My favorite books about complex, chaotic female friendships

This worth-the-hype, urgent debut set in the late 1960s was a formative read for me.

We get the perspective of a young teenager, Evie, who hovers like a moth around Suzanne's entrancing light. Suzanne herself belongs to a strange sisterhood of devoted followers in a Manson-Family-esque cult. Evie lets her identity and morals blur as she does anything she can to impress Suzanne.

When we’re caught at the right–or, I guess, wrong–time, obsession and codependency can feel like having a purpose. She wants to be Suzanne and be with her. I was transfixed by Evie’s melancholic outsider perspective.

This is a gorgeously written book about two best friends doing nothing in particular. Isa and Gala arrive in New York City intertwined and allied.

They whirl through all the requisite stops of the party girl layabout lifestyle. I was fascinated by the friendship’s closeness; Isa and Gala know each other’s quirks and fears in staggering intimacy. They function as a unit, as a “we.” Isa’s aimlessly wandering through life, but she isn’t in it alone, and that’s comforting to me.

Together, Isa and Gala turn aimlessness into freedom. It’s a detail-packed, slow-burning portrait of how we build identity together, intertwining ourselves and pushing each other forward.

I’m a sucker for an “unlikeable” narrator and was especially struck by the hazy, angry one we get in this book.

She’s sleeping away a year of her life with the help of an endless list of questionable pharmaceuticals. Her friendship with Reva, her former college roommate, feels out of obligation at best and self-punishment at worst. Reva visits her, and even though we know she hates hearing Reva’s woes, she keeps listening.

She cares for Reva, under it all, but can't stand her. Reva doesn’t seem to like her much, either. I was struck by the fearless, uncomfortable portrayal of how our own inner worlds can pull us back from being part of others' lives. We still cling to these shaky connections for stability.

I adored Charlotte and Rose’s heartbreaking friendship.

First, Charlotte and Rose come of age in the late nineties, a perfect pair with an inseparable bond taking on New York City. As they grow up, it’s their individual problems and decisions that loosen the bolts holding them together. Some friendships shape us into who we are, so losing a friend brings grief and anger.

Charlotte and Rose are both rich, fully realized characters with goals that don’t always align. Bauer’s brilliant prose makes this a book I could read again and again.

This satire of academia's petty politics is horrifying and hilarious.

The Bunnies are a clique of wealthy MFA students whose uncomfortably close friendship disgusts and intrigues lonely Samantha. When Samantha’s invited to join the group for a night, she tosses her only other friend aside. She hates the Bunnies, but you know what they say: if you can’t beat them, join them. Samantha’s inner conflict fascinated me.

We struggle with her to understand what’s compelling her to fall for the group's strange allure. This friend group is toxic to its core, but this book showed me that it's surprisingly easy to drink poison if it tastes good enough.