10 Books to Read When You Can’t Stop Thinking About That Ex

To me, this lyric in the aching title track from Madi Diaz’s History of a Feeling captures a sentiment that has given me (and I think many other writers!) endless inspiration.

I have always looked to music and books about romantic heartbreak, those songs and novels that tell you of a complicated relationship that just didn’t, couldn’t—wouldn’t—work out. Or, perhaps one of those ones that never even really got its chance. These books explore the grief of loss, the things we’ll do (often stupidly) for love, and the ways we try to move on and fail. The people or exes that we keep coming back to. If you’ve got someone like this in your life—we probably all do—these are the books you should be reading. 

Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

This excellent early-twenties coming-of-age novel set in Dublin zeroes in on a toxic, emotionally abusive relationship. Megan Nolan renders the upside-down power dynamic between the narrator and Ciaran with piercing honesty, allowing the reader to see past the blinders we turn on when we fall in love, the way physical attraction can cloud all our better judgment and the way manipulation and emotional abuse can rot a relationship or person from the inside out. “I was in love with him from the beginning, and there wasn’t a thing he or anybody else could do to change it,” the narrator tells us just a few pages into the novel—and the truth of this becomes very clear. Even at our narrator’s lowest, darkest moments (of which there are many!), I was with her every step of the way, as sucked into the story as one can get in a dark yet addictive relationship. Nolan’s depiction of sex, the body, and love—and the ways we give and take all of these—are what make this book stand out from so many others that have traversed into this territory before. 

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Maybe it’s Paris, maybe it’s James Baldwin, maybe it’s a perfect novel. What I would consider to be my favorite ‘classic’ novel, this taut, heartbreaking story of a covert gay affair between David and Giovanni in 1950s Paris, is one of excruciating love, regret and grief. As David sits in Southern France and tells us the story, we are clear on the stakes from the beginning. There’s much to be drawn to here: the electric yet accessible prose, the snapshots of Paris of another time (desultory, charming, even in its own depression) and of course: the endless pain of a love that could never really be. A masterfully concise read—Baldwin does in 160 pages what most writers try to do in 600—this book (as many know) is a triumph of tragedy. You didn’t need me to tell you this, of course, but after reading it three times in the last handful of years (one in a muddling French!) I’m still amazed at how universal nearly every sentence of this book is. 

Green Dot by Madeline Gray

I read this book earlier this spring in about 48 hours, immediately drawn in by the classic premise: a young woman gets involved in a tumultuous affair with an older, married man (who just so happens to be one of her coworkers.) The affair between Hera and Arthur is mildly predictable in its trajectory—how could it not be?— but what holds the reader close is Gray’s smart, hilarious and wholly commanding voice. While these types of relationship stories typically have the same arc, as there is mostly only one way for them to end, Gray’s storytelling is anything but. I do not say this lightly: this book is laugh out loud funny, and I almost never laugh out loud while reading. The humor and self-awareness will make you root for Hera, even as she makes objectively terrible decisions over and over again—and then makes some more. The sex is good, the consequences are bad, the ending you already know. You should read every word of it anyway. 

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

Bryan Washington’s latest novel is for me, in many ways, a story of how we get through our lowest points of grief and try to make our way to the other side of it, if there is one. Cam has moved from California back home to Houston after his partner of several years, Kai, has died. He muddles through his overwhelming grief with endless sex (and there is a lot of it), self-destructive behaviors, and begins working at his old friend—TJ’s—family bakery. Once he and TJ reconnect, the antagonistic chemistry between them crackles at their first exchange. They hate each other; they love each other. They have learned to live without each other but maybe they don’t have to. Washington writes food beautifully, sex painfully, and makes you ache on every page. 

Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Much has been written about his recent smash success that will be better and wiser than what I could say here, and even though this book is mostly comedic, it is the hardest I have cried reading a novel since A Little Life. Thanks, Dolly. A funny, extremely relatable story of a mid-thirties break-up—told almost entirely from the guy’s perspective, Dolly gets everything right about the feelings, thoughts, and actions people experience immediately post-split. I’m talking: drinking alone midday, stalking your ex online, splitting up your shit, closing the joint checking account, drinking alone in the evening—etc.. But what ultimately moved me to tears here was Alderton’s spot-on insight into being in your mid-thirties and finding yourself in a Very Different Place than many of your peers. Everyone knows Dolly Alderton is funny, that she knows relationships better than most, but it’s the heart at the core of this novel that set it apart for me.

Search History by Amy Taylor

This was one of my favorite releases of last year, by the Australian writer Amy Taylor. A breakup tale for the digital age, the narrator, Ana, begins dating a new guy she meets online after a breakup, and she quickly becomes obsessed with his ex, whom she finds out has died the year prior. It is terrifying and compelling to go down the digital rabbit hole with Ana (we’ve all done it, right? Stalking a new lover’s old flame?) but Taylor renders it all with such an undercurrent of unease as we wonder when the narrator’s obsession will come to light, what consequences it will have. It reminded me of the delicate tension of a Ripley novel, the way Ana stalks in plain sight as we hold our breaths, wondering what she will find. I like that this book turns a breakup narrative on its head: Ana doesn’t stalk her ex—in fact, he’s never even named—instead she’s haunted by another woman, one who isn’t even alive. But the frantic obsession still occupies her every thought, making it nearly impossible to actually enjoy her new relationship. In the end, which obsession is worse?

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

Try not to think of Timothée Chalamet, peaches, and certainly not Armie Hammer. But instead: think of sitting in the sunshine, think of the first time you fell in love, when you were far too young to know what was going on, when all you understood was the all-encompassing sensation of dopamine and hormones, the insatiable arousal. Now, imagine you live in the Italian countryside, with endless afternoons and stretches of blue sky. It’s a perfect summer, too much time to kill. Aciman’s first person novel is so gorgeous that you should read it basking in the sun yourself if you can. The falling in love is hardly straightforward: a queer sexual awakening complicated by an age and power dynamic, among other things. But Aciman’s prose and the near tangibility of the emotions on the page make me want to reach for this book again and again. Even if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll love reading this book, being reminded of how it feels to fall in love for the first time, and how to cope with the illicit fragility of a relationship like this.

Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan

I read Ponyboy this Spring at the recommendation of a friend, and it is unlike almost anything I’ve ever read. A story of youth, addiction, love, transitioning, queerness—to me this book is the story of all of those people you can’t quite forget. Yes, that one person you loved once, but also everyone that floated in and out around. The people that destroyed you and the people that put you back together, the ones you thought would never disappear but did, and the ones you thought might disappear but didn’t. Ponyboy’s tale is harrowing and heartbreaking—and very difficult to read at times—but the prose is miraculous and the ending is hopeful. It’s poetry, really, and I underlined more than I had in ages.

Exhibit by R.O. Kwon

Kwon’s latest is an exacting, potent book of desire. The narrator, Jin, is a photographer who we immediately see struggling to produce the photos she’s promised for an upcoming exhibit; she’s been throwing out anything she shoots for ages. Married to a man, she becomes quickly enchanted, drawn to—fascinated by—a ballerina named Lidija. The relationship is charged from the beginning (to say the least) as Jin gets swept into Lidija’s life as we watch their desire unspool. Kwon’s prose is so precise, every single word chosen with delicate attention (she took nine years to write the book, and much of it reads like exquisite poetry) but she also writes passion, obsession—yearning—so well that no matter what happens, you are still thinking about this ballerina, this relationship just like our narrator. 

The Price of Salt: Or Carol by Patricia Highsmith

This Patricia Highsmith classic—an illicit lesbian affair set in the 1950s in New York. Here, we follow Therese, who is dating a man she’s obviously barely interested in while working at a department store. The beautiful, mysterious, sexy Carol comes in one day, and from there it is obvious where we’re headed. As the two women grow closer together—and decide what dangers they will wade into for their desire—the story begins to feel more like that of two fugitives on the run across America as tension rises. Accessible and page-turning, this is one of Highsmith’s finest.