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Books for Teenage Girls

You know there's more to life than shopping, shoes and popularity contests. But you wouldn't know that from the books for teenage girls you see at the bookstore. Not to mention the movies and tv shows! Either it's a romance, a damsel-in-distress story, or a drama queen you can't relate to. If there's a "quirky" or "artistic" character, she quickly ditches the glasses, gets the guy and settles down--not exactly the best message, or the most original plot.

Maybe you try classic literature, but find yourself equally disappointed. Either there are no female characters, or there are and they're all hysterical, idiotic, or evil--sometimes all three, depending on how insane or neurotic the writer was.

Or maybe you've found a few feminist books that piqued your curiosity, and want to find more. Whatever your impetus, you're sure to find something to your liking in the list below.

Note: This list is constantly being updated. New books will appear periodically.

Books By Teenage Girls

A still from Frankenstein, the movie.

Mary Shelley started writing Frankenstein as a short story, but, with her lover's encouragement, turned it into a fully formed novel. The manuscript was begun when she was 18 and published two years later.Frankenstein is widely considered the first science fiction novel. Its subtitle, The Modern Prometheus, alludes to the Greek myth where Prometheus stole fire from the Gods, thus rebelling against the laws of nature, as Dr. Frankenstein does by reanimating a dead man, and is therefore punished for his rebellion.

My Brilliant Career, by Miles Franklin, follows the frustrated efforts of a young, intelligent feminist to establish a "brilliant career" as a writer in the Australian outback. Written by Franklin at age sixteen, this book is very well written and deals quite honestly with the frustrations of its heroine in trying to get an education, an income, and artistic recognition in the patriarchal world of outback Australia.

Francoise Sagan wrote her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse, at age 18. The novel follows Cécile through a summer with her father and his girlfriend Anne. Cécile's mother is dead, and Anne serves as a surrogate mother figure, but as Cécile grows older and more mature, she grows to resent Anne and tries to establish her own independence, with limited success.The novel became a scandal on its publication, not just because of Sagan's youth, but the frank treatment of young sexuality. Sagan went on to a long career as a writer, writing over two dozen books in her life, including plays, novels and autobiographies.

Related Interest

In the Forests of the Night, by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes.

The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank.

The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton.

Things I Have to Tell You: Poems and Writing by Teenage Girls.

Books About Teenage Girls

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, follows Jane, the eponymous heroine, through her childhood, her life at school, and her life as a governess. Jane is not especially good looking, but she is smart and remarkably capable. When she marries a man, she tells the reader in this sentence: "Reader, I married him," showing Jane's agency in her own life.

Carson McCullers published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, at age twenty-three. Though the protagonist is a deaf man, it also follows Mick Kelly, a young girl on the cusp of puberty, struggling to grow up and make friends. Another novel, The Member of the Wedding, describes the inner life of a young tomboy named Frankie, who is trying to belong in her own family.

Rose Of No Man's Land, by Michelle Tea, is about a teenager in Mogsfield, Massachusetts, with a boring life, a negligent, dysfunctional family and a grim social life. Her life changes literally overnight when a new friend, Rose, takes her on a drug- and sex-fuelled adventure. This is a good antidote to the unrelenting poshness of teen movies and films, where all the characters seem to have cars, trust funds, and swear-censoring v-chips installed in their brains. The characters in Rose of No Man's Land are realistic and developed, not to mention their lives--living in a dumpy town with not a lot of prospects--are a lot closer to reality than the pampered teens you see on 90210. Tea's autobiography, The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruptions of One Girl in America, describes her own adolescence and evolution.

Empress of the World, by Sara Ryan, tells the story of a teenage girl who falls in love with a girl...even though she's straight. It deals with the narrator's confusion and attempts to come to grips with her life.

I also like books by Banana Yoshimoto, a Japanese author. Her books combine a dry, spare sense of humor with interesting psychological insight. Her books usually have young, female protagonists, which make them all the more relatable. I especially recommend Goodbye Tsugumi, about the friendship between two young cousins.

Related Interest:

Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-FattahBaby Girl by Lenora AdamsBroken Moon by Kim AntieauIn the Time of the Butterflies by Julia AlvarezAsk Me No Questions by Marina BudhosAnnie On My Mind by Nancy GardenThe Basic Eight by Daniel HandlerNihilist Girl by Sofia Kovalevskaya (see Mathematics, below)Such A Pretty Girl by Laura WiessStory of a Girl by Sara Zarr Why not write books for teenage girls yourself? Novel-writing-help.com is a comprehensive, and easily accessible, guide to writing

Activist Resources

Things aren't going to change unless you change them. If, however, you're intimidated by political organizing, I recommend Going Public: An Organizer's Guide to Citizen Action by Michael Gecan. The book shows you that organizing is fairly easy to do, even if you're still in high school. It provides plenty of examples, and focuses on tactics, not specifically issues. I also highly recommend Grassroots: A Field Guide to Feminist Activism.

