Falling out with a friend

BOOKS RECOMMENDATIONS ON FALLING OUT WITH A FRIEND

 

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

A charming novel about fake friendships and fake people by Jane Austen that captures how fickle people can be set in an engaging story full of heart felt drama, romance and friendship story about a young woman venturing away from home for the first time and frequenting the social circles of Bath.

Best Friends Forever by Irene S Levine

An insightful book in the world of female friendships, which will leave you with the perhaps obvious realisation that friendships are never permanent, they are fluid, dynamic and uncontrollable. The book validates the feelings of disappointment, confusion, loss, anger that you may have when going through a difficult period in a friendship. We often feel devastated when a close “BFF” (“best friends forever”) friendship ends for no reason. Empathetic and full of relevant advice, the books helps is to make sense of the loss, work through our feelings of pain and hurt and move forward to build stronger and better friendships going forward. The book will also motivate you to be a better friend.

What Did I Do Wrong by Liz Pryor

Using examples and stories of friendship breakups from her own personal life, the author brilliantly articulates how the female friendship has been seen to be perfect with us forever attached at the hip to our BFF. Yet the reality of female friendship is so different and most women go through a BFF break up at some point in life. The book details how to get over a bad breakup from working through the feelings of anger, loss, shame, confusion and hurt to initiating friendship break ups yourself and choosing better friends in the future.

The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women’s True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burnt Out or Faded Away by Jenny Offill & Elissa Schappell

As the title suggests, the book is a collection of stories of friendships going sour for a variety of reasons from one person changing, to friendships ruined by competition, personal ambition or for no other reason than having ran their course. What’s unique about this book is that the two contributors to the book were once best friends and outline their side of the story of what caused their painful breakup. With a range of emotions touched upon in the book, you will find the stories relatable in many different ways.

Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy

A story about two best friends going to university in Dublin for the first time after having spent their childhood and teenage years in the Irish countryside of Knockgeln. A beautiful concoction of characters as the girls come-of-age in this heart-warming book of a new life, new friendships, romance and tragedy. A hugely comforting read.

Looking for something more specific? Get something more tailored with our personalised book prescriptions within 48 hours. You might also find it helpful to explore these feelings in a bibliotherapy session or learn some bibliotherapy techniques to help you process these feelings by completing our online Bibliotherapy, Literature and Mental Health course or our book Bibliotherapy: The Healing Power of Reading.

A big hello and thank you for reading! Passionate about literature, psychology, and life I launched Book Therapy as an alternative form of therapy using the power of literature. I train mental health professionals, librarians, teachers as well as readers on using bibliotherapy in their own work through our online Bibliotherapy, Literature and Mental Health course. We also curate reading lists/personalised book prescriptions for clients based on their individual needs. This is our signature personalised reading service.

You can also check out Book Therapy’s other free reading lists and A- Z of book prescriptions (covering both fiction and non-fiction). These suggest books based on your existing life situation (e.g. anxiety, job change, relationship heartache) as well as interests (e.g memoir, historical fiction, non-fiction, crime etc). There’s also a Children’s A — Z of Book Prescriptions. Feel free to check out the blog for more literary gems. There’s also a post on my personal story of how I entered the world of bibliotherapy and book curation.

In this role, I have had the opportunity to publish two books called Bibliotherapy: The Healing Power of Reading and The Happiness Mindset, and write various literary essays and pieces for newspapers and magazines. I have undertaken bibliotherapy workshops for The United Nations, various libraries in New York and corporate organisations in the UK and US. My book recommendations have featured in the Guardian, Marie Claire, NBC News, Asian Voice, New York Observer, Sydney Telegraph and various other publications. If you are a parent you might enjoy a podcast I’ve recorded with speech and language therapist Sunita Shah on Raising A Reader & Storyteller. And if you’d like to connect, email me at bijal@booktherapy.io or www.booktherapy.io.

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