Anonymous wrote:The Red Tent

I read this ages ago and loved it!

The Change by Kirsten Miller

Some lesser-known/thought of options

Classics:
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair
the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman Perkins

Modern Books:
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung
The Women of the copper Country by Mary Doria Russell
Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Lion women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. It's an incredible book in many ways.

Anonymous wrote:This is a really good question. I wonder if older books kind of porto-feminist also count?

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
and literally any play by Aphra Behn (contemporary of Shakespeare)

the poetry of Audre Lorde (I'm seeing her quoted a lot this week)

This is OP. Anything is welcome! I’m going to try to have better boundaries with consuming daily rage through social media. But I know I’ll need stories of women kicking the doors down to cope in these coming years, even if it’s fictional, I think I’ll find it cathartic.

I saw a suggestion for The Poppy Wars and for Joan by Katherine Chen (historical fiction about Joan of Arc). So passing those along for others.

"proto" ^^

This is a really good question. I wonder if older books kind of porto-feminist also count?

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
and literally any play by Aphra Behn (contemporary of Shakespeare)

the poetry of Audre Lorde (I'm seeing her quoted a lot this week)

The Silence of the Girls and the Women of Troy by Pat Barker.

Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy

The Women - Kristen Hannah

Emma
Jane Eyre

The Dove Keepers - similar lines of The Red Tent

The Red Tent

I need to channel my devastation into reading. I'd love recommendations of books that have strong female leads kick everyone's butts. I'm not huge on fantasy, but would love historical fiction too. If it's light or funny, that's a HUGE bonus, but I realize what I'm asking might not tend toward either of things. So, what do you have?

Matrix by Lauren Groff is my suggestion. There's almost no men in the entire book, at least none with speaking roles. It's brilliant literature.