Books That Changed Me (In the Best Way)

Some books don’t just pass through you, they linger. They nest in your ribs, in the dark, quiet corners of your chest. You finish the last page and you don’t feel triumphant but rather you feel hollow. Changed. A little more cracked open. Over the years, I’ve read stories that tore me apart slowly, with kindness and they didn’t just entertain, but unmade me. This list isn’t about perfect prose or literary prestige, it’s about the ones that held my face close to the mirror and whispered, “Look at yourself.” Here’s a list of 6 books that changed me in the best way possible (ruined me too)

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

I met Esther Greenwood when I was too young to understand her and yet, she understood me. There’s something dangerous about seeing yourself in someone unraveling. I didn’t realize I was crying until I turned the last page. Plath didn’t just write about depression, she embodied it in language.

Reading The Bell Jar felt like I was standing underwater, waving at people who couldn’t see me. That book said, “I see you,” when I didn’t even know I needed it.

2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

If The Bell Jar saw me, Crime and Punishment stared me down.

Now this one didn’t just ruin me, it drained me.

Raskolnikov is one of the most complex characters I’ve ever met. I hated him, pitied him. I was him. The way Dostoevsky dives into guilt, how it festers, how it morphs into self-righteousness and madness is so uncomfortably real.

There were chapters where I had to stop, get up, and walk around the room. I was suffocating in Raskolnikov’s mind. His fevered justifications, the spiral of moral decay… it was like watching someone drown in their own brain. And somehow, I rooted for him. I hoped for his redemption. I wanted him to suffer and heal all at once.

Crime and Punishment didn’t give me answers. But it made me question everything, my ethics, my empathy, the very idea of justice.

3. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

Then came a quieter sorrow.

This book is quiet grief. It doesn’t scream, it sighs.

Toru’s loneliness echoed my own during a time I couldn’t name the heaviness I felt. Murakami writes sadness in such a soft way that you don’t realize how deeply it’s settling until it’s already inside you.

The characters are fleeting, fragile. And yet, the ache they leave is permanent. It’s a book I return to when I feel like breaking gently.

4. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

And then, the surreal.

Gregor Samsa woke up a bug, and the world stopped loving him. That line might be absurdist, but its meaning? Devastating.

This book made me think about alienation, about how people treat those they no longer understand. It’s not the transformation that hurts, it’s the rejection.

Sometimes, we turn into things people can’t love anymore. Kafka taught me that.

5. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

After Kafka, I needed poetry. Not rhymes, ache.

This book broke me beautifully. Every sentence is a poem. Every emotion is raw. I felt like I was reading someone’s bleeding soul and somehow finding mine reflected in it.

Vuong gave language to the ache I couldn’t articulate,queerness, family trauma, the immigrant story, the quiet dignity of surviving. It’s not a book. It’s a wound that teaches you how to heal.

6. A Book That Healed Me: Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

And finally, a balm.

After all the literary devastation, I needed Dolly.

Her words felt like a warm hug, like a best friend telling you that being a mess is okay. That you’re allowed to not have it all figured out. It didn’t hurt like the others, but it stitched me back together.

Conclusion

That was my list of books that changed me and they’re my all-time favourites.

Books are supposed to wreck you sometimes.

They crack something open so you can feel more, understand more, become more and honestly? I welcome the wreckage.

Because the stories that ruin you…are often the ones that save you, too.

Also read:- Best Self-Improvement Books for Personal Growth