Books for the heartbroken
December 8, 2015 10:33 AM Subscribe
Say someone was dating someone they really liked, and it ended. So they consoled themselves by creating a reading list.
The ideal would be a mixture of very absorbing books that would distract, enlighten, humor; inspire cathartic tears and acceptance.
Sci-fi, fantasy, classic novels, self-help, graphic novels, non-fiction - just about anything.
As I Wake was helpful for acceptance and remembrance. Feed was cathartic and instructive. The Silver Metal Lover was for acknowledgment. Becoming Chloe was for the journey. Can't Think Straight was a reminder.
posted by lunastellasol at 10:48 AM on December 8, 2015
posted by lunastellasol at 10:48 AM on December 8, 2015
Gunnerkrigg Court hits all of these buttons for me. They sell the physical copies through their store or Amazon if you don't want to be on the internet.
As for self-help, I like Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart and Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. The latter focuses on creating art to help regain yourself and your sense of creativity, but it's very healing. Sending much love for your grieving and healing process, take as long as you need to take <3
posted by yueliang at 10:52 AM on December 8, 2015
As for self-help, I like Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart and Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. The latter focuses on creating art to help regain yourself and your sense of creativity, but it's very healing. Sending much love for your grieving and healing process, take as long as you need to take <3
posted by yueliang at 10:52 AM on December 8, 2015
Recently went through a breakup myself and Once Upon a River fit my mood exactly. It's an engaging and cathartic read and quite fun despite the somber tones, especially since a core theme is survival on your own.
posted by veery at 11:10 AM on December 8, 2015
posted by veery at 11:10 AM on December 8, 2015
My big heartbreak book was Heinrich Böll's The Clown. But that may make me a weirdo. Nowadays I don't drink. . .
posted by O. Bender at 11:15 AM on December 8, 2015
posted by O. Bender at 11:15 AM on December 8, 2015
I always recommend this, and as I write it, it always sounds crazy to me, but Cocktail, by Heywood Gould.
Yes, it was turned into the Tom Cruise movie. The book is nothing like the movie at all. It's emotional and cynical and loving and a good non-PC rant and really very darkly funny. And the ending is pure catharsis for a character that spends the entire story telling the reader they don't deserve redemption.
Everyone I recommend this book to says I'm crazy. But everyone that's read it comes back at me going, "Wow, that wasn't what I expected at all."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:19 AM on December 8, 2015
Yes, it was turned into the Tom Cruise movie. The book is nothing like the movie at all. It's emotional and cynical and loving and a good non-PC rant and really very darkly funny. And the ending is pure catharsis for a character that spends the entire story telling the reader they don't deserve redemption.
Everyone I recommend this book to says I'm crazy. But everyone that's read it comes back at me going, "Wow, that wasn't what I expected at all."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:19 AM on December 8, 2015
This seems like the kind of time in life where one might want to tackle Infinite Jest. It's dense and absorbing. It deals with hard times of lives in a way that is funny and sad.
posted by sparklemotion at 11:27 AM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by sparklemotion at 11:27 AM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
If you haven't already, please for the love of baby kittens, read "A Confederacy of Dunces", because it is HILARIOUS, and smart and wonderful.
If you've already read it, then read it again.
Modesty (and probably MF Etiquette) prevents me from recommending my own mystery novels, but I think they are pretty good.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 11:29 AM on December 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you've already read it, then read it again.
Modesty (and probably MF Etiquette) prevents me from recommending my own mystery novels, but I think they are pretty good.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 11:29 AM on December 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
Letting Go looks cheesy as hell, but it's the best breakup book I've run across, in terms of what to actually do with yourself each day. Seconding When Things Fall Apart.
For a distraction when I'm in the Pit of Despair, my go-to books are the Jeeves novels by Wodehouse.
posted by culfinglin at 11:39 AM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
For a distraction when I'm in the Pit of Despair, my go-to books are the Jeeves novels by Wodehouse.
posted by culfinglin at 11:39 AM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Grief Recovery Handbook, which is for all kinds of grief, because a breakup is a kind of death, too.
The Goldbug Variations, which is one of my favorite novels of all time, and which has a couple of parallel stories about heartbreak and which I underlined extensively the first time I read it, when I was myself going through heartbreak.
posted by janey47 at 11:51 AM on December 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
The Goldbug Variations, which is one of my favorite novels of all time, and which has a couple of parallel stories about heartbreak and which I underlined extensively the first time I read it, when I was myself going through heartbreak.
posted by janey47 at 11:51 AM on December 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
I just read Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. Strong female characters and very engaging. Highly recommend.
posted by monologish at 12:15 PM on December 8, 2015
posted by monologish at 12:15 PM on December 8, 2015
Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye was always my go-to book when I was feeling down.
posted by misseva at 12:19 PM on December 8, 2015
posted by misseva at 12:19 PM on December 8, 2015
My experience is that Nick Hornby is great breakup reading: High Fidelity, About a Boy, and Juliet, Naked each show relationships broken in different - both sad and hilarious - ways.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:33 PM on December 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 1:33 PM on December 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
I always reread The Phantom Tollbooth when I need a real pick-me-up. It remains a classic.
posted by capricorn at 1:48 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by capricorn at 1:48 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Getting Over Homer, by Mark O'Donnell.
