My Favotrite Summer Feminist Reads
Discover the ultimate summer reading list of feminist books, from Sylvia Plath's *The Bell Jar* to Simone de Beauvoir's *The Second Sex*. Explore empowering fiction, memoirs, and classics by Wally Lamb, Dorothy Allison, and more—perfect for thought-provoking beach reads and book club picks.
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Bastard Out of Carolina
by Dorothy Allison
Ruth Ann Boatwright, a South Carolina bastard, tells her life with her family and the emotional and physical violence she experiences.
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She's Come Undone
by Wally Lamb
In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years. Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.
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Midwives
by Chris Bohjalian
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This modern classic from the author of The Flight Attendant is a compulsively readable novel that explores questions of human responsibility that are as fundamental to our society now as they were when the book was first published. A selection of Oprah's original Book Club that has sold more than two million copies. On an icy winter night in an isolated house in rural Vermont, a seasoned midwife named Sibyl Danforth takes desperate measures to save a baby’s life. She performs an emergency cesarean section on a mother she believes has died of stroke. But what if—as Sibyl's assistant later charges—the patient wasn't already dead? The ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt, forcing Sibyl to face the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience. Exploring the complex and emotional decisions surrounding childbirth, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do. Look for Chris Bohjalian's new novel, The Lioness!
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Rubyfruit Jungle
by Rita Mae Brown
Classic modern American novel orig. pub. 1973. Celebrates lesbian sexuality.
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The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under--maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experiece as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
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Le Deuxième Sexe
by Simone de Beauvoir
The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.