Top Five Best Feminist Books Read in 2021

A few didn't make the cut, including Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen and Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking, but I'm positive I've put together a list of the best novels which either entertained or inspired me during yet another year of Covid.

As usual, the list predominantly features books that were not published in 2021, some are a few years old, others are more recent. But one thing they all have in common is that they centre on female protagonists, are written by women, and have been anointed a five-star rating by me.
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Enjoy the list and let me know if you have read any of these titles too. If so, what did you think?

​No. 5
​Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

Author of Everything I Know About Love, Dolly Alderton's debut novel Ghosts is a funny, touching, and entertaining take on modern day dating, thriving in your thirties, relationships, and family. The novel follows successful food writer, Nina Dean, who is ghosted by the perfect and beguiling, Max – a man who on their first date says he will one day marry her (umm red flags anyone?). 

Coming in at number five, Ghosts didn't necessarily leave me with long-lasting sentiment or an urge to read it over and write down any inspirational quotes; however, it was a lighthearted read with some hilarious one-liners. This is a book that certainly kept me entertained and smiling when I needed to most during another year in isolation. ​

No. 4
Green Girl by Kate Zambreno

A fierce and bold novel, Green Girl dissects the male gaze and rampant consumerism and exposes the problems women face when they masquerade femininity. The novel centres on Ruth, a young American woman working as a retail assistant in a London department store. Published in 2011, I first learnt of Kate Zambreno's Green Girl upon reading Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist.

In the essay, ‘Garish, Glorious Spectacles’, Gay writes:

"Green Girl is a novel about a young woman who is learning how to perform her femininity, who is learning the power of it, the fragility. Her education is, at times, painful. The green girl is as vicious as she is vulnerable, and Zambreno deftly exposes both this viciousness and vulnerability in her protagonist." 

Whilst the novel is disturbing and raw and features a rather unlikeable protagonist, I have not connected with a story so much as this. Green Girl puts those ambiguous feelings of abject body subjectivity into words. It reveals the dark reality of female identity standing only as the 'body', calling out to all those women who have felt their bodies have only ever been viewed as an object, and not a subject. 

Definitely read Green Girl and then go read Gay's essay ‘Garish, Glorious Spectacles’ – she articulates the power of Green Girl much more succinctly than I do. ​

No. 3
​Normal People by Sally Rooney

Yes, I am well aware that I'm very late to the Rooney hype party. . .

There is nothing more to say about Sally Rooney's international bestseller, Normal People – just read the thousands of lauding reviews online. Playing on the character cliches of the lonely and reserved high school girl (AKA Marianne) and the popular, school soccer star, and everyone's favourite schoolboy (AKA Connell), Normal People is an unexpected take on a young adult/millennial romance that focuses on these two students' lives as they grow up, graduate from high school, and study at Trinity College in Dublin. The prose is succinct and full of electrifying dialogue that is honest and heartbreaking. ​

​A story that will one day become a 21st-century classic.

No. 2
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottesa Moshfegh

This book is unique, thrilling, and deftly ominous. I love unbearable protagonists, and this is precisely what Moshfegh has given us, a woman who is self-obsessed, money-driven, disrespectful, but at the same time, deeply troubled and depressed. Set in early 2000s New York City, My Year of Rest and Relaxation centres on a young unnamed woman who gradually increases her prescription medication in order to sleep for an entire year – her way of resetting her life and transforming into a new person. The narrator has been given what some may view as the epitome of success: an apartment in the Upper East Side paid for by her inheritance, a college degree from Columbia University, and a slim figure with luscious blonde hair (this is the 2000s, if you didn't look like Paris Hilton or Kate Moss, who even were you?). She loathes and rarely loves her best and only friend, Reva, whom she treats like a forgotten Barbie doll that has been left under the bed for decades. 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is an exquisite take on American society and the problems of greed, excess, and ignorance. Moshfegh is an incredible writer whose voice aligns with the blank fiction authors of the 1980s – showcasing the materialistic obsessive nature of white, middle-class Americans, whose lives are fixated on the inner workings of themselves.

Moshfegh’s characters push their bodies towards violence and pain in an attempt to be transformed into a new being or discover a new beginning. 

No. 1
​Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Coming in at number 1 is ​Girl, Woman, Other. 

A novel unlike any other. Girl, Woman, Other is divided into five chapters and explores twelve different women living in the United Kingdom. I commend this book for its realistic portrayal of womanhood, intersectionality, and identity. Evaristo doesn't alienate women's experiences but rather focuses on the togetherness of all her female characters to raise openly the problems that LGBTQI, black and cis women face in society. Girl, Woman, Other taught me that by being resilient and standing as a collective (never rejecting a woman’s pain or trauma) we can fight for an even better future for the generations of young girls and women to come, no matter where they come from or how they identify themselves.

this is about being
together
                   Girl, Woman, Other (p. 452)

Not only is the story’s content compelling, but so too is the style of the prose and syntax. The book almost entirely removes standard grammar and punctuation (e.g. quotation marks for dialogue have been removed and so to has capitalised letters). This experimental style reminds me that traditional modes of literature are constantly changing. There is no one right way of telling a story. Just like any other art form, writing is malleable; it can be worked into whatever shape or form you believe will open up new ways of understanding a story’s deeper meaning.  

I highly recommend Girl, Woman, Other. It is a glorious novel, diverse, funny, and poignant.