Image Credit Magdalena Kanecka

Reading has been my means of relaxation, escape, and leisure ever since I was a little girl. I love getting lost in the world of fantasy, kicking my feet in bed at romance novels, or even being disappointed in the current state of the world while reading more political and critical writing. 

Regardless, I have always lived in a world of books. Books have been at the forefront of my hobbies, creativity, and imagination for as long as I can remember, and in the past few years, I have realised that one of my love languages is sharing this love with other people. 

Thus, here are some of my favourite female authors, as well as brief overviews of their work, and one or two recommendations from each. I share these in hopes that just like they have touched my heart, they can touch yours, too.

Ottessa Moshfegh

The Massachusetts-born Ottessa Moshfegh is the queen of emotional, weird, almost gothic  style novels. Upon reading my first novel from her My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) in the summer of 2022, I knew I needed more from her – and by now, I have reached for almost every book in her catalogue. 

Her books effectively describe deeper feelings of each narrator, while maintaining characteristics of isolation and struggle, often obvious metaphors for deeper societal issues. I was very surprised when I learned that one of the characters from her book Death In Her Hands (2018), who is also dead (and this is not a spoiler), has the same name as me. This added another layer of eeriness, a feature very typical of Moshfegh’s stories. And yet, I have not been able to keep my hands off her work thus far.

Recommendation: My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)

Susan Abukhawa

Susan Abukhawa is currently the most read Palestinian author in the world, and her work is particularly poignant within the current political climate. She seeks to spread her background as a Palestinian woman in her writing and beyond, having founded the non-governmental children’s organisation Playgrounds for Palestine, which seeks to protect the preciousness of childhood of those affected by the ongoing genocide by building playgrounds for children to be able to play, learn and socialise. Her writing explores themes of identity, belonging, war, occupation and violence, and has been translated into over 30 languages to spread her messages further. I find her work incredibly inspirational, though it is simultaneously heartbreaking.

Recommendation: Against the Loveless World (2019)

Chloe Walsh

For those who love an angsty romance series with secondary themes of found family, you’ll love Chloe Walsh’s Boys of Tommen series. This is how I fell in love with her work, and I must admit, I have never grown as attached to the characters in a book series as I have with this one. Every week, I anticipate the release date announcement of the next book in the series, and every time, I am disappointed when it doesn’t come. 

It must be noted that her work, particularly in the later parts of the series, touches on some sensitive topics such as addiction, domestic violence, mental health struggles, as well as sexual assault. This is described in the front pages of the relevant books, but for clearer trigger warnings, check out this website.

However, I think Chloe Walsh does a great job at dealing with these topics with care and caution, and in terms of the story, it certainly makes you sympathise with the characters. I will never stop recommending this series, and I cannot wait to read on.

Recommendation: The Boys of Tommen series – start with Binding 13 (2018)

Taylor Jenkins Reid

This is an author whom I found by accident, and I have since read almost every book in her collection, and not a single one has left me disappointed.

Taylor Jenkins Reid specialises in fiction writing with subtle tones of romance, filled with conflict, showbiz, performance and perseverance. Her book Daisy Jones and the Six (2019) got turned into an Amazon Prime series, which to this day remains one of my favourite shows of all time. However, my favourite release from her, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017), was the book that got me into the world of fiction. It is fierce, dramatic, sensitive even secretive at times, and yet it touches my heart every time I remember its story – particularly the one of characters Evelyn Hugo and her co-star, Celia St. James.

Recommendation: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017)

bell hooks

Gloria Jean Watkins, known more commonly as bell hooks, specialises in Black feminism, the female experience, and ensuring access to education. She has written timeless novels based on her own experience as a Black woman in a patriarchal society, and she was never once afraid to point out inequalities in societal structures.

Her work is essential for intersectional feminism theory, and I believe any of her writing will be of incredible use to anyone’s critical thinking. bell hooks combines class, race, and gender in the majority of her works, linking them to reinforce the view that oppression has layers, which are often more imposed on more marginalized people. To her, there is no one strict identity, but it is an individual concept made up of different parts of our background.

Furthermore, her book All About Love (1999) deals with exactly what the title says. Each chapter touches on different aspects of love, including its differing dynamics. Her famous quote, “The word ‘love’ is most often used as a noun, yet… We would all love better if we used it as a verb,” comes from this book. 

Recommendations: All About Love: New Visions (1999) and Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981)

Meiko Kawakami

Based in Osaka, Japan, the themes of Meiko Kawakami’s writing touch on topics traditionally deemed taboo in East Asian countries, such as her home country. These include menstruation, body image and dieting, loneliness, and female societal expectations.

It took me a while to get into her work at first, but the more I read on, the more I understood that reading it perhaps required more critical skill than I first thought. The more I researched her work, the more I realised that her books, especially Breasts and Eggs (2019), are extremely elaborate descriptions of the female experience for any woman, not just those in Japan. Her work is a true hidden gem, and I recommend it to anyone who likes some serious topics disguised under fun and powerful characters that you truly get attached to by the end.

Recommendation: Beasts and Eggs (2019)

Dolly Alderton

A true role model to me as a fellow journalist, I have  read every book by Dolly Alderton to date, from when I found out about her Dear Dolly column in The Sunday Times – even more so because she went to the same university as me.

I would recommend her work to anyone struggling to persevere through their own struggles as a woman in her late teens to early-to-mid-twenties. From body image, mental health, to securing a job, dating, and even socialising or finding a house share – Alderton’s work is raw, honest, and revolutionary in the way it is able to relate to so many individual lived experiences. 

What makes her stand out so much is her ability to turn even the negative topics into life lessons, and I aspire to have the same effect on people in my writing.

Recommendation: Everything I Know About Love (2018)