Fiction Books About Breakups

Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. They’ve been together for a few years — good years — but now they’re not sure why they’re still a couple. Over the course of a few weeks both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they’ve ever known. And just maybe they’ll all be okay in the end. A funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you’re supposed to be, and the limits of love.

For anyone who has loved and lost, and lived to tell the tale, this gorgeously written debut is a love story told in reverse, a modern novel with the heart of a classic: Truthful, tragic, and ultimately full of hope.

From the award-winning author, a stunning collection that celebrates the haunting, impossible power of love. In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, these stories lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart. They remind us that passion always triumphs over experience, and that “the half-life of love is forever.”

Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. In this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally… reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter.

From the bestselling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About Love: A story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both.

“A masterpiece” (NPR) about marriage, divorce, and the bewildering dynamics of ambition. A searing, utterly unvarnished debut, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an insightful, unsettling, often hilarious exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines in an institution that has proven to be worthy of our great wariness and our great hope.

The blistering story of a young man making his Broadway debut in Henry IV just as his marriage implodes — a “witty, wise, and heartfelt novel” (Washington Post) about art and love, fame and heartbreak from the acclaimed actor/writer/director.

A beautifully written, unforgettable novel of a troubled marriage, set against the lush landscape and political turmoil of Trinidad — by the award-winning author of The Mermaid of Black Conch and Passiontide.

From the bestselling author of Kafka on the Shore: A magnificent coming-of-age story steeped in nostalgia, “a masterly novel” (The New York Times Book Review) blending the music, the mood, and the ethos that were the sixties with a young man’s hopeless and heroic first love.

Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? From the bestselling author of About a Boy, A Long Way Down, and Dickens and Prince, a wise and hilarious novel about love, heartbreak, and rock ‘n roll.