That ‘It Ends With Us’ Book Hangover Is Real. Here’s What to Read Next.

In all my years behind the counter at a bookstore, I’ve learned that some books aren’t just books; they’re events. They roll in like a weather system, and suddenly, everyone is asking the same question: “I just finished this book, and I need something that feels exactly like it.” And let’s be honest, “It Ends With Us” is one of those storms. It has a special kind of gravity, doesn’t it? You don’t just close the cover and move on. You carry it around for days, wrestling with the characters’ choices and the tough, messy reality of it all.

When you come in asking for a book like that, I know you’re not just looking for a similar plot. You’re chasing a feeling. You want a story that isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty, to explore the painful, tangled parts of love. You’re looking for characters who feel so real they could walk off the page, who make impossible choices, and who fight for something better. You want a book that gets it—that love and harm can get twisted together, and that real strength often means walking away.

So, this isn’t just another list. Think of me as your personal book sommelier, here to guide you to your next read that shares the same emotional DNA as that powerhouse novel. We’re going to dig into why these stories hit so hard and help you find the perfect one to dive into next.

First Things First: What About the Sequel?

Okay, let’s get the most obvious question out of the way. Yes, there is a sequel! If you’re sitting there wanting to know what happens next specifically with Lily and Atlas, your first stop should absolutely be “It Starts With Us.” It was written to answer all those lingering questions.

For those of you who’ve already devoured it, or if you’re looking to explore similar feelings in a brand-new world with new characters, then this list is for you. Ready?

Breaking Down the Magic

Before we jump into recommendations, let’s quickly touch on what makes that book so unforgettable. It usually boils down to these four things:

• The Messy Dilemma: The core of the story isn’t about a good guy versus a bad guy. It’s about the heart-wrenching reality of loving someone who hurts you. The good and the bad are all mixed up, leaving you in a moral gray area with no easy outs.
• Breaking Generational Curses: A huge part of the journey is the main character’s fierce determination not to repeat the patterns of her past. It’s a raw look at how family trauma echoes and the incredible courage it takes to silence that echo for good.
• The Deeply Personal Viewpoint: The writing puts you directly inside the protagonist’s head. You feel her hope, her confusion, and her pain unfiltered. This creates a bond that’s incredibly intense and personal.
• The Ghost of a Healthier Love: The return of a past love isn’t just a convenient plot device. He acts as a benchmark for what safe, healthy love is supposed to look like, making the central choice even more complicated and profound.

The books below tap into one or more of these elements. They aren’t clones, but they offer that same depth of feeling you’re craving.

For When You’re Drawn to the Dilemma of Love & Harm

This is the big one for many readers. These stories dive headfirst into relationships where love is tangled, partners are flawed, and the main character has to navigate that impossible mix of affection and pain.

1. “The Great Alone”

The Story: A family seeking a fresh start moves to the brutal, beautiful Alaskan wilderness. The father, a former POW, is haunted by his past, and as the endless winter night descends, his inner demons turn their isolated homestead into a pressure cooker of fear and love. The whole thing is seen through the eyes of his young daughter, Leni, as she watches her mother try to hold on to the good man she married.

Thematic Connection: This book is a masterclass in showing a family held hostage by a man they both love and fear. It asks the exact same gut-wrenching question: When is love not enough to save someone? The story brilliantly captures why people stay in damaging situations, clinging to hope.

Reader’s Experience: Honestly, reading this feels like watching a storm roll in over the mountains—majestic and terrifying all at once. You feel the isolation and the rising dread right alongside the characters. It’s an intense journey, but the focus on Leni’s incredible resilience makes the hopeful ending feel so, so earned.

Read This If: You want to lean into the high-stakes family drama but with an epic, wild setting that’s a character in itself.

Heads up! This book is emotionally heavy and includes graphic scenes of domestic turmoil and survival. It’s powerful, but be prepared to take breaks. The paperback usually runs about $18, but it’s a popular one at libraries, so check Libby or Hoopla first!

