Books on messy relationships don’t offer perfect romances or neatly tied endings. They give us the chaos, contradictions, and emotional wreckage that make us feel the most human.” These dark romance novels like It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover and Normal People by Sally Rooney turned TikTok into a therapy session and flooded Instagram reels with tears, thirst traps, and plot twist reactions. It felt like the entire internet was romanticizing trauma and turning toxic love into romantic slow-motion reels.
That’s how popular these chaotic books became because they sit with uncomfortable truths: that obsession, jealousy, self-deception, and neediness are often as much a part of love as devotion and passion. Here, you will find 10 sharp, compelling reads in this list where relationships are charged, fraught, and often toxic. These are stories where characters brood, lash out, retreat, and repeat. They’ll have you cringing, nodding in recognition, and unable to look away.
What Makes A Relationship Messy In Fiction?
Messy relationships in fiction have little to do with grand plot twists and everything to do with emotional disarray. At their heart, these stories capture when connection turns claustrophobic, when desire gets entangled with power, and when self-delusion wins out over reason.
Here’s what makes them tick:
- Conflicted desires: Characters desire intimacy and autonomy, vengeance and reconciliation.
- Mood swings: Characters lurch from love to hate, from sweetness to cruelty, sometimes within a single scene.
- Power differences: One person is more equipped to obtain power through emotional, social, or physical means; manipulation or incompetence may occur.
- Unreliable narration: Usually, the story is filtered through a character who can’t quite bear the truth, ratcheting up the drama.
- Failure to communicate: Silence, avoidance, or outright lying drives the tension higher until it snaps.
The best writers of this dark romance novel genre don’t just show people fighting; they dissect the internal logic that makes people stay in, return to, or even crave these destructive bonds. That makes messy relationship drama books so compulsive: we see the fallout and the slow-motion car crash leading up to it.
10 Must-Read Books on Complicated and Toxic Relationships
Here are ten carefully chosen books about complicated relationships, each offering a unique lens on love gone wrong.
1. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
At its core, Burnt Sugar is about a mother and daughter locked in a lifelong struggle that’s equal parts love and resentment. Now an adult, Antara finds herself caring for her mother, Tara, who once abandoned her to live a reckless, rebellious life. But as Tara’s memory starts to fail, Antara is forced to confront not just her mother’s past cruelties, but the ways those wounds have shaped her own identity. Set against the backdrop of contemporary India, the novel drips with bitter observations about family, memory, and the impossibility of forgiveness.
I found this book hard to put down because Doshi captures that sticky, complicated emotion so well, when you simultaneously love and hate someone. You’ll recognize the push and pull here if you’ve ever had a fraught family relationship. It’s sharp, unsettling, and leaves you wondering how much of our pain is inherited. A must-read if you want a story that’s emotionally raw and beautifully written.
2. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
Based in Naples, the novel plunges you into the tornado that strikes Olga’s life after her husband abruptly abandons her. The story follows the days and months that pass as Olga unravels, emotionally, mentally, and even physically. But she acts like the strongest woman and tries to keep everything together for her kids. The deep-rooted writing pulls you into Olga’s claustrophobic world as she fights with anger, despair, and humiliation.
It is a painful story, yet somehow you can’t look away. Ferrante never shies away from the ugliness of heartbreak, and I think that is what makes this book so cathartic. It’s perfect for readers who want a raw, unfiltered look at what happens when love curdles into obsession and grief.
3. Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan
In Acts of Desperation, we follow an unnamed narrator as she tumbles into an all-consuming, toxic relationship with a man named Ciaran. Set in Dublin, one reads the novel with the sense of having stumbled across a confession. The narrator pours out her heart with little regard for artifice. She wants love so badly that she’s willing to lose herself completely, even as Ciaran grows colder and more distant. Nolan’s prose is blunt and relentless, making you feel every cringe-inducing choice the narrator makes.
I’ll admit, this book made me squirm. But that’s precisely why it works. It forces you to confront the darker sides of neediness and desire that no one likes to discuss. This one will leave a mark if you’re drawn to messy relationship books that get deep under the skin.
4. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
The novel is about a young protagonist named Vanessa in the present day, who is reflecting on her abusive relationship with her teacher, Strane. What at first seems like an affair of the body emerges to be something more damnable: an exploitation of the weakest among us, a perversion of the otherwise innocent emotion of love. As Vanessa ages and digs deeper into her past, she wrestles with what the truth is and what she wants to believe.
This is an alarming book, but it is also essential reading. There isn’t just the demand of a brutal tear down, but the emotional aftermath, the confusion, the gaslighting, the trauma. If you like your books to make you question everything and face harsh realities about power and relationships, read this one. It lingers with you way after you’re done with it, and for good reason.
5. It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
There are two types of readers in this world: those who loved this book and those who found it extremely problematic. I found this book to be both. I loved it, but I also found it controversial. Its immense popularity (both the book and the movie) has sparked countless debates on Instagram and other social media platforms. A couple perfect for each other in every way except for one major flaw: Ryle has a violent temper. What happens next is a painful and disheartening trip into the dark heart of self-realisation, as Lily has to stare down her destructive relationship and make some hard choices.
Colleen Hoover can write the struggle and cycle of an abusive relationship like no other. I rooted for Lily so much as she grappled with impossible choices, which will keep this book in my mind. It’s not just about love gone wrong; it’s about finding the strength to pick yourself up, even when it feels impossible. This book will hit home if you have been in a problematic relationship.
6. Normal People by Sally Rooney
Normal People is that rare novel in which the function of its characters is clear, yet Connell and Marianne’s relationship remains as enigmatic to them as it is to us. They are attracted to each other but emotionally alienated and cannot exchange their feelings. The novel moves between their high school and university years, showing how insecurities, misunderstandings, and class differences continue to throw their relationship off course. This is hands down one of the sad books that will make you sob and cry.
What I adored about this book is its nuanced examination of the unspoken, silent moments of longing and misunderstanding. Rooney is a good writer, and it’s clear why Normal People struck a chord with readers. A great book if you’re interested in how slight emotional changes can make a relationship feel wretched. It’s the type of book that has you pondering your relationships long after you’ve finished the last page.
7. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
In Exciting Times, Ava, an Irish expat in Hong Kong, muddles her way through a bewildering love triangle. As she is torn between romantic feelings for two very different men, she questions who she is and what it means to be in love and be loved. Dolan’s own quick wit and eye for humour reveal themselves in Ava’s inner thoughts, creating a novel that is as poignant as it is humorous.
What struck me about Exciting Times was how Dolan captures the mess of modern relationships and how love and power dynamics are often messy with insecurities and self-deception. Ava is a figure who seems at once deeply relatable and frustratingly out of touch with her own emotions. If you want a heavy-handed book that reminds us all how we just settle for less and accept so much of what we don’t deserve, this is one worth picking up.
8. Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
Cleo and Frank are like a runaway rollercoaster, all hot-blooded passion and dysfunction. The British artist Cleo and the American businessman Frank embark on a whirlwind romance. But they soon learn that their class discrepancy, emotional maturity, and expectations poison their love. Cleo and Frank struggle to find a sense of themselves in the whirlwind as the relationship disintegrates.
This book is an emotional roller coaster; I could not put it down. Mellors deftly illustrates the lifting power of love and what it can cost to love someone who also destroys us, as well as how we can cling to unhealthy relationships based simply on the fear of being alone. You’ll be attracted to this if you’re drawn to books about how unhappy relationships can play nasty little games of mind and heart. It’s a mess, but that’s precisely what makes it interesting.
9. Nothing Burns as Bright as You by Ashley Woodfolk
In Ashley Woodfolk’s Nothing Burns as Bright as You, you will get an unbounded view of the obsession and full-force emotion of young love. Narrated by a voice trapped in a violent, torrid love affair, the story examines how desire and self-harm are often ensnared together. The feelings are raw, the stakes are high, and the ending is breathless.
The feel in this one is darkly alluring and I thought my heart has literally shattered! Woodfolk masterfully portrays the all-consuming aspect of first love, remarkably when it isn’t grounded in maturity and stability. If you’ve ever been engulfed by a relationship that was too much too soon, you’ll recognize a bit of yourself here. It’s a poignant reminder of what love can do to you, build you up, burn you down, in beautiful and devastating ways.
10. Someday We’ll Find It by Jennifer Wilson
In Someday We’ll Find It, Wilson shares stories of characters haunted by ghosts of past relationships. Though much of the story is about the day-to-day unfolding of their present lives at the camp, past loves and ongoing tension still inform their decisions. The novel revolves around how the past never lets go and how the pursuit of closure can consume us.
I loved how Wilson laced the story back and forth between what happened in the past and what’s happening in the present. The underlying gravitas of the characters’ emotional depth and the inner struggle they were going through with their past had me hooked. If you like books about the silent, lingering aftermath of a relationship, this one’s going to stay with you. It’s a moving consideration of love, loss, and the passage of time.
Why We Love Reading About Dysfunctional Love?
Why do we return, again and again, to stories of lovers who betray, families that implode, and friendships that curdle? Simply put: they let us explore the forbidden and the fragile from a safe distance.
- They affirm our messy experiences, showing us we’re not alone in our contradictions.
- They provide catharsis to help us work through anger, jealousy, and grief while inhabiting fictional avatars.
- They satisfy a deep curiosity: what makes people stay in situations that destroy them? What tiny, human missteps accumulate into disaster?
- They challenge us to reconsider our boundaries and desires, often holding up an unflattering mirror.
These Books About dramatic Relationships remind us that real human connection is rarely tidy in a world that prizes neat Instagram love stories and self-help mantras. And that’s precisely what makes them compelling.
Whether it’s a manipulative lover, a narcissistic parent, or an unreliable narrator trying to convince us (and themselves) that everything’s fine, these books on messy relationships pull us in. They show us that love, at its dirtiest, is also at its most revealing. And somehow, we can’t stop reading.
Conclusion
At their core, these books on messy relationships do more than entertain. They hold up a mirror to our tangled hearts. They pull us into the storm of obsession, betrayal, desire, and heartbreak, where logic falters and emotions take over. And as readers, we can’t look away. Because let’s face it: perfect love stories might comfort, but it’s the flawed, chaotic, dramatic, and dark romance novels that give us goosebumps.
So, if you are craving a deep dive into the minds of characters caught in emotional quicksand or simply curious about the raw, unfiltered side of love, these stories deliver every time. They remind us that there’s something profoundly human even in the wreckage. And that’s what keeps us coming back for more.
FAQs
Gone Girl, Normal People, My Dark Vanessa, and The Days of Abandonment are the books you must read about toxic relationships. These books delve into doomed love, obsession, and emotional anarchy.
Sometimes, yes. Some of those stories can hit home, particularly if they are about abuse or betrayal. It helps to know what to expect before you jump in.
Yes, they can help. Reading about messy relationships can prompt you to reflect on your own. It might also be reassuring to know that others are also struggling.
