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For many of us, a breakup can be one of the biggest challenges we face. Whether your relationship lasted 20 years or three months, the devastation that comes from losing love can change us on a fundamental level. And — while the pain of the moment may have you believing otherwise — a lot of that change can be positive, in the long run. Sometimes the long long run. After a lot of healing gets done — and that’s where our favorite books on breakups come in.
While nothing can replace a therapy appointment or a good old-fashioned vent (or sob) session with your friends, break-up books are a vital part of the post-break-up toolbox. Whether you’re opting for a painfully relatable divorce memoir or a get-back-out-there self-help book, breakup books can show us the path to healing, or at least help us feel seen and comforted when the pain becomes unbearable. Many of these books are like a therapist and a best friend wrapped in one, and reading them is like getting a hug while hearing words of wisdom from someone who’s been where you are and come out the other side.
From longtime bestsellers like Eat Pray Love to more recent standouts like You Could Make This Place Beautiful, the following curated selection of break-up books are all non-fiction, all focused on helping you heal, feel, and (eventually, when you’re ready) move forward — whatever that looks like for you.
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Eat, Pray, Love
Sure, Eat Pray Love may still get its share of eye rolls these days for its admittedly not-super-relatable premise (if only we could all afford to drop everything and go on a global adventure to heal from a divorce!), but it’s also become a cultural touchstone for a reason. Gilbert’s early-thirties-crisis involves realizing she’s not fulfilled by her life or relationship, leading her to a divorce and a soul-searching journey that, despite myself, I found just as inspiring as many of this book’s millions of fans. Even if you can’t jet off to Italy, India, and/or Bali, you’ll find solace in Gilbert’s confusion, fear, loneliness, and ultimate emergence into healing and a new, fuller life. That’s a journey we can (and should) all take after a breakup, even if we’re doing it from our own homes.
Eat, Pray, Love$8.57 $18.00 52% Off
on Amazon.com
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You Could Make This Place Beautiful
Poet Maggie Smith’s aching memoir of divorce, grief, and rebuilding from the ashes got me through one of my worst breakups through a combination of unflinching honesty and gorgeous writing. After meeting her future husband in college and having two kids together, Smith is blindsided when she discovers his affair — though, as she unpacks their marriage piece by painful piece, she finds that the seeds were planted long before she found the evidence in his messenger bag. You Could Make This Place Beautiful is an intimate portrait of betrayal, pain, and the power of love to heal and see you through it. As soon as I finished, I knew this breakup book would be one I return to again and again. (Another plus: the short chapters are perfect for an attention span that’s been fried by heartbreak.)
You Could Make This Place Beautiful$1.99
on Amazon.com
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Tiny Beautiful Things
Image Credit: Amazon Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar column doled out advice, empathy, and thoughts on love for more than a decade. Tiny Beautiful Things gathers up the best of that wisdom in one wonderfully chunky volume that offers healing for every stage and occasion of life, touching on lost love, the power of forgiveness, and how to find your way towards redemption. Strayed does it all with candidness, humor, compassion, and love — reading her words feels like listening to a best friend tell you exactly what you need to hear.
Tiny Beautiful Things$13.99 $17.00 18% Off
on Amazon.com
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What to Do When You Get Dumped
What do you do when your husband of 30 (!) years abandons you for an ex? If you’re Suzy Hopkins, you team up with your daughter and create an illustrated guide to “unbreaking” your heart. The result is What to Do When You Get Dumped, which takes you day by day (literally — there’s a daily countdown on every page, starting on Day 1,582) through the phases of a breakup. Hopkins gives you permission to feel all the feelings and provides advice for moving through them, all with a sense of humor that might just have you laughing — or at least cracking a smile — through the tears.
What to Do When You Get Dumped$8.92
on Amazon.com
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Everything I Know About Love
OK, Everything I Know About Love isn’t a breakup book per se, but it’s definitely a book about being single and all the ups and downs that come with it. Alderton’s hilarious, touching memoir about growing up through heartbreak and relationships is also an ode to friendship and the people you call when you’re at your lowest. After reading this book, I immediately sent a copy to a freshly broken-up friend. Reading it is like having a heart-to-heart over glasses of white wine: cathartic, funny, tear-inducing, and healing. (If you’re more into fiction, Alderton’s Ghosts and Good Material are also great post-breakup reads.)
Everything I Know About Love$1.99
on Amazon.com
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Heartbreak
Why exactly does heartbreak hurt so much — to the point of becoming unbearable, existential, seemingly never-ending? That’s what journalist Florence Williams decided to find out after her 25-year marriage came to a sudden end. In her pursuit of an answer, Williams dives into the latest scientific research, therapies, drugs, and new-age coping strategies. If you’re the type to intellectualize your problems (guilty), you’ll resonate with Williams’ journey and the unique ways she finds her way back to joy and fulfillment in Heartbreak.