Admittedly, this is a love it or hate it book—I loved it, obviously.
posted by she's not there at 2:25 PM on December 8, 2015
Admittedly, this is a love it or hate it book—I loved it, obviously.
posted by she's not there at 2:25 PM on December 8, 2015
Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise. It's a graphic novel series, but it is brilliant and full of love and heartbreak (so much heartbreak) and humor and friendship. It can be dark sometimes and lighthearted others. It's really amazing and worth hunting down copies.
posted by carrioncomfort at 2:43 PM on December 8, 2015
posted by carrioncomfort at 2:43 PM on December 8, 2015
Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. It made me cry pretty hard, and is also a fantastic sci-fi book with fascinating ideas on gender. Oh, and it won the Hugo and Nebula. (Priorities.)
posted by glass origami robot at 3:01 PM on December 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by glass origami robot at 3:01 PM on December 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
Marilynne Robinson's fiction. She writes ethereal, emotionally articulate prose.
posted by tackypink at 4:10 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by tackypink at 4:10 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I recommend two excellent graphic novels by twin brothers Ba and Moon: Daytripper and Two Brothers. They are both quite moving and quite epic in scale, while very personal. The former presents ten chapters with the theme what if you died on this day of your life? The latter is based on a very popular Brazilian novel, and details the story of a family, and the conflict between the two brothers, against the backdrop of the history of the city of Manaus.
Something about the art and the pathos this team produces is hard to match.
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:54 PM on December 8, 2015
Something about the art and the pathos this team produces is hard to match.
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:54 PM on December 8, 2015
I've been on a Connie Willis kick this month, and have found her Oxford time-travel novels to be unputdownable. The Doomsday Book is engrossing and cathartic, and acknowledges the heartbreak of (platonic) loss quite well. To Say Nothing of the Dog is, by contrast, a lighthearted romp - but similarly distracting and impossible not to tear through. Hope you're hanging in there...
posted by staraling at 5:16 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by staraling at 5:16 PM on December 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
bluets by maggie nelson!
here's a blurb about it that i found to be pretty spot-on:
In 2009, poet Maggie Nelson dropped Bluets, the print equivalent of a mixtape that combines memoir, poetry, art critique, and personal essay. Bluets as a whole is a lyrical meditation on love, grief, obsession, and color, but any given stanza of it—it’s organized into numbered paragraphs—might consist solely of a detail about a nomadic tribe, or a quote from Goethe.
posted by iahtl at 7:01 PM on December 8, 2015
here's a blurb about it that i found to be pretty spot-on:
In 2009, poet Maggie Nelson dropped Bluets, the print equivalent of a mixtape that combines memoir, poetry, art critique, and personal essay. Bluets as a whole is a lyrical meditation on love, grief, obsession, and color, but any given stanza of it—it’s organized into numbered paragraphs—might consist solely of a detail about a nomadic tribe, or a quote from Goethe.
posted by iahtl at 7:01 PM on December 8, 2015
The Jim Dale version of the Harry Potter audiobooks just came out on Audible. I have found these versions to be tremendously engaging and comforting. I'd recommend getting whichever of the books is one's favorite and listening to it while puttering, taking a walk, knitting/coloring/doing crafts, doing chores. It's a pleasant way to help a space feel more full.
posted by linettasky at 7:27 PM on December 8, 2015
posted by linettasky at 7:27 PM on December 8, 2015
Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman. Funny, and even possibly educational. Science!
posted by pimli at 8:03 PM on December 8, 2015
posted by pimli at 8:03 PM on December 8, 2015
Came here to recommend Banana Yoshimoto again, and Tamora Pierce, especially Song of the Lioness in this case.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 9:53 PM on December 8, 2015
posted by LoonyLovegood at 9:53 PM on December 8, 2015
A friend really liked "It's Called a Break-up Because It's Broken."
I always like The Art of Happiness and the Tao Te Ching for things like this too.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 10:57 AM on December 9, 2015
I always like The Art of Happiness and the Tao Te Ching for things like this too.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 10:57 AM on December 9, 2015
YMMV, but Vonnegut is really comforting to me in times like these if you like his style.
For fun fantasy escapism with great female characters and minimal lovestruck mooning, I really liked City of Stairs. The author has a sequel coming out this month, I believe.
posted by superfluousm at 1:20 PM on December 9, 2015
For fun fantasy escapism with great female characters and minimal lovestruck mooning, I really liked City of Stairs. The author has a sequel coming out this month, I believe.
posted by superfluousm at 1:20 PM on December 9, 2015
« Older Privacy vs functionality on an iPhone | The 2 key on my laptop is broken, how to cope Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
If you haven't read them yet, Maus I and Maus II are together one of the best graphic novels I've ever encountered, and quite cathartic in effect.
posted by bearwife at 10:38 AM on December 8, 2015 [3 favorites]