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Do you know how serious girlies have that phase in their adolescence where they only want to read books and not talk to people? Yeah, I never grew out of that. Most of the joy of my life comes from novels, and I am not ashamed to admit it. We’re all like, “Haha, books over people,” but let’s be honest: books over people. One of the shining stars of literature over the last few years has been Sally Rooney, everyone’s fave sad literary girlie. In honor of her newest novel coming out, let’s thicken up your overflowing TBR list! Here are books to read if you love Sally Rooney.
There’s Nothing Wrong With Her by Kate Weinberg
Okay, I loved her first book, The Truants, so when a PR girlie slid into my DMs to offer me an advanced copy of Kate’s second novel, I may have done a dorky happy dance. And while this short novel is nothing like her first book or anything I’ve read in general, I absolutely devoured it.
It follows Vita, a woman struggling with a chronic illness that no doctor can seem to diagnose. I felt like I was right there in her bedroom with her, day after day, seeing the visions, feeling the pain, struggling to make sense of it all. What a fucking important novel about invisible illnesses. Go read it right now, like literally right now. Plus, if you’re a sucker for books about sisters like me, you have ZERO excuse not to go read it, but be prepared to cry a wittle bit.
Parade by Rachel Cusk
This is one of those weird novels that is both amazing and enough to give you a migraine, and I mean that in the BEST way. Midway through his life, an artist begins to paint upside down. He also paints his wife upside down and makes her ugly, and the paintings begin selling very well. Another artist takes on a series of pseudonyms to conceal his work from his mother and father, while his brother does the opposite. On and on, Parade is a story of stories, and it breaks all the traditions of storytelling. It confronts how we look at identity, family, morality, gender, and, of course, art. *chefs kiss*
Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood
ANOTHER BOOK CENTERED ON WOMEN, SALLY WOULD BE PROUD. This dark debut novel explores the masks we wear as women. Mitty is kinda a sad person who lives with an elderly roommate on the Santa Cruz waterfront. Her life is changed forever when a new couple, Lena and Sebastian, move in next door. Sebastian is a renowned tech founder (okay flex), and Lena is his spellbinding, luxurious girlfriend. But as Lena and Mitty get closer, the cracks begin to appear in the relationship. This is like Stepford Wives but includes artificial intelligence and tech shit. I didn’t know a novel about technology and power could be so damn passionate.
Stag Dance by Torrey Peters
Okay, this is a weird one, but we’re all a bit weird, right? Right????? So this is a novel and three novels by the incredible author of Dentransition, Baby. It’s about restless lumberjacks working at an illegal winter logging camp. I know you’re like, HUH? But wait for it. They’re planning a dance which some will attend as women. A rivalry starts between the strongest of the jacks and a pretty, young one, as both plan to dance as a woman. The other stories also cover the themes of gender and transition in strange, titillating ways. FASCINATING.
Liars by Sarah Manguso
When Jane met John, the writer and filmmaker wanted the same things: to be in love, to be a successful creative, and to be happy. Years later, and into the depths of motherhood, Jane realizes that she is now just his wife. John leaves her (prick), and this becomes a tale of wit and rage, a woman rising from the ashes of a failed marriage. I fucking love an angry woman, and the world better watch out for her. An astonishing novel you literally can’t put down. I was breathless by the end of it.
The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
Who doesn’t love a wedding? They’re so messy, exhilarating, ecstatic, devastating, and everything in between. Celine and Luke’s wedding is coming up, and their happily ever after is nowhere to be seen. Luke’s a serial cheater, and Celine is more interested in her piano. Their friends, exes, and family are all similarly fucked up. It’s gonna be a night to remember, only they might not want to by the end of it. Naoise is a fellow Irish prodigy, so you know this is gonna be devastatingly hilarious.
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
As a dedicated fangirl of her podcast, Sentimental Garbage, I was extremely excited to get my grubby little paws on a copy of her new book, The Rachel Incident. And wow, this book managed to be so confronting, despite never having lived in Ireland, become entangled in an affair, nor had a man run a knife seductively against my thigh (yet). Also, Sally Rooney, Ireland, the connection speaks for itself.
