*As an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases
15 Amazing Books on Loneliness - Fiction
Great books about being lonely-- there are so many. Reading these books will somehow IMHO make us LESS lonely or give us the encouragement to look at the better side.
Loneliness is something we need to deal with on our own and either we find friends and family to deal with this or the next best thing – books.
Here is an amazing list of books that either have characters dealing with various stages of loneliness and or some of them portray how the characters broke out of the rut and emerged happily. Some books also show some habits and productive things the characters did to emerge in a happier, healthier state of mind, and some philosophical advice Books on dealing with loneliness are also included.
Books about Loneliness with young protagonists
A classic that allures young adults and adults alike.
A little man (prince) is roaming around the deserts of the earth and meets the author when his plane crashes in the middle of the desert. This lone man is trying to understand why people are the way they are by visiting numerous planets in the galaxy. His heart is ruled by a little flower that grows on his own planet.
The profound insights and morally provoking questions the book raises will leave you amazed. Read More Here
A classic coming-of-age book about a boy who just entered high school and has no friends yet and is trying to find a footing for himself.
Charlie is trying to question life here, while all his friends explore sex, drugs, family drama, and more.
Written in the form of letters to a friend because Charlie has no one else to talk to about his very intimate feelings, we are taken on a journey that has smiles, tears, death, friendships and so much more. Read More Here
Imagine being confined to an attic with no food, nothing to do, and the constant fear of being found and captured. It is this harrowing tale set during World War II that is discovered in the attic written in a thirteen-year-old girl's diary. Anne and her family lived this existence for two years and Anne detailed these years in her diary. It was written in a moving and thoughtful and evokes feelings of sadness.
“The Marsh Girl” has lived a majority of her life alone. She was abandoned first by her mother, then her siblings, and finally her father. Her survival instincts and mental strength have proved invaluable to her, but one fear gnaws at her. The fear of being abandoned again. How did a little girl of seven survive the bare and remote landscape of the marshes?
This raw and beautiful coming-of-age novel is made all the more interesting with its element of mystery. The story is believed by many to closely resemble the author’s own life story. Its twisted end will leave you shocked. Read More Here
What if you learn one day that you were birth for one reason, to save your sister from a chronic disease? All your life you’ve been in and out of hospitals, being jabbed, tested, scanned, and checked for no fault of disease of your own. Would you get desperate enough to go against your own family and sue them to live a life of independence that you can call your own?
This beautiful but tragic story of a mother’s love and desperation and a sister’s fight to breathe free will leave you stunned.
Go on a fantasy adventure with Piscine and Richard Parker in this breathtaking journey that lasted 227 days. Just so we’re clear Piscine is a Tamil boy and Richard Parker is a Bengal tiger from the zoo and they are the only survivors of a boat capsize. They take this adventure together on a single lifeboat and form an astonishing and unforgettable bond.
The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story.
Best Books for Loneliness about adults
This book is the journey of a man in the body of a huge insect/bug in which he suddenly finds himself one fine morning. Why this happened, how this happened, how long will it continue – there are no answers to these questions. But what you will find out is how his family and friends treat him after this transformation. What you will read about is his heartbreaking solitary journey to communicate with his family that he means no harm. That he wants out, but he is helpless.
A book that has been studied for decades to draw its ultimate meaning. Make sure you read this and form your opinions about this classic. Read More Here
A simple girl, with simple clothing living in a simple house, with no finds or family and following a set simple routine every day of her life. She has a job she goes to, but no colleagues to interact with and every weekend she gets lost in wine, books, and TV.
That’s how it is right? Eleanor is convinced that that is how life is for everyone. Until she meets a stranger who shows her something invaluable – kindness. Eleanor’s chronicle through life will make you laugh till you have tears and then make you cry at unexpected junctures.
This is a book you need to read if you are looking to break out of a sad mood.
Is there something between life and death? Yes, says Matt Haig there is a library filled with books. And these aren’t ordinary books. They are books with choices. Choices you did not make in your life but now are given the opportunity to go back to them and see what life you could have been had you chosen them.
Regrets you have, that you could go back to and make amends. Who wouldn’t love this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and live the most sought-after life you ever dreamt of. But the ultimate question is would you be deserving of this life?
Nora has no friends, relatives, or anybody who might find her missing if she did not continue to live. Only a cat for company, who also has an accident one day and that’s the last straw for Nora before she decides to take her own life. Read More Here
The story is of the resplendently wealthy but still alone and a bachelor, Jay Gatsby, and his new love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. To what extent would you be willing to go for a meaningful life with a partner of your choice? Get lost in lavish parties, flamboyant lifestyles, and forbidden love.
An exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
The Great Gatsby is one of the great classics of twentieth-century literature.
George and Lennie are two lone men who form a unique bond and start caring for each other. They cherish a dream but lose everything to careless folly, misunderstanding, and jealousy.
This a story about those that yearn to rise out of the drudgery of everyday human existence, but have their expectations cut short.
The end will shock you to tears. Read More Here
Some More Great Books about overcoming Loneliness
The Bell Jar chronicles the nervous breakdown of Esther Greenwood. She is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's crack-up with such power that Esther's madness becomes completely real and even logical, as possible and accessible an experience as going to the movies.
Bound with difficult, and dark but essential themes, this chronicle is a haunting yet touching classic.
1984 describes a Dystopia. Imagine living in a country whose leaders apply a totalitarian system in controlling their citizens in the most extreme ways, which makes people like Hitler, Mao, Stalin look like clowns. Every day is spent working, eating, drinking, sleeping, talking, thinking, procreating, all controlled by the state. Winston Smith is one such citizen and a developer. He is “happy”, but for some reason, one day, he gets tired of all this.
What if one day I told you a small room is your world? That’s the case for five-year-old Jack. What you read is Jack’s story in his perspective, and his mom is a prisoner held captive by Nick for seven years in the Room. Explore the dynamics of a mother-child bond and their resilience in extreme times.
This post contains affiliate links. Read my Disclosure Policy.