Last year was a gangbusters year in terms of books written by women. Take a look at a few we've been reading.
One of the best ways to support women is to listen to them. With that in mind, we are sharing some of our favorite books from last year that were written by women, for women. We've listed 10 books below (in alphabetical order), but this is by no means an exhaustive list. What are some of your favorite woman-authored books from last year?
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"The Animators" by Kayla Rae Whitaker From Goodreads: "In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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From Goodreads: “A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie’s letter of response.” Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"Difficult Women" by Roxane Gay From Goodreads: "The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail....From a girls' fight club to a wealthy subdivision in Florida where neighbors conform, compete, and spy on each other, Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America reminiscent of Merritt Tierce, Jamie Quatro, and Miranda July." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"The Floating World" by C. Morgan Babst From Goodreads: "A dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, The Floating World takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina with the story of the Boisdorés, whose roots stretch back nearly to the foundation of New Orleans. Though the storm is fast approaching the Louisiana coast, Cora, the family's fragile elder daughter, refuses to leave the city, forcing her parents, Joe Boisdoré, an artist descended from a freed slave who became one of the city's preeminent furniture makers, and his white "Uptown" wife, Dr. Tess Eshleman, to evacuate without her, setting off a chain of events that leaves their marriage in shambles and Cora catatonic--the victim or perpetrator of some violence mysterious even to herself." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit Of Happiness" by Jill Filipovic From Goodreads: "What do women want? The same thing men were promised in the Declaration of Independence: happiness, or at least the freedom to pursue it." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas From Goodreads: "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"Marlena" by Julie Buntin From Goodreads: "Everything about fifteen-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair. As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts-first drink, first cigarette, first kiss-while Marlena's habits harden and calcify. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Now, decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself and move on, even as the memory of Marlena keeps her tangled in the past." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"The Mother Of All Questions" by Rebecca Solnit From Goodreads: "In this follow-up to Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee From Goodreads: "Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
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"There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé" by Morgan Parker From Goodreads: "There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé uses political and pop-cultural references as a framework to explore 21st century black American womanhood and its complexities: performance, depression, isolation, exoticism, racism, femininity, and politics." Get it here: Amazon Indiebound |
