
books every girl in her 20s should read
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The Virgin Suicides
Jeffrey Eugenides · 2011
First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family’s fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.
Passing
Nella Larsen • 2022
The Years
Annie Ernaux • 2017

We Need New Names: A Novel (NoViolet Bulawayo)
NoViolet Bulawayo • 2013

Angela Davis: An Autobiography
Angela Y. Davis • 2022
Feminism Is for Everybody
bell hooks • 2014

I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
Malala Yousafzai • 2013
A MEMOIR BY THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE As seen on Netflix with David Letterman "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons. I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world.

Kindred
Octavia E. Butler • 2003
Selected by The Atlantic as one of THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS. ("You have to read them.")<br/><br/>From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner<br/><br/>The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.<br/><br/>“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”<br/><br/>Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.<br/><br/>Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).<br/><br/>“Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.”<br/>—N. K. Jemisin<br/><br/>Developed for television by writer/executive producer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen), executive producers also include Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields (The Americans, The Patient), and Darren Aronofsky (The Whale). Janicza Bravo (Zola) is director and an executive producer of the pilot. Kindred stars Mallori Johnson, Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, and Gayle Rankin.

As alegrias da maternidade (Em Portugues do Brasil)
_ • 2018
Nnu Ego, filha de um grande líder africano, é enviada como esposa para um homem na capital da Nigéria. Determinada a realizar o sonho de ser mãe e, assim, tornar-se uma “mulher completa”, submete-se a condições de vida precárias e enfrenta praticamente sozinha a tarefa de educar e sustentar os filhos. Entre a lavoura e a cidade, entre as tradições dos igbos e a influência dos colonizadores, ela luta pela integridade da família e pela manutenção dos valores de seu povo.<br/><br/>Capa comum: 320 páginas<br/>Editora: Dublinense; Edição: 2ª (31 de outubro de 2018)<br/>Idioma: Português<br/>ISBN-10: 8583181101<br/>ISBN-13: 978-8583181101<br/>Dimensões do produto: 20,8 x 13,8 x 2,8 cm<br/>Peso de envio: 386 g

Pequena coreografia do adeus
Aline Bei • 2019
<p> <b> Em seu segundo livro, Aline Bei ― autora do premiado O peso do pássaro morto ― constrói um retrato tão sensível quanto brutal sobre família, amor e abandono. Livro finalista dos prêmios Jabuti e São Paulo de Literatura 2022. </b> </p> <p> Julia é filha de pais separados: sua mãe não suporta a ideia de ter sido abandonada pelo marido, enquanto seu pai não suporta a ideia de ter sido casado. Sufocada por uma atmosfera de brigas constantes e falta de afeto, a jovem escritora tenta reconhecer sua individualidade e dar sentido à sua história, tentando se desvencilhar dos traumas familiares. <br> Entre lembranças da infância e da adolescência, e sonhos para o futuro, Julia encontra personagens essenciais para enfrentar a solidão ao mesmo tempo que ensaia sua própria coreografia, numa sequência de movimentos de aproximação e afastamento de seus pais que lhe traz marcas indeléveis. <br> Escrito com a prosa original que fez de Aline Bei uma das grandes revelações da literatura brasileira contemporânea, Pequena coreografia do adeus é um romance emocionante que mostra como nossas relações moldam quem somos. </p> <p> "Aline Bei narra como quem se posiciona à beira do abismo, o corpo em espera, o instante que se aproxima. Ler Pequena coreografia do adeus é acompanhar essa queda, íngreme e definitiva, mas também sublime e transformadora." — Carola Saavedra </p> <p> "A experimentação formal que sublinhou o estilo marcante de Aline Bei, em sua estreia com O peso do pássaro morto , sedimenta-se neste segundo romance, trazendo-nos a história dolorosa de Júlia Terra — personagem complexa, cujas margens familiares vão se dissipando. A trama urdida com lirismo entrelaça a educação afetiva, a violência e a experiência do desamor, revelando o paradoxo da condição humana — a um só tempo precária e (por meio da escrita) redentora." — João Anzanello Carrascoza </p>

O Peso do Passaro Morto (Em Portugues do Brasil)
Aline Bei • 2017
A vida de uma mulher, dos 8 aos 52, desde as singelezas cotidianas até as tragédias que persistem, uma geração após a outra. Um livro denso e leve, violento e poético. É assim O peso do pássaro morto, romance de estreia de Aline Bei, onde acompanhamos uma mulher que, com todas as forças, tenta não coincidir apenas com a dor de que é feita.

