2021 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge, Feminist-Style: Part I

It’s that time of the year again! Here are some feminist-flavored recommendations for the 2021 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge. I’m not doing recommendations for the entire list since several of the prompts are so personal (example: TBR lists), but about 2/3 of the prompts will be on here. Part II will go up in a couple of days:

An Afrofuturist book

• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett
• Fledgling by Octavia Butler
• How Long ’til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

A dark academia book

• Bunny by Mona Awad
• Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
• Wilder Girls by Rory Power

A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title

• The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky by Ellen Meloy
• Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
• Ruby by Cynthia Bond
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

A book that has won the Women’s Prize For Fiction

• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
• Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
• Small Island by Andrea Levy
• The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

A book with a family tree

• Cane River by Lalita Tademy
• Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan
• The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

A bestseller from the 1990s

• Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
• The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
• Sex by Madonna
• Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan

A book about forgetting

• Before I Forget: How I Survived a Diagnosis of Younger-Onset Dementia at 46 by Christine Bryden
• The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
• Sheets by Brenna Thummler
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova
• Where the Light Gets In by Kimberly Williams-Paisley

A locked-room mystery

• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• The Guest List by Lucy Foley
• Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
• An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena
• The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

A book set in a restaurant

• Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
• Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber
• Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
• Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev

A book with a black-and-white cover

• The Bone People by Keri Hulme
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
• Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Rebecca Solnit
• One Life by Megan Rapinoe
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

A book by an Indigenous author

• Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
• Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo
• Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
• Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq
• This Is Paradise: Stories by Kristiana Kahakauwila

A book that has the same title as a song

• All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister
• Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski
• Lucy in the Sky by Paige Toon
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
• Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

A book found on a Black Lives Matter reading list

Earlier this year, I published a BLM reading list here.

A book set mostly or entirely outdoors

• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich
• Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald
• Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

A book by a Muslim American author

• All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney
• Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed
• Once Upon an Eid ed. by S.K. Ali & Aisha Saeed
• The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy
• That Can Be Arranged: A Muslim Love Story by Huda Fahmy

A book with an oxymoron in the title

• Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account Of The Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate by Helen Prejean
• Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
• My Happy Sad Mummy by Michelle Vasiliu & Lucia Masciullo
• The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
• The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

A magical realism book

• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Color Master: Stories by Aimee Bender
• The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
• St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell