20 Books That Showcase the Power of Friendship
Alexa, play the "Friends" theme song
Friendship can be such a complicated thing, yet it’s essential to our happiness and sense of belonging. I’m an introvert who needs a lot of alone time to feel like myself, but even I know how important it is to spend time with my friends. Romantic and familial relationships are the ones that get the most focus, yet friendship can sustain us even when our partners or family fail us. I’m immensely grateful for the friendships I have and feel blessed to feel known and loved by some incredible people.
This post was born when I was looking through my recent reads on Goodreads and realized how many books have friendship at the center. I’m sharing 20 titles that show the good and bad in friendships. The books on this list celebrate or explore friends in all their complexities and shortcomings. I hope you’re inspired to pick up one of these books and to maybe even text that friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Let’s get friendly!
All summaries are from NoveList.
The All-Night Sun by Diane Zinna: Bonding with a charismatic student during a summer trip to Sweden, a writing teacher at a Washington, D.C. college discovers the student’s dark nature during a Midsommar’s Eve seaside camping trip that takes an ominous turn.
The first book on this list is about a codependent friendship that gets incredibly messy. I appreciate novels about complex women, which I found in this underrated gem from Diane Zinna. Thanks to the lush and vivid setting, this book makes for a great summer read.
The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson: When Maggie Banks arrives in Bell River to run her best friend’s struggling bookstore, she expects to sell bestsellers to her small-town clientele. But running a bookstore in a town with a famously bookish history isn’t easy. Bell River’s literary society insists on keeping the bookstore stuck in the past, and Maggie is banned from selling anything written this century. So, when a series of mishaps suddenly tip the bookstore toward ruin, Maggie will have to get creative to keep the shop afloat.
I’m usually out if I hear a book described as “heartwarming,” but my love of books about books drew me to this novel anyway. I tend to prefer darker stories, yet I was utterly delighted by The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks. Seeing a diverse community come together in the name of literacy and the freedom to read made for a feel-good and satisfying story. I’m so glad I took a chance on this one.
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney: Alice, a novelist, encounters Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is recovering from a break-up and starts flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.
This book received more mixed reviews than Sally Rooney’s earlier novels, but I loved it. Thanks to Rooney's excellent prose, the interactions of the four protagonists, specifically the relationship between the two women, were consistently engaging.
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner: Two young couples, Sid and Charity and Larry and Sally, from different backgrounds–East and West, rich and poor–befriend each other in 1937 Madison, Wisconsin.
Crossing to Safety is a lovely character study that explores marriage and friendship. (In some ways, it reminds me of Stoner by John Williams because of its simplicity.) When I read this book, I didn’t love it at first, but I still remember these characters and how Stegner made me feel, so I knew it earned a place on this list. I love it when books haunt me long after I’ve finished them.
Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet: After walking from New York to Arizona to recover from a failed relationship, Gil discovers new neighbors in the glass-walled house next door and finds his life meshing with theirs.
As soon as I finished reading Dinosuars back in 2022, I immediately started recommending it to friends I knew would appreciate it. Like Beautiful World, Where Are You, this novel is a character study that takes relationships seriously, both long-term friendships and new ones. Lydia Millet shows how friendship can give us roots when we’re wandering.
The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman: Reconnecting with a group of childhood friends after one of them committed suicide, Mikey needs to confront dark secrets from his past involving his father to assess how much of this is impacting his current emotional stupor.
Making and keeping friends can be challenging in adulthood, which is one of the reasons I like The Gunners so much. The story is about a group of friends in their 30s, and I appreciate the exploration of adult friendship and the changes that occur as we age and experience more things.
The Life Council: 10 Friends Every Woman Needs by Laura Tremaine: Author and podcaster Laura Tremaine offers women a new way to think about friendships and practical ways to find, build, and keep the right friend for every season of their lives.
Laura Tremaine consistently provides wise guidance on friendship, whether on her podcast, Instagram, or in her books. I’ve learned a lot from Laura about being a better friend. She writes without judgment or shame, gently encouraging her audience to give their friendships the care they deserve. This book isn’t about having a huge group of friends, but knowing the type of friend you need in specific seasons of your life.
The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce: It’s 1988. Frank owns a music shop, jam-packed with records of every speed, size, and genre–as long as it’s vinyl. Day after day, Frank finds his customers the music they need. Then into this shop arrives Ilse Brauchmann, and Frank falls for this curious woman.
If I had to think of one work to describe this book, it would be “charming.” This novel has a strong sense of place and is full of well-rounded characters. The story has some romance, but my favorite part is the relationships between the townspeople.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix: The year: 1988. The place: Charleston, South Carolina. Abby and Gretchen have been BFFs since fifth grade, but now that they’re in high school, Gretchen seems different. After a series of bizarre events, Abby realizes that Gretchen has a demon living inside her — and it’s up to Abby to rescue her friend.
