What to read after “Something Borrowed” by Emily Giffin: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
Laurie locks eyes with a stranger through a bus window and spends a year searching for him, only to meet him again as her best friend's new boyfriend. Across ten years of friendship, missed chances and other relationships, the two circle a connection they are never free to act on.
Hanna Bergstrom has buried herself in graduate school, so her older brother asks his best friend, Will Sumner, to help her get out and start dating. Will is a venture capitalist who avoids commitment, but their lessons in romance soon turn into something neither expected.
Anxious tech genius Charlie is the reluctant star of a reality dating show, and producer Dev is tasked with helping him connect with the contestants. Behind the cameras their unlikely friendship turns into a romance that neither can script.
Lucy Marshall moves back home to Nashville with her young son and falls for Cooper, her older brother's best friend, who has been warned to stay away from her. Cooper tries to keep his distance, but their shared circle and repeated proximity make their attraction impossible to ignore.
Jamie and Ryan were best friends at hockey camp until Ryan cut him off four years ago. Now they meet again as college players and take summer jobs coaching at the same camp. Working together forces Jamie to question what he wants, while Ryan tries to hide the crush he has carried since that last night.
Anna is sent to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year, though she barely speaks French and misses home. There she falls in with a circle of friends and develops feelings for Étienne, a charming classmate who is already taken. Their closeness makes staying just friends harder every day.
Lily moves to Boston, opens a flower shop and falls for Ryle, a confident neurosurgeon. Their relationship seems perfect until she notices patterns she recognises from the house she grew up in, and the return of her first love, Atlas, makes her question what she is willing to accept.
Anne Rollins is deep in debt when Mal Ericson, the wild drummer of the band Stage Dive, offers her money to pose as his girlfriend and repair his party-boy image. A cheerful man with no filter, Mal turns the arrangement real long before Anne is ready for it.
Clara leaves her buttoned-up East Coast life to move across the country to the man of her dreams, only to find he has sublet her room to someone else. Sharing the apartment with easygoing Josh, whose job would scandalise her family, forces an uneasy friendship that slowly becomes more.
In 1932 North Carolina, mill worker Noah Calhoun and wealthy Allie Nelson fall in love during a summer together, but her family separates them. Fourteen years later, with Noah back from the Second World War and Allie on the eve of her wedding, she returns to find him and must choose between two very different futures.
Jennie Beckett has always been off limits: she is the younger sister of Garrett Andersen's best friend and teammate. When Jennie moves into Garrett's building, their easy friendship turns into a secret arrangement, and Garrett must decide how much he is willing to risk for her.
Romance writer January and literary novelist Gus become summer neighbours in a lakeside town, both blocked and both skeptical of each other's genre. They make a bet to write in the other's style and slowly trade barbs for late-night talks, discovering the grief and hope behind their different worldviews.
As teenagers Macy and Elliot spent every weekend trading books in a closet and slowly falling in love, until one night tore them apart. Eleven years later they meet again in San Francisco, and the friendship and heartbreak they buried come rushing back as they decide whether to try once more.
Stella, a successful econometrician with autism, finds dating and physical touch bewildering, so she hires escort Michael to tutor her in intimacy. The arrangement is meant to stay businesslike, but their lessons turn into genuine feeling, and both must work through the past before they can trust it.
Hannah Bellinger takes a film job in the fishing town of Westport and moves in with Fox Thornton, the handsome, easy-going local everyone expects to stay single forever. As roommates they slip from friendship into something deeper, and Fox must decide whether he is brave enough to be loved.
Abby Abernathy arrives at college determined to avoid bad boys, but a bet lands her living in Travis Maddox's apartment. Their instant attraction turns into a volatile friendship and then something more, as Abby tries to keep her past and her feelings under control.
In college, Matt and Grace were inseparable neighbours in their NYU dorm who fell in love, until lost contact after graduation pulled them apart. Fifteen years later, a missed-connections post brings Grace back into his life, and the two have one chance to understand what happened and decide whether their story is really over.
Poppy and Alex have been best friends for years, spending one week of every summer travelling together, until one trip ends in a falling-out. Two years later Poppy suggests one more holiday to repair things, and a week of shared rooms and old memories forces them to face what they never say.
Chloe, who lives with chronic pain and a careful routine, draws up a list of things she wants to do to get a life. To tick off the first item she asks Red, the tattooed handyman who looks after her building, for help, and their cautious friendship deepens into more.
Win Hathaway has loved Kev Merripen, the brooding Romany boy taken in by her family, since childhood, and has spent years recovering from illness for his sake. Kev believes he is too dangerous to deserve her, and keeps his distance even as she decides to make him hers.
Anna Sun's life falls apart when her boyfriend suggests an open relationship and her family demands more of her. She decides to spend one night with Quan Diep, a tattooed businessman recovering from his own losses. What begins as a casual fling becomes a tender, difficult connection that asks both of them to be honest.
In Leningrad in 1941, as the German army tightens its siege, Tatiana meets Alexander, a young officer with a secret. Their love is forbidden by her family and by the war, but through hunger, loss and the frozen winter they hold on to each other and to the hope of survival.
Summer Heyward-Di Laurentis transfers to Briar University and moves in with her older brother's hockey friends, including Colin Fitzgerald, the quiet player she has crushed on since they met a year earlier. Fitz knows she is off limits, but living together makes his resolve harder to keep.
Los Angeles gallery owner Solène, thirty-nine, takes her daughter to a boy band meet-and-greet and catches the attention of Hayes, the band's twenty-year-old singer. Their secret relationship soon grows serious, but his fame and the age gap turn their private happiness into a public storm.
Start with “One Day in December”, “Beautiful Player”, “The Charm Offensive”: they are the closest to “Something Borrowed” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “Something Borrowed” these are Love Triangle, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “One Day in December”, “Beautiful Player”, “The Charm Offensive”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
