BFFs Forever: Best Books About Unforgettable Friendships

Using the creativity of video games to express their innermost feelings and perspectives, friends Sadie and Sam come together and apart over the course of three decades, buoyed by the calm presence of their friend Marx. The love story at the heart of this brilliant read is not one of epic romance but instead is a journey to find and keep the people who make life worth living. Their trials, ups and downs with each other, parallel beautifully in their game creation. For “what is a game? … It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s a possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption.” With unforgettable, richly drawn characters, this magnificent novel will give you literary friends for life. 

Reading Sally Rooney’s novels feels like eavesdropping on people you really, really want to know, and this is especially true when it comes to Frances and Bobbi’s friendship in Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends. Frances and Bobbi aren’t the first couple to navigate new terms to their relationship after the break-up, but love is messy is so many ways, and well, let’s just say, while Frances and Bobbi aren’t quite prepared for what happens after they meet Melissa and her husband Nick, readers won’t want to turn away. 

On the longest day of the year, four girls on the precipice of their adolescence took the oath to join Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, a covert government department established by Queen Elizabeth I. Joining the Coven started their friendship, but somehow, life has gotten in the way, taking a war to bring them back together. Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle are phenomenally powerful witches who will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven. This book is a fantastic look at 30-something womanhood today and the realization that you’re always much stronger with the bonds of friendship. 

By the time we meet Agnes Lee and Polly Wister in Alice Elliott Dark’s beautiful new novel, Fellowship Point, Agnes and Polly have been best friends for 80 years. Their friendship has survived disappointing men, a rapidly changing world and more. It’s inspiring, their friendship, not just for the length of it, but for the emotional intimacy, deep understanding, and loyalty they give one another. Sometimes prickly, occasionally angry, often witty, and always well-intentioned, Agnes and Polly are so genuinely alive on the page that you’ll wish this book was longer than it is. 

The friendship witnessed in The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is what humanity is all about. In exploring unlikely friendships, the characters in this book learn universal life lessons that resonate with audiences. With incredible warmth and gentle wit, this book and the bond between the characters within it has all that one would like for in a friend: inspiration, hope, and someone to be there for you in good times and bad. 

Elephant and Piggie are the dynamic duo that brings a smile to the faces of anyone who picks up their books. With five Biggie collections, and each story also produced as individual books, there’s plenty of adventures to tag along with. Full of life lessons and hilarious hijinks, these books are the perfect read alouds telling the stories that surround an unforgettable friendship! 

Tully and Kate become unlikely, inseparable best friends in the throes of unfailingly awkward middle school in the 1970s: Tully is the “coolest girl in the world” to outsiders, and Kate is the studious, shy one with an overt and embarrassingly loving family. Their ultimate friendship pact (and a moniker of TullyandKate) over the next three decades pulls them together and apart through questionable hair and clothing choices, and also love and loss. A vibrant portrait of laughter, joy, heartbreak, and of course, a friendship that becomes family. Get some tissues out.  

All of Anne’s 8 years have been spent pining for a friend of her own. She is, after all, a poor orphan who has been tossed to and fro on the island of Prince Edward. Her latest home seems to be another bust with the inhabitants of Green Gables mistakenly receiving her instead of the boy child that was needed to help on the farm. While this classic novel begins in the depths of despair for dear Anne, she’ll find her friend, her kindred spirit, in one Diana Berry, but she’ll discover so much more under the Cuthberth’s roof. In Marilla and Matthew, the elder siblings who adopt her, she finds the family she never had; in Avonlea she meets Gilbert Blythe, the boy who drives her to distraction; and in this life, she is given tomorrows with no mistakes in them … yet. 

This chapter book series follows two boys who are next door neighbors and live in Kersville, a city full of ghosts. When Andres moves in, he meets Desmond Cole who runs his own ghost patrol and isn’t afraid of anything … which is good for Andres because he’s scared of everything. Andres and Desmond team up to run Desmond Cole’s Ghost Patrol together, and the duo of opposites are perfect for both brave readers and fearful readers alike. 

Every kid should grow up knowing that while every Toad needs a Frog, every Frog also needs a Toad. Only a best friend could remind you that there are different shades of green, and that the month of May can be whenever you want it to be. Frog and Toad remind us that no matter who we are and what we’re feeling, we’re all worthy of friendship. They also remind us that there’s beauty in relationships that are built on differences, and that sometimes it’s okay not to feel okay. And on top of all that, friendship sometimes means pulling you out of bed to look at the stars or getting in bed next to you and having a cup of tea. 

This series from Hugo Award Winner Becky Chambers takes you on an unexpected journey that you didn’t know you needed. Dex and Mosscap are the unlikeliest of friends who will teach you about exploring new things, acceptance in new friendships, finding confidence in yourself, and understanding that we’re all a little different and unsure, but isn’t that what makes friendship so great?!  

Would you go with your friend on a perilous journey across the country knowing undead shells of men, orcs, and giant spiders, amongst other things are stalking you, and then carry said friend (even after he was, might I say, quite rude to you) up Mount Doom just so he can throw a little ring into its fires? Yeah, didn’t think so. The friendship between Frodo and Sam transcends all friendships of the mortal realm and is the pinnacle of what we peasants of Earth and Middle Earth can aspire to. Go on your own journey, and find your Sam. 

This adorable picture book is all about Sock and Mitten who have each lost their pair. When the two meet for the first time, stuck as singles in a city of pairs, they embark on a journey to try to find each other’s pair, and along the way, they find that maybe, just maybe, together they make a great team. I must say, I’m absolutely smitten with Sock and Mitten, and they’ll make a new iconic friendship duo perfect for your shelves! 

Every now and then a book catches you by surprise and changes you in the process. Fox and I is that rare book, a wonderfully original, wise, sometimes achingly exquisite memoir about friendship, and a book that speaks of hope.  All deep friendships are transformative; that your friend is an “unboxed” animal neighbor may be unexpected but is no less real. The pairing may be rare, but the tender footsteps are timeless and profound.   

One pair of pants. Four best friends. It’s a tale as old as time, really, and we’re not talking about mom jeans. For those of us who grew up in the time of gel pens, butterfly hair clips and iron on patches, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was the benchmark for what all friendships hoped to be. Summer may have taken them their separate ways, but they were there for each other whenever one was in need, and so were the pants—arguably the most important member of the sisterhood!