We’ve all been there: one day, you’re just minding your own business, when it suddenly hits you: you’ve fallen in love with your best friend. oops. And as someone who has fallen in love with quite a few of her best friends at one point or another, I can personally attest to the fact that sometimes this is good news, like when that sudden realization is followed by happily ever after. after (think ross and rachel, around the season finale of friends), and other times it’s a complete and unremitting mess, like when one thing leads to another and their relationship completely implodes (think in ross and rachel, around “we were on a break”.) but either way, there’s a book on how to fall in love with your best friend on this list, just for you.
With summer here, now is the perfect time to think about what your best friends mean to you, especially if there are any unrequited romances that need attention. And, with all those summer love vibes heating up, it’s also the perfect time to indulge in some bff romance stories. so here they are: ten books on how to fall in love with your best friend, just in time to celebrate good weather:
You are reading: Books about falling in love with your best friend
1. wuthering heights by emily brontë
Perhaps the most classic of cautionary tales about the pitfalls of falling for your best friend, in Wuthering Heights everything that could go wrong between childhood best friends and love interests Catherine earshaw and heathcliff does. If you’ve only seen the MTV adaptation (Ultimate Guilty Pleasure), then this novel about miscommunication, unrequited love, and violent revenge is definitely a must-read, especially if you’re looking for any excuse to fight. i>in love with your bff.
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2. the yonahlossee girls riding camp by anton disclafani
another novel about how falling in love with your childhood best friend can totally ruin your life (sorry everyone) yonahlossee girls riding camp is about 15 year old thea atwell, a girl who has been effectively banished to the yonahlossee riding camp under tragic family circumstances, involving a disastrous romance with her childhood best friend (and yes cousin, but don’t get too caught up in that, everyone was practically everyone else’s cousin in 1930.) Needless to say, this isn’t the kind of best friend romance you want to pursue, but disclafani’s writing is spectacular, so read it anyway.
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3. almost like being in love with steve kluger
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Shifting gears here, almost like being in love is the kind of novel that will make you feel all the (good) feelings. you’ll laugh, you’ll cheer for these characters, you’ll fall in love with each one of them, and they’ll keep you guessing until the very end, which, no spoiler alert here, is a happy one. Travis and Craig meet in high school, fall in love, and spend an incredible summer together before college, before separating and drifting apart…until 20 years later, when they meet again and risk everything to find out if their first love can last. forever. that all first loves usually do, in one way or another…
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4. mansfield park by jane austen
jane austen is an expert at writing about best friends (and, come to think of it, best enemies) who fall in love and eventually (usually after lots of drama) make it to life. happy forever. In mansfield park the romance between fanny price and edmund bertram is a slow boil, but after a handful of distractions and a temporary heartbreak, it’s obvious to everyone that these two friends were meant to be. p>
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5. never let me go by kazuo ishiguro
a bff love triangle if i’ve ever seen one, never let me go by kazuo ishiguro tells the story of kathy, ruth and tommy, students at a remote english boarding school in an orwellian setting where some humans are cloned and harvested for the benefit of others and naturally true love is the only way to escape an undesirable fate. As students, Ruth and Tommy fall in love, but when Ruth reveals that her love is not as pure as she thought, Kathy and Tommy begin the romance that was always meant to be. At the heart of this book is the eternal question of whether or not love is strong enough to save you from your fate.
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6. the newlyweds by nell freudenberger
amina mazid and george stillman are wrong about the whole “best friends who fall in love” thing, because they don’t really start out as best friends in the first place. after meeting online, the two agree to marry, if not romantically, then amicably. George needs a wife, and Amina is desperate to leave her life in Bangladesh and immigrate to the United States. But each is hiding their lingering first loves, that of Amina with her childhood best friend back home, from each other. Over the course of their marriage, separation, and reunion, George and Amina become friends, lovers, enemies, lovers, and friends again, in a way that any married best friend will find totally relatable.
7. your name in the sky by kelly quindlen
I really love this novel, which tells the story of two best friends, hannah and baker, whose lives in their conservative, religious small town prevent them from following their romantic attraction to each other. each bears the pressure of being attracted to guys who show interest in them, but deep down they know they only have eyes for each other. this book will remind you, best friends or not, that love wins hands down.
8. ana de la isla de l.m. montgomery
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What started as hair-pulling jokes and turned into a friendly academic rivalry turns into a true romance in anne of the island, the third book of l.m. montgomery’s beloved anne of green gables series. When Anne Shirley finally leaves rural Avonlea for a college in the city, her childhood friend, Gilbert Blythe, follows her, determined to win her heart once and for all. There’s a reason I’ve read these books over and over again, and it’s definitely the evolving romance between these two.
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9. secret mountain by annie proulx
This book is so painful that it’s hard to even write about it. When Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist meet one summer, their instant friendship quickly turns into something more. but in the blistering, world-weary mountainous landscape they come from, romance between two men is more than impossible. they marry women, have children and try to remain friends, but the love they feel for each other is irresistible, vital and necessary. and totally heartbreaking.
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10. emma by jane austen
did you know that jane austen was going to appear on this list at least twice, so we’ll let her top it off with the story of emma woodhouse, hands down one of my all time favorite austen heroines. Emma is delightfully, disastrously nosy, prying into the romantic lives of everyone she meets, despite the fact that she claims to have little desire for love and romance. But as her lifelong friend, George Knightley, continues to call out Emma for her interfering ways, the couple realizes that her love could be the most anticipated romance of all. austen is so good.
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image: tord sollie/unsplash
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