The best books to accompany your sad girl aesthetic

V.C. Andrews was my first dive into gothic fiction. Fans often fawn over Flowers in the Attic but something about Andrews' only standalone book (let's not talk about the sequel!) really spoke to 14-year-old me.

I loved the isolating setting of the aging Whitefern estate. I hated every member of the family. Audrina herself is an unreliable narrator who assures the reader just how unreliable she is. And so, of course, when a boy shows her interest, she dives headfirst into her only source of comfort.

Teenage me was smitten with this book, and adult me now sees all the red flags these characters wave. Andrews might not have been the best writer, but her storytelling ability sure cut into my coming-of-age female psyche like no other writer could.

I hated my name growing up. It sounded too harsh and severe. Unpretty. When I was 16, I found a copy of Rebecca at a thrift store. I bought it, thinking, "Maybe this book will make me like my name."

I was shocked when I discovered Rebecca wasn't even the book's main character. Rebecca was dead and still managed to haunt the characters with a steely hand. I devoured this book as a teenager, savoring every twist and turn.

One of my teachers even caught me reading it and class and asked if I anything like Rebecca de Winter and I said, "No!" But I honestly did kind of want to be like her. And yes, by the end, I did very much like my name.

Thanks to my religious conservative upbringing, I grew up naive and innocent. I learned a lot about life really quick when I entered college. I partied and made mistakes and definitely have my fair share of shame and regret.

However, reading this book even as an adult was still eye-opening. Life of the Party follows Mia, a fashion student living in Milan who lives the most chaotic life imaginable. She parties hard. She drinks endlessly. She wears outfits I'd never dare try on.

Mia couldn't be anything like rigid careful me, but I still resonated with her choices. I empathized with her trauma. I reveled in every small victory she has. Mia helped me realize just how much of the female experience is universal.

I find dramatizations of true crime events a bit distasteful, which is why The Girls is exactly my cup of tea.

The book follows Evie, an isolated 1960s suburban teen who finds comfort in a Manson-inspired cult. A man named Russell is the elusive leader, but it's that character of Suzanne that draws Evie to the dirty ranch where the cult lives, loves, and eventually plots murder. Suzanne isn't caring or nuturing, but provides Evie with blunt doses of female reality.

There are moments in this book that really resonated with me, particularly in the moments where Suzanne functions as a matriarch, despite being just as vulnerable as Evie. She is both desperate for control, yet prone to manipulation, which we all now know is the sort of emotional environment that can cause us to act out in the worst of ways.

I picked up this book on a whim and was lured by the premise, which essentially lays out the story of a woman who marries a successful man at the turn of the century.

It's your standard "wealthy family has everything but they're all miserable" book but with Edwardian vibes. The narrative follows every member of the family, the saga of which I found so riveting. There was a bit of romance and angst and loneliness, specifically around the book's protagonist, Ursula.

This book resonated with me in a way that similar books haven't, which goes to show just what period drama can do, showing you that humans still struggle with the same stuff, no matter the time or place, but with a dash of romantic gothic aesthetic to make it fun.