I don’t know if this genre of book has a name already but I’ve dubbed it “white women nonsense” which is a litfic book that centers around a (usually wealthy and privileged) unlikable MC who puts herself in an unnecessary situation and makes the consequences of that situation everyone else’s problem.
Books like Yellowface, Yesteryear, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Fruit Fly by Josh Silver etc. I haven’t read Big Swiss but from the description I imagine it fits that genre as well. Would love to know if y’all have any recommendations of books with similar themes!
by Puzzleheaded_Drop378
25 Comments
All Fours
A Good Person
(Big Swiss fits, but she isn’t at all wealthy, but def very entitled/privileged)
This is pretty much most Weird Girl Lit lol
Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn
Anything by Maria Semple
Gone Girl
“Eat Pray Love” and others by Elizabeth Gilbert (she is quite full of nonsense).
Vampire Queen Betsy of The Undead series
White girl nonsense is a good name for a fun genre. Anything by Dani Shapiro esp the early memoirs.
Nonfiction but {{strangers by Belle Burden}}
Gone With The Wind
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Pink Neon by Megan Stockton
Boy parts by Eliza Clark
Anything by Lindy West.
I think Eat, Pray, Love fits this category, if unintentionally.
Boy Parts or really anything by Eliza Clark
If you don’t mind some variety in genre I think these characters definitely show up in psychological thrillers as well! None of This is True by Lisa Jewell comes to mind
How about one that’s fun (and funny) where you do end up rooting for the mc (otherwise it totally hits your prompts)?
[French Exit by Patrick deWitt](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36300687)
It’s a cross between the TV show Arrested Development and a Wes Anderson movie. And it was actually made into a movie that I liked very much.
Such a Fun Age, though it’s more a critique of that genre
In the SFF genre, there is Premee Mohamed’s *Beneath The Rising* trilogy. Although the narrator is a brown man, the other MC who is his best friend is wealthy and privileged white woman who was a child prodigy. Not to give too much away, but the whole trilogy is about “white woman nonsense” that results in terrible problems for the entire world.
Emma by Austen
Love this little sub genre!
There’s a sub about weird girl lit that has a toooon of recs.
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
Forever Amber. Once on the Catholic banned book list, it’s the story of a Restoration era courtesan. She doesn’t start out wealthy and privileged, but per the mores of the time, she uses her sexual attractiveness to achieve social status, all in pursuit of her one true love. Actually not smutty, but fairly gritty descriptions of plague, fire, poverty, etc.
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
The Wedding People (more about the main character getting roped into someone else’s rich white girl nonsense, but it’s pretty funny. )