Best First Love / First Heartbreak Books

A Walk to Remember

by Nicholas Sparks

The Score

Off-Campus • Book 3

by Elle Kennedy

The Other Side

by Kim Holden

White Nights

by Fyodor Dostoevsky, TAZIRI, Constance Garnett

Set during St. Petersburg's ethereal white nights, Dostoevsky's novella follows a solitary dreamer who befriends a young woman waiting for her absent lover. Brief but emotionally devastating, it explores loneliness and the cruel hope of connection.

More about this pick

Set during St. Petersburg's ethereal white nights, Dostoevsky's novella follows a solitary dreamer who befriends a young woman waiting for her absent lover. Brief but emotionally devastating, it explores loneliness and the cruel hope of connection.

Bookshops & Bonedust

Legends & Lattes • Book 2

by Travis Baldree

Young orc mercenary Viv gets benched in a quiet coastal town after a battle injury, where she reluctantly helps save a struggling bookshop and discovers that adventure isn't always about swinging swords. Baldree's prequel to Legends & Lattes explores how detours can become destinations.

More about this pick

Young orc mercenary Viv gets benched in a quiet coastal town after a battle injury, where she reluctantly helps save a struggling bookshop and discovers that adventure isn't always about swinging swords. Baldree's prequel to Legends & Lattes explores how detours can become destinations.

Norwegian Wood

by Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin

Set against 1960s Tokyo student protests, Toru loves a girl haunted by her boyfriend's suicide while discovering that grief can consume as easily as passion.

More about this pick

Set against 1960s Tokyo student protests, Toru loves a girl haunted by her boyfriend's suicide while discovering that grief can consume as easily as passion.

Pioneer Summer

Лето в пионерском галстуке • Book 1

by Elena Malisova, Katerina Silvanova, Anne O. Fisher

Two sixteen-year-old boys discover each other at Pioneer Camp as the Soviet Union crumbles around them. The forbidden love story that became a TikTok sensation despite—or because of—its government ban.

More about this pick

Two sixteen-year-old boys discover each other at Pioneer Camp as the Soviet Union crumbles around them. The forbidden love story that became a TikTok sensation despite—or because of—its government ban.

An Unexpected Affair

Unexpected • Book 1

by Skye Von Triessen

They Both Die at the End

They Both Die at the End • Book 1

by Adam Silvera

My Oxford Year

by Julia Whelan

The Whyte Python World Tour

by Travis Kennedy

From condemned paint store to chart-topping success, aspiring drummer Rikki Thunder discovers that joining LA's hottest metal band in 1986 comes with a price he never expected.

More about this pick

From condemned paint store to chart-topping success, aspiring drummer Rikki Thunder discovers that joining LA's hottest metal band in 1986 comes with a price he never expected.

Swim the Fly

Swim the Fly • Book 1

by Don Calame

You've Got a Place Here, Too: An Anthology of Black Love Stories Set at HBCUs

by Ebony LaDelle

This anthology celebrates love stories unfolding at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, exploring themes of hope, endurance, and legacy-building. Prominent Black writers examine romance within HBCU campus culture.

More about this pick

This anthology celebrates love stories unfolding at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, exploring themes of hope, endurance, and legacy-building. Prominent Black writers examine romance within HBCU campus culture.

This Side of Paradise

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Before Gatsby, Fitzgerald wrote this semi-autobiographical portrait of a self-absorbed Princeton student discovering that privilege doesn't guarantee purpose or happiness.

More about this pick

Before Gatsby, Fitzgerald wrote this semi-autobiographical portrait of a self-absorbed Princeton student discovering that privilege doesn't guarantee purpose or happiness.

Hot Little Hands

by Abigail Ulman

Ulman's collection cuts through the complexity of female desire with unflinching honesty, following young Australian women as they discover what it means to want and be wanted.

More about this pick

Ulman's collection cuts through the complexity of female desire with unflinching honesty, following young Australian women as they discover what it means to want and be wanted.