This novel manages to perfectly capture the chaos and drama of your early twenties. It’s a love story to those intense friendships that shape you for better and worse. It’s gritty, like waking up the night after a bender to find your smudged eyeliner kind of looks sexy and mysterious but also unwashed. It felt like looking in a mirror and seeing the reflection move without you, even just for a second.
Wild Failure by Zoe Whittall
There is something so sexy about short stories. Like talk about edging, the control to have an amazing story, and then only give me the tip — delicious. These stories are all about women: wild women, loose women, murderous women, regretful women, and more. These stories are funny, and yet so acutely aware of things you never realized yourself. They all reflect the common theme of desire in a world that devalues femininity and queerness. I read these entire book in one night, and then reread it two days later when I didn’t want to leave my bed. My thoughts have been consumed ever since.
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
I know how to make Gigi Hadid’s vodka penne pasta, and I watch The Bear, so I guess you could say I’m a bit of a culinary expert. That’s why when this book landed in my inbox and later at my front door, I was curious. It’s got the post-apocalyptic vibes of a smog-covered world where nothing fresh can be grown and follows a chef as she embarks on a strange new job. The prose is right up Sally’s alley despite taking place nowhere near Ireland (I think they’re in Italy, but I’m not even sure, lol). It’s seductive, raw, poetic, hungry, and just a jolly good time.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
This is a love story in the same way that many of Sally Rooney’s books are: love without lovers, love without joy, love with all the pain. This is a love story with friendship, a love story to the fascinating gaming industry, and a love story about finding your space in the world. It was an exhilarating novel that takes you over thirty years of ambition, jealousy, work, and passion from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California. Sam Masure and Sadie Green go from lost young adults to rich and successful game designers. It made me really look at video games in a new light and how they ultimately are just a form of connection and second chances. Okay, brb, I am sobbing again.
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
There were three solid months when you couldn’t sit on the subway without spotting someone reading this or at least toting the book around like a sexy accessory. Nevertheless, I am never one to shy away from the mainstream, and I can admit when something is worth the hype. This debut novel is fucking hot.
Cleo and Frank impulsively get married, partly for a Green Card, partly for her to be supported in her artistry, and partly for the plot. The effects of this spontaneous decision reverberate into not only their lives but also their loved ones as they grapple to make sense of this new world. It’s relatable in the kind of way you hate to admit, and it’s so fucking seductive. If Conversations With Friends is your fave Rooney book, this is your next read sorted.
A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp
I love books about sad girls in their twenties because I am also a very sad girl in my twenties!! Anna is a girlie who just doesn’t fit in, not with the family she rushed to leave, the wealthy classmates at the London Conservatory, and definitely not with Max, the older man she’s started seeing. Anna is hooked on him and desperate for his attention, approval, and, yeah, love. It’s got that wonderful self-sabotaging streak that makes you want to light a cigarette just to set it on fire.
Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress
Nothing gets me hard, like books about artists. Like, serve me that shit up in a bowl, and I will slurp it down. Given that many of Sally’s books are about writ-uhs, I feel like you’d agree. So it’s 2011, and we’re at the elite Wrynn College of Art; Louisa transfers to the fancy school on a scholarship and is unexpectedly attracted to her roommate, Karina. Gifted, rich, and merciless, Karina is every queer girl’s dream. But then there’s Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur — I smell bisexual shit!!! It’s giving Anna Delvey’s art world with sex, success, failure, joy, heartbreak, and MUSES.
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
This novel was more graphic than most of the porn I’ve seen, and yet not that much sex actually happened. It blurred the lines between fetish and desire, erotic and disgusting, hunger and greed. It’s about the hunger we have for food, sex, belonging, identity. Rachel is a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. Her entire life is about control. But during a 90-day communication detox from her mother (hmmm idea), she meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman intent on feeding her. She becomes intoxicated with Miriam, and the two embark on an obsessive relationship defined by hunger and fullness.
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
You know those books that you don’t expect to wreck you so much? Like a book called Normal People that ends up being the death of your hopeless romanticism and sucks all joy from the world. Or like a book called The Idiot, which has a literal rock on a light pink cover, and yet somehow led me to lie prone for hours and question every decision I have ever made in my life.
