Whether you read them on your iPad or listen to them while you work out, books can be incredibly powerful. Nearly every person can point to one specific book that changed their lives. Both memoirs and fanciful novels reveal characters that help us understand ourselves and the world around us.
For most of us, being a woman is a wonderful experience we wouldn’t trade for anything, but being a woman also comes with many challenges. Power, money, sex and biology all play a part in the female experience, and we think these 17 authors have uniquely delved into that primordial soup we call womanhood. As author Francesca Lia Block once said, “Just like any woman… we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children or our art; some do it just by living. It’s all the same.”
‘Kindred’
Written by Octavia Butler, Kindred is a story where Dana, a young black woman, mysteriously travels through time from her home in 1976 to the antebellum South. She learns that she is repeatedly getting sent back in time to save her ancestor Rufus and discovers a dark secret about her own past.
‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’
Henretta Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her or her family’s knowledge or concent, doctors took cells from her tumor to use in science experiments. These particular cells, known as HeLa cells, lived on and became medical tools for scientists, yet no one knew the name of the woman who unwittingly donated them. Written by Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is true story will shock you and surprise you, make you laugh and make you cry.
‘Far From the Madding Crowd’
InFar From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, Bathsheba Everdene owns a farm in rural England. Fiercely independent, she is courted by three very different men. She does not choose her husband wisely, however, and ends up with a man who doesn’t respect her. This is a powerful book for any woman who has chosen the wrong man. Also, Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games is inspired by Bathsheba and has the same last name.
‘Wild’
When Cheryl Strayed’s mother died, she fell apart. Unable to cope, she turned to drugs and sex with strangers. Then, wanting a better life for herself, she decided to walk the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail alone to get sober and get her life back on track. What’s so powerful about Strayed’s true story, Wild, is how she managed to change the course of her life entirely on her own.
‘Geek Love’
Geek Love, written by Katherine Dunn, follows a family of circus geeks purposefully bred by the mother and father with the help of arsenic and other poisons. As they take their traveling show across America, family dynamics become hostile. This book is powerful because it sheds new light on what is freakish and what is normal, what is ugly and what is beautiful.
‘Room’
Written by Emma Donoghue,Room is the story of Ma and her 5-year-old son, Jack, who are imprisoned in a room in a shed by a man who abducted Ma when she was just a teenager. Ma is fiercely protective of her son, trying to give him some semblance of a life, but she knows she must come up with an escape plan sooner rather than later. The book is powerful because it shows how a mother’s love can still exist despite horrific conditions.
‘The Princess Diarist’
Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia in the groundbreaking film Star Wars when she was just 19. In this memoir, Fisher recounts her life and loves during that time in brutally honest fashion. From being asked to lose weight for the movie to her affair with Harrison Ford, she reveals details from an unusual life and the lessons she learned. It’s also filled with lots of humor. Do yourself a favor and download the audio version with Fisher reading.
‘Lolita’
In Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, 12-year old Lolita Haze’s life becomes a living nightmare when Humbert Humbert, her mother’s new husband, becomes sexually obsessed with her. Humbert becomes so consumed by his desire and need to possess the girl that he never considers her feelings or her fate. The objectification of Lolita is heartbreaking but powerful for any woman who’s been objectified herself.
‘I Am Malala’
Malala Yousafzai tells the true story of what happened when she spoke out for the right for girls to be educated in Pakistan. The Taliban, a hardline Islamic movement, believes women should not be educated. Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban when she was walking home from school one day. Luckily, she survived, and her tale is both harrowing and heroic.
‘Guts’
You may know actress Kristen Johnston from the TV show Third Rock From the Sun. You may not know about her nearly deadly battle with drugs and alcohol. After her stomach exploded from the substance abuse, she began her journey to sobriety, which she reveals with heartbreakingly brutal confessions and lots of humor. Guts is a powerful book because Johnston is so honest about her fears and mistakes.
‘The Woman Warrior’
Author Maxine Hong Kingston combines memories from her childhood with Chinese mythology, drawing upon female warriors as both icons and tormentors. Beneath the pain and heartbreak, Kingston manages to find her true self, but not before confronting many ghosts.
‘Transformations’
Anne Sexton reinvents 17 Grimm fairy tales, including Rapunzel, Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin, to look at the lessons of these cautionary tales from a modern woman’s perspective. Funny, dark and powerful, in Transformations, Sexton writes these witches and princesses like you’ve never read them before.
‘We Have Always Lived in the Castle’
In We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, an elderly man and his two nieces are all that is left of the Blackwood family after the others were poisoned with arsenic. Everything changes when an unexpected visitor shows up at the Blackwood home. Family secrets, jealousy, mental illness and the occult are woven together in this page-turning story.
‘Fun Home’
Alison Bechdel draws upon her childhood journal to create this exciting graphic novel. Bechdel reveals heartbreaking moments such as her incredibly difficult relationship with her closeted gay father and her own coming out as a lesbian. The title of the book, Fun Home, is also the nickname Bechdel and her brothers gave the funeral home owned by her father.
‘Persepolis’
Persepolis is a graphic novel and memoir by Marjane Satrapi tells of her childhood in Iran and how her family had to flee to Europe after the Islamic revolution of 1979. Independent and rebellious, the story’s protagonist, Marji, struggles to fit in. Being a teenager is hard no matter what, but growing up with two different cultures where racism and sexism are rampant makes it incredibly difficult.
‘Amish Guys Don’t Call’
This charming romantic comedy by Debbie Dodds is about Sam, a high school student who has trouble navigating the toxic waters of a mean girl clique. When she meets the adorable Zach, things start to look up – until she discovers he’s Amish making things even more complicated. Themes of self-discovery, independent thinking and the bonds of tribal culture play out in a stirring and hilarious book that proves no matter what culture, race or religion, being a teen girl is tough stuff.
‘Fitness Junkie’
Fitness Junkie, written by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza, begins as a seemingly predictable female-centered story but takes aim squarely at the way in which our weight- and fitness-obsessed culture infiltrates our daily lives. Focusing on the journey of Janey Sweet, CEO of a couture wedding dress company, and her journey to lose weight in order to keep her job, Fitness Junkie will make you laugh as much as it will make you think.
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