Your Next Book Based on Your Relationship Status

Ah yes. Literature. The vehicle through which we may explore faraway lives we would have otherwise never imagined. From my little, rugged armchair, I can witness forbidden love in the 18th century. Peek into a bustling kitchen in New York City. Discover the dramatic betrayal that fractured the hottest band of the ’70s.

But sometimes, I just want to read about someone going through the same shit as me.

Nothing cures a pain quite like finding yourself reflected in a piece of literature. Doesn’t matter if you’re falling into a relationship or out of one. Below is a book for every relationship status:

I’m in a relationship

Stay with Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀

Of all the romantic relationships, the most traditionally celebrated and arguably the most historically problematic is marriage. Nevertheless, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s Stay with Me dives headfirst into that can of worms with Yejide and Akin, a monogamous Nigerian couple who become at odds when Akin, pressured by society and family to father a child, brings home a second wife, Funmi. Devastated, Yejide decides the only way to take Akin back is to have his child, even though years of fertility consults have failed them. Though Yejide is eventually successful, the costs might be too much for her to bear. 

I’m in a situationship

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

How to describe the relationship between Greta Work and Big Swiss? I believe it is best encapsulated by the scene in which Big Swiss and Greta lie on their bed, idly chatting, after a session of near-clinical fingering. It’s an affair, its companionship, it’s—a privacy violation? See, Big Swiss is seeing a sex therapist due to the fact that she is unable to climax, while Greta is (secretly) the transcriptionist that works for Big Swiss’s therapist. Greta knows everything about Big Swiss. Big Swiss doesn’t even know Greta’s real name. It’s all very messed up, and yet, somehow, very sweet.

I’m part of a triangle

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon

Not all triangles are created equal. There are certainly healthy, congruent triangles, as well as triangles burgeoning into a square. In the case of R.O. Kwon’s The Incendiaries, the triangle can be best approximated as a wispy isosceles growing taller by the minute. For our protagonists, we have Will Kendall and Phoebe Lin, a young couple who meet their first month at the prestigious Edwards University. While Will attempts to leave his evangelical past behind, Phoebe, guilt ridden by her mother’s recent death, seeks comfort in the charismatic John Leal, a former student and the leader of Jejah, an extremist religious cult. Though Will can feel Phoebe slipping away, everything comes to a head when Jejah bombs several buildings, resulting in five deaths. Phoebe disappears. As Will sinks further into his obsession with finding Phoebe, Phoebe and the mysterious John Leal seem to slip further away. Not a love triangle in the traditional, Edward-Jacob sense, but certainly a triangle built on obsession and want.

I’m on the apps

Out There by Kate Folk

Online dating is an odd thing. On one hand, you might meet the love of your life. On the other, you might wind up dead in a ditch, or at least short a couple thousand dollars. Kate Folk’s short story collection Out There features two stories set in a world where dating apps are threatened by “blots,” AKA unnaturally handsome artificial men designed by Russian hackers to steal information from unsuspecting women. In the titular story, a young woman attempts to field these blots, while in another story, a woman develops a genuine connection with a blot. In between these two stories are other tales of unsettling, modern relationships, including that between a man and a house, that feel resonant with our time.

I’m going through a break up and working on myself

Really Good Actually by Monica Heisey

Do you believe in life after love? Maggie, a self-described Surprisingly Young Divorcée™, attempts to restart her life after her 608 day long marriage to her now ex-husband. It’s… going okay? Maybe? For the most part, she spends her days trying out new hobbies with her other divorcee friends, waking up on the floor, and self-sabotaging her way through new relationships. Equal parts hilarious and Gazing Into The Void, Really Good Actually captures the despairing humor of post-relationship life.

I’m single

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Set in modern-day Japan, Convenience Store Woman follows a woman in her late 30s. Keiko has never understood the conventions of societal norms, or how to act like a “normal person”. But within the fluorescent confines of Smile Mart, she finds order and purpose, a place that makes sense in a world that doesn’t, with the rules neatly laid out line-by-line in a manual. But to her family and peers, she’s a failure for being “still single” and working a “dead-end job.” Keiko doesn’t want or need a husband or a career, but the pressure to conform becomes too overwhelming and she resorts to a fake relationship. Sure he doesn’t leave the room, pay the bills, or do any of the chores, but her family is finally happy that she’s normal. Even though normal includes cohabitating with a misogynist too lazy to even take a shower. It’s strange, Keiko observes, “It appears that if a man and a woman are alone in an apartment together, people’s imaginations run wild and they’re satisfied regardless of the reality.” This weird little novella is for anyone who has ever being shamed for being single, or felt the weight of society telling them that their obligation and their worth depends on getting a job, getting married, and having kids.

We’re growing apart

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Though Our Wives Under the Sea does not depict a long-distance relationship in the literal sense, it does capture the uncertainty of one. The novel begins with marine biologist Leah’s return from a harrowing deep sea expedition, the circumstances of which are not clear to Leah’s wife, Miri. What Miri does know is that Leah is now different. Once a happy, even boring couple, Leah and Miri now live on separate planes, their lives divided by whatever it was Leah witnessed in the deep. Haunting yet tender, Our Wives Under the Sea is about two people changed by their time apart.

It’s… messy:

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

There are relationships that fall easily into categories, then there are relationships so clusterfucked it is best not to give it a name at all. In Akwaeke Emezi’s You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, Feyi Adekola is finally ready to venture back out into the dating world after the tragic death of her husband. First, there is Milan, pretty and simple—an easy start, if you will, and then there is Nasir, who falls in love with not only Feyi, but also her artwork. As Nasir helps Feyi’s art career develop, Feyi finds herself falling in love with the one person who should be off limits: Nasir’s widowed father, Alim. A true heroine romance, though without the bowtie ending, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty asks the age old question of what we are willing to give up for love.

I’m poly

A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins

Here’s another triangle, but of a different kind. Marissa Higgins’ A Good Happy Girl follows a young attorney named Helen who hooks up with married couple Katrina and Catherine in order to distract herself from her past traumas. What begins as a simple hook-up soon becomes a turbulent, emotional investment as Katrina and Catherine slowly unearth her past.

Am I the third wheel?

The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams

Quasimodo. Nick Carraway. Luke Skywalker. Phoebe and Joey. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the third wheels are always there. Is there a third wheel in your relationship? No? Are you the third wheel? Set over the course of a day, The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams, centers on the longstanding feud between a woman’s husband and her best friend, which comes to a head one afternoon when the best friend comes over for wine and gossip. A comedy told in three parts, The Three of Us examines love and self-narrative between Kim K references and cigarettes.

I’m in a courtship

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

Though I’m more of a contemporary fiction fan, I can’t resist a Brontë romance. In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the beautiful and mysterious Helen Graham moves into town, sparking the intrigue of one Gilbert Markham. Helen is not alone, instead accompanied by her young son. Though Gilbert and Helen quickly strike up a friendship, town gossip has Gilbert doubting Helen’s intentions. Who is she really, and where did she come from? A classic though perhaps lesser known Brontë novel.