I came across an article through Pinterest about the books all women should read in their twenties. As an English major, I was thrilled and had a feeling that I would come across some of my favorites. I was horrified. This list was supposed to be about the most influential and important works for a twenty-something female and it was filled with things like Confessions of a Shopaholic and Bitches On a Budget. Sure, I love a trashy, shallow page-turner as much as the next girl, but there I was, looking at a list of the most important novels for twenty year-olds to read and they were all paperbacks with pink curly-lettered covers that desperately wanted to be Sex and the City.
There was not a single classic or even a New York Time’s bestseller that was remotely intellectual. So, after digging through some of my favorites, here are some of the most enlightening or simply wonderful works, especially for college-aged women. This list includes classics from 1899 to brand new releases from 2010. It has something for every woman, from the scandleous to disturbing, the romantic to the heart-wrencing. These are novels that have romance, sex, heartbreak, and searching for self; and they don’t look the same as the girly books in the young adult section.
1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
2. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
3. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
4. Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill
5. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
6. Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway
7. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
8. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
9. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
10. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
11. White Oleander by Janet Fitch
12. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
13. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
14. She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
15. Beloved by Toni Morrison
16. He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know by Jessica Valenti
17. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
18. You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down by Alice Walker
19. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
20. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
21. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
22. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf