I’ve only been reading novels leisurely for the past two years and I need MORE! But I’ve been finding it hard to find good books in genres I like (80s nostalgia, sci-fi, but also anything else you recommended cause I’m still exploring) with women. My fave books I’ve read lately have been: Y: The Last Man, My Best Friends Exorcism, Come – a memoir.
Lowkey want a female protagonist if possible. But also throw anything you love and would 110% recommend at me (except full romance-y).
_^ thanks soo much !!
by InfamousEdge1603
22 Comments
What is “20 girly pop”?
Try some dystopia:
I Who Have Never Known Men
Vox
The Grace Year
Also, Wool, which is the first in a series and also the basis for the TV series Silo.
I who have never known men
Weyward (not romance although one of the women is escaping an abusive relationship)
Gorse
The final girl support group
Patricia Wants to Cuddle (Samantha Allen) – very campy horror, fun for Halloween reading
The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley)- personally hated this 😭 but a lot of people seem to love it and it’s got sci-fi
Salt Slow and Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield) – Salt Slow is a short story collection full of interesting and unsettling plots. Our Wives Under the Sea expands on some of the vibes but in novel format. Both super well-written.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (VE Schwab) – interesting premise of a girl who lives for centuries but cannot be remembered
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson) – another good Halloween read!
Fair play. Tove Jansson
The hearing trumpet. Leonora Carrington
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin!!
Daisy Jones and the Six
Some of these are in your preferred genre, some aren’t, but all are great!
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (there is some romance, but these are not romance books)
The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. And if you like it, its sequel, The Testaments
The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
True Biz by Sarah Novak
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter
Bunny by Mona Awad
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Severance by Ling Ma
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani
For spooky season: Mina and the Undead (90s nostalgia, campy, vampires)
The Peripheral – William T Gibson (2014 book from the guy who’s responsible for most of the cyberpunk language style, has a woman protag, multi-POV)
The Fifth Season – N.K. Jemison (far future sci-fi/fantasy, post-apocalyptic flavor, woman protag)
Gideon the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir (sci-fi/fantasy, imperialism and Catholicism with extra bones flavor, woman protag)
White is for Witching – Helen Oyeyemi (light horror/magical realism, has a woman protag, I think it’s multi-POV but haven’t read it in a few years)
The Warm Hands of Ghosts – Katherine Arden (WWI historical/fantasy, POV split between brother (soldier) and sister (nurse))
The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell (sci-fi, jesuits in space. Warning for sexual violence and violence and. Well. Everything. This one’s great, but emotionally rough.)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson (horror/literary/classic)
Kindred – Octavia Butler (literary/speculative fiction, woman protag, split between 1970s California and antebellum South)
Check out the Scholomance Series by Naomi Novak, first book is A Deadly Education.
Strong female protagonist and supporting characters, really interesting and well developed world, overall just really good.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Company of Liars by Karen Maitland
Emma by Jane Austen
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
Babel-17 by Samuel Delany
Mistborn/Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
I’d suggest Gideon The Ninth. Lesbian necromancers in space.
Some books like I Who Have Never Known Man:
– The Gate to Women’s Country (no romance per se, but there is a guy. Kinda like Y. Watch out for the >!specifically homophobic eugenics.!<)
– The Power (not romance, but like Vox there is a romantic subplot between two of the POV characters. I really really liked this one.)
– The Shore of Women (another romantic subplot, also similar-ish to Y)
– To The Warm Horizon
– The Goslings (also similar to Y, though I don’t recall whether or not there was romance. It’s a 20s serial novel)
– The Stone Sky
– An Unkindness of Ghosts is good sci fi, though less connected to the books you mentioned than the first few.
Depending on how okay you are with dark or grim topics. The Holdfast Chronicles also sure is a woman-centric post apocalypse series. Watch out for the >!grotesque misogyny and racism, rape, cannibalism, gore, and horse sex.!< Though books 3 and 4 also have grotesque misandry, if that helps.
From Bookworm to Badass by Dustin Tigner.
It’s litrpg, no romance and it’s a stand alone book
Read the Stephanie plum series by janet evanovich. Stephanie is an incompetent bounty hunter who chases after criminals while trouble chases her. There is a hilarious cast of support characters! I am on book 22 of the series
Cold comfort farm by Stella gibbons
Flora poste is orphaned as she leaves school leaving her only enough to pay for her gloves, rather than get a job she decides to mooch off her relatives and the only option is to stay with the starkadders at cold comfort
The book is incredibly modern for being nearly a century old but set in an imagined future where everything is about 1920 but they have Skype
It’s also very very funny
Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore is a blast with some awesome female leads!
Of Monsters and Mayhem by Barbara Truelove. A total romp—it’s pretty long and I still finished it in a day, it was so fun. The main character is a robot, but a female one (however you define a female robot) and there a lot of other badass human(ish) women.
The Z Word by Lindsay King-Miller. There’s a bit more relationship stuff in here but it is primarily a zombie apocalypse novel. Also a complete blast
Witch Light by Susan Fletcher, it’s historical fiction but written so beautifully I didn’t want it to end.
The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker, another historical fiction (60s/70s), I fell in love with this book as well.
Both the above are written really poetically and the main characters are very strong women. 10/10 on each would recommend.
Strange sally diamond, I think the ending is a bit shit bit still worth reading. I love becks chambers (sci-fi).
I read a few books this year with female protagonists. Aren’t really romance, but do have romance as a side trope. Does that work?
Maybe The Bewitching by Sylvia Moreno Garcia? It follows 3 generations of women in Mexico and New England and is full of witchcraft and dark academia!