The most recommended books about love

This young adult novel is about consent.

A group of teenagers are on a survival trip to the wilderness where the harsh realities of battling the physical environment force the main character, Sam, to question his own inner struggles. Should he speak about what he saw that night, or remain silent and complicit?

I loved this novel as it gives insight into how teens think, especially boys, and leaves us wondering about what will happen after the truth is exposed.

I got this book in a subscription book box and was immediately intrigued by the premise. The town of Bone Gap is full of “gaps,” openings to other realities that someone can slip into and disappear. This story is not your usual read. The writer creatively mixes mystery, magic, love, loss, regret, forgiveness, and overcoming. 

The story follows Finn, a teenage boy, who tries to discover why his brother’s girlfriend disappeared, and the girlfriend, who is made a prisoner because she’s beautiful. 

The book made me think about a lot of things: that there is a difference between looking at and seeing someone else; that past trauma may not show on your face, but it’s part of you; that things seem more beautiful when you leave them behind; and that everyone has their reasons to see things differently. This book is character-focused, weird, entertaining, and very cathartic. 

Recalling Ibbotson’s personal experience of leaving Austria for England before Hitler’s Anschluss, The Morning Gift is a witty and warm marriage of convenience story between a witty and intrepid archaeologist, Quinton Somerville, and a brilliant professor’s daughter Ruth Berger. When Ruth is accidentally left behind in Vienna after her family has emigrated to England, Quin marries Jewish Ruth and protects her from oncoming Nazi occupation: under the condition that they will part ways when both are safely back in London. But Quin and Ruth continue to run into each other again and again and again. A deliciously Austrian-flavoured book. Ibbotson’s Viennese set-sequences and memories are a love letter to her city.

This one knocked me to my knees with so many poignant observations of daily life brought into sharp focus. Abigail examines the most mundane moments and polishes them into sentences you want to devour. She writes about love and life and loss with such honesty and beauty, but sprinkled with humor at just the right moment.

This book shows us what it is to be human, to lose a loved one, and how tangled time and emotions and relationships can get, but don’t be fooled, it’s layered and elevated, and honest.

Rumi is one of those writers that transcends time and space. He is more of a spiritual writer and when he writes about love and longing, you can feel the words plant a seed inside your soul. If someone asked me which poetry book they should begin reading without any knowledge of poetry, Rumi would be a start. The simplicity of his words taught me that you don’t need to use a thesaurus to express yourself. His simple words and poems about soul mates carry his work over centuries. This poetry book tells you how lovers don’t finally meet somewhere, they’re in each other all along. These famous quotes of Rumi’s will be instilled in you again and again. Easy book to read and carry with you anywhere. It taught me to find my spirituality and soul and let it flow like a river with words as waves. It taught… show more.

Although this book isn’t about suicide, I include it because families with mental health issues, often exacerbated by the “anything goes” ethos of hippy culture, can suffer from confused or “enmeshed” parent/child boundaries. It was one of the first, and I think best self-help books I ever read. With great clarity, it showed me what was destructive in my family of origin. Enmeshment or “parentification,” basically using a child to meet the emotional needs of an adult, is not widely understood and often goes undetected (versus more obvious physical or sexual abuse).

Dr. Love’s book gave me straightforward guidelines for being a non-destructive parent myself, something I think I did achieve due to much self-education and counselling prior to having kids. It’s always been obvious to me that my father’s mental illness and substance abuse took root in his very unhappy childhood. I think my father would be glad that… show more.

Did anyone ever call you names? Did you ever call yourself names? I loved this book by Abby Cooper because its clever concept examines the impact of peoples’ critical words and thoughts, including our own. We learn that when kids insult a middle school girl named Elyse, an unusual condition causes their words to literally appear on her arms and legs as temporary tattoos.

Like every book I hold dear, this touching story unfolds as we accompany our ever-so-relatable heroine on her journey of self-discovery and empowerment.

This is a poetry collection with story-like cohesion. The poems touch on topics like addiction, lost love, death, selfishness, and grief. They give an atmosphere of stark therapy, a smell of ozone and psych drugs, and indulgences of the self-sabotaging variety that are sometimes the only realistic way to cope.

Though it sounds dark, the mood of the book is ultimately hopeful and enduring. This is a journey through a barren, unadorned land with a frank and aloof guide. But think of icy cliffs, think of the calm after storms: there is beauty in bleakness and clarity among the wreckage.

Sometimes, the only way to reveal strength is to chip it out of frozen shale with a pitiless, excavating force.

I love stories crammed with internal strife and triumph in the end, especially ones about finding yourself.

In this YA contemporary, teen Ben faces the worst possible reaction from their parents when they come out to them as nonbinary. Fortunately, they round up some supportive family, but this marks the beginning of a long struggle to build up their confidence and come out to everyone, not just their family. Ben may know who they are, but being honest about it is hard, especially in certain places.

There are big differences in being nonbinary or trans in conservative states versus liberal states, and also between smaller towns and bigger cities. This book reminds readers that as long as you’re safe, being true to yourself is more rewarding than hiding yourself. 

I’ve never read a Kate DiCamillo book that I didn’t love, and this one was no exception.

The characters are quirky, the setting snaps to life on the first page, and the plot is bittersweet and unforgettable. I think I might have been missing my own far-flung loved ones when I picked up this book because I cheered for Beverly as she struck out on her own and then created a unique and loving found family.