by the book.
There’s no better distraction than a literary love affair.
The right book can keep you captivated in the heat of the moment, flipping pages past as you reach the climax—of the plot or otherwise. It’s an easy way to dive into another world, whether you’re stealing a few moments on the subway or curled up for an evening of indulgence.
Romance novels exist on a wide spectrum: the mass-market bodice-rippers, the practically-made-for-film bestsellers, the YA heroes, and the literary love stories. And it’s the last category that often lingers long after the final page is turned. These novels can be companions that keep your passions burning—whether experienced as an audiobook whispering you to sleep, or as a physical tome you can return to whenever you crave a little fantasy.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
A reimagining of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, this novel transforms epic mythology into a deeply personal love story. The romance is patient, reverent, and emotionally expansive, centering devotion and chosen partnership. It’s sweeping without being sensational, reminding us that queer love stories have always existed—even in the oldest myths.
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
At its core, this novel is about fate—and how personal decisions can only bring you so far. It follows two sisters through their lives, first as girls in Australia, then as young women in England, and then in America and beyond. All the while loves lost and loves conquered continue to haunt them and push them forward to consequences both profound and mundane.
Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman
Yes, you’ve seen the movie, but Aciman’s original text is well worth a read. Told through Elio’s perspective, it’s rife with the kind of over-analysis that young lovers are wont to make. The book’s setting of Italy in the early ’80s is transportive enough, but lyrical prose makes it easier to burrow inside this romance.
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Not all love stories have happy endings—that’s as true in fiction as it is in life—but it’s the sad tales that might be even more spiritually fulfilling. This novel, about a young American man’s time spent in Paris, as he attempts to find himself and in the meantime gets involved with a bartender named Giovanni, is about gender roles, desire, and identity; simply put, it’s a study on the vast impact one person can have on your perception of yourself and the world around you.
The Pisces by Melissa Broder
A master at operating in extremes, Broder’s dark fairytale of a romance is visceral and lurid—but don’t write it off as an average bodice ripper. This is story is about obsession and addiction just as much as it is about a deceptively hot love interest who really likes the ocean.
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The agonies of late adolescent love affairs hit a particular pang, but that’s what makes this novel, set at Harvard in the early ’90s (back when email was new and exciting) particularly poignant and humorous. Yearning over a few sentences sent by a potential flame isn’t unique to this decade, and the romantic struggles of Batuman’s young protagonist are deeply relatable—so much so that this narrative feels like a quiet comfort.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Told as a letter from a son to his mother, this novel moves through memory, masculinity, migration, and first love with startling tenderness. At its center is an intense relationship between two young men navigating desire and vulnerability against the backdrop of working-class America. Vuong writes about bodies and intimacy with softness rather than spectacle, making it a meditation on connection, power, and care.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Framed as a Hollywood icon recounting her life story, this novel builds toward a central love that quietly reshapes everything around it. Beneath the glamour and ambition is a tender, enduring relationship between two women navigating fame, secrecy, and the constraints of their time. It’s sweeping yet intimate, sensual without being gratuitous, and ultimately about choosing authenticity—both in love and in selfhood.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This novel follows four friends in New York, centering on Jude and his deeply intimate relationships. Yanagihara explores love, desire, trauma, and devotion with unflinching honesty. The story interrogates how erotic and emotional intimacy intersect with memory and suffering, offering a profound reflection on connection, longing, and the enduring impact of love.
Maurice by E.M. Forster
Set in Edwardian England, this novel follows Maurice Hall’s awakening to love and desire in a society that forbids it. Forster writes with subtlety and tenderness, exploring erotic longing, vulnerability, and the courage to pursue authentic connection. The story examines how intimacy and self-realization can exist even under societal constraint, making it a quietly revolutionary meditation on queer love.
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A luminous exploration of love, ambition, and desire among the glittering expatriate elite, Fitzgerald traces the complexities of intimacy and erotic attraction. Through Dick and Nicole Diver’s fraught marriage, the novel examines power, vulnerability, and the fragility of emotional connection against the backdrop of glamour and moral ambiguity.
