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Must read for women in early twenties

13 replies

Allsortsmakesnormal · 15/09/2024 09:20

Any suggestions for must reads for a young woman. It's my sister's birthday coming up and I always buy books for family members. I was thinking Maya Angelou but would appreciate any other suggestions.

OP posts:
heldinadream · 15/09/2024 19:04

Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.
Michelle Obama, Becoming or The Light We Carry.
Joan Didion.
Margaret Atwood.
Edna O'Brien who died recently but I feel is pivotal in women's literature.

Contemporary fiction: Clare Chambers is good, Maggie O'Farrell, Anne Enright (has a new book out right now I believe).

Any of these any good? 🙂

Allsortsmakesnormal · 16/09/2024 09:56

Yes, thank you for the suggestions! Didn't think of The Bell Jar so that's a good one.

OP posts:
heldinadream · 16/09/2024 10:56

Allsortsmakesnormal · 16/09/2024 09:56

Yes, thank you for the suggestions! Didn't think of The Bell Jar so that's a good one.

I did think of a few more after that! Do you want more?
Massive book nerd here, can get waaay to enthusiastic about books. 😬

Allsortsmakesnormal · 16/09/2024 15:04

heldinadream · 16/09/2024 10:56

I did think of a few more after that! Do you want more?
Massive book nerd here, can get waaay to enthusiastic about books. 😬

Oh yes please if you have more suggestions!

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poppyzbrite4 · 16/09/2024 15:11

It's a difficult question. What kinds of books does she like?

heldinadream · 16/09/2024 15:28

Ok so continuing the theme that seemed to emerge of excellent fiction that's got a feminist sensibility, here's a few others that occurred to me.

Elif Shafak - very high profile at the mo in the book world, excellent writer.
Bernadine Evaristo - her Booker winning Girl, Woman, Other.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Isabel Allende.
Monique Roffey - especially The Mermaid of Black Conch.

heldinadream · 16/09/2024 15:44

MORE. 😂If she likes fiction about the immigrant experience, there's Jhumpa Lahiri, whose early fiction speaks to the Indian immigrant in the US experience. I absolutely adore her writing, have not read her recently though. Not sure how her themes will have moved on.
Tessa Hadley is good. Almost an old-fashioned English writer in her choices of characters, but very much writing now.
Joyce Carol Oates is almost the best writer around who is as prolific as she is, but my fave book of hers is Blonde, based on the life of Marilyn Monroe and I think an astonishing book, she really got inside what it must have been like to be MM. They made a film of it but I didn't like it. It's a big book!

ToBeDetermined · 16/09/2024 15:49

Helter Skelter by Kyoko Okazaki - follows rise and fall of Lilliko a supermodel, graphic novel in black & white. (On toxicity of beauty industry and exploitation of models)

ButtSurgery · 16/09/2024 15:52

Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez. I really think this is a must read for all women.

Thewalrusandthecarpenter · 16/09/2024 15:56

I Capture the Castle
The Greengage Summer
Middlemarch
The Portrait of a Lady
Wide Sargasso Sea
Rebecca

TonTonMacoute · 16/09/2024 17:44

Diana Athill Instead of a Letter

Margaret Kennedy The Constant Nymph

LP Hartley The Go Between

Allsortsmakesnormal · 16/09/2024 19:01

Some excellent suggestions and some I haven't read myself yet. She's not an avid reader, likes poetry and Elsie Silver and that's about it.

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Grimgrump · 18/09/2024 00:28

Sampurna Chattarji, an Indian novelist and poet. Wonderful writer. Sight May Strike you Blind is one of my fav contemporary poetry collection. She also writes excellent, funny children’s books!

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