2. “Me Before You”

The Story: A cheerful, quirky young woman named Lou takes a job as a caregiver for Will, a man paralyzed after an accident. Her job is to bring some light back into his life, but she soon discovers he has already made a monumental decision about his future. A beautiful, complicated love story unfolds under the shadow of an impossible choice.

Thematic Connection: While it’s not about abuse, this book presents a different but equally profound dilemma of love and harm. It’s a moral one. Lou’s love makes her want him to fight for life, but his love for her makes him want to set her free. The heartbreak comes from being able to see both sides so clearly.

Reader’s Experience: Prepare to have your heart warmed and broken, sometimes on the same page. Lou’s humor keeps it from being relentlessly sad, but the weight of Will’s reality is always there. It’s a story that sticks with you long after you finish.

Read This If: You’re looking for a good cry and a story that makes you think deeply about love, sacrifice, and what it means to live a full life.

Good to know: The central theme touches on assisted suicide and disability, which has been a point of debate. It’s a sensitive topic, and the book presents one specific viewpoint, so it’s good to be aware of that going in.

For When You Connect with Healing and Breaking Cycles

A huge part of Lily’s power is her fight for a better future. These next books are all about characters actively working to crawl out from the shadow of their past and build a new life from scratch.

3. “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine”

The Story: Eleanor Oliphant’s life is built on rigid routine. Same schedule, same meal deal for lunch, same weekly phone call with her toxic mother. She’s convinced she’s perfectly fine. But when a few unplanned acts of kindness crack through her carefully built walls, her buried past and a chance at a real future begin to surface.

Thematic Connection: This is a brilliant, tender look at the long-term effects of childhood trauma. Like Lily, Eleanor has to unlearn a lifetime of harmful patterns to find happiness. It shows that healing isn’t one big, dramatic event but a slow, awkward, and beautiful process built on tiny moments of human connection.

Reader’s Experience: You will absolutely fall for Eleanor. Her social awkwardness is often hilarious, but it comes from a place of deep hurt. It’s a story that starts out feeling lonely and gradually blooms into one of friendship, community, and incredible hope. It feels like a warm hug in book form.

Read This If: You want a story about healing that is more hopeful than heartbreaking, with a quirky and unforgettable main character.

Heads up! The story does explore loneliness, social anxiety, and past trauma, which can be distressing. It’s ultimately uplifting, but it doesn’t shy away from the dark stuff to get there.

4. “The Glass Castle”

The Story: This is a memoir that reads with the raw power of fiction. It’s the story of a woman’s deeply unconventional, poverty-stricken childhood with brilliant but destructive parents—a charismatic, alcoholic father and a free-spirited artist mother who scoffs at responsibility. It’s a stunning tale of survival and forging your own identity.

Thematic Connection: This is the ultimate story of breaking a generational cycle. The author has to grapple with the deep love she feels for her parents while acknowledging the profound harm their instability caused. Just like in our anchor novel, she has to make a conscious, painful choice to build a different, more stable life for herself.

Reader’s Experience: The writing is so direct and matter-of-fact that the events described are even more shocking. You’ll be in awe of her resilience one minute and furious at the neglect the next. It’s a tough read, but it’s one of the most powerful and inspiring stories of the human spirit I’ve ever put into a customer’s hands.

Read This If: You’re fascinated by real-life stories of resilience and the complicated love that exists within deeply dysfunctional families.

Heads up! Because it’s a memoir, the descriptions of poverty, neglect, and alcoholism are real and unflinching. Be ready for its raw honesty.

A Quick Note on Reading Difficult Books

As a bookseller, I feel like my job isn’t just to hand you a book, but to make sure you’re ready for it. Stories that deal with trauma and abuse can be incredibly powerful, but they can also be triggering. It’s a sign of strength, not weakness, to look after your own emotional well-being.

Seriously, it is always okay to put a book down. If it’s too much, set it aside. You can always come back to it, or you can just decide it’s not for you. A quick tip: check out websites like The StoryGraph or the user reviews on Goodreads. People often post detailed content warnings, which can help you prepare for what’s ahead without being blindsided.

And remember to check your local library! Almost all of these titles are available there for free. Many are also available as audiobooks on apps like Libby, and hearing these intense stories read aloud can be a whole different, powerful experience.

The Final Verdict: A Quick Guide

The readers who come to me after a book like “It Ends With Us” are really just looking for stories that feel true. They want fiction that admits the world is messy, love is hard, and people are complicated. The books above all deliver that. To make it easier, here’s a super-quick breakdown:

• “The Great Alone”
  Main Vibe: High-stakes family drama meets a brutal, wild setting. The tension is palpable.
  Emotional Gut-Punch Level: 5/5

• “Me Before You”
  Main Vibe: A heartbreaking moral dilemma wrapped in a love story. Guaranteed to make you cry and think.
  Emotional Gut-Punch Level: 4/5

• “Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine”
  Main Vibe: A quirky, heartwarming, and ultimately uplifting story about healing from a dark past.
  Emotional Gut-Punch Level: 2/5 (More heart-mending than heart-breaking)

• “The Glass Castle”
  Main Vibe: A shocking but inspiring true story of resilience and escaping a cycle of neglect.
  Emotional Gut-Punch Level: 4/5

• “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”
  Main Vibe: A glamorous and gripping story with a slowly revealed secret love at its core.
  Emotional Gut-Punch Level: 3/5

• “Everything I Never Told You”
  Main Vibe: A quiet, sad, and beautifully written literary mystery about family secrets and unspoken pain.
  Emotional Gut-Punch Level: 4/5

I really hope this guide helps you find your next great read. A good book should feel like a conversation that sticks with you, and trust me, these books will be talking to you for a long, long time.

Okay, your turn! What book did you read after “It Ends With Us” that totally hit the spot? Drop it in the comments below—I’m always looking for new recommendations for the shop!

Galerie d’inspiration

Taylor Jenkins Reid: For readers who love the high-stakes drama and intricate timelines. Her books, like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, often feature epic love stories set against a backdrop of fame and secrets, delivering a powerful emotional gut-punch.

Emily Henry: If you’re chasing the feeling of a first love and witty, heartfelt dialogue, she’s your author. Books like Beach Read masterfully blend laugh-out-loud moments with deep emotional vulnerability, offering a slightly more sun-drenched take on complicated love.

A 2013 study published in the journal *Science* revealed that reading literary fiction, even for just a few minutes, measurably improves our ability to understand the feelings and thoughts of others.

This is the magic behind the ‘book hangover.’ When we dive into complex characters like Lily Bloom, we’re not just escaping; we’re actively exercising our empathy muscles, which is why the characters’ journeys feel so personal and stay with us long after the last page.

• Check for content and trigger warnings. Platforms like The StoryGraph are fantastic for this, allowing you to go in emotionally prepared.
• Have a “palate cleanser” book ready—something light, funny, or low-stakes to read next.
• Don’t be afraid to put the book down for a bit if a chapter is particularly heavy.

But is the audiobook version worth it for such an emotional story?

Absolutely, if you have the right narrator. A skilled voice actor can deepen the emotional impact, turning a great story into an unforgettable experience. The narration of It Ends With Us by Olivia Song is a perfect example, capturing Lily’s strength and vulnerability. For another masterclass in emotional performance, try anything narrated by Julia Whelan, whose work on books like Carley Fortune’s Every Summer After is simply breathtaking.

A quick note on trigger warnings: They aren’t spoilers. For books that bravely tackle themes like domestic violence or trauma, knowing what’s ahead allows you to engage with the material safely. Think of it as checking the weather before a hike. It’s about making an informed choice so your reading journey is cathartic, not unexpectedly distressing. Your mental health matters most.

• You finally have someone who understands why you can’t stop thinking about a fictional character.
• You get incredible new recommendations before they even hit the bestseller lists.
• It transforms a solitary sob-fest into a shared, cathartic experience.

The secret to curing that book hangover? Share it. A book club focused on contemporary romance or emotional fiction can be a game-changer. Digital platforms like the Fable app have dedicated clubs, or check with your local indie bookstore for groups that love to dissect the very emotional rollercoasters you’ve just been on.

According to NPD BookScan, Colleen Hoover sold more books in 2022 than Dr. Seuss and the Bible combined.