Finished One Day? These are the books you need to read next (2024)

So you’ve had your heart broken into thousands of sharp, tiny pieces by Netflix’s adaptation ofOne Day. Then you’ve picked up the novel by David Nicholls (for the first time or the fiftieth time) and had the same thing happen again. Rinse and repeat.

You’re probably feeling bereft, like there’s no way that another literary love story will ever compare with what Dexter and Emma had. But time is an excellent healer, and once you’ve stopped sobbing into your sofa cushions, you might well find yourself looking for, say, another clever, modern romance with good jokes. Or another story that perfectly captures what it’s like to feel a bit adrift in your twenties. Or just something that’ll make you ugly cry again.

When you think you’re emotionally ready, here are a handful of books–from coming-of-age tales to cleverly constructed romantic dramas– which will fill theOne Dayshaped hole in your heart. A word of advice:maybe don’t ditch the box of tissues just yet.

Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiney

One of the joys of reading a David Nicholls novel is that he’s actually laugh-out-loud funny. As in, you’re likely to audibly snort, rather than just mentally register the punchline (which is worth bearing in mind if you’re reading in a public place). One author who can match him for successful joke-per-page rate is Katherine Heiny. She has a sharp ear for the ways in which people accidentally undercut the stories they tell about themselves but, like Nicholls, she’s also a very empathetic writer. Start with her debut novelStandard Deviation, which tells the story of odd couple Graham and Audra, and Graham’s ex-wife Elspeth.

Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls

One Dayis Nicholls’ best-known novel, but his back catalogue is full of gems, populated with funny, flawed characters who you’ll love spending time with.Sweet Sorrow, his most recent release, is a little more meditative and melancholy thanOne Day. Set in the Nineties and suffused with period nostalgia, it tells the story of Charlie, a teenager who fills his interminable post-GCSE summer holidays by joining an am-dram group. Their production of choice isRomeo and Juliet, and off-stage romance inevitably follows. Once you’ve finished it, you won’t have too long to wait until his next novelYou Are Hereis released in April.

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

If you’re the sort of person who finds themself stewing over could-have-beens and paths not taken (fictional or otherwise), add Laura Barnett’sThe Versions of Usto your to-read pile. It’s basicallySliding Doors meets One Day. Eva and Jim are undergraduates at Cambridge in the late Fifties, who are brought together thanks to a fluke of timing involving a punctured bike tyre. But that’s just one of three different versions of their story. In the first timeline, they fall in love; in the second, there’s no puncture and therefore no meet-cute. As for the third? They get together– but everything goes wrong.

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Netflix’sOne Dayadaptation has become the most talked about TV love story since the BBC’sNormal People had us all weeping during lockdown. Sally Rooney’s protagonists Connell and Marianne are another couple that really should be together but can’t seem to make it work, spendingyears circling in and out of each other’s lives. When they first meet at high school, Connell is the golden boy, popular and good-looking, while standoffish Marianne is his opposite; during their university years, though, the dynamic shifts, with Connell feeling out of his depth. Rooney’s love(ish) story is rigorously schmaltz-free, and hits you all the harder for it.

Expectation by Anna Hope

Anna Hope’s novel, a real word-of-mouth success story upon its release a few years back, tells the story of three long-time friends who spend their twenties living blissfully in each other’s pockets in an east London flat–then find themselves drifting apart from one another in their thirties. At the same time, the gap between the lives they imagined and the reality each of them is trapped in grows wider and wider. In her portrait of aspiring-maybe-failing actress Lissa, Hope really captures what it’s like to feel out of step with those pals who (on the surface at least) seem to have adulthood all figured out.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

This mega-bestseller from Gabrielle Zevin is a boy-meets-girl story in which the relationship stays strictly platonic, and is all the more moving for that. It begins with a chance encounter: years after they first met in hospital as children, Sam and Sadie run into one another at a train station. As kids, they bonded over their shared love of video games; as adults, they became creative partners, working on a string of ever more ambitious programming projects. You certainly don’t have to be a gaming nut to be totally won over by this absorbing study of how a friendship evolves over time.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Curtis Sittenfeld’s clever, witty books are suffused with popular culture from highbrow to lowbrow. Who else could get away with re-tellingPride and Prejudicethrough the prism of dating shows likeThe Bachelor(as she does inEligible)? Or writing an alternative history in which Hillary Clinton never married Bill (inRodham)? Her latest novelRomantic Comedyis, well, a pretty delightful example of that genre. Inspired by real life (cough, Pete Davidson, cough), she imagines what happens when a female TV writer for a late-night show gets together with an improbably handsome celebrity guest.

Ordinary People by Diana Evans

If many of the books on this list explore the first flushes of love against the confusion of your early twenties, Diana Evans’Ordinary Peoplepicks the story up a little further into the future: when both parties are approaching middle-age, and the relationship has become familiar, comfortable, even a little stale. Melissa and Michael seem to live a picture-perfect existence with their two kids and new house in South London, while Stephanie and Damian are ensconced in the suburbs, but seem to be tiring of it (and each other). Evans’ character studies are pitch-perfect.