If you're not scared (and why should you be?), Activist's Handbook "does what it says on the tin," with examples from many different campaigns showing what worked and what didn't. The book offers advice on how to set an agenda, plan a course of action, and deal with every different area of activism, and potential allies or foes, from elected officials to lawyers. Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now!, has written a book on Standing UP to the Madness with her husband. Also interesting are Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals, both by the first community organizer, Saul Alinsky.

Half The Sky, by Kristof and DuWunn, has been described as a "call to arms" so much I feel silly typing it. The book details the "gendercide" which women in the developing world experience, and offers recommendations for women in the developed world of how they can help.

Interested in starting a zine? A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World is a collection of writing from girl zines, on topics from Patti Smith to politics to poetry. The book doesn't quite live up to the promise of its title, but it's an inspiring read nonetheless. You might also like the Stolen Sharpie Revolution.

Manifesta provides a good overview of the American feminist movement, a guide for third wave feminists, and ideas for issues you can tackle.

I also highly recommend Managing Activism from the PR in Practice series. This is a good book "from the other side," which will give you ideas about what you'll be up against, what strategies will be used (by corporations and other vested interests) to undermine you.

Art

Are you interested in making art? I would strongly recommend you read If You Want To Write by Brenda Ueland, even if you don't want to write. The book is useful, even essential, if you want to paint, sculpt, direct, compose, or anything that involves using your imagination. I also recommend, though not as strongly, How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.

If you're interesting in art but not in starving, The Artist's Guide, by Jackie Battenfield, provides a realistic guide to how to survive as an artist, which is realistic without being caustic or cynical.

What about the history of women in art? Art and Feminism is a primer on feminist art throughout history. For a more irreverent take, or if you're not so familiar with the subject, you might try the Guerilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. If you're looking for contemporary feminist art, try Global Feminisms: New Directions in Contemporary Art, which profiles women artists from more than 50 countries.

Comics

Ghost World.

You might already know Ghost World, Daniel Clowes's comic about two teenage girls trapped in suburbia. If you do, you know what a good book it is; if not, you are missing out. Throughout the book, we follow Enid and Rebecca, two disaffected teenagers, in the summer after their high school graduation. They both talk like actual teenage girls, not the stilted, incredible, swear-less banter you see in teen movies.

The heroine of Revolutionary Girl Utena decides to become a prince instead of a princess. At her junior high school, she dresses in a boy's uniform, joins the basketball team, and strives to be as courageous and noble as is possible. Through a ruse, she gets sucked into a strange game, where different students duel to "possess" another student. This infuriates her––after all, it's wrong to possess a human being! She "wins" this student but tries, with incremental success, to convince the poor girl that she, too, is human, not a pawn in a game. Ultimately Utena succeeds, both in becoming a prince and in liberating her friend--but at a terrible price.

Revolutionary Girl Utena is a manga, a t.v. show, and a movie. All three are very clever at turning the princess myth on its head. The show is psychologically complex in a way few tv shows, never mind animated tv shows, are; in spite of inhabiting a fantastical world, the characters are--figuratively!--three dimensional.

Diary of a Teenage Girl, by Phoebe Gloeckner, is a sometimes disturbing but always well done. The book deals with the complexities of drug and sexual abuse through the eyes of a teenager who doesn't quite know what's going on. The narrator of this doesn't even pretend to be cool, detached, or ironic, although she's clearly very intelligent, which is a nice change of pace. The book fuses the world of a teenage girl and 1970s, burned-out San Francisco, which makes an interesting combination.

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is an autobiography, done in comics, of Bechdel's dysfunctional family, and the relationship between her and her closeted gay father. The book is intellectually engaging, well written and well drawn.

Trina Robbins's excellent anthology, From Girls to Grrrlz, covers the history of women in comics, from Little Lulu to Tank Girl and beyond.

Related Interest:My Brain Hurts by Liz Ballie
Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett and others
Bellybutton by Sophie Crumb
Cat and Girl by Dorothy Gambrell
Promethea by Alan Moore

Drug Use and Abuse

Perhaps you're worried that the war on drugs is a cover-up for the war on the poor. The pharmaceutical industry unnerves you with its chilling and cynical manipulation. You could be concerned about the teenage drug use you see everywhere. Maybe you're worried about your own drug use, or the use of one of your friends. Whatever the case, there is something for you to read.

