A Fine Balance
Rohinton Mistry
Four strangers forced to share a tiny flat in 1970s India slowly become a family, as the world around them grows ever more cruel
Both: Heartbreaking · Dark · Friendship
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A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara
Four friends move to New York after college and spend the next three decades trying to hold on to Jude, who won't talk about his past
- Literary fiction
- Heartbreaking
- Dark
- Friendship
- Big city
- Mental health
- Slow & immersive
- Long read
Top picks
Picks suggested by readers, each with one line on why.
Christodora
Tim Murphy
Damaged strangers' lives tangle around one East Village building over decades of AIDS activism, addiction and the families they choose
Both: Heartbreaking · Dark · Big city
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Shuggie Bain
Douglas Stuart
In 1980s Glasgow, a gentle boy spends his childhood trying to save his mother from drink, with a love that keeps breaking his heart
Both: Heartbreaking · Dark
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The Great Believers
Rebecca Makkai
A circle of friends is torn apart by AIDS in 1980s Chicago, and thirty years later the grief still follows one of them to Paris
Both: Heartbreaking · Friendship · Big city
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The Heart's Invisible Furies
John Boyne
Cyril, a gay man in a hostile Ireland, lives out seven heartbreaking and often funny decades held together by one lifelong friendship
Both: Heartbreaking
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