Dive into eight books that explore what it means to exist and live in this messy, beautiful world as a woman.
There’s no “perfect” time to binge-read great literature by women; there’s way too much material to fit within the span of Women’s Month. That said, the special celebration is still an apt time to sink your teeth into more titles (or, you know, add them to your ever-growing TBR list). Here are eight books that reveal, interrogate, and affirm nuances of the female experience in evocative and elucidating ways.
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Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley
Although Frankenstein might not immediately come to mind when thinking of women’s literature, Mary Shelly discusses that most profoundly female experience of birth and motherhood, albeit through a male protagonist, at a time when a woman’s worth was tied to her ability to bear children. It should be noted that a few years before publication, Shelley’s first child had passed away just two weeks after being born prematurely.
In the novel, the scientist Victor Frankenstein attempts to create life on his own, without any female involvement. The creature’s violent emergence has been read as a mirror of childbirth trauma, while his rejection by his maker can be seen as fears of maternal failure.
Shelley uses gothic elements to magnify these anxieties and in doing so establishes conventions that would influence other women writers working in the gothic tradition. In giving voice to the terrors of creation, Shelly explores what has historically been a woman’s burden: the responsibility, trauma, and potential for tragedy inherent in bringing new life into an often hostile world.
Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë
Published under the male pseudonym Currer Bell, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is a pioneering work of female literature that offered Victorian readers an honest, complicated view of a woman’s interior life in beautifully written, first-person prose. The novel follows the orphaned Jane from childhood to her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with the brooding Mr. Rochester. It isn’t a fairy tale romance, and gothic elements create an atmosphere that mirrors the anxiety and constraints placed on women.
Radical was Brontë’s choice to give moral authority to a protagonist who was plain, poor, and female, with Jane’s principles driving the narrative. She rejects Rochester after discovering his secret first wife, the “madwoman in the attic,” and later returns to him on her own terms: “Reader, I married him.” While the novel has both champions and critics in its portrayal of women (with the “madwoman” more symbolic than an actually fleshed-out character) it opens conversations about female autonomy within the context of its time.
Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys
A classic in its own right, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea reimagines the story of the “madwoman in the attic” from Jane Eyre through a postcolonial lens. Where Brontë’s novel was radical for its time in giving voice to a plain, poor Englishwoman, published a century later, Rhys’s novel turns our attention to the silenced woman reduced to a plot device in the original text. In this way, she highlights the experience of women further marginalized by race, colonialism, and even mental health stigma.
The parallel novel follows Antoinette Cosway, who becomes Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre, from her childhood in post-emancipation Jamaica through her arranged marriage to an unnamed Englishman (coded: Mr. Rochester), who brings her to England and soon after confines her as she goes “mad.”
Antoinette’s struggles reflect the experiences of women whose voices have been historically silenced. And in reclaiming the narrative of the silenced “other woman,” Rhys challenges us to reconsider a beloved classic from the margins. What was once merely a gothic symbol in the original novel becomes a fully realized woman with her own compelling story.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) by Maya Angelou
Since its publication, Maya Angelou’s coming-of-age memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has become a seminal text in understanding identity and racism, especially through the lens of a young Black woman living in southern America. For years, the book has struggled to remain in school reading lists, often banned for its incisive exploration of sexual abuse that the author experienced at the tender age of seven by the hands of her mother’s boyfriend.
On a technical level, the book is a singular piece of literature that utilizes fictional devices to tell an autobiographical story—which Angelou purposefully executed after her good friend, fellow African-American writer James Baldwin, challenged her to do so (since prior to this, Angelou was mainly a poet by practice).
Despite having experienced many injustices within and outside of her own community, Angelou traces her growth from a scared young girl to an adolescent who stands up for herself, crafting powerful words that ring with dignity. In itself, this act is antithetical to the oppressive systems that work to silence and belittle.
The Vegetarian (2007) by Han Kang
Han Kang’s The Vegetarian is by no means an easy read, bleak in its depictions of gore and sexual acts. It begins with a simple premise: a woman named Yeong-hye suddenly refuses to consume meat after experiencing a haunting dream. This leads to increasingly disconcerting patterns of behavior, which stir trouble within her marriage and family life. Ironically, her refusal to eat meat is perhaps the first decision she makes for herself, as the book highlights the patriarchal and conformist norms of Korean society through the reactions of those around her.
