Being single is annoying. You constantly see happy couples on social media and all you want to do is be like them. If you're single like I am, you'd most likely spend a lot of time wallowing in your “loneliness” thinking “why me?”. When you're in a relationship, life is said to be full of love, but shouldn't it be that way for everyone?
I think Cupid would agree with me when I say you can never have too much harmless love and what better way to get it than by living vicariously through different characters falling in love (plus point if you can relate to them). Below is a list of 8 love stories (or series of love stories), in no particular order, that I adore, which can bring love to anyone’s life!
Alone With You In The Ether
A doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel and a bipolar counterfeit artist undergoing court-ordered therapy. Characters with eccentric personalities, Aldo Damiani and Charlotte Regan, form a bond where they become reliant on each other from the day they meet and only become more attached as they fall in love throughout five conversations. Olivie Blake truly portrays the nature of love in this story, “what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you’re not broken.” The novel is truly the best love story I've read and it's criminally underrated.
The Bride Test
Khai Diep is a man who avoids relationships because of self-doubt over his autism and the fact that he processes emotions differently. What happens when his mother decides to bring him a potential bride from Vietnam? Esme Tran, a mixed-race girl from the slums of Ho Chi Minh city, goes to America to meet a potential husband with the chance of giving her daughter a better life.
The problem is “she’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection.” Helen Hoang takes the commonly used grumpy sunshine trope and turns it into a hilarious and heartwarming romance. This novel is part of a series but can be read as a standalone!
Heartstopper
Heartstopper is a universe about love, loyalty, and friendship which also tackles topics like mental illness and discovering one’s sexuality. It follows the story of Charlie and Nick, two people who go to the same school that forms a surprising friendship that turns into something more. It's a really sweet series of graphic novels that is easy to read with a relatable storyline and characters. Heartstopper is also being turned into a TV show on Netflix, so now is the perfect time to read it!
Sex, Love & Stiletto and The Oxford Series
Rival magazines, gorgeous girls, hot boys, and they're journalists. A witty take on the whole girl vs. boy idea, the sex, love & stiletto, and the Oxford series are spin-offs that center around characters that work at rival magazines for men and women, respectively. The stiletto series follows the story of the stiletto girls and the oxford series follows the men of the oxford magazine. Lauren Layne manages to write multiple captivating romances in the same universe that all blend beautifully to form one huge friend group that even I'm envious of.
The Trouble with Hating You
Liya Thakkar is a biochemical engineer who is happily single but her parents keep trying to set her up with men so that she can get married. Jay Shah, a charming and infuriating lawyer (according to Liya), is one of the men Liya's parents bring home to meet her but…Liya runs out. Just when they think they’re rid of each other, Jay turns out to be the new lawyer that has to save Liya's sinking company. Read how witty banter turns into emotional 2 am conversations and how Jay and Liya become the only people that truly understand each other.
You Deserve Each Other
Nicholas Rose is charming, sweet, and just perfect. He’s everything Naomi or anyone could want in a fiance but…she’s utterly sick of him. When Naomi discovers that Nicholas too can’t stand her, they both begin a “battle of pranks, sabotage, and all-out emotional warfare.” Three months to the wedding, fiances who claim to hate each other, family drama, and witty banter.
Sarah Hogle takes this unlikely scenario and turns it into one of the funniest novels I've read. This cute and hilarious rom-com about how Naomi and Nicholas fall in love…again should be at the top of everyone’s to-be-read list!
Kulti
To say Sal Casillas was a fangirl would be an understatement. As a child, she used to have posters on her walls, envisioned marrying him, and even having super soccer babies with the one and only, Reiner multi. Heartbroken when he gets married to someone else, she goes through all the phases of a “break-up” and claims to hate him.
What happens when he comes back as her soccer coach? The two form an unlikely friendship and he's nothing like she thought. Completely unprepared for everything she feels about him and their escalating tension, read about how Mariana Zapata takes these two characters and brings them from “strangers,” to friends, then finally to lovers in this incredible slow-burn romance.
The Love Hypothesis
“When a fake relationship between scientists meets the irresistible force of attraction, it throws one woman’s carefully calculated theories on love into chaos.” Olive Smith refuses to believe in love, she’s a ph.D. candidate with enough work on her hands to add a man to the mix. When she needs to convince her overbearing best friend that she is dating someone, Olive kisses the first man she sees. Unfortunately, that man ends up being Adam Carlsen, an attractive professor who is known for being an [censored].
Ali Hazelwood transforms the overly used fake dating trope into something that had me blushing by just reading it. The love hypothesis is an adorable, lighthearted romance that I will forever enjoy.
This brings us to the end of our list. I hope everyone finds something that they think is worth reading, especially when you just need that extra dose of love in your life.
