#3:Barely Read
Gaslight. Gatekeep. Girlfriendship: 10 books on toxic Codependency
I recently just saw this movie called Roommates starring Chloe East and Sadie Sandler and I have to admit that I took every bait in that movie and raged. Not because it was a bad film, but because it was quite good actually at elucidating the reality of friendships. The story follows two college roommates whose lives become inextricably tangled in a way that feels increasingly suffocating. What starts as a standard "best friend" dynamic quickly devolves into a claustrophobic power struggle where boundaries are stripped. It captures that specific, nauseating brand of codependency where one person’s emotional survival depends entirely on the other’s submission. I found myself spiraling alongside the characters because it highlights the terrifying reality of "bad" friendships. We often talk about toxic partners, but we rarely discuss the friend who treats your loyalty like a legal contract you never bargained for. It’s that friendship where you aren’t a person but an accessory to their crisis; where every "I need you" is actually a threat, and leaving feels less like a breakup and more like a prison break, leaving you wondering how you became a secondary character in your own life. This brings me to a category of literature that perfectly mirrors that sensation of being trapped in a room with a "bestie" who has the keys to your sanity and no intention of letting you go.
1. Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton:
This is the ultimate "hostage" friendship where Louise, a struggling writer, is pulled into the glittering, manic world of socialite Lavinia. The line between admiration and identity theft vanishes as the friendship becomes a claustrophobic trap that can only end in a total erasure of the self.
2. Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott:
Two former best friends are reunited in a high-stakes research lab, but they are bound together by a horrific secret they shared as teenagers. It is a brilliant look at how a single moment of vulnerability can turn a friendship into a lifelong pact of mutual destruction.
3. The Girls by Emma Cline:
Evie is a bored teenager who becomes obsessed with a group of girls in a cult, drawn in by the magnetic and dangerous Suzanne. The friendship isn't based on love but on a desperate need to be seen, leading Evie toward a violent climax she is too paralyzed to escape.
4. The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada: When a woman moves to her husband's rural family home, she falls into a literal and metaphorical hole. The encroaching, "unserious" but deeply unsettling pressure from her new family and the strange neighbors creates a sense of social entrapment that is both mundane and horrifying.
5. A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan:
Remy and Alicia are obsessed with a beautiful Instagram influencer named Jen, but when they actually meet her, their collective delusion turns into a surreal, bio-horror nightmare. The couple is held hostage by their own parasocial obsession, proving that wanting to be near someone can be just as dangerous as being trapped by them.
6. The Lying Game by Ruth Ware:
Four friends from boarding school are summoned back to the coast by a single text message after a secret they buried decades ago resurfaces. They are physically and emotionally shackled to one another by a lie that has dictated the terms of their adult lives, making their reunion feel less like a homecoming and more like a reckoning.
7. Best Friends by Kamila Shamsie:
This story tracks a lifelong friendship between two women from Karachi who grow up to lead very different lives in London. It explores the heavier side of "bestie" culture—where the weight of shared history and childhood expectations becomes a cage that prevents either woman from actually growing into who they want to be.
8. Expectation by Anna Hope:
Three women in London find their lives stalling in their thirties, and their friendship becomes a hall of mirrors reflecting back their failures. They are held hostage by the version of themselves they promised each other they would become, leading to a quiet, simmering resentment that threatens to suffocate them all.
9. Bunny by Mona Awad:
A lonely scholarship student is drawn into an elite clique of girls in her MFA program who call each other "Bunny." What starts as a high-concept satire of "mean girls" quickly descends into a surreal, bloody ritual where the price of belonging is your actual grip on reality.
10. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh:
Eileen is a woman trapped in a miserable life until she meets Rebecca, a glamorous new coworker who seems to offer a way out. Their friendship is a dark, manipulative game that leads Eileen into a crime she never saw coming, proving that some "saviors" are just recruiters for chaos.
My 2026 TBR is available for you to join in. Find it here