Epistolary Novels

1. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff — A charming real-life correspondence between a New York writer and a London bookseller turns into a decades-long transatlantic friendship.

2. The Color Purple by Alice Walker — Told through personal letters, this Pulitzer Prize winner follows Celie’s journey from oppression to self-empowerment in the early 20th-century American South.

3. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell — A workplace romance unfolds as an IT guy secretly reads (and falls for) the email exchanges between two witty coworkers.

4. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple — A quirky, fast-paced mystery told through emails, school reports, and transcripts as a daughter tries to track down her missing mother.

5. I Love You So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn — A teen girl’s letters and texts trace her whirlwind trip to Kyoto, exploring love, family expectations, and identity.

6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky — Told through letters to an anonymous recipient, this coming-of-age classic shows what it’s like to grow up and find your people.

7. Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer — Two grieving teens begin exchanging anonymous notes and slowly begin to heal in unexpected ways.

8. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone — Two enemies fighting on opposite sides of a time-traveling war begin exchanging secret letters that slowly change everything.

9. Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch — A girl spends the summer in Italy digging into her mother’s past and discovering a new side of herself along the way.