So this is a list of books that “investigate, address, or represent the female experience in some essential way.” What does this mean, I wonder? I’m doing this one in two parts.
- Self-Help (Lorrie Moore): short stories, which seem to primarily be about heterosexual women.
- Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh): white heterosexual female protagonist.
- The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison): African-American heterosexual female protagonist.
- The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath): white female clinically depressed heterosexual protagonist.
- Get in Trouble (Kelly Link): short stories.
- Weetzie Bat (Francesca Lia Block): white heterosexual female protagonist.
- The Lover (Marguerite Duras): white heterosexual female protagonist.
- Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert): white heterosexual female protagonist.
- Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (Danielle Evans): short stories, many of which seem to be about women of color.
- The Liar’s Club (Mary Karr): white heterosexual female protagonist.
- Near to the Wild Heart (Clarice Lispector): Brazilian heterosexual female protagonist.
- The Group (Mary McCarthy): white female protagonists with a variety of sexualities and details.
- The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer): white female heterosexual protagonist.
- I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith): white female heterosexual protagonist.
- Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston): African-American female heterosexual protagonist.
- Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (Jeanette Winterson): white female lesbian protagonist.
- How to Be a Woman (Caitlin Moran): white female heterosexual memoirist.
- Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi): Iranian female heterosexual protagonist.
- Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte): white female heterosexual protagonist.
- Too Much Happiness (Alice Munro): short stories.
- The Bloody Chamber (Angela Carter): short stories.
- Bad Behavior (Mary Gaitskill): short stories.
- Geek Love (Katherine Dunn): Albino female heterosexual protagonist.
- Krik? Krak! (Edwidge Danticat): short stories with Haitian female protagonists.
- The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing (Melissa Bank): short stories with a white heterosexual female protagonist.
Sigh.
–your fangirl heroine.
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