Readers are shifting focus from outdated gender expectations and conceptions of identity, and as a result, complex, non-compartmentalized female friendships are blooming in fiction. Books about these friendships are spaces…
It’s in the new black sign arching over the entrance that says, ‘Never stop dreaming.’ A harmless cliché, but once you know the history of the place, it reads like…
Supposedly “unlikable” female characters are often the most complex, humanly flawed, and interesting ones—yet many readers are perturbed by such representations of women. In an excerpt from her collection The…
The esteemed author talks about the themes of justice, atonement, and reparation in her fifteenth novel, LaRose, and about the importance of Planned Parenthood to her success.
If female characters are restricted to the roles of artist, dancer, waitress, or barista, their potential to generate fiction that explores existentially rich and original worlds also seems restricted. In…
NPR explores whether and how putting “girl” in the title of your crime novel will garner favorable comparisons to heavy-hitters like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on…
At the School Library Journal, Kelly Jensen examines gender norms and double standards in YA fiction, questioning which female protagonists we refer to as “strong”—and why do not refer to male…
Book Riot discusses the lack of female protagonists who’ve had abortions in literature: For millions of women, abortion is not a statistic or a political platitude. Although public discourse around…
For the Guardian, Hannah Ellis-Peterson discusses the success of Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist. Since its debut this summer, the author’s first novel has received acclaim for its strong female characters. However, Burton…