Recommended Reading 📚 *from the archives*

Two bookshelves, two lives.

Our relationship was bookish; we spent weekend mornings reading in close proximity. But we broke up when we realized neither of us really wanted to read the books the other recommended, anymore.

Let the record show: I read more of yours than you did of mine. On my 30th birthday I was reading Philip Roth. A year and a half later, you still hadn’t picked up Carmen Maria Machado.

There’s you, there’s the other person, and then there’s the relationship, my therapist says. Our Venn diagram — two bookshelves, two lives — had no center, by the end.

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Editor’s note: Here’s one of my faves from the archives called “Recommended Reading 📚” first published in My Favorite Breakup on May 8, 2022.

We’re back from a brief summer break and doing a month of nostalgia. Before we return to publishing new stories, note that submissions are open now (and always): Please write down your heartache or fond memz or hard-won lessons or goofiest teen kiss tales and send them in here. I can’t wait to read them. -jz