Our Not-So-Cringe Valentine's Date: A Good (Romantic) Book

Romance has a branding problem. Somewhere between grand gestures and algorithm-approved love stories, it became synonymous with predictability, red roses, fixed menus, and people who always know what to say at the right moment. Which, honestly, feels a little unrealistic. And a little exhausting.

The romances we actually return to are messier. They involve overthinking, bad timing, emotional blind spots, and conversations that replay in your head days later. They’re about attraction that doesn’t immediately make sense, relationships negotiated in real time, and love stories that feel recognisable rather than aspirational. The kind you read with one eyebrow raised, occasionally wincing because it hits too close.

So this Valentine’s, the date isn’t dinner reservations or perfectly planned evenings. It’s a good book. The kind you sink into alone, or read next to someone in comfortable silence. Stories where love is funny, complicated, sometimes inconvenient, and far more interesting because of it. Because sometimes the least cringe romance is simply choosing a story that lets you feel something real.

The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan

Not all love stories begin with certainty. The Happy Couple starts at the point where most romances end: engagement, commitment, the assumption that everything has already been decided, and then quietly unravels what that actually means. Dolan writes relationships the way they often feel in real life: analytical, slightly awkward, full of people trying to understand themselves while also trying to be understood. It’s romance without the performance, where love exists alongside doubt, independence, and the restless realisation that compatibility isn’t always obvious. Less fairy tale, more emotional negotiation, and all the better for it.

Talking At Night by Claire Daverly

Some romances aren’t loud. They unfold slowly, almost accidentally, through conversations that stretch longer than intended and feelings that never quite find the right timing. Talking at Night sits in that quiet space between friendship and something more, where intimacy builds through familiarity rather than drama. It’s tender without being sentimental, nostalgic without looking backwards too much. The kind of love story that feels less like falling and more like recognising someone, and wondering if that recognition came too early, or too late.

Lies & Weddings by Kevin Kwan

Romance, but make it chaotic. Kevin Kwan does what he does best here: think impossibly glamorous settings, family expectations dialled up to theatrical levels, and relationships complicated by money, status, and spectacle. Lies & Weddings is indulgent in the most enjoyable way, reminding us that love stories don’t always need to be quiet to feel true. Sometimes romance looks like excess, bad decisions, and secrets unravelling at inconvenient moments. It’s sharp, funny, and self-aware enough to know that love, especially in certain worlds, is rarely just about two people.

Bad Romance by Emily Hill

Then there are the relationships we know aren’t quite right but stay in anyway. Bad Romance leans into that honesty, the blurred line between affection and habit, desire and disappointment. Emily Hill writes about emotional patterns with uncomfortable clarity, capturing the ways people justify staying, hoping, or trying again. It’s less about ideal love and more about the process of understanding what love shouldn’t feel like. A romance that feels grown-up in the way real life often is: complicated, imperfect, and quietly revealing.

Everything's Fine by Cecilia Rabess

Love stories don’t exist in a vacuum, and Everything’s Fine refuses to pretend otherwise. Attraction here is entangled with ambition, politics, identity, and the friction of two people seeing the world differently. It’s sharp, sometimes uneasy, and deeply modern. It's a romance that asks whether connection alone is enough when values and experiences don’t fully align. The result isn’t neat or resolved, but that’s precisely the point. Some love stories are less about endings and more about what they reveal along the way.