In the three and a bit years this blog has been up, I’ve made two enemies to lovers rec lists and always intended to make a friends to lovers list too, but somehow never got round to it. Well, today, I have finally got my act together! If you love the friends to lovers trope, the pining, the yearning, the belief that it’s unrequited—this rec list is for you! (And if it’s not your favourite, then I live in hope these books will convert you.) So, let’s go!
Picture Us in the Light
Kelly Loy Gilbert
Goodreads
Rep: Chinese American gay mc, Taiwanese American achillean li
CWs: past suicide, past child abduction
Why Should I Read It?
There’s a quietness to this book, in the story it tells and how it tells it. While this is a book that’ll break you, it’ll do so very gently, and very kindly, and you’ll find yourself thanking it in the end. It’s also, in my humble opinion, highly underrated and everyone (cough cough you, Anna) needs to read it.
Felix Ever After
Kacen Callender
Goodreads
Rep: Black achillean trans demiboy mc, biracial (Black, Bengali) achillean li, biracial (Black Puerto Rican, white) gay side character, sapphic side characters
CWs: transphobia, deadnaming, outing, mentions of past emotional abuse
Why Should I Read It?
I’m sure this is one we all know about, but if not, what have you been doing? When I finished this one, I simply reviewed it as my brain rn is just like *sob sob sob* and, truly, a year and a half on, I’m not sure I can review it any better. It’s a book that feels like a warm hug, one where, once again, you’re treated with such kindness, the characters are treated with such kindness, you wonder how another book might possibly make you feel ever again, when this is what it has to compete with.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown
Talia Hibbert
Goodreads
Rep: Black bi mc, sapphic side characters
Why Should I Read It?
What do you get if you combine friends to lovers, the associated pining, and fake dating? This gloriousness, that’s what! Frankly, Talia Hibbert is a genius author. I don’t think there’s been a single one of her novels that I haven’t loved, and Take a Hint, Dani Brown is no different. It hits all the right spots and will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.
There Is a Light
Ban Gilmartin
Goodreads
Rep: bi mc, biracial Indian Scottish gay mc with anxiety and depression, Black trans side character, nonbinary side character
CWs: alcoholism, past drug use, past suicide, suicidal ideation
Why Should I Read It?
Now, when you think of friends to lovers, you tend to think that they’re already friends when the book starts. This rec offers you something a little different, in that they become friends as the book progresses, but it also gives you everything else you might want from the trope: apparently unrequited love, pining, all the angst. And, quite frankly, I had to find some way of reccing this book that absolutely ruined me.
Two Rogues Make a Right
Cat Sebastian
Goodreads
Rep: gay mc with chronic illness, bi mc with PTSD, gay side characters
CWs: past drug addiction, past abuse
Why Should I Read It?
This book hits two of the best tropes for me: friends to lovers, and that the antagonist of an earlier book in a romance series becomes the protagonist later on. Two for the price of one on that tropey goodness! And this one is entirely focused on The Feelings, which, frankly, is just what you want from a romance, isn’t it?
Season’s Change
Cait Nary
Goodreads
Rep: gay mc, bi mc
CWs: internalised homophobia, implied past homophobic abuse
Why Should I Read It?
This is a cheat because it’s not out until February, but I read this book twice in the past month (please don’t ask), and I absolutely have to bring it to everyone’s attention. It’s a slowburn romance, built on top of a slowburn friendship. It’s another one where the friendship forms in the book before the romance does, but that doesn’t stop it from being so full of pining, you might actually die of it.
Annie on My Mind
Nancy Garden
Goodreads
Rep: lesbian mc and li, lesbian side characters
CWs: lesbophobia
Why Should I Read It?
A lesbian classic, so of course I had to rec it. If you haven’t read this one, then you absolutely should go and change that right now. It’s an iconic book and one that I think should be required reading. Imagine being a lesbian reading this in 1982, I think I would have actually burst into tears from the first page.
Melt My Heart
Bethany Rutter
Goodreads
Rep: bi mc, Black sapphic li, achillean side characters
CWs: biphobia, fatphobia
Why Should I Read It?
This one is entirely underrated and it should not be stood for! If you want a book where the mc slowly comes to realise that she’s in love with her best friend, this is the book for you! And, set during a hot summer, it’s actually the perfect winter read, you see.
Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel
Sara Farizan
Goodreads
Rep: Iranian American lesbian mc, bi li
CWs: mentions of racist microaggressions, lesbophobia, mentions of homophobic bullying, toxic friendship, sexual assault, d slur, outing
Why Should I Read It?
This is more than a friends to lovers romance, but also an examination of toxic relationships (specifically friendships here). You think you know who the friends to lovers label is referring to (or, I did, but perhaps because I didn’t reread the blurb), but it’s more subtle than that. And on top of that, it’s also a story of friends who became ex-friends who then reunite. Frankly, perfection.
The Wicker King
K. Ancrum
Goodreads
Rep: bi mc with anorexia, anxiety & depression, bi mc with peduncular hallucinosis, polyamory
CWs: drug use, alcohol use, arson, child neglect, hospitalisation, eating disorder (for more CWs, check author’s site)
Why Should I Read It?
If I hadn’t included this book, I think Anna might have k-worded me (and, to be fair, they would have been right to). This is not just friends to lovers, but also a look at codependency, and something that isn’t the healthiest of friendships (which, of course, is the point). It’s about a friendship that develops in multiple ways and, really, is a very addictive read for it.
What would you rec?
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