I recently met a hair stylist who I'd guess to be still in her late teens. Very cute, very chatty, but I was horrified by what she told me of her schooling. She basically didn't have much, although technically has a high school diploma. She also doesn't usually read, although she told me she's reading a self-help book and would like to read more, because she understands that it's a "good" thing to do.
So I thought maybe I'd try to bring something next time, and asked a forum for suggestions. I said I'd love to get her a few easy cheap paperbacks, good-quality fiction that she might really enjoy, not junk. And not fantasy. If it were a 30 year-old man, I might get him something like "Of Mice and Men" which has the advantage of being actual literature AND short AND with simple language. But it's too downbeat for a young woman just starting out. I couldn't immediately come up with anything except O.Henry short stories.
The first problem was although I said she was a working person in her late teens, I made the mistake of using the word "girl," and everyone in the forum started suggesting children's books. Several suggested fantasy, although I clearly said I didn't want that. (A few even chided me for wanting to give books to a non-reader at all.)
The second problem is that it really did turn out that everything I could think of would be more suitable for a young man, and everything seemed to be very downbeat.
Funny how much reading is gendered.