It’s 1995, and our main girlie, Selin, is engaging in some classic email correspondence like we all used to do before we moved to Instagram DMs. Ivan is an older mathematics student at Harvard, and their communication is growing increasingly intense and captivating. Selin spends the summer in Europe and tries to grapple with the lure of first love and the dread that she is destined to become a writer — oh girlie, been there. It’s poignant and self-effacing, a life that is both quiet and screaming and just such a thought-led novel. DELICIOUS.
Middlemarch by George Eliot
In case you have any doubts that she’s a READER, I’m gonna recommend a book written in 1871 by a woman masquerading as a man. Yeah, I guess you could call me an intellectual (*smirk*). Middlemarch literally could’ve been written by Sally Rooney if it was a century later. In fact, I’m not convinced she didn’t time-travel to release it then. Analyzing the life of an English provincial town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832, this novel is both bitter and hopeful. It welcomes you to the unique condition of English life in the mid-nineteenth century and then holds you hostage there. You’ll be begging Sally to use her time-travel hot tub by the end of it.
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
This is the man who gave us the heartbreak and sexual awakening of The Virgin Suicides, so obviously, he deserves a spot on this list. This time, we’re turning our horny attention to The Marriage Plot. It’s got a messy love triangle to rival Conversations With Friends and a moody, intellectual main character. Madeleine is a dutiful English major writing about the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels. She meets Leonard, a charismatic loner and college Darwinist, and they embark on an erotic and intellectual relationship (the best kind). At the same time, her old pal Mitchell resurfaces and is convinced Madeleine is destined to be his mate. This book is so intimate that it feels like I could’ve lived it myself, except that I was still in my mom’s ovary in the 1980s. Sorry.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Let’s not pretend you’re indie enough never to have heard of this novel. This book was absolutely everywhere a year ago. If I had a nickel for every time I saw the cover with its hot pink font, I would be able to afford a tiny studio in NYC. This book follows our main character as she spends a year in bed. Literally, the dream. Not in a press snooze on your alarm way, but in a rotting way. Despite being the ultimate lazy girl novel, it is strangely hilarious and tender, and I felt curled up in bed next to her throughout it all.
Expectation by Anna Hope
Two of Sally’s novels are focused on the intensity of female friendship, the love-hate of it all. This book captures that energy perfectly, though this time it is with a trio: Cate, Hannah, and Lissa. They were besties in their early twenties, and now, in their thirties, they’re not loving the lives they’ve ended up in. Life just isn’t what they expected, and it shouldn’t be a crime to admit this. There comes a moment when your friends stop acting as your mirror and instead become a measuring stick of how far you are from where they are or how far you are from the person they always thought you’d become.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
When Oprah recommends a book, you know it is not only going to be fantastic but also break your heart into a million pieces. And this novel did NOT disappoint. Hiram Walker is a man with a secret and a war to win. That is his freedom, his family, and his right to be alive. He is born into bondage on a Virginia plantation with a mysterious power that will only awaken years later when he almost drowns. This story will take you across America, deep into an underground war on slavery, and through all of the feels.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Yeah, okay, I’m mentioning Dolly again boohoo. Even though I was denied tickets to her latest show in London (hook a girl up), I’ll still be repping my fave. This book is also about a man, and even worse, a male comedian!! It follows a struggling comic in the wake of his relationship ending as he struggles to find his feet and understand what went wrong. It’s a beautiful reminder of the many truths that exist in love and heartbreak.
Plus, I was recently courting a male comedian, and he read this book at my suggestion. Not only did he say it was SUPER ACCURATE, but he convinced all his comedian buddies to read it, too. Not me spreading the gospel of Dolly to a community that needs it most!!!
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (duh lol)
No shit, if you like Sally, you should go read her new book!! With celebs like Sarah Jessica Parker toting around a copy, you’re assured it’s gonna be a good one. I mean, Carrie Bradshaw is reading this. My only brief hesitation came from discovering that it’s about men (ew), but I’m trying to be the bigger person and care about their problems, too — even though I’d deffo pick the bear.
We’re back in IRELAND, of course, with two brothers, Peter and Ivan. One is a lawyer, the other a competitive chess player. They’re super different, but both are struggling in the wake of their father’s death. This novel follows this period of desire, despair, and possibility, and I guarantee I’ll be sobbing by the end of it.