Convenience Store Woman: A Novel
Sayaka Murata • 2019
Shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award<br/>Longlisted for the Believer Book Award<br/>Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation<br/>A Los Angeles Times Bestseller<br/><br/>The English-language debut of an exciting young voice in international fiction, selling 660,000 copies in Japan alone, Convenience Store Woman is a bewitching portrayal of contemporary Japan through the eyes of a single woman who fits into the rigidity of its work culture only too well.<br/><br/>The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction—many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual—and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…<br/><br/>A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: A Novel
Cho Nam-joo • 2021
A New York Times Editors Choice Selection<br/>A global sensation, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 “has become...a touchstone for a conversation around feminism and gender” (Sarah Shin, Guardian). One of the most notable novels of the year, hailed by both critics and K-pop stars alike, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rampant misogyny. In a tidy apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, millennial “everywoman” Kim Jiyoung spends her days caring for her infant daughter. But strange symptoms appear: Jiyoung begins to impersonate the voices of other women, dead and alive. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her concerned husband sends her to a psychiatrist. Jiyoung narrates her story to this doctor―from her birth to parents who expected a son to elementary school teachers who policed girls’ outfits to male coworkers who installed hidden cameras in women’s restrooms. But can her psychiatrist cure her, or even discover what truly ails her? “A social treatise as well as a work of art” (Alexandra Alter, New York Times), Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 heralds the arrival of international powerhouse Cho Nam-Joo.

NIKETCHE
Paulina Chiziane • 2022
Olhos d'água
Conceição Evaristo • 2016
Em Olhos D'água Conceição Evaristo Ajusta O Foco De Seu Interesse Na População Afro-brasileira Abordando, Sem Meias Palavras, A Pobreza E A Violência Urbana Que A Acometem.

The Days of Abandonment
Elena Ferrante • 2005
From the New York Times–bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, this novel of a deserted wife’s descent into despair—and rage—is “a masterpiece” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). The Days of Abandonment is the gripping story of an Italian woman’s experiences after being suddenly left by her husband after fifteen years of marriage. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it more and more difficult to do the things she used to: keep a spotless house, cook meals with creativity and passion, refrain from using obscenities. After running into her husband with his much-younger new lover in public, she cannot even refrain from assaulting him physically. In a “raging, torrential voice” (The New York Times), Olga conveys her journey from denial to devastating emptiness—and when she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal. “Intelligent and darkly comic.” —Publishers Weekly “Remarkable, lucid, austerely honest.” —The New Yorker

Pride and Prejudice (Penguin Clothbound Classics)
Jane Austen • 2009
Jane Austen’s timeless classic that explores the intricate complexities of love, societal expectations, and the power of overcoming prejudice—now in a beautiful clothbound hardcover edition designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.<br/><br/>When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip, and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.<br/><br/>Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Vegetarian
Han Kang • 2016
<b>FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE</b><br><br><b>“[Han Kang’s] intense poetic prose . . . exposes the fragility of human life.”—The Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize</b><br><br><b><i>A NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER</b><br><b>WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE </b><br><b>ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY<br>A <i>KIRKUS REVIEWS </i>BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY</b><br><br><b>“Ferocious.”—<i>The New York Times Book Review</i> (Ten Best Books of the Year)</b><br><b>“Both terrifying and terrific.”—Lauren Groff</b><br><b>“Provocative [and] shocking.”—<i>The Washington Post</i></b><br><br>Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself. <br><br>Celebrated by critics around the world, <i>The Vegetarian</i> is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.<br><b><br>A Best Book of the Year: <i>BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Time, Elle, The Economist, HuffPost, Slate, Bustle, The St. Louis Dispatch, Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly</i></b>
Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)
Min Jin Lee • 2017
One of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century In this New York Times bestseller, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan–the inspiration for the television series on Apple TV+. In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger. When she discovers she is pregnant–and that her lover is married–she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. *Includes reading group guide* NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 * A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE* WINNER OF THE MEDICI BOOK CLUB PRIZE Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER

Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie • 2014
A searing new novel, at once sweeping and intimate, by the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun: a story of love and race centred around a man and woman from Nigeria who seemed destined to be together--until the choices they are forced to make tear them apart.<br/>Ifemelu--beautiful, self-assured--left Nigeria 15 years ago, and now studies in Princeton as a Graduate Fellow. Obinze--handsome and kind-hearted--was Ifemelu's teenage love; he'd hoped to join her in America, but post 9/11 America wouldn't let him in.<br/>Years later, when they reunite in Nigeria, neither is the same person who left home. Obinze is the kind of successful "Big Man" he'd scorned in his youth, and Ifemelu has become an "Americanah"--a different version of her former self, one with a new accent and attitude. As they revisit their shared passion--for their homeland and for each other--they must face the largest challenges of their lives.

Wuthering Heights (Wordsworth Collector's Editions)
Emily Brontë • 2019
Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature.

Beautiful World, Where Are You Chapter Sampler
Sally Rooney • 2021
Download The First Chapter Of A New Novel By Sally Rooney, The Bestselling Author Of Normal People And Conversations With Friends. Alice, A Novelist, Meets Felix, Who Works In A Warehouse, And Asks Him If He’d Like To Travel To Rome With Her. In Dublin, Her Best Friend, Eileen, Is Getting Over A Break-up, And Slips Back Into Flirting With Simon, A Man She Has Known Since Childhood. Alice, Felix, Eileen, And Simon Are Still Young—but Life Is Catching Up With Them. They Desire Each Other, They Delude Each Other, They Get Together, They Break Apart. They Have Sex, They Worry About Sex, They Worry About Their Friendships And The World They Live In. Are They Standing In The Last Lighted Room Before The Darkness, Bearing Witness To Something? Will They Find A Way To Believe In A Beautiful World?

Normal People: A Novel
Sally Rooney • 2020
<b>NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (<i>People</i>) from the author of <i>Conversations with Friends,</i> “a master of the literary page-turner” (J. Courtney Sullivan).</b><br> <br><b>“[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”—<i>The Washington Post</i></b><br><br><b>ONE OF <i>ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY</i>’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE</b><br><br><b>TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>People, Slate,</i> The New York Public Library, <i>Harvard Crimson</i></b><br><br>Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins.<br><br>A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.<br><br><i>Normal People</i> is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t.<br> <br><b>WINNER: The British Book Award, The Costa Book Award, The An Post Irish Novel of the Year, <i>Sunday Times </i>Young Writer of the Year Award</b><br><br><b>BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: <i>The New York Times</i>, <i>The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time,</i> NPR, <i>The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country</i></b>

Jane Eyre (Wordsworth Collector's Editions)
Charlotte Brontë • 2019
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre ranks as one of the greatest and most perennially popular works of English fiction. Although the poor but plucky heroine is outwardly of plain appearance, she possesses an indomitable spirit, a sharp wit and great courage. She is forced to battle against the exigencies of a cruel guardian, a harsh employer and a rigid social order. All of which circumscribe her life and position when she becomes governess to the daughter of the mysterious, sardonic and attractive Mr Rochester. However, there is great kindness and warmth in this epic love story, which is set against the magnificent backdrop of the Yorkshire moors. Ultimately the grand passion of Jane and Rochester is called upon to survive cruel revelation, loss and reunion, only to be confronted with tragedy.

The Bell Jar (Modern Classics)
Sylvia Plath • 2005
<p><i>The Bell Jar</i> 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 experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made <i>The Bell Jar</i> a haunting American classic.</p> <p>This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.</p>











