In 2020, Colleen Hoover cast a spell on readers all over the world with her book, ‘It Ends With Us.’ While the book was originally published in 2016, it found an audience only during the pandemic. Readers started sharing emotional, heartfelt, and teary reviews of the book on TikTok. This marketing strategy was organic and made the book one among the most emotional romance novels of the decade.
Years later, the movie adaptation also found itself mired in controversy. Critics claimed insensitivity in the portrayal of the source material. The leads of the movie have also been at the center of a high-profile legal battle. However, the book continues to garner appreciation for exploring themes of emotional healing and second chances. To help readers further delve into these themes, we have curated this list of books like It Ends With Us. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
1. One Day by David Nicholls
Genre: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary
Emma and Dexter meet on 15th July 1988 for the first time during their graduation party. They decide to see each other on the same day for years to follow. Their story revolves around how their circumstances change or, sometimes, don’t change at all, throughout these years. What makes it dominate the list of romance book recommendations even today is the friends-to-lovers story arc.
The protagonists begin as close friends who know each other inside and out—their likes, dislikes, triggers, and traumas. This authentic, grounded portrayal of love growing from deep friendship makes the story an exceptional read.
2. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Race
A line from Open Water that stays with you is, ‘It’s one thing to be looked at and another to be seen’. The author dissects both the joy, anxiety, grief, and growth of being your whole self in the eyes of another.
Through the love story of two young Black British artists, the novel examines the interplay between race and romance. It helps us understand how racialized trauma can be in a white centric world and why love is the only force that can heal this. With beautiful prose, this is one of the most heart-wrenching novels that you will read.
3. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Mental Health
Queenie is another brilliantly woven work on race, mental health, and their role in shaping who we love. It is often compared to The Bridget Jones’ diary because of its similar humor.
The protagonist is a Jamaican British woman who has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend. The narrative revolves around how she deals with the aftermath of this. This book goes into some dark places, portrayed with uttermost sincerity. What gives this a place in the list of similar books to It Ends With Us is its biting commentary on social issues through romance.
4. Beard With Me by Penny Reid
Genre: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary
Beard With Me is about a lot of things. Some of which are pain, loneliness, courage, hope, strength, love, and loss. It is a tear-jerker romance, but not in the ways you expect it to be. It is sad in the way that it’s heartbreaking to have a friend confide in you about everything they went through as a child.
Scarlett and Billy are at the center of this story and have fallen headfirst into love with each other. What follows is a saga of healing and recovering from parental trauma. This is a highly recommended read for fans of emotional love story books.
5. Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
Genre: Friends To Lovers, Fiction, Romance
Love and Other Words is a refreshing reminder of the innocence of the childhood friends to lovers trope. But what makes this novel exceptional is a dash of a second-chance romance.
Macy and Elliot are high school sweethearts who drift apart after the events of a devastating night. The story is told in alternating timelines–from Macy and Elliot being friends to much more, and then back to being strangers for 11 long years. The story is painfully heartbreaking at times, and readers will find it hard to resist skipping to the main plot twist.
RELATED READING: 25 Beautiful Yet Heartbreaking It Ends With Us Quotes
6. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
Genre: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary
Olive Smith is a third-year PhD candidate, and Adam Carlsen is the young hotshot professor who agrees to pretend to be her boyfriend. As with all fake romance tropes, this tale is also filled with surprisingly touching and endearing moments.
The story also touches upon the challenges of being a woman in STEM through Olive’s journey. This is also what makes it an important part of contemporary women’s fiction. The Love Hypothesis is a perfect read to cuddle up with on a cozy winter night with a cup of hot chocolate. Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis is undoubtedly one among the best YA books of all time.
7. One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: Romance, Fiction, Chick Lit
In One True Loves, Jenkins Reid shows off her ability to write one of the most perfect emotional romance books of all time. It is also a masterclass in crafting meaningful love triangles.
