your hands busy so that you can't write any more red wine-fueled Facebook status (“AMAZING DAY FEELING SO FREE I got NO REGRETS in this life URGGGHHHHH”).
Sure, reading a novel may not seem as immediately cathartic as, say, setting fire to all of his earthly possessions before writing a song that he'll hear every time he turns on the radio. But it'll get you out of your own head for a while and, most importantly, make you realize that you're not alone. Plenty of other characters, both fictional and non-, have felt battered, broken-hearted, lonely, and furious, just the way you do now.
1. For The Breakup Where You're Crying So Hard You Can Barely Make It Through A Paragraph:
Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak by Writers Famous and Obscure edited by Smith Magazine
2. When You Just Want To Feel Like Someone Else In The World Has Been As Sad As You:
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
3. To Mourn The Relationship Where You Never Quite Got It Right:
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
4. If You Felt Totally Taken Advantage Of By Your Ex:
Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
5. If You Want To Be Reassured That You Made The Right Choice In Not Staying With Your Love Forever And Ever And Ever:
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
6. If You Need To Be Reminded That Getting Married To That Person Would Have Been A Huge Mistake:
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
7. For The Times When You Just Want To Feel Like Men Are Scum:
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Dîaz
8. Because You're A Masochist:
A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
9. To Remind You Of How Awful It Can Get When A man And A Woman Love Each Other Very Much:
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10. To Remind You That Other Women Are Suffering Much More Than You Are:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
11. To Remind You That Women Endure:
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
12. Because You Just Want To Read Sad Poetry In A White Dress Curled Up On A Window Seat And Mourning Your Lost Love:
Glass, Irony, and God by Anne Carson
13. Because Sometimes Not Even Soulmates Get It Right In The End:
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
14. To Remind You That Not Every Dysfunctional Relationship Is With A Lover:
The End of Eve by Ariel Gore
15. Because You Really Need A Different Reason To Cry:
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Image: Universal Pictures
