22F, going through one hell of a friendship break up right now. Looking for a book that gets it/has a similar emotional tone or is just about complex friendship dynamics. I was the one who initiated the break up, after trying for a long time to fix things with my friend. It ended with her talking about me behind my back and getting others to bully me, and then she copied my personality and interests. After I could no longer delude myself into thinking this was all a big misunderstanding, and I accepted that her actions were intentional, I ended our friendship via a brief text (and lost some mutual friends because of that choice). I'd love to read from both perspectives, not just narrators in similar positions to me, but also narrators who are like her (or also like our mutual friends caught in the middle.) There was a lot of enmeshment between us and identity formation and also trauma processing/healing but also in some ways we triggered each other (ie. her feeling abandoned after I tried to set a boundary about how much time we could spend together and then the gossiping/bullying she resorted to, trying to get me to go back on my boundary, and how that action of hers eventually led me to permanently end our friendship). She really related to Christine from the movie Ladybird. I really related to Marianne from Normal People if that gives you a better grasp of our personalities.
I'm almost finished with The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend series) and I loved those books. I also really enjoy short story collections.
Other books I've loved:
How To Breathe Underwater – Julie Orringer
My Dark Vanessa – Kate Elizabeth Russell
Anything by Virginia Woolf
Anything by Sally Rooney
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg
A Cats Eye – Margaret Atwood
The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls
So Long, See You Tomorrow – William Maxwell
I Who Have Never Known Men – Jaqueline Harpman
by IDKoalas
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