Emma and Jesse are living in perfect marital bliss until Jesse goes missing and is presumed dead. In an attempt to move on from this tragedy, Emma moves back home. She finds support and, eventually, love, in an old friend, Sam. This is until it is revealed that Jesse is still alive and has been trying to make his way back to her. The prose is beautiful and cements Jenkins Reid as a great romance author.
8. Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Genre: Mystery, Fiction, Romance
If exquisite and breathtaking descriptions of nature move you, then this is the one book that you must read. An emotional drama, Where The Crawdads Sings, is stitched around a murder mystery.
Kya Clark or ‘Marsh Girl’ is the heroine of this saga. She is left alone by her family and her town to live as a recluse. In her unique circumstances, she finds solace in the birds, the trees, and the flowers of the marsh where she resides. Eventually, she finds a partner who compensates for the love that she never received. With its evocative writing and deeply moving story, this book had me completely hooked from start to finish.
9. Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
Genre: Romance, Drama, Fiction
Set in a small seaside town, this story revolves around Katie and Alex. Katie has just moved to the town where Alex owns a general store. The two start developing a platonic bond that slowly becomes much more. As Katie starts trusting Alex more and more, she opens up to him about her violent past.
Together, the two of them embark on a cruise to recover from toxic relationships. Nicholas Sparks is the undisputed prince of heartbreaking books, and that is what anyone should expect from this one as well. The work is also an important read for domestic abuse awareness.
10. The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes
Genre: Romance, Historical Fiction, Drama
When it comes to heartbreaking romance books, The Last Letter from Your Lover opens with the female protagonist waking up in a hospital, with no memory of how she got there, or of anything else about her life. This is until she finds a love letter from someone signed ‘B’ asking her to leave her husband.
Years later, a journalist finds this letter and begins digging into the story to ignite hope for her own love story. The book deals with themes of familial obligations and missed opportunities. Rest assured, you will spend 90% of the time reading this book sobbing for a world broken beyond repair.
RELATED READING: 11 Books Like The Summer I Turned Pretty
11. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
32-year-old Nina Dean is a confident and talented cookbook author who is looking to settle down before her biological clock goes rusty. On her quest to find a partner, she meets Max on a dating app and he declares his intentions to marry her on the very first date.
The plot goes into the territory of growing pains, where it seems like settling in a suburb should be the ultimate goal of one’s life. The book perfectly captures the anxieties of being left behind to figure out life and trauma recovery, alone and all on your own.
12. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction
‘Beautiful World, Where Are You?’ by Sally Rooney explores the friendship between two best friends, Alice and Eileen, as they navigate love, mental health, and the pressures of modern life. It is this honest depiction of modern love that gives it a place in a list of books like It Ends With Us.
Alice, an established novelist recovering from a breakdown, forms a fragile relationship with Felix. Eileen, who works in a magazine, reconnects with her childhood friend whom she has long loved. Rooney presents love and friendships not as perfect solutions but as imperfect places of solace and spaces that provide growth despite these imperfections.
13. Normal People by Sally Rooney
Genre: Romance, Fiction, Contemporary
One can always expect Sally Rooney to hit the bullseye with her sad romance books. Normal People is another testament to her exceptional storytelling skills. Marianne and Connell are high school classmates from opposite sides of the class spectrum. Connell is raised by a single working class mother. Marianne comes from an emotionally abusive family.
They try to shield each other from their respective circumstance with love and affection. Sometimes they also fail in this pursuit. Normal People is a raw and real portrait of how love is complicated by the material realities of people and one of the most emotional love story books of our times.
Conclusion
Books like ‘It Ends With Us’ are a vast genre of books that are stories of love, abuse, trauma, race, class, taboos, and memory itself. Colleen Hoover similar books are available for readers to refer to.
Each book in this list captures a different reality of love and relationships. It is possible to brand them together as ‘sad love books’, but only with the recognition that loving someone today is an act of war. So the sadness of loving is an acceptable evil over the crippling reality of navigating the world alone.
This list is also a reminder that love is not just flowers and dates by the beach, but a confrontation with the self. It must change us, challenge us, and above everything else, it must heal us.
