Looking to build a list of all the weird books out there, specifically “weird girl books” from a woman being in a relationship with a man fish to a woman eating all her boyfriends!!! ANYTHING GOES, please drop the names of any books (female centered) that have left you feeling unsettled.
Books can be any genre of fiction, whether that’s horror, comedy, romance etc etc.
I also don’t need TW’s to any books, I am open to literally everything and ANYTHING!!! And if you could leave a brief summary of the book that doesn’t give away plot points that would be very helpful!
(TikTok only seems to spout the same books when you search for weird book suggestions and I have all of them on my list already)
by Delicious_Tea3806
2 Comments
I haven’t read it but its on my TBR, I’m pretty sure the Pisces by Melissa Broder is literally about a woman in love with a man fish.
Our wives under the sea by Julia armfield. It’s a dark fiction about lesbians and the ocean.
Open throat by Henry Hoke. It’s pinnacle weird girl literary. It’s from the point of view from a mountain lion whose mindset is affected by living near people. It’s technically a male mountain lion but it doesn’t see itself that way and the only other main character is a human girl.
The Grace year by Kim liggett. It’s the handmaids tale combined with lord of the flies. Says a lot about internalized misogyny.
Poor deer by Claire oshetsky. A girl accidentally murders her friend as a very young child and is haunted by an imaginary deer as she gets older.
Deep in Providence by Riss M Neilson. If you want to watch 4 teenagers get carried away trying to perform necromancy I highly recommend.
Well, your weirdness may vary. But here are some I consider “weird girl” I have read lately:
– **Eat the Ones You Love** by Sarah Maria Griffin. A sentient orchid, a dying mall in Ireland, and a sapphic workplace romance; what more could you ask for? I thought this one was going to be all gimmick, but it surprised me by being well-crafted and centering a romance that was just as interesting as the main plot. The horror in this one creeps along in the background, until it doesn’t. One of my favorite reads this year!
– **But Not Too Bold** by Hache Pueyo. Elder gods, a sprawling estate with strict rules and spiders, spiders, everywhere. A novella retelling of Bluebeard from an Argentinian-Brazilian author. Very different from any other Bluebeard retelling I’ve read before.
– **Victorian Psycho** by Virginia Feito. I haven’t finished this one quite yet, got distracted by other books. But certainly unsettling in a deliciously weird way from what I’ve read so far. Reminds me a bit of a twisted Turn of the Screw by Henry James.
– **Bloom** by Delilah S. Dawson. Another novella, this one firmly in the horror category. Certainly fits the weird girl request, though. Described as ‘cozy horror’, it peaked my interest. What they actually meant was ‘cottagecore vibes’ because it certainly wasn’t cozy. Dawson’s horror can be biting, mean, and very cynical at times. This book and **Guillotine** remind me of a grown-up, meaner fear street.
– **The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir** by Jamie Nakamura Lin is a little different from my other picks. It falls more under “unusual” than “unsettling”. It’s a speculative memoir that shows the author coming to grips with big events in her life and her struggles with mental health through an academic lens of Japanese yōkai. Very interesting, very different from other memoirs.
– **The Wayward Children** series by Seanan McGuire. A series of portal fantasy novellas, this one is a gentler sort of weird than the others. Seanan McGuire herself has said that she writes books for the weird kids, and I love her for it. These books are about children and teenagers who have gone through a portal into a fantasy world and come back to ours. The adults in their lives don’t believe them, and they are shipped off to a boarding school where their peers and the staff have all been through the same thing. Each book features a different main character, each with their own unique world, and told in a unique voice/tone. The first is a Hades/Persephone esque Underworld. The second is classic black and white Hollywood Horror; think Dracula & Frankenstein. The third is candy-coated multicolored nonsense land. And so on. Truly excellent series.
Lemme know if ya want more!