The Tulipped Girl

I am a lover girl at heart a hopeless romantic who isn’t afraid to say that as a child I loved cheesy and quirky love stories, but as I’ve grown older and experienced life I know that it’s not all rainbows and sunshine and that love is RARELY ever as easy as they make it seem in the movies. Still, that hasn’t made me give up on the concept of its existence. If anything it’s proved how special it really is. Love is everywhere and all around if you can train your eye to find it even if it’s a little  sad, kinda confusing, or seems a little scary. 

I think we all know that love is a complex entity that we often say “can’t be put into words” but these books are some of the closest I have come to. Love stories that exceed what I thought even possible, love that’s simultaneously earth shattering and heart breaking, love so intimate that I’ve felt at times like I was looking into a house through the curtains or reading someone’s diary. Remember though I am a tenured employee at Lover Girls HQ (an internet community coined by Maddie Dragsbeck) thus with the cringe-o-meter set incredibly low or  non-existent I do still find interest in some of the more quirky romance novels. Feel free to use your own discernment to choose which books suit you or whoever you are thinking of purchasing for best- the more mundane and even complicated love stories or those that are straight from a rom-com, either way there’s no shame in the game…now get to reading lovers !

Yours Truly

Written by Abby Jimenez, Yours Truly tells the story of two ER physicians Briana and Jacob who are currently dealing with some truly soul-crushing breakups. Briana is bracing for the official divorce date of her 12 year long relationship to her ex-husband Nick. While Jacob is wrestling with the emotional labor of being in love with his ex who is getting married to someone new, not even a year after the end of their two year long relationship. That someone new she will be eloping with is Jacob’s brother, Jeremiah. 

Now Jacob needs a date to this almost comedic wedding, where he just so happens to be the butt end of the joke and Briana is in desperate need of a distraction from her once love story turned nightmare. In the words of Taylor Swift the two are bracing for a very “Cruel Summer”. But Briana and Jacob are almost complete opposites in every other way, Briana tenured, has the entire staff by her side during her struggles and Jacob is the pretty lonely new guy with an almost impressive failure rate his first day in the new ER. Their interpersonal relationship is also off to a pretty wobbly start-literally. Briana runs into Jacob on the ER floor in a rush the first time they “meet” and Jacob’s response is equally as aggressive. However, something shifts in their relationship when Jacob writes Briana a letter and it’s an incredibly sweet letter. 

Yet even in the possibility of a sparking romance we know love usually isn’t a story of two people who are exactly alike, or a ‘match made in heaven’. Sometimes love looks like a compatibility chart where each partner agrees to bear and challenge the issues that the other faces. Then sometimes it’s leading them to face their fears and showing up for them along the way. Can Jacob and Briana, despite what their hearts may feel, even barring the idea of real love, get past their own traumas? Will they agree to come together, promising to be harmless to one another and keep safe the particularly fragile hearts they both possess, friends or otherwise?

Family Meal

Family Meal, written by Bryan Washington is a book I hold especially close to my heart as I got it in New York at the skincare brand Aesop’s Queer Library 2024. It’s an incredibly intimate story of two men, former best friends who gradually grew apart, being pulled back into eachother’s lives again after a loss. 

Cam is returning to his hometown in Houston after the loss of the love of his life Kai. After his death coupled with Cam’s desperate coping skills used in an effort to forget, Kai’s presence becomes all too much for Cam to handle alone in their old apartment in LA. With the ghost of his love is all around, whispering and circling him, showing up at the most inopportune moments making so he can’t shake the feeling he decides he must leave. When he’s in his hometown again, as I’m sure we can all relate to he confronts his past with old friends and family while trying to create things new. Cam eventually comes into contact with his former best friend TJ, who is dealing with his own very real world problems himself. However, many things amongst the two were left unsaid upon Cam’s move and now, face to face seeing their pasts, present and future in each other’s eyes will what they once had and what they could be motivate them to choose each other despite it all? 

This book is full of quiet and intimate conversations that highlight how our relationships (romantic and familial, chosen or blood) play a great role in our lives. Relationships that we hold so near to our hearts it can make someone even as hardened as TJ want to become a person Cam can emotionally rely on. While Cam works on his almost overwhelming empathy that is almost detrimental, to be a person whom, while wound up in his own web of grief, could become the one who is able to offer a hand to a friend in need. 

Between Friends & Lovers

Written by Shirlene Obuobi, Between Friends & Lovers tells the story of the famous Doctor Josephine Boateng turned online health consultant “Dr. Jojo” on Instagram. Although with fame typically where we see life get easier for most as a Black woman Josephine faces scrutiny, having to dim her light, and having to be perceived as non aggressive to keep this job and pay her bills. Which is exactly how we are thrown into the book, a theme that sparks a fight between Josephine and her long-term best friend Ezra who she’s convinced is the unrequited love of her life. Ezra, the heir to a multimillion dollar tech company and son of a former supermodel is as you all have probably guessed a major playboy. He hops around from girl to girl, always keeping his heavily emphasized “best friend” Josephine close yet far enough, to bar her from the possibility of a romantic relationship to flourish between the two. Or for Josephine to be able to make a move and get him to understand what’s been right in front of him all these years.

Josephine is a complex character with a deeply troubling and traumatic past with people constantly questioning her worth and whether or not she deserves to be in the room. That is until she meets Malcolm, a New York Times bestselling author who is awestruck by her beauty and confidence when they first meet. Malcolm from then on makes it his goal to see Josephine and I mean really see her through and through. Yet with all that she’s been through Josephine will have to (more than she thought even possible) mature emotionally. So that she can be comfortable allowing someone to see her for who she is not her potential, not for what she can offer them or for the person she finds herself pretending to be. She must mature emotionally to be willing to let go of her habits and practices that no longer serve her and open her eyes to new opportunities that could also give her a new outlook on her future too. Regardless of which man steps out to become a love that’s true, Josephine will ultimately choose what is best for herself. Which in this book, as we get to know Josephine more and more, will be no easy feat.

Although intended as a romance, this novel also navigates the importance of self-love too and that above all to gain access to a love so incredibly and so deep you have to believe that you yourself are willing to receive it.

Normal People

Written by Sally Rooney, Normal People reads almost more like a tragedy than a romance novel, but trust me, the intimacy shared between main characters Connell and Marianne will pull you into this story, one that left me with full body chills. 

Now, with a TV adaptation on HULU, the progression that begins with the two as teenagers hardly seems as such with the emotional intelligence that these two incredibly flawed characters have. Pulling back and forth like the ebb and flow of the tides Connell and Marianne slither in and out of each other’s lives. Miscommunication is the emotion-stirring theme of this novel but it also left me encouraging them to grow from their mistakes in the past as I read on with anticipation that it comes true. These flaws though make the characters more relatable and allow us the reader to judge them while also calling us to look within and question our own flaws when it comes to communicating with our loved ones.  

With as many times as they grow apart, what keeps them together is ultimately each of them letting each other back in. Maybe it’s out of fear of getting to know someone new or knowing that their bodies ultimately recognize one another so deeply. However as they get older they come to understand that they must determine whether or not they want to be together whether out of fear or love they have to choose if they want to remain “here” for each other as partners, friends or something else entirely. Prepare yourselves though, if you crave endings wrapped up in a bow I’ll tell you this, you won’t get it. That’s life though isn’t it? You can’t always get what you want but you can get a “I read it in three days” story, that will leave you questioning the story you thought you already knew.