3 Comfort Books for Your Quarter-Life Crisis Era |
Get unlimited access to everything VICE has to offer.
Turn off all ads on VICE.com
Exclusive New VICE Documentaries
Member Exclusive Features & Columns
Turn off all ads on VICE.com
Exclusive New VICE Documentaries
Member Exclusive Features & Columns
Turn off all ads on VICE.com
Exclusive New VICE Documentaries
Member Exclusive Features & Columns
4 Magazines Delivered to Your Door
3 Comfort Books for Your Quarter-Life Crisis Era
We’ve all been there.
Share on X (Opens in new window)X
Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook
Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard
Anyone in their 20s understands the chaotic, often discouraging struggles we all face during the relentless decade. From job hunting to tumultuous relationships to uncertainty about the future, this time in our lives can feel impossible to navigate. In fact, it’s such a relatable struggle that people now refer to it as a “quarter-life crisis.”
As a 30-year-old woman who somehow survived her messy 20s, I owe much of my growth to reading. If you’re looking for support and relatability in the form of a novel, here are three books that feel like a quarter-life crisis.
1. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh tells a story we all wish we could lead: one of a self-chosen, year-long solitude/hibernation.
The narrator is a young woman who seemingly has it all. She’s young, rich, gorgeous, thin, intelligent, successful, creative…but still, that doesn’t seem like enough to fulfill the deep hole in her heart. She’s deeply flawed, incredibly privileged, and oftentimes outright cruel—far from the “perfect” female narrator, which is intentional on the author’s part.
Her solo journey through self-exploration, growth, and emotional healing is certainly unconventional, but it makes for quite the intriguing story.
“Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be,” the synopsis reads. “Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.”
2. Nobody, Somebody, Anybody by Kelly McClorey
Nobody, Somebody, Anybody by Kelly McClorey paints isolation with such depth that you can feel the discomfort through the book. The story follows Amy Hanley, a young woman who’s working as a maid while studying for an EMT exam that she keeps failing.
However, it’s hard to imagine a brighter future for yourself when you’re completely alone, anxious, unfulfilled, and seething with self-loathing energy. In an attempt to change, she embarks on a self-prescribed “placebo” program, where she will seemingly trick herself into becoming happy and successful.
As Goodreads puts it, this book is “a moving and darkly comic debut novel about an anxious young woman who administers a self-made ‘placebo’ treatment in a last-ditch attempt to rebuild her life.” Don’t we all wish for such an opportunity?
“Tender and laugh-out-loud funny, Nobody, Somebody, Anybody explores the shadowy corners of a young woman’s inner world of grief, delusion, and self-loathing, revealing the creeping loneliness of modern life and our endless search for connection,” its synopsis reads. “Kelly McClorey captures the hilarity and heartbreak of American ambition.”
3. Worry by Alexandra Tanner
Worry by Alexandra Tanner is another deeply relatable yet uncomfortable read—one that makes you feel like you’re literally being dragged through a young woman’s mundane life. While that might not exactly sound like an appealing beach read, the book is one of the most painfully realistic portrayals of a quarter-life crisis I’ve ever read.
As Goodreads describes it, “Frances Ha meets No One Is Talking About This in a debut that follows two twenty-something siblings-turned-roommates navigating an absurd world about to suffer great change—a Seinfeldian novel of existentialism and sisterhood.”
You might not fall in love with the characters in Worry, but you’ll definitely empathize with their experiences. Think: newly single and highly anxious 28-year-old invites her depressed younger sister to move into her small city apartment with her. The two face mental health struggles, complex family dynamics, health concerns like recurring hives and uterine polyps, financial issues, relationship trouble…the list goes on. I think most people in their 20s can relate.
“Deadpan, dark, and brutally funny, Worry is a sharp portrait of two sisters enduring a dread-filled American moment from a nervy new voice in contemporary fiction,” its synopsis reads.
Share on X (Opens in new window)X
Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Facebook
Share using Native toolsShareCopied to clipboard
Photo: Richard Drury / Getty Images 3 Comfort Books for Your Quarter-Life Crisis Era 6 minutes ago By Sammi Caramela
3 Comfort Books for Your Quarter-Life Crisis Era
mark peterson/Corbis via Getty Images More Genres (And Artists) I Would Add to the ‘Dad Rock’ and ‘Cigarette Mom’ Musical Canon 6 hours ago By Lauren Boisvert
More Genres (And Artists) I Would Add to the ‘Dad Rock’ and ‘Cigarette Mom’ Musical Canon
Jefferson Siegel-Pool/Getty Images North Carolina Man Must Pay Back the Millions He Acquired in First-Ever Streaming Fraud Case 6 hours ago By Lauren Boisvert
North Carolina Man Must Pay Back the Millions He Acquired in First-Ever Streaming Fraud Case
Agnesstreet/Getty Images Norovirus Turns Cruise Ship Into a Poop-and-Vomit Wonderland. Here’s How This Keeps Happening. 8 hours ago By Luis Prada
Norovirus Turns Cruise Ship Into a Poop-and-Vomit Wonderland. Here’s How This Keeps Happening.
NASA, ESA, Dennis Bodewits (AU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) NASA’s Hubble Caught a Comet Breaking Up in Real Time, and the Images Are Wild 8 hours ago By Luis Prada
NASA’s Hubble Caught a Comet Breaking Up in Real Time, and the Images Are Wild
Jun Seong Yi Scientists Discovered a New Dinosaur Species in South Korea, and It’s Named After a Cartoon 8 hours ago By Luis Prada
Scientists Discovered a New Dinosaur Species in South Korea, and It’s Named After a Cartoon
(Photo by Prince Williams/WireImage) 3 New Hip-Hop and R&B Songs You Must Hear This Week (3/20/26) 9 hours ago By Caleb Catlin
3 New Hip-Hop and R&B Songs You Must Hear This Week (3/20/26)
The Lumineers’ Friends Told Them This Early Demo ‘Sounded Like S***’, but Here’s Why They Knew They Had to Record It Anyway 10 hours ago
The Lumineers’ Friends Told Them This Early Demo ‘Sounded Like S***’, but Here’s Why They Knew They Had to Record It Anyway
Junko Kimura/Getty Images Revisiting My 5 Favorite Linkin Park Tracks for What Would Have Been Chester Bennington’s 50th Birthday 10 hours ago By Lauren Boisvert
Revisiting My 5 Favorite Linkin Park Tracks for What Would Have Been Chester Bennington’s 50th Birthday
Screenshot: Bethesda Bethesda Has Good and Bad News for Elder Scrolls 6 11 hours ago By Denny Connolly
Bethesda Has Good and Bad News for Elder Scrolls 6
Add your account details