And now for another novel set in the 1980s! I’m not entirely sure what inspired me to pick up My Best Friend’s Exorcism since it differs from what I usually read, but I’m so glad I encountered this wild story. This book is often categorized as horror, but I’m a total scaredy cat and loved it.
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and translated by Ann Goldstein: Beginning in the 1950s, Elena and Lila grow up in Naples, Italy, mirroring two different aspects of their nation.
I didn’t love this book as much as many readers do, yet I keep thinking about Elena and Lila. Girlhood can be deeply isolating and lonely, and their bond and all its challenges made for a complex story that consistently surprised me.
My Friends by Fredrik Backman: Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. But eighteen-year-old Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. Louisa embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it.
I’m about 25% of the way through reading this novel, and it’s rich with emotion and longing. The way Backman writes about friendship is stunningly beautiful. I have a feeling this book is going to make me sob and inspire me to text my friends about my undying love for them.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: A reunion with two childhood friends–Ruth and Tommy–draws Kath and her companions on a nostalgic odyssey into the supposedly idyllic years of their lives at Hailsham, an isolated private school in the serene English countryside, and a dramatic confrontation with the truth about their childhoods and about their lives in the present.
Never Let Me Go is one of the most emotional friendship stories I’ve read. This novel is the type of book that could be discussed for hours. Ishiguro raises interesting questions in his work, and this book is no exception. If you don’t own a copy of this one yet, there’s a beautiful new edition celebrating the book’s 20th anniversary.
Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson: Twenty years after secretly causing panic in her hometown through the written word and artwork, along with a fellow loner named Zeke, famous author, mom, and wife Frances Eleanor Budge gets a call that brings her past rushing back, threatening to upend everything.
Common obsessions make it easy to bond with certain people, and that’s what serves as the glue for this novel’s teen protagonists. There’s something so tender and special about childhood friends, and Kevin Wilson beautifully captures that bond.
The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin: Daniel, a troubled man who lives alone, detached from the world, passes his time filling out contest applications and counting ceiling tiles, until his attachment to Clarissa and Teddy helps him rediscover the outside world.
This slim book is such a joy, especially as an audiobook, which Steve Martin reads. Of course, since Martin wrote it, it has moments of humor, but The Pleasure of My Company also has a lot of heart. Of all the books on this list, this friendship might be my favorite.
Providence by Caroline Kepnes: A tale of two childhood best friends—part love story, part detective story, and part supernatural thriller—follows Jon, a boy with a strange power that can harm those he most loves, as he aims to protect his friend, Chloe, from it.
Providence is super weird, and I’ve never heard another person talk about it, but I stand by my adoration. I have such love for my childhood friends that I can’t help but root for friendships that got their start in those early years.
Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo: Finally at age 57, Julie Ames feels she has a firm handle on things, but a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her teenaged daughter and a seductive resurgence of the past threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor's edge.
Julie is one of those protagonists who has stayed with me since I finished this book. She’s complicated and has made some mistakes, but her friendship with an older woman whose reappearance in her life opens old wounds made for a fascinating novel.
Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Returing to Mexico City to attend her father’s funeral, Meche runs into an old friend, with whom she discovered she could cast spells using music, reviving buried memories that cause her to question her estrangement from her loved ones.
Music has been a big part of my life, which is one of the reasons I like this story about its power. This book was originally published in 2015, but was re-released in 2022. I’m happy it got another chance to shine and find a bigger audience.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin: Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, this is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.
Sometimes, a friendship is for a season, and sometimes it’s for life. This novel offers an unforgettable look at how friendship evolves as people grow.
Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois: Pulled back into her past when a posthumous work needs a publisher, reconnecting her with an old friend, successful book editor and new mom Emily is forced to reckon with her decisions, her failures, and what kind of creative life she wants to lead.
Vintage Contemporaries focuses on two friendships: one between peers and one between a woman and the friend of her mother. As someone with intergenerational friendships that are dear to me, I love seeing that type of bond represented in fiction.
What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall: Twenty-two years after her best friend was attacked in the woods, surviving seventeen stab wounds, Naomi Shaw, who has a secret worth killing for, returns home when the man responsible dies in prison to find out what really happened, no matter how dangerous the truth may be.
Fans of twisty thrillers will find much to love in this atmospheric novel. It kept me guessing until the very end. (My favorite audiobook narrator, Karissa Vacker, reads this one. I loved her performance!)
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I’d love to hear your thoughts on my list! Do we share any favorites? What titles would make your list? Recommend more friendship stories in the comments.
Great list. I saw Fredrik Backman this week and can’t wait to start My Friends. His books are some of my favorites for their mix of humor and emotion.
I will probably read The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks, because friends and books. I have Backman sitting on top of my library pile, so that's up next.
I really enjoyed Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I don't agree with all the categories in The Life Council, but if you are struggling with the making friends in adulthood, I think it can be helpful to think about what you are actually looking for — we use friend to mean so many things.
I recently read and enjoyed Love and Saffron and Frida and Kate both by Kim Fay, both stories told in letters.
In the nonfiction/memoir category, I liked Let's Take the Long Way Home and Big Friendship.