If you're worried about yourself, or a friend, whose drug use seems to be out of control, please call 1 800 784 6776, or 1 561 295 2940 if you're outside of the U.S., to get help. If the person is in a crisis situation, you can get immediate help at 1 800 567 5986. Don't wait until it's too late.
A List of Mental Health Hotlines.

Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs is a scientifically accurate, unbiased guide to different recreational drugs. If someone once told you that smoking pot will make you gay, or that LSD users always commit suicide, Buzzed is an honest antidote to the fearmongering done by some adults.

The Drug Abuse Prevention Library is a series of useful books about teenagers who become addicted or are at risk of becoming addicted to drugs. The books are written at about a twelve-year-old level, which means the issues, like Drugs and Stress, When a Friend Has a Drug Problem, Drugs and the Pressure to Be Perfect, are all written about with anecdotes and declarative statements. The books are expensive; you might ask your library, at school or in your town, to order them.

Interested in the wider history of the war on drugs? Meredith Maran's Dirty will give you perspective on how teenagers get hooked on drugs and why the system doesn't help them, despite its stated purpose. Reefer Madness is an expose of the drug war's staggering hypocrisy.

If you're concerned about the pharmaceutical industry, you are for a good reason. I recommend Marcia Angell's eye-opening The Truth About the Drug Companies for starters.

Please also see our article on Mental Health for Teenage Girls.

Related Interest:

Perfect Daughters: Adult Daughters of Alcoholics by Robert J. AckermanWasted by Marya HornbacherSmashed by Koren Zailckas

GLB Resources (Transgender Resources below)

Outing Yourself by Michelangelo Signorile

GLBTQ: The Survival Guide for Queer and Questioning Teens by Kelly Huegel

Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth and Their Allies by Ellen Bass

History

Is your history textbook a 15-pound hardcover full of sentences like "The French revolution was started because of peasant disconent."? Find the antidote to this nonsense in A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Zinn, a noted historian and activist, tells the unvarnished and uncensored truth about American history, including genocide of the Native Americans, the oppression of slaves, immigrants and women, the anti-birth-control hysteria, and the heroic people, most largely forgotten, who fought against this.

Related Interest:

A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich
No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women by Estelle Freedman
Living My Life by Emma Goldman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
Herstory by Ruth Ashby
A People's History of Poverty in America by Stephen Pimpare

Mathematics

Sorry, Barbie, but math class is fun when you know what you're doing. If you don't, don't worry. Mathematics for the Million by Lancelot Hogbe is a great place to start if the idea of algebra makes you wince with distaste.

If, however, you have ever been told "You're pretty good at math--for a girl," I highly recommend learning about Sofia Kovalevskaya, perhaps the greatest female mathematician in history. Her novel, Nihilist Girl, covers the life of a talented and smart young woman trying to find a cause to live for. Her life was turned into historical fiction by Joan Spicci, in Beyond the Limit: The Dream of Sofia Kovalevskaya.

Related Interest:

Mathematics of Sex by Stephen Ceci and Wendy Williams
Women In Mathematics by Claudia Henrion

Mental Health Resources

If you are feeling suicidal, please call 1 800 SUICIDE or 1 800 999 999 now, or check this listing of hotlines for one near you.
You can also check this listing for mental health hotlines.

Please see our article on Mental Health for Teenage Girls to find recommended readings.

Transgender Resources

My Gender Workbook, by Kate Bornstein, is a fun and funny guide to gender and how to live with (or without) it. The book is written in English, not postmodernish, yet it isn't condescending or cutesy. I enjoyed this book immensely, as well as Gender Outlaw by the same author.

Julia Serano's Whipping Girl is a reflection on feminism and culture by a transgender scientist. Though the book is fascinating, it seems to me to be geared towards people like me, who don't know much about the transgender experience, and haven't reflected on it. However, if you find that nobody seems to speak (let alone understand) the same language as you, this can be a wonderful book to read, and to give to confused friends and family.

Leslie Feinberg is a deservedly well-known transgender activist. Hir novel Stone Butch Blues is a deeply moving account of Jess Goldberg, who is not sure if she is male, female or somewhere in between. After spending time passing as a man, Goldberg decides to stop taking hormones, and finds him/herself stranded somewhere in between, with no place in the gay rights or the women's rights movements. Feinberg's book, Trans Liberation, is a collection of essays and speeches, by Feinberg and a few other writers.

For a slightly off-topic read, Intersex and Identity by Sharon E. Preves is an informative and emotionally stimulating book, on children whose genitalia is born "somewhere in between." Doctors traditionally responded by surgically forcing the babies to be one gender or another, before they were old enough to speak or say what they wanted, resulting in many emotional complications.

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