5 Book Recommendations for Stupidly Sensitive People

Blog Writer // Callan Whitley

As we usher in 2025, I’ve been thinking a lot about the books I’ve read this year. While I’m nowhere near my (foolishly) ambitious Goodreads goal, I’ve been lucky enough to come across more than a couple of five-star reads in 2024.

One of my favorite terms circulating in the literary world is the “stupidly sensitive” reader. I could attempt to explain what this means, but a certain Virginia Woolf quote comes to mind (and let’s be honest, she was probably the original stupidly sensitive person). In Moments of Being, she wrote, “I am someone who thinks and feels much more than is reasonable. And that is all.” This, I think, is the crux of the hypersensitive reader. They are people who feel things very deeply and enjoy reading books about characters who do, too. Books without, perhaps, a lot of plot fanfare but a whole lot of heart. 

So, as a self-proclaimed stupidly sensitive person, here are my favorite recommendations:

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton 

“I know what it is to feel like you’ve always got a lighthouse—lighthouses—to guide you back to dry land; to feel the warmth of its beam as it squeezes your hand standing next to you at a funeral of someone you loved…I also know that love is a pretty quiet thing. It’s lying on the sofa together drinking coffee, talking about where you’re going to go that morning to drink more coffee. It’s folding down pages of books you think they’d find interesting…I know that love happens under the splendor of moon and stars and fireworks and sunsets but it also happens when you’re lying on blow-up air beds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in the emergency room or in the queue for a passport or in a traffic jam.” 

I picked up this book this summer, and it has pretty much grown on me like moss ever since. I’d consider it, essentially, the saving grace of my twenties. You may recognize Alderton’s name from her hilarious dating column in The Sunday Times, and I promise this memoir is just as silly, serious, and wonderful as her “Dear Dolly” snippets. 

The book is packed with laugh-out-loud childhood stories, passive-aggressive emails addressed to imaginary groups of people (like pissed-off bridesmaids), shopping lists, and transcriptions of text messages. It is, quite simply, a manifesto for being a stupidly sensitive person in a ridiculously insensitive world. 

Fair warning: it will probably make you sob and hug your best friend until she pries you off her.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 

“I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.” 

If Everything I Know About Love is the pillar of my early twenties, The Perks of Being Wallflower was the bible of my teenagehood. It is an epistolary novel that follows Charlie, a shy high school freshman, as he is befriended by two seniors.

I remember watching the movie adaption of this book with my high school friends around Christmas. We always did this thing where we could cast characters for people in the friend group. When it was time to deliberate who Charlie was, nearly every person presented an argument for themselves. This was henceforth known as the “Charlie Effect”. And that is what makes this book so special: everyone, at some point or another, is a Charlie. 

Another reason this book is so important to me is because of the message Chhosky crafts around impact. We are the sum total of everything that has happened to us—specifically the people that have happened to us. There’s a bit of dread in that realization, but perhaps a little relief, too.

Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel 

“‘What did you write in the letter?’ Frog said, ‘I wrote, ‘Dear Toad, I am glad that you are my best friend. Your best friend, Frog.’ 

‘Oh,’ said Toad. ‘That makes for a very good letter.’” 

Alright, hear me out. This is a children’s series, of course. But I firmly believe they are children’s books in the same way The Chronicles of Narnia are children’s books. Frog and Toad is the kind of story that becomes even more valuable when revisited as an adult.

For one, the illustrations are magically nostalgic. Secondly, I genuinely believe Arnold Lobel unlocked the golden secret of what makes life worth living: a very long day spent doing absolutely nothing with your best friend. And, of course, it’s all about the beauty of slow living. Some girls just want to curl up in a cottage with a cup of tea. Some girls just want to curl up in a cottage with a cup of tea. And Frog and Toad are those girls!!!!!

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

“‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ 

‘Kind,’ said the boy.” 

This is another children’s book on the list that I truly believe is meant for adults. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse is the kind of story you read in thirty minutes and then immediately force into the hands of someone you love. It follows a boy who befriends a mole, a fox, and a horse on a spring day in the countryside. Not much happens plot-wise, but it is a heartfelt exploration of courage, friendship, and childhood.

One of the things I love about this book is that it is written in the author’s own handwriting, and the charming illustrations are also done by him. I think it’s one of those rare books that speaks to both glass-half-empty and glass-half-full people. But perhaps what Mackesy is really trying to say is that we are lucky to have a glass at all.

Letters to Vera by Vladimir Nabokov 

“It’s cold today, but in a spring way, and I love you.” 

There is nothing I love more than reading about love, and there is something very special about the way that writers love. They love in a way that consumes the ink of a page and the whole of a heart, and Letters to Vera is no exception. It is a collection of letters written by Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita, to his wife, Véra Slonim. Nabokov began writing to Slonim when they first met in 1921, continuing until his death in 1971. The collection depicts an old-fashioned kind of love, with an old-fashioned kind of longing. 

Happy reading!!!