Before you become a writer, you are a reader.
My childhood was filled with fairytales, action-packed adventures, and hours spent with my head in a book. As I grew up, I began to crave something new. I was drawn to stories that felt like my own diary entries of which I never had the exact words to write. Women who felt the same growing pains I spent my teenage years being stretched, molded, and changed by.
I found myself wanting to read things that felt real. I dog-eared, underlined, annotated, and tear-stained these books until I had made them my own.
I found myself on those pages. I was hungry to know more, understand more, feel more. Those growing pains began to feel like more growth than pain. Literature has the power to change us in a fundamental way. These five books did that for me.
- Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
“I know what ‘nothing’ means, and I keep on playing.”
This fiction novel was my introduction to Didion. What a writer! Set in the ‘60s, this book details the struggle of a woman to find her footing when societal norms were changing seemingly overnight. There was no longer a one-size-fits-all ‘guidebook’ for womanhood. It shows her struggle with the public eye (and disillusionment with ‘Tinseltown’ fame), motherhood, mental health, and her own sense of self. Such a great read… slightly disorienting, more than slightly disheartening, that will leave you satisfied despite the sour taste in your mouth.
Pairs well with: General malaise, rattlesnakes-in-playpens, tranquilizers, the Las Vegas desert.
- The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
Beauvoir remains iconic. Coming all the way from 1949, The Second Sex is one of the most well-known pieces of feminist literature. I read this book, along with Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, when I was relatively young, with earnest intentions and initial confusion. It was like a whole world of articulate thoughts about my own gender, my own experience as an emerging woman, that I had never had the skill nor the life experience to put into words.
These two texts, while essential to understanding the history of fem. lit., are narrow when it comes to intersectionality. When we think of ‘white feminism’, these pieces come to mind. I think that, like most historical texts, they should be taken with a grain of salt and paired with other readings (such as the next pick on this list) to get a well-rounded perspective. Definitely a foundational piece when it came to bringing feminist theory to the mainstream.
Pairs well with: Existentialist thought, ‘the classics’, motherhood as a Sisyphean task.
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
Lorde is a Black lesbian feminist author and activist who you may be familiar with from history class. I was introduced to her in high school while we covered the Civil Rights movement, and began independently reading her poems because the strength of her voice captivated me. Sister Outsider was her first book of hers I read, and is a staple in my ‘life’s library’. It cannot be overstated how important reading Black authors is when it comes to feminist theory. ‘The classics’ that I mentioned previously are a starting point for many, but authors like Lorde and bell hooks offer a unique and rich perspective on the intersection between race-based and sex-based discrimination. Her background in poetry strengthens the prose of this book by a million…so much is said with such graceful brevity. Must read!
Pairs well with: Emerging movements, cycle-breaking, a warm bath, a seemingly-never-ending walk forward.
- Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
“You will hurt yourself again and again… you will remember me again and again. You will drop to your knees. You will hold yourself. You will be your own daughter again.”
At times nauseating, this book dives into the unholy trinity of queer religious guilt (specifically through the lens of Orthodox Judaism), eating disorders, and mommy issues. Broder delivers a character who is rigid, unlikeable more-often-than-not, and yet a strange reflection of the ugly parts of ourselves brought to the surface in the face of forced conformity to another generation’s ideals (of beauty, morality, sex… you name it).
Pairs well with: Therapy, whole milk, trouble with intimacy, calling your mom, leaving a voicemail.
- Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
“Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.”
Here lies the second book on this list to deal with a mentally ill woman in the 1960’s (are we sensing a theme?). This novel is probably better known to my fellow Gen Z-ers because of the 1999 film adaptation. Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Brittany Murphy (RIP)…need I go on?
Our current political climate feels like it’s on a train whose tracks have been reversed to an era of fighting for basic civil liberties, so it’s only appropriate that novels about the neuroses that accompany that time period stand out to me. Kaysen writes from life about being hospitalized for her mental health and later diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
Pairs well with: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, dreamlike states, life on the cusp of womanhood and at the brink of despair.
To finish it off… My (and maybe your?) NEED-TO-READ List for 2025:
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
The Body is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Pairs well with: hopeful-yet-blunt depictions of mental health, highlighting BIPOC authors, stepping into the future with eyes wide open.
While my adolescence has already had its fill of literature, I feel so lucky to be able to fill my early twenties with even more impactful female voices.
NOTE: Some of these books contain sensitive topics. If you or someone you know is struggling, these resources are here to help:
- DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, call 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1(800) 799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org
- EATING DISORDER: If you or someone you know has an eating disorder and needs help, call the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at 1-800-931-2237, text 741741, or chat online with a Helpline volunteer here.
- MENTAL HEALTH: If you or someone you know is seeking help for mental health concerns, visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) website, or call 1-800-950-NAMI(6264). For confidential treatment referrals, visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) website, or call the National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP(4357). In an emergency, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK(8255) or call 911.
- SELF-HARM: If you or someone you know is considering self-harm or experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
- SUBSTANCE USE: If you or someone you know is seeking help for substance use, call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP(4357).
- SUICIDE: If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. You can also reach out to the Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386, or to your local suicide crisis center.