books to make you feel things
20 recommendations for every emotion
I am brisk and businesslike.
When it comes to reading — I’m so obsessed with it that I treat it like my job. (For the record, it’s not. But if you want to be a paid subscriber, you’d get me that much closer…)
I like to juggle books, and genres, and formats. I like to jump back and forth between them. All that bopping around has the side effect of making only the very best books capable of provoking major emotion.
In other words, you can trust me when I say these recommendations will make you Feel.
Also, this post contains affiliate links, so I may receive compensation if you buy a book from a link below, at no additional cost to you.
Books to make you cry
Foster by Claire Keegan
Claire Keegan is brilliant when it comes to doing a lot with a little — few pages, sleek style, showing not telling. This is a slim volume that packs a hell of a punch. It’s the word equivalent of Mary Poppins pulling furniture from a carpetbag.
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Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
I don’t know what to tell you. It’s titular. Tearing up is as much a guarantee from this reading experience as hunger, an appreciation for labyrinthine Asian grocery stores, an incurable craving for noodles, and a Japanese Breakfast Spotify search.
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A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
I’ve promised on multiple occasions that I will never encourage the reading of this book, and I do not intend to break that oath. But making a list of books that made me cry without mentioning it would also be a lie.
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The Color Purple by Alice Walker
There is no way to ready yourself for what this book has coming for you, no way to put up walls against the avalanche of emotion looming in its pages. All I can do is tell you I recommend it anyway, and because of it, and bid you godspeed.
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Books to make you laugh
Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
This is a near-perfect book: so funny, no plot, just vibes, memorable characters, filled with jokes and generational humor and pop culture references without being annoying. Any one of these is hard to achieve — nailing all of them is a minor miracle.
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Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz
Now this is a novel: Witty and over the top, with traces of real life (if an unbelievable one) and writing that’ll stop you in your tracks. It’s Eve Babitz’s singular masterpiece, and it’s more than many do in whole careers.
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Loved One by Aisha Muharrar
This has something of The Wedding People to it (a borderline goofy, readable style covering what would have been a too-dark topic) but with more of an edge and a literary quality. In other words, I’d recommend it if you liked The Wedding People or if you don’t.
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Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
I recognize that it may be difficult to go into this book completely blind, now that it’s a bestseller/phenomenon with an Elle Fanning adaptation I watched half an episode of, but if you can I really recommend it. The fact that I had no idea where this zany and outrageous read was going next added to my experience immensely.
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Books to make you swoon
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
I just so happen not to be the world’s biggest fan of romance — in fact, I’ve given exactly one example of the genre five stars in all my years of reading it, and it’s this one. That has lasted through 5 rereads.
In other words I could not recommend it more.
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Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan
For many years I heard about how wonderful Kennedy Ryan’s romance novels were — filled with yearning and rich dynamics and believable emotion instead of petty drama — but, given the aforementioned aversion (or at least pickiness) to the genre, I thought I’d be immune. I was not. At all.
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The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
On the strength of my feelings for this book, I have read every subsequent Ashley Poston release and hated each one without exception. I’d like to believe this checkered past lends credence to my voice when I tell you: this is unusual, and romantic, and worth picking up.
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Beach Read by Emily Henry
It could have been Book Lovers, or a YA magical realism masterpiece, but there was always going to be an Emily Henry novel on this list. The woman knows what she’s doing. (Even if I wish it was still the aforementioned genre stuff for adolescents.)
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Books to make you scared
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Books don’t really make me scared too often, because my control issues are one of the things I love about reading. It’s hard to completely lose yourself in fear when your decision to stop turning pages can take you out of it in a split second. Shirley Jackson will always be an exception — her books are simply unputdownable. This is my favorite one, plus the show is good.
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I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
God this book gives me the heebie-jeebies. There is something off here, and the eerie confusion that this story’s ineffable strangeness casts is undeniably a huge part of what makes it so terrifying. And yet I was scared while watching the movie, when I knew all the answers, and I am a little bit scared even thinking of it now.
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To Break a Covenant by Alison Ames
Horror novels aren’t my favorite (this post is just me complaining about my pickiness across genres), because they can feel one-note, all scares and no substance. Ames’ always have more going on, and this bantery spooky story with a sapphic romance plotline is the best example of that.
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A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez
I have high expectations for short story collections — each unique, but not so dissimilar that they don’t build toward a consensus greater than the sum of their parts, but not so out there you can tell the author is uncomfortable, etc. — and this fulfilled all of them, plus was scary.
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Books to surprise you
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
I doubt the existence of anyone who doesn’t know the plot of Gone Girl in 2026, but this one is nearly as good and not half as spoiled.
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Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
All of Ishiguro’s works lull their readers into a false sense of security, using soothing writing and established routine to distract from the fresh and often odd story that belies them, waiting to come out. This applies to The Remains of the Day, too — and Never Let Me Go, but I didn’t care for that one.
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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
The way these disparate stories collapse into each other as this book ends is as unpredictable as it is satisfying.
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Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
This was just what I thought it would be before I read it — a dark, fairytaley collection of thrilling short stories — and yet somehow it felt fresh and surprising on every page all the same.
I still wonder What made me enjoy the Little Life so much. Because its a book that I would loathe. Story about men (mostly). Their whole lives since they were born (almost). The Most reccommended book that no one wanted to reccomend (i usually hate to read trendy books) and its set in USA and if I remember it right - new york. I do not enjoy books that describes New york and fancy there. A little life has nothing I like. Yet I had to go to cafe to finish it so I was not alone at home. It was so good somehow its also first book I was able to read and ENJOY reading it in english, which is not my first language. I should explore why it worked for me so well.
before i forget made me cry at the end. very good. and unfortunately a kristen hannah book will get me too — the women. phew. stolen tongues & spider to the fly were scary/thrilling