Getting your heart broken is the worst. It’s like your emotions found a giant black pit and slithered in, only to discover there are 5000 wooden stakes at the bottom. “Ouch” doesn’t even begin to cover it – that memory-erasing procedure from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is looking pretty attractive right now.



There’s no guaranteed way to get through that first piercing stage of heartbreak (I would suggest a zillion tissues and your frozen dessert of choice). Just ask Anna Karenina, Elizabeth Bennet and Heathcliff. Or Chris Kraus, who wrote a book called I Love Dick (yes, haha, she knows), about a man she’s desperately in love with but who doesn’t reciprocate her feelings. Her solution is to use her obsession as a way of exploring the ideas of love, convention and art, which just might be the most productive thing I’ve ever heard. It’s all extraordinarily weird and revolutionary and brain-stretchy.

Then there’s Catherine in Sophie Cunningham’s novel Geography, who flies back and forth between Australia and Los Angeles for years in pursuit of a fella (Michael is really, really great in bed, but unfortunately seems to have something of a commitment problem). Once she realises she’s on a hiding to nothing, Catherine sets off to Sri Lanka. Amazing idea.

Of course, you might not be able to just up and run. The unpleasant reality is that you live where you live, and even better, you might run into your ex at any time – and the likelihood is that it’ll be when you’re smelling a melon at Safeway, and wearing the size XXXL t-shirt your mum got everyone for your grandpa’s 70th birthday party. Kind of like what happened to poor Anne Elliot from Jane Austen’s Persuasion. She was just going about her regular business of keeping her frivolous family in line, when she received news that the guy she spurned years and years ago, but is still in love with, is coming back to town. Plus, he’s super-rich now and still really hot. Her strategy is subtle, but I like it: just be yourself, accept what happened in the past, and if it’s meant to be, he might come crawling back and you’ll go adventuring at sea. (That last part is optional.)

The person from your romantic past might not be a winner, though, in which case you don’t actually want to win them back. In fact, you’d like them to get stuck in a different dimension, and a faraway one at that. Whichever one Star Wars is in. Having revenge fantasies over a good-for-nothing bozo is totally normal, but it’s a good idea to resist typing out voluminous Facebook screeds. Instead, read the gloriously gory The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and let Lisbeth Salander do your dirty work for you. Whoever your ex is, they’re not worth going to jail for. I promise.

If you prefer your revenge to be more psychological-cat-and-mouse-game in flavour, you might as well read Gone Girl, because that thriller contains one helluva screwed-up-yet-highly-organised vengeance plot (I respect that).

The most important thing to remember is that you have other incredible shit going on in your life. It might not feel like it, but I swear it’s true. Take Mia from Siri Hustvedt’s The Summer Without Men, whose husband decides to fool around with another woman. The shock and betrayal causes Mia to have a bit of a breakdown, but afterwards she goes to hang out with her mum and teach poetry to kids. "I remembered the immensity of the world," says our girl, reawakened to what’s outside the closed atmosphere of a relationship. You know all that other stuff you like and are good at? Time to get straight back at it.

All-round legend Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids tells the wondrous tale of her love for artist Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she really lost twice: once when their relationship ended, and again when he passed away in the late ’80s. But the way she tells their story, interspersed with the beginnings of their respective artistic careers, is itself a work of art. Very importantly, it’s proof that something new and beautiful can come out of heartbreak. Patti’s book might just be able to take you outside of yourself and make you feel hopeful about life and love again.