9 realistic books on love
Photo: A still from Modern Love
Published on Tweak India, February 2020
The other day I saw my mum clipping my dad’s toenails. Before this leads to a feminist frenzy, let me add: It was because his belly comes in the way of him actually reaching his toes. It challenged my illusions about love and marriage.
Does it all really boil down to fighting over iPad passwords, whether both of you really need to make it to her chachi’s mother’s sister’s funeral and getting close to their warts and nose hairs?
Pop culture traditionally makes love look like that palat scene from DDLJ — fated and perfect with angry daddyji being the only obstacle. In real life, the obstacles include, and are not limited to: communication gaps, bad timing, sexual incompatibility, and lots more.
While escapism, and the suspension of disbelief are essential to keep hope afloat in an increasingly cynical world, I ache for interpretations of a more realistic kind of love.
Flawed love, all its ugliness and banality.
Enduring love — that lasts in spite of failings, obstacles and snot dripping out of their faces — is a different kind of beautiful.
Thus, began my search for realistic books on love that address what happens after ‘boy meets girl’, happily ever after and that often, girl really leaves boy. Here’s what made it to list
Realistic books on love for the incurable romantic
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The central plot follows a young girl as she struggles to choose ‘a suitable boy’ from the lineup of men her mother presents her with. (A predicament plenty of us have found ourselves in, willingly or otherwise)
A favourite among the realistic books on love, this 1,400-page magnum opus works as a metaphor for enduring relationships — they’re long, complicated, often involve more than just two central characters and the best ones, are a slow burn.
Set in post-partition India, it offers an in-depth look at the trials of arranged marriage and a broader commentary into India’s social, cultural and political landscape at the time.
Could potentially take you as long to read it, as it will for you to find a suitable partner. But both are ultimately worth it.
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
A novel that loudly proclaims that “This will be the real story” is like Michael Scott proclaiming he’s the world’s best boss. You expect the opposite.
This one delivers.
A follow-up to Essays in Love, the story charts the course of Rabih and Kirsten’s love story across 13 years, two children and an affair.
Our second pick for realistic books on love approaches marriage as a marathon, not a sprint. One in which you’re held responsible for your own happiness instead of it resting wholly on your partner’s already-overwhelmed shoulders.
Poignant in its practicality, it leans towards an instructional format and forces you to shed the rose-tinted glasses and look at the undeniably cumbersome parts of love. It did say it was going to be real.
Call Me By Your Name by Andrè Aciman
What could have been brings to life a delicious, bittersweet kind of pain. One that most of us are masochistic and human enough to indulge in.
Aciman’s coming-of-age tale poignantly explores a burgeoning relationship between two men, restrained by societal norms, and their own reticence. Seventeen-year-old Elio and 24-year-old Oliver meet at the former’s rented home in Italy, embarking upon a short-lived love affair.
The novel details the first flush of romance, and how the two are moved by it, across 20 years. Nostalgic, indulgent and heart-breaking, it’s a gentle reminder that love isn’t measured by its longevity but its impact.
An impact you carry through your life, even if you leave the person who caused it, behind.
Modern Love, Revised and Updated: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption
Anne Hathaway’s portrayal of a lawyer diagnosed with bipolar in the TV series Modern Love was equal parts heart-wrenching and hopeful.
The real-life stories behind the show, come from the 15-year-old New York Times column, Modern Love.
This book on our list of realistic books on love features some of the most popular stories from the newspaper series, and are a journey through the evolution of love.
From a promising fourth date ending in an emergency room, to traversing the dating world with a mental illness, to even how a much-married couple re-find love with each other, you can take heart in the fact, that these realistic stories, are in fact, real.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Marianne and Connell — two teenagers in Ireland in the early 2010s fall in love. Divided by the classic cruelty of puberty (he’s cool, and she, not so much), they embark upon a secret relationship.
Rooney follows the two through ups-downs, and role reversals (At college, Marianne’s eccentricities, brilliance and wealth make her popular while Connell struggles).
Dissecting the relationship, she jumps into a subject often ignored by traditional love stories — power dynamics. In a world where stereotypical gender roles are constantly being challenged, it’s an important one.
The beautifully written, poetic tales reminds you to hold on to the ‘me’ in the we.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Young love. Enduring love. The difference between the idealism of a teenage relationship, and the nuances of married life. Marquez’s masterpiece follows Fermina’s equations with her lost (and found) first love, and the man that she ultimately married, and the life she built with him.
It shatters all the illusions we have of love at first sight, while re-igniting hope of being able to find a more solid love with someone you were infatuated with. The perfect marriage doesn’t exist in Marquez’ world, but it doesn’t mean it’s lacking love.
Read it for his perfect prose, and that kick-in-the-gut feeling of second chances.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
We’ve all fallen in love with a handsome stranger we’ve seen on TV before. I mean, have you seen Jason Momoa?
In Eleanor Oliphant’s case, the object of her affection is a lead singer from a local band, who she is convinced she’s going to marry. Except Eleanor isn’t exactly like everyone else.
The 29-year-old intelligent but socially awkward finance clerk has a tumultuous past, and deals with mental health issues that require a social worker to check on her routinely. She’s also a loner who consumes two bottles of vodka every weekend, in her apartment.
Through the course of the novel, she explores her obsession with the singer, strikes up a friendship with a male colleague and proves that love creeps up on you even when you’re blatantly staring into the eyes of the completely wrong guy.
The book is poignant, dark, yet hopeful, just like real life can be.
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
When opposites attract, the resulting friction can often start forest fires. Odenigbo, a university professor and the beautiful Olanna are madly in love, but that doesn’t insulate their relationship from demons of betrayal, loss and regret.
In contrast, Olanna’s twin Kainene begins a fling with Richard, a shy Englishman, only to have it evolve unexpectedly.
Set against the backdrop of a war-torn Nigeria in the late 1960s, Ngozi Adichie’s prose reminds us that love is never static so it can’t be taken for granted. And the only balm that soothes our fragile souls is forgiveness.
Doctors by Erich Segal
Feisty Laura Castellano and quiet Barney Livingston are neighbours, best friends and everyone can see they’re perfect for each other. Everyone that is, other than the two themselves.
The giant book traces their years at Harvard Med School and gives us the bigger picture of the world falling apart around them: black power movement, feminism, class system.
As they lean on each other at various phases in their happy-on-the-surface lives, the two remind us that sometimes all the love that we are looking for lay right in front of us.
Segal’s love story is loaded with medical jargon, and might make you want to refer to Gray’s Anatomy from time to time. But if you can survive the Harvard Med School years, you won’t stop recommending this to people.
Special mention: Erich Segal is the man behind the heart-wrenching Love Story that gave the world the iconic, ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’ line.