Even the way the story is told is emblematic of her lack of autonomy, split into three parts, told by her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—but never by her, except for small sections giving glimpses into her dreams. By taking away her voice, the book leaves readers wondering what she really felt throughout the ordeal; yet it also brings them closer to the problems that have plagued her life long before her strange behavior began. Like the Nobel Prize-winner’s other works, The Vegetarian highlights the darkest parts of our human impulses, as well as the fragments of clarity and connection that sprout between the cracks.
Bunny (2019) by Mona Awad
Set in the fictional, elite New England university of Warren, Mona Awad’s Bunny tells the story of Samantha Heather Mackey, a student in the Creative Writing master’s program who finds herself an outsider in the glittering world of her fellow fictionist peers: a group of giggling, cardigan-enshrouded prodigies who are simply known as the “Bunnies.” Reminiscent of the girls in 1988’s Heathers, these women do everything together, carrying all the power and prestige in their seemingly impenetrable clique.
Samantha seems content enough with her life alongside fellow outsider Ava, who despises everything the university stands for. Throughout the first quarter of the book, it’s apparent that the protagonist feels a paradoxical mix of disgust, longing, and even envy—and when the opportunity to join the Bunnies presents itself, she (with shame and surprise) accepts it. But there’s more to the group than meets the eye, and things take a wild, bloody turn towards the second half of the book.
Bunny’s lush imagery is unapologetically weird and outrageous, reaching a high-pitched crescendo that’ll leave readers reeling. One could loosely classify it as a thriller-horror that unravels the complexities of female friendships. It’s also equal parts bildungsroman and queer love story, wrapped within a darkly humorous satire of the inextricable ties between class, academic institutions, and the creation of art.
Know My Name (2019) by Chanel Miller
In 2016, former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was convicted for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman by a dumpster after a frat party. The story was covered by news outlets around the world and penned the “People v. Turner” case—sparking conversations on bodily autonomy, women’s rights, and broken justice systems.
For the longest time, the woman at the center of the assault took on the name “Emily Doe” to protect herself and her family. But in 2019, she reclaimed her narrative through the powerful memoir Know My Name, revealing herself as Chanel Miller and recounting the harrowing events that comprised her fight against the perpetrator.
Miller’s descriptions of her experiences as an Asian daughter and older sister are beautiful and poignant, and her sharp descriptions of what it feels like to have one’s body examined and prodded by everyone—from strangers to the court—are reminders of the many ways in which our society fails those who’ve experienced sexual assault. The book isn’t meant to be an “inspirational” story, cautionary tale, or lament of a “victim.” It’s a nuanced chronicling of what it means to live, in spite of the horrors, and tell your own story.
Milk Fed (2021) by Melissa Broder
Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed is not for the faint of heart, exploring female hunger in all its complex forms, from the physical to the spiritual to the sexual. The novel follows the calorie-obsessed Rachel whose controlled life unravels when she meets and begins a relationship with Miriam, a young Orthodox Jewish woman working at a frozen yogurt shop.
In the story, Broder confronts body dysmorphia, showing how women are often judged by their size, even by those closest to them. She touches upon the psychological toll of internalizing such judgment. Rachel’s food restriction stems from her mother’s critical voice, which develops into a crushing inner monologue that reflects the broader cultural attitude toward women’s bodies.
The writing style is provocative, sublime, and vulgar, creating an odd read that can be off-putting to some readers in its unflinching approach to hunger. In a way, it echoes what was once radical in the female gothic tradition, where writers like Shelley and Brontë (see previous titles in this list) used horror and the sublime to express women’s fears and desires. While those classic authors used metaphors, mood, and symbols, the contemporary work of Broder is filled with stark exposure that explores the female experience in a way that is both uncomfortable and liberating.
Covers of Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Vegetarian, Bunny, Know My Name, and Milk Fed from the Amazon website.
