Maris Kreizman Recommends Jade Sharma, Nettie Jones, and More
Weird girl lit is having a moment. From TikTok videos to front tables at indie bookshops and in countless newsletters, a group of seemingly ubiquitous novels are being grouped together like ingredients for a distinctive personality type. The weird girl novel is narrated by a young woman who is kind of losing it. She’s self-destructive, but she often has a sense of humor about it. She tends to cultivate obsessions, with people or with ideas, which may or may not involve an element of the surreal. She’s an unpredictable, unwieldy heroine, or anti-heroine, as the case may be, and we are the mess-lovers who can’t wait to see what kind of trouble she’ll get into next.Article continues after advertisement
As a reformed weird girl, I’m here to tell you that the category designation may be new, but books for and about weird girls have existed for a long time. We love Ottessa Moshfegh, but she didn’t invent weird girls, nor did Mona Awad. Nor, for that matter, did Sylvia Plath or any of the Bronte sisters. Below you’ll find a list, by no means comprehensive, of some of the titles that I recommend once you’ve conquered Weird Girls 101 and are ready to advance to the next level.
