Why we’re in love with literary angst

From tear-in-the-rain heartbreak to existential quiet, bleaker classics are finding a new, eager audience.

Remember when reading heavy meant dragging yourself through dense tomes? Nowadays, bleakness has become chic. The recent surge in interest around titles such as White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali is showing us something more profound about why readers gravitate toward literary angst.

According to the Guardian, White Nights sold over 100,000 copies in the UK in 2024—a surprising figure for a novella of “impossible love… shadowed by the knowledge that it can never be permanent.” Madonna in a Fur Coat, meanwhile, has skyrocketed, selling nearly 30,000 copies in the UK and surpassing even Pride and Prejudice.

Why the pull?

It’s not just nostalgia or the old allure of melodrama. According to Jessica Harrison of Penguin Classics UK, it’s about living through times of change: “They’re about… how do you live your life when the world around you is changing, and the things you thought you knew are no longer true?” Angsty literature resonates with the present, uncertainty, heartbreak, longing, and existential dread. These books aren’t trivial. They hold up a mirror to our inner unrest.

TikTok and online communities play a good part here, too. Readers call White Nights “the most relatable love story I’ve ever read”, and Madonna in a Fur Coat “not just a book… it’s a window to my soul”. The emotional clickbait of dark yearning meets the algorithmic world of scroll and short attention spans—and something clicks.

The comfort of shared despair

There’s something paradoxical here. We often believe that happiness is the emotional ideal, yet literary angst is becoming more popular. The reason? When a book validates your inner ache, you feel less alone. As Jack Edwards (the UK’s “internet’s resident librarian”) explains:

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

Much of the appeal lies in the emotional connection. Teen or adult reader, when you’re feeling restless or restless in disguise, reading a story where the world is cracking a little and someone else’s heart is bleeding too can feel… strangely comforting.

But what about the light?

This isn’t to imply that hope, optimism, or lighter reading material are passé. It’s more about timing. When the world is unstable, the economy is in chaos, and personal identity is shifting, the bleak novel becomes even more pertinent. The article mentions examples like No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai and The Notebook by Ágota Kristóf—stark, merciless in effect—and reminds us that our desire for “existential literature… shows no signs of fading.”

Also climbing the charts are books like Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada, a quietly devastating wartime novel about resistance and futility, and The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, which tracks a woman’s emotional descent after being left by her husband. These books offer no easy answers, but readers aren’t asking for comfort—they’re asking to be seen.

What this means for us as readers and writers

For the blog’s audience of literary-minded readers and writers, there are a few takeaways:

• As a reader: It’s fine to lean into the “angst” mood. It doesn’t mean you’ve abandoned hope. It means you’re engaging with life’s sharper edges.

• As a writer or blogger: The yearning, the question, the ache—these are valid starting points. Stories of longing still resonate deeply.

• As a community, we can discuss hard feelings in books without shame. Let’s treat the “angst novel” as a form of solace, not self-flagellation.

Five more novels for when literary angst is the only thing that fits

If you’re craving more fiction steeped in yearning, quiet devastation or existential ache, these titles might speak your language:

• White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky – A brief, aching tale of unrequited love and fleeting human connection, told in one of the most haunting voices of 19th-century literature.

• Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali – A quietly devastating exploration of emotional repression, love and disillusionment in 1920s Berlin.

• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – A defining voice in literary melancholy, tracing the unravelling of a young woman’s mental health.

• Stoner by John Williams – A quietly tragic portrait of an ordinary life lived with inner passion and unfulfilled dreams.

• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh – Bleak, darkly funny and detached, this novel captures the modern malaise like few others.

• Ties by Domenico Starnone – A razor-sharp story of betrayal and familial fracture told with bracing clarity.

• Villette by Charlotte Brontë – Often overshadowed by Jane Eyre, this is the more haunted, internal, emotionally raw novel of the two.

Final reflection

So next time you pick up a dark classic or a modern novel that doesn’t promise easy fixes, ask yourself: Why does this feel so satisfying to me right now? Maybe it’s because we’re living in a world that’s a little too messy, and reading becomes a way to chart that mess in someone else’s story. Perhaps we’re drawn to the ache because we want it to be acknowledged.