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Books about intense female relationships?

23 replies

SaltResistantSlug · 12/02/2012 12:38

Are there any out there? I've just read You by Joanna Briscoe and loved it.

OP posts:
highlandcoo · 12/02/2012 15:19

Try The Night Watch by Sarah Waters - lesbian relationships in WW2 setting. Also Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller - an older teacher becomes obsessed by a younger colleague.

Chubfuddler · 12/02/2012 15:21

Never let me go has quite an intense friendship.

I'm struggling.

Jane eyre?

TheSmallClanger · 12/02/2012 23:09

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. The film is great, but the book is much more intense and less ambiguous.

BabeRuthless · 13/02/2012 09:51

Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Those are two that spring to mind

longtrainrunning · 13/02/2012 10:05

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. Written in 1928 and a cracking read.

BenderBendingRodriguez · 13/02/2012 11:51

An Experiment In Love - Hilary Mantel
Wise Children - Angela Carter

TheSmallClanger · 13/02/2012 16:12

I've remembered that Ruth Rendell uses intense relationships between female relatives as major plot devices a lot in her Wexford novels. There's another non-Wexford about an illiterate woman, a postlady and the upper class family she works for that's also very good, although I can't remember the title.

moonblushtomato · 13/02/2012 19:13

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

lilyfire · 13/02/2012 23:23

Cat's Eyes by Margaret Atwood, but not in a good way - but very insightful about girls' friendships.
In a good way - I guess Vera Brittain's autobiography - 'A Testament of Friendship' about her friendship with Winifred Holtby.

moonblushtomato · 15/02/2012 20:44

Wow lilyfire I've just remembered Cat's Eye - a fabulous yet chilling book about what cows we girls can be!

SydneyS · 15/02/2012 20:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

joanofarchitrave · 15/02/2012 20:48

Pride and Prejudice.

wintersnight · 15/02/2012 21:03

The Colour Purple
Anything by Toni Morrison
The Women's Room

SweetTheSting · 15/02/2012 21:06

The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
Most books by Sara Maitland - try Virgin Territory

scottishmummy · 15/02/2012 21:23

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

anonymosity · 16/02/2012 01:39

Janette Winterston - all her books are fairly intense and about relationships between women; ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT / WRITTEN ON THE BODY,etc.

FreddieMercurysBolero · 16/02/2012 01:51

Beloved - Tonic Morrison
i second Cat's Eye, and the Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.

TanteRose · 16/02/2012 02:07

The Bean Trees -Barbara Kingsolver

Ilovedaintynuts · 16/02/2012 10:31

The red tent - Anita Diamant and the poison tree - Erin Kelly

CydCharisse · 16/02/2012 19:03

Another vote for Cat's Eye.

Quite a number of Alice Munro's short stories deal with women's relationships - sorry, too lazy to look up titles.

I'll Take You There by Joyce Carol Oates is about US university sorority houses. Really loved it.

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter has a really intense female friendship at its heart.

Also, that brilliant film with Kate Winslet when she was young - wasn't that a book first? Called Heavenly Creatures, I think.

stephrick · 16/02/2012 19:07

yes Night Watch is bloody good, Reading the Heretics Daugthter by Kathleen Kent

Salteena · 16/02/2012 19:42

The Handmaid's Tale too, actually - Margaret Atwood is particularly good on women. It's one of the most chilling books I've ever read, though. Still brilliant, however.

TheSmallClanger · 17/02/2012 19:11

Yes to Cat's Eye and I'll Take You There. Joyce Carol Oates has also written a fictionalised biography of Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, that gives her a female-related dimension to her life: her mother, foster mother, MILs and various other girls and later, actresses and used as characters. Interestingly, they usually have proper names, while the men in Marilyn's life do not.

Curtis Sittenfeld is quite good on female relationships. Prep has a decidedly female bias in the major characters and relationships, which are quite intense due to being boarding-school based. Man Of My Dreams also has the main character's relationships with her female relatives at its heart, despite the title.

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