Meruane is one of my favorite writers. She takes hypochondria and turns it into bone-chilling horror.
recommended if you like: WebMD, medical dramas, lyrical prose
This is more entertaining than the Neapolitan novels yet still contains Ferrante’s trademark honesty and unflinching exploration of feelings we are so ashamed of that we don’t even know we’ve felt them until now.
recommended if you like: obsessive love, coming-of-age stories, intense women
Ex-con Rosemary is infatuated with Bush Sr. and she will stop at nothing to get to him. Millet is so so funny and I love this book.
recommended if you like: political satires, romantic obsessives
Elizabeth Holmes is the girlboss supervillian we deserve. An insane story about the delusions of Silicon Valley idealism that reads more like true crime than "business reporting."
On a dark and stormy night, two women invade a man’s house and insist “you are a woman”. An existential, gothic deconstruction of gender and language that remains captivating until the end.
recommended if you like: You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
My favorite book. A haunting, eerie story of a woman’s descent into blindness, and how she uses her illness to manipulate others. Gorgeous prose.
recommended if you like: Samantha Schweblin
Two middle class French school teachers are suddenly ostracized by their entire town. Gripping and gorgeous, I read this every second I could until I finished it.
recommended if you like: The Good Place, Schweblin
I read this straight through one lazy afternoon and I regret nothing, only perhaps that I allowed it to end so soon. Gripping, eerie, and psychologically complex while remaining utterly entertaining.
A huge star in Mexican literature, Davila was only recently translated into English. Dark and eerie short stories often focusing on women facing some sort of psychotic break/psychological turmoil.
recommended if you like: Shirley Jackson, Carmen Maria Machado, Valeria Luiselli
A hot girl book that's actually great. A bizarre, dreamlike novel about identity, beauty, and consumerism, that ends up being something like Single White Female meets a Kelly Link story.
A hilarious mystery novel. Tokarkczuk’s Janina is like a feminist/animal right activist/poetry translator version of Christie’s Miss Marple, an arresting and memorable character.
recommended if you like: Agatha Christie, The Vegetarian, Paul Schrader's First Reformed
I don't like many memoirs, but I loved this one. Ndiaye explores her journey from childhood to womanhood through a gothic lens, with eerie depictions of her own parents and paranormal-like encounters with women in green.
A gorgeous portrait of a complicated and toxic female friendship from childhood until middle age.
Just an FYI: this is nothing like the Netflix show. A brilliant, laugh out loud character study of that girl in a group of friends whom no one likes, all wrapped up in a fun ghost story.
I found That Face to be so inspiring! Stenham spins a family melodrama artfully, with an intuitive and empathetic understanding of relationships.
recommended if you like: manipulative parents, Fleabag
One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year. The darkly funny page turner about young women and female friendship that you’ve been waiting for.
recommended if you like: Heathers, Mean Girls
Every novel of Lydia Millet’s I can’t stop reading. I start and read straight through the night until I’ve devoured the whole thing.
recommended if you like: Made for Love by Helen DeWitt
A hypnotic tale of romantic obsession and suspense that will leave you breathless!
recommended if you like: the Bronte sisters and being obsessed with your boyfriend
I read this collection when I was a teenager and I’ve come back to it again. Imaginative and inspiring, stories which are blinding and sticky.
recommended if you like: funny short stories, the fantastic
Like Francis Bacon, Barrodale finds beauty in the grotesque. Diving into the inner lives of her beautifully flawed protagonists is eerie, funny, and unforgettable.
recommended if you like: strange relationships
A gripping coming-of-age tale translated by Elena Ferrante’s translator, Ann Goldstein. Beautiful and wholly satisfying.
recommended if you like: Elena Ferrante
I know I’m very late to the Ferrante party, but wow did this novel floor me. A breathtaking descent into the psyche of a woman left by her husband to pick up the shards of her former self. Beautiful, harrowing, and shockingly candid.
recommended if you like: Kate Chopin, the Brontes
I was trying to explain this book to a coworker and she said “It sounds like 500 Days of Summer meets American Psycho” and I was like YES!
recommended if you like: satires of contemporary romance
A brutal satire of the British press in the wake of WWI. What happens when the facts are disregarded in favor of sentimentality and entertainment?
recommended if you like: Network, Muriel Spark
Norah Lange has been diminished as merely “Borges’ muse” for too long! Inspired by a portrait of the Bronte sisters, People In The Room is an exploration of voyeurism and the feminine brilliantly done.
recommended if you like: Virginia Woolf
Emma Bovary is sexy, cool, and a total inspiration. Ready this book to be transported to a totally extra town in mid-19th century France where it is always Hot Girl Summer.
recommended if you like: being hot and bored
Tortured young women find power in cruelty in these three novelas. Ogawa’s prose is detached, measured, and biting, just like her protagonists. You will be captivated!
recommended if you like: Murakami
The contrarian in me didn’t want to like this book but, ugh, I did like it and you will too.
recommended if you like: talking about boys with your friends
There’s an earnest streak of ecological horror, and a vision of maternal love as something alienating and surreal” - Jia Tolentio, The New Yorker.
Everything Megan McDowell touches is gold.
recommended if you like: reading a book in one sitting
The Peloponnesian war of 2019! A fascinating portrayal of political augumentation, focusing on all the questions feminists are debating today.
recommended if you like: Greek tragedy
A hilarious mystery novel. Tokarkczuk’s Janina is like a feminist/animal right activist/poetry translator version of Christie’s Miss Marple, an arresting and memorable character.
recommended if you like: Agatha Christie, The Vegetarian, Paul Schrader's First Reformed
After her husband’s sudden death, Clare believes she sees him walking the streets of Havana. At once a meditation on the surrealism of grief, violence in tourist voyeurism, and the misogyny of horror films.
recommended if you like: horror films, film theory
A thrilling, shocking look at delusions of intimacy and the self-hatred that feeds into celebrity culture. A brilliant page-turner.
recommended if you like: Ingrid Goes West
READ THIS BOOK!! A novel this hilarious is so hard to come by. A ghostwriter of college admissions essays realizes he can game the system and become the next great American novelist (really just to upstage his ex).
recommended if you like: comedy, satire, or popular fiction
A woman’s husband suddenly vanishes and she descends into madness, wondering if he ever really existed. A meditation on the physicality of loss.
recommended if you like: The Days of Abandonment
Funny, dirty, brilliant.
recommended if you like: Terry Southern
NYTimes: "a novel without the padding." These linked stories are compelling and unforgettable. A line I couldn't get out of my mind: "I have given everything at the wrong time to the wrong people.”
recommended if you like: longing