Heartbreak$9.99
on Amazon.com
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How to Heal a Broken Heart
Together for 26 years together and married for 15, no one would’ve thought that Rosie Green’s marriage would end with her husband walking out without even leaving a forwarding address. The brutal breakup left Rosie reeling, unsure if she’d every recover. When she eventually did, she knew she had to help other women in her position by sharing exactly how. She does just that in the candid, humorous guide that is How to Heal a Broken Heart, which reads as a handbook for getting through the worst breakup imaginable — and coming out the other side more fulfilled than before.
How to Heal a Broken Heart$7.99 $17.99 56% Off
on Amazon.com
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This American Ex-Wife
Not all divorce memoirs are described as “exuberant” and “unapologetic,” but Lyz Lenz’s certainly is. The writer and cultural critic saw her 12-year marriage fail and felt unseen by the typical divorcée narrative, so she wrote her own. In This American Ex-Wife, Lenz presents all the good parts about getting divorced, showing how this often heartbreaking experience can also come with freedom and empowerment.
This American Ex-Wife$4.99 $28.00 82% Off
on Amazon.com
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Splinters
In her first memoir, celebrated writer Leslie Jamison explores her own “splintered” relationships, with a special focus on her failing marriage and her relationship with her young daughter. Readers loved the power of Jamison’s writing in Splinters and connected with her honesty about the difficulties of marriage and moving forward after it falls apart.
Splinters$14.99 $29.00 48% Off
on Amazon.com
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The Beauty in the Breaking
Michele Harper’s marriage ended just as her career as an ER physician was poised to take off, leaving her alone in a new city, newly single, and wondering where to go next. This riveting memoir details how she steered herself towards self-healing, even as she learned to heal others as a doctor. Each of the patients she writes about in The Beauty in the Breaking offers lessons in recovery, compassion, and healing, as Harper explores both the broken medical system and her own heartbreak.
The Beauty in the Breaking$13.99 $17.00 18% Off
on Amazon.com
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Maybe You Should Talk To Someone
After a bad breakup, psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb finds herself on the other side of the desk, seeking therapy for her own struggles — a journey she shares in Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. As she helps her own patients’ navigate their lives, she’s surprised to find how much she relates to them — and how much she (and we) can learn from the interplay between her professional role and her personal pain.
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone$18.99 $30.00 37% Off
on Amazon.com
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How to Date Men When You Hate Men
Image Credit: Amazon One of the last stages in any breakup is getting back out there — aka starting to date again — a task that can feel anywhere from exciting to terrifying, especially given how cursed the dating scene in 2025 can feel. Blythe Roberson knows this as well as anyone, and luckily for us, she’s collected her hilarious and cringeworthy experiences and observations in How to Date Men When You Hate Men. Witty sections like Real Interviews With Men About Whether Or Not It Was A Date and Good Flirts That Work (paired with, of course, Bad Flirts That Do Not Work) will keep you laughing and nodding along at this all-too-relatable book.
How to Date Men When You Hate Men$12.99 $23.99 46% Off
on Amazon.com
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Love Life
Image Credit: Amazon If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably seen coach and bestselling author Matthew Hussey’s videos: succinct yet sympathetic reels and TikToks about the difficulty of finding true love and how to stay the path (because the end goal is worth it). In Love Life, Hussey brings those insights to the page, helping us release the pain and trauma of past relationships, address our internalized fears and self-sabotaging tendencies, and orient ourselves in the right direction to find the love we long for. Hussey even opens up about his own experiences and mistakes, making this both a memoir and guidebook for navigating modern love.
Love Life$14.99 $28.99 48% Off
on Amazon.com
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All About Love
Image Credit: Amazon Want to delve into philosophy post-breakup? All About Love, a one-of-one masterpiece by visionary bell hooks, is the place to start. In it, hooks argues that we should redefine love as a verb (instead of a noun) and steer it away from just the romantic/sexual meaning we so often assume it to have. Instead, she lays out guidelines for infusing love into every area of society as well as our own lives. Her compassionate, wise words will help you heal from a broken heart and find the faith in love once again.
All About Love$12.49 $16.99 26% Off
on Amazon.com
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The Rules Do Not Apply
Image Credit: Amazon Ariel Levy’s unconventional life — spent exploring the world, writing stories, and shaking off the rules every chance she gets — makes for a great memoir no matter what the context. But what makes The Rules Do Not Apply so emotionally resonant is Levy’s simultaneous exploration of loss, of a loving relationship and more, making this memoir both healing and inspiring.
The Rules Do Not Apply$5.99 $27.00 78% Off
on Amazon.com
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The Wisdom of a Broken Heart
Image Credit: Amazon While most of the books on this list are relatively recent releases, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart was first published in 2009 — and is still a mainstay among post-breakup literature. In it, New York Times-bestselling author Susan Piver invites us to reframe heartbreak as an opportunity for spiritual and emotional transformation, catapulting you into a new phase of life as you heal and grow. She does this through exploring traditions throughout the world that help people find joy out of pain, sharing that wisdom through relatable anecdote, exercises, and meditations that anyone can do.
The Wisdom of a Broken Heart$13.99
on Amazon.com
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