The best books that make you say: yas, queen!

In Alderman’s novel, young women get the power to electrocute others by touch overnight, and the young women are then able to awaken this power in the older women.

In a very short space of time, the world’s power structure is flipped on its head as women realize that they no longer have to fear nor submit to the strength of men.

The novel follows multiple characters in different facets of society, we see these changes evolve through the eyes of a political figure, a mob boss’s daughter, a troubled teen who founds a new religion, a handsome male reporter, and many others.

I loved the questions her novel raised in me about the true nature of power and how so many acts we normalize as gender-based, have nothing to do with gender at all and everything to do with power dynamics between the strong and the weak.

This book was wildly influential when I was writing the first book in my series: Contest of Queens. As I was writing a story set in a matriarchy, there were a few elements to this that I shied away from as I thought it would alienate readers.

But reading this novel emphasised that I hadn’t pushed the envelope enough, and inspired me to dig much deeper into the “what ifs” of a woman-run world.

Another huge influence on my series, this book follows a female guard as she overcomes baddies and her own social anxiety.

I loved the portrayal of a strong female lead who wasn’t an emotionless tank. She had her own limitations, she upheld positive relationships with her friends, she cared, she was vulnerable, and she still got the job done. When writing my own women-led military, I needed a reason why men would be barred from serving.

This novel had female guards working in pairs and I loved this idea. Women working together to topple bigger, stronger criminals by outmaneuvering their foes became the focus of my military. 

A bildungsroman for women.

Until I read this book, I hadn’t read a coming-of-age story that focused on womanhood (it would be a few more years until I read Jane Eyre). I don’t think I realized all of the nuanced experiences that reading books about boys becoming men obviously couldn’t explore.

This book was like a lightning strike through my soul, and reading about a woman growing up and trying to make a name for herself in a male-oriented field (science), really exposed all of the invisible barriers women face.

She is raised with every opportunity, and yet barred from entering many scientific fields simply because of her sex. Finding a loophole in the field of botany, she is able to flourish. Together with her attempts to navigate her relationships with the women and men in her life, it is just such an important book. 

This one I read when I was much younger and think about often.

Georgia, a tomboy with an awful stepbrother and a serious lack of parental support, makes friends with an old man in an antique store who gives her the key to traveling to another world.

What sticks with me most about this book is that she spends the majority of it ashamed of her own skin, hiding who she is, dressing as a boy, and shrinking from who she truly is. Throughout the course of the novel, she finds her voice, discovers her strength, and claims the beauty what she has to offer the world.

This was such an important book when I was a teenager, as I felt incredibly uncomfortable in my rapidly changing body. To read about a girl who earns her own love was truly empowering.

In the era of Bridgerton and in the wake of 2005’s Pride and Prejudice film, my heart has been swallowed whole by regency era period pieces.

This novel has the best banter I have ever read. The female lead, Abigail, considers herself a spinster (in her *gasp* late twenties) and thus past the age of romance. She resigns herself to caring for her very high-maintenance relatives. Until she meets Mr. Calverleigh.

She is so determined to loathe him, but can’t help but be charmed by his conversation. I loved watching this independent woman learn to put herself first and reluctantly fall in love with the last person she expected.