My YA pitch: Werther is a total romantic (in both the uppercase and lowercase senses of the word). No one in literary history has mastered the art of yearning quite like him. Consumed by his unrequited love for the unattainable Charlotte, who is the girl of his dreams and the culmination of all his greatest fantasies, Werther’s world is centred wholly around the intensity of his desire and heartache—even to his own detriment.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is perhaps one of the lesser known novels on this list, although it has left one of the most significant marks on literature as we know it. It depicts not necessarily an unrequited love, but an impossible one, as Werther falls in love with Charlotte, who is already betrothed to Albert. Albert is the complete opposite of Werther—where Werther is emotional and driven by feeling alone, Albert is logical and prudent, a manifestation of the very social forces that try to bring Werther in check. A definitive Romantic text, the novel explores the alluring but lethal dangers of allowing love, emotion, and one’s own mind to overrule all rationality. This is the perfect read for the hopeless yearners out there who find themselves frustrated in love, and is certainly a much less intimidating introduction to Goethe than Faust.

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

My YA pitch: Newland Archer is promised to the beautiful and proper May Welland, but the return of Countess Ellen Olenska throws a wrench in his carefully ordered plans. Drawn to the independent and strong-minded Countess, Newland must decide whether to follow the life laid out for him—or risk everything for love.

The Age of Innocence is, at first glance, a deceptively straight-forward read, but it concerns itself with much more than a love triangle. Edith Wharton’s depiction of the Golden Age of Old New York is an incisive anthropological study, and it is her descriptions of people that will truly captivate you. Ellen Olenska defies any notion of tradition for its own sake, bringing with her a new kind of culture that is unrestrained by rigid societal conventions—one that is expectedly met with abhorrence, scandal, but also intrigue. Through Newland’s struggle between May and Ellen—between duty and passion, society and individual—Wharton navigates the complex rules governing New York society in the 1870s, challenging convention and unraveling the tensions within the elite upper classes.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

My YA pitch: Philip “Pip” Pirrip is an orphan living with his older sister and her blacksmith husband, but a chance encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard changes his life in ways that he could never have imagined. A few years later, Pip meets and falls in love at first sight with the hostile and aloof Estella, who has been taught by her guardian to break men’s hearts. Determined to be with her, Pip sets off on a journey to rise above his station, hoping to ultimately win over the cold heart of Estella.

There is really no list of novels that is complete without mention of Dickens. Great Expectations is a novel full of memorable characters and intricate plot points, as the interweaving strands of narrative gradually braid themselves into a complete picture. Dickens, in typical Dickensian fashion, takes us from the Gothic marshes of Kent to the dilapidated Satis House and onto the grim streets of Victorian London. The story is told by Pip from the future, after the events of his narration have all occurred. His retrospective retelling of key events is constantly interrupted by his own glaring indictments of the behaviour of his younger self, as he looks back on his previous actions with embarrassment and remorse, and this unique narrative voice is part of what makes Great Expectations such a compelling read.

I say in my YA pitch that Pip has to fight against all odds to be with Estella, to strive towards the stars, and this is indeed the catalyst for much of his character and societal progression throughout the novel—but Great Expectations is so much more than a love story. In fact, those who have read it may even venture to say that it isn’t really a love story at all, and perhaps this is the key limitation of marketing classics like young adult fluff: it makes for an enjoyable and accessible way to get into reading, but can only be a starting point. Yes, these novels are fun to read, and yes, by all means, giggle and kick your feet at the coy blushes and stolen glances (I certainly do!). But in presenting these stories as mere iterations of fan-fiction tropes, we risk overlooking the very complexities that make them so timeless and so worth reading, again and again. In most cases, the love story is merely one thread within a much wider web, through which the author can explore the richness of the human condition, and through which we, the readers, can examine both the world around us and ourselves.