The best books to watch a slow-motion train wreck

Reading this book is like re-experiencing your worst breakup in the most winning way. Andy is going through it. His girlfriend, Jen, has broken up with him for reasons he STILL can’t understand, and he’s now spending his days drinking at the bar and calling up exes, which… who among us hasn’t?

I absolutely love how romantic this book about getting over a relationship feels. The audiobook is utterly charming and often laugh-out-loud funny as Andy drinks too much, tries on several new lifestyles, and pines over Jen. Eventually, the whole book is flipped on its head when you get the breakup from Jen’s point of view. And yes, Andy can feel like a real jackass, but that adds to the realism without his narration ever feeling grating.

I truly believe Kiley Reid is a national treasure. Her second book centers around a small southern college town, and as someone who attended one of those myself, I can tell you that it perfectly captures that spirit. Even though the book is more character study than plot-forward, the southern sorority girls, the writing professor, and the overworked RA all come together to make an absolute mess in the end.

Effortlessly weaving multiple narrators and storylines together, this book is everything I want satire to be. Each character is rich and fully realized, often dabbling in doing “bad” things but never making you quite dislike them. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun watching everything go tits up.

I love reading a book and knowing the other shoe is about to drop, and this book does it in a satisfying way. Greta lives in a house that is literally falling apart around her and transcribes sessions for a local sex therapist. There, she discovers the subject of her fascination: the cold, distant, and traumatized Big Swiss.

Despite the sometimes-heavy subject matter, the interplay between Greta and Big Swiss as they embark upon their affair is so much fun. This is the perfect train wreck in that it’s not a matter of IF, but WHEN Big Swiss discovers Greta’s duplicity, the fun is all in the journey.

Not only are Greta and Big Swiss nuanced, engaging characters, but their small town is populated with colorful side characters who make Big Swiss a book world you want to spend time in, even when you know things will go so spectacularly wrong.

This book is chaos-defined, and I felt absolutely giddy when I first read it. Olivie Blake knows what readers want, and her books are not afraid to speak to their id. How could I not love a school of twentysomething lust-filled, murderous magicians?

It is also happy to scratch the romance itch; it’s the rare book where it feels like any two characters could have a romantic relationship, and many do. Even better, it’s full of delicious twists and betrayals and never lets its characters off the hook.

This is my most recent “can’t look away” read. The titular Piglet hits rock bottom and keeps digging after her idea of a perfect life with her fiancé Kit goes up in flames. Lottie Hazell really knows how to do a set piece with constant escalating tension. Every food-related meltdown in Piglet proved more anxiety-inducing than the last, particularly a scene of Piglet frantically trying to bake a croquembouche on the day of her disastrous wedding.

I always appreciate a book that refuses to give the reader breathing room and puts you in the scene with its characters. Piglet’s pages and pages of bad decisions–and the empathy Hazell’s narrative still manages to weave in for her characters–make this a gripping, satisfying read.