Every so often you read a feminist book that completely challenges how you see the world. We’re not underselling it when we say that this has a huge impact on your life – whether you’re male or female.
If you’re anything like us, you’re constantly on the look-out for the next book that will have this effect. So in honour of World Book Day, we’ve come up with a list of seven key feminist novels that will change your life.
It’s hardly like these books are bra-burning tomes – instead, they are considered, gripping reads with challenging views of femininity and the patriarchy weaved throughout. As in life, feminism shouldn’t be looked at with a narrow-minded view, and these books encompass a whole host of themes and ideas that will move you and make you think.
1. The Edible Woman – Margaret Atwood
What’s it about?
This 1969 novel centres around the young woman Marian, who lives a dull life complete with an average job and boyfriend. However, when her boyfriend Peter proposes she slowly begins to lose touch with her normal life.
As the book goes on, she starts to reconsider standard gender norms and her material-obsessed society, causing her to truly think about what it means to be a woman.
Why should I read it?
Have you ever felt unsure about your place in society? OK, that’s most of us then. This book is a must-read for men and women alike because it will make you reconsider what you’ve been conditioned to think about gender.
However, reading this book is by no means a chore: Atwood’s writing is quick and witty, turning gender stereotypes on their head. The book is also by no means cut and dried: the narrative constantly shifts so you don’t know who to trust, making for a gripping read.
2. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
What’s it about?
This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is set in America’s deep south, and tells the intertwining stories of various black women. We won’t ruin the plot for you, but it’s a heartbreaking portrayal of the cycle of abuse, poverty, racism and misogyny in rural Georgia in the 1930s.
Its focus is around the female characters and how they attempt to overcome the hardships that they have been born into.
Why should I read it?
You’d be hard-pressed to find a book more powerful than this. Not only does it explore the subjugation of women and female characters trying to break out of society’s conventions, but it’s also a hugely important study of race – something which feels all the more crucial in our current political climate.
3. The Vegetarian – Han Kang
What’s it about?
Yeong-hye is the protagonist of Kang’s Man Booker prize-winning novella.
After having a nightmare about human brutality, she decides to stop eating meat – something that is basically unheard of in her South Korean culture. It soon has catastrophic ramifications in her relationship with her husband, her family, and her whole life.
Why should I read it?
The Vegetarian is almost like a modern, South Korean version of The Edible Woman. Both have themes of cannibalism and play upon the idea of the woman taking control of her own life and body, going against society’s expectations.
You should read it because it’s unlike anything else: it’s surreal, bizarre and very visceral and will stay with you long after you’ve put the book down.
4. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
What’s it about?
Were you ever made to read Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre at school? This is the same story, but rewritten from the perspective of the madwoman in the attic – otherwise known as Antoinette Cosway. She is a Jamaican heiress who is married off to an Englishman, renamed Bertha and sent to live in England.
Why should I read it?
Bronte’s novel is a classic, but Wide Sargasso Sea sheds a whole new light on the tale. It’s a powerful post-colonial novel: not only does Antoinette have to deal with her patriarchal society (she’s married off against her will and her husband is significantly never named), but it also addresses her experiences as a black woman in 1800s England.
You’ll also be captivated by Rhys’s descriptions of Jamaica in stark contrast to the England that Antoinette is forced to fit into.
5. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
What’s it about?
It tells of the four March sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy.
Simply put, the novel follows the four sisters as they make the journey from girlhood to womanhood in 1800s America.
Why should I read it?
Did Britney’s song “Not a girl, not yet a woman” ever make you feel feelings? (OK, just us then). Well, this novel is like that song but in book form… and way better.
The story is loosely based on Alcott’s own life and family, and this really shows in just how touching and personal each of the sister’s journeys are. It might be set in the 1800s with a backdrop of the Civil War, but so much of it is infinitely relatable to today.
You’ll grow attached to all of the sisters, and Jo in particular is a striking beacon of feminism in paving her own way in the world – and bear in mind this is before “feminism” actually became a word in 1895.
6. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
What’s it about?
Esther Greenwood is a young woman from the suburbs who moves to New York to do an internship at a magazine. Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel tracks this bright, sharp and talented woman’s slow descent into insanity, as she tries to find her place in her new world.
Why should I read it?
Not only is it a moving study of femininity in the 1950s and a look into the mind of Sylvia Plath, but also a terrifyingly realistic study of a mental breakdown.
How many of us can relate to the experience of starting over in a new, alien city and fighting to find your place in society? It’s a moving and saddening depiction of a woman’s struggle to fit in.
7. Half Of A Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What’s it about?
Set in Nigeria before and during the Biafran War, Adichie’s novel shows the impact of war on five characters: twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, Olanna’s partner Odenigbo, Kainene’s English partner Richard and Odenigbo’s servant Ugwu.
Why should I read it?
Well, if Beyonce likes Adichie, you probably will too. Beyonce sampled Adichie’s speech “We should all be feminists” in her song Flawless, and many of the feminist themes from that speech run through this novel.
Half Of A Yellow Sun is interesting because it’s not a solely feminist text – while women in a patriarchal society is a key theme, it’s by no means the only thing going on: ideas of war, colonialism and politics also make this a gripping read.
There are some pretty badass female characters in the book, and we love this line from Aunty Ifeka: “You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. Your life belongs to you and you alone.” Preach.
