Is there anything sweeter than childhood friends reconnecting and falling in love as adults? There’s just something undeniably heartwarming about watching friends, who’ve known each other through all the messy and complex stages of life, realize they have romantic feelings for each other.
This happens to be one of my favorite romance tropes, so I’m always on the lookout for books about childhood friends becoming lovers. Here, I’ve gathered some of the very best, including Jenny Han’s YA sensation, The Summer I Turned Pretty (which inspired a Prime Video series adaptation) and Madeline Miller’s perennially popular The Song of Achilles.
Get ready to feel all the feels as you read these romantic tales that prove love may be a long, winding road, but it’s always worth it in the end.
1. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
In her imaginative reinvention of Homer’s The Iliad, Miller tells the passionate — and ill-fated — love story of Achilles and exiled Prince Patroclus as they grow up together and wage the Trojan War to avenge Helen of Troy. This entertaining foray into Ancient Greece will satisfy lovers of literature, poetry, and the childhood-friends-to-lovers trope.
Like the epic poem it’s based upon, Miller’s novel stands the test of time. Though it was published back in 2012, it’s popularity endures thanks to social media hype on BookTok and Bookstagram.
2. 99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne
Thorne followed up her breakout book, The Hating Game, with this charmer about Darcy, who’s long had a crush on her twin brother’s best friend, Tom.
When Tom shows up to help renovate her grandmother’s cottage, neither can deny the real feelings brewing between them. But with a long history and her brother’s claim to Tom, Darcy’s going to have to work for this happily-ever-after.
3. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
A love triangle blossoms at a shared beach house that friends Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah visit every summer. Readers everywhere are continually charmed by this light YA read about childhood friends growing into something more, from the author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.
4. Where the Rhythm Takes You by Sarah Dass
After Reyna’s mother dies, running the Plumeria — her family’s hotel in Tobago — falls on Reyna’s shoulders, leaving her little time to be a typical, carefree teen. Her stress mounts when a VIP guest checks in: He’s a famous musician — and Reyna’s childhood best friend, her first boyfriend and her first heartbreak.
As Reyna struggles with feelings for Aiden that never truly went away even after they broke up, she also begins questioning the suffocating expectations her mother left behind.
Dass’ YA childhood-friends-to-lovers romance is a modern remix of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, enlivened by an island setting and Afro-Caribbean culture.
5. Seoulmates by Susan Lee
Lee’s YA romance about childhood-friends-turned-lovers explores cultural identity through a Korean American lens.
Hannah Cho has spent her entire life trying to fit in with her American classmates, putting her Korean heritage on the back burner as a result. Which makes it all the more painful when her white Koreaboo boyfriend dumps her for not being into K-pop and K-dramas.
But when her childhood best friend, now a famous actor in Korea, returns to spend the summer in San Diego, Hannah learns a lot about herself, including how to live authentically and confidently as a Korean and an American.
6. Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren
Macy’s life is unfolding according to plan, complete with the “perfect” fiancé and career — until a chance encounter with her childhood sweetheart reawakens something inside her.
Love and Other Words — written by duo Christina Lauren — depicts childhood friends becoming lovers while also delivering the romance trifecta: an adorable meet-cute, an unexpected plot twist, and most importantly, a second chance at a happily ever after.
7. Marriage on Madison Avenue by Lauren Layne
Can men and women ever be just friends? It seems so with old pals Audrey Tate and Clarke West, whose relationship has always been purely platonic — until it isn’t. When the pair become fake fiancés to appease Clarke’s meddling mother, the loyalty they’ve shared since childhood suddenly feels a lot like love.
A major hit upon its 2020 release, Marriage on Madison Avenue is a rom-com that balances lighthearted fun with authentic character depth.
This book concludes Layne’s Central Park Pact trilogy; each book can be read as a standalone novel. (But why not read all three to prolong the laughs and love?)
8. Crazy Love by Melissa Schroeder
Schroeder’s Juniper Springs series continues with Crazy Love, where a fast-talking flirt finally finds someone he wants to cling to — and she happens to be an old childhood friend who admires organization and planning rather than spontaneity.
Schroeder writes believable and fun characters, making her romance books compulsively readable. Opposites attract as childhood friends become frenemies and then, at last, lovers, in this delightful story.
9. Take a Chance on Me by Jaqueline Snowe
New adult romances generally come in two flavors: gritty and angsty or furiously funny and sexy. Snowe’s Take a Chance on Me is the latter, but it adds an extra level of kindness that isn’t always there, even in more lighthearted fare.
The two protagonists are elementary school best friends, used to teasing one another through life. Now that they’re working adults, they come to see each other very differently, but their strong connection remains the same. This story is raunchy in the best way — and filled with banter and bluster.
10. My Week with Him by Joya Goffney
When Nikki’s mother finds out she’s L.A.-bound to pursue a music career, she kicks Nikki to the curb, leaving her homeless. Before she leaves town, Nikki’s old friend Malachi asks her to stay and spend spring break with him. The stakes soar when Nikki’s younger sister goes missing, forcing her to set aside tensions with her mom as all three characters search for the vanished teen.
Goffney’s story goes beyond romance (though watching Nikki and Mal’s bond deepen is heartwarming). My Week with Him also highlights and humanizes teens dealing with emotional abuse, strained family relationships, and socio-economic hardship.
11. It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
Lily Bloom falls for neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, but their fairytale romance slowly becomes a nightmare as Ryle’s dark nature surfaces. Amid the pain and fear, Lily turns to her longtime friend, Atlas Corrigan, who supported young Lily when she was growing up with an abusive father.
It Ends with Us shines for its very real and poignant portrayal of cycles of domestic abuse. It’s the most popular of Hoover’s bestsellers, and the film adaptation starring Blake Lively is scheduled for a June 2024 release.
Lily and Atlas’ story continues in the sequel, It Starts with Us.
12. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Originally published in 1868, this incredible story of four sisters set during the Civil War is loosely based on the life of the author and her three siblings. It’s a timeless tale of love, loss, and individuality, and if you’re anything like me, you can’t help but be swept up in the sisters’ antics and pursuits.
Of course, one of the highlights of this classic novel is seeing the March family bond with their neighbor boy, Laurie, who eventually grows up and falls for the youngest sister, Amy.
