Fantastic Females (Read a book with an inspiring female character)
June 2, 2022
These are stories about women who demonstrates courage, perseverance, and independence. These women trust their instincts, follow their dreams, and shape their destiny, discovering themselves and their place in the world.
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading “with murderous attention,” must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
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The French Gift by Kirsty Manning
The little-known true story of the women who were enslaved by German forces in WWII. A forgotten manuscript that threatens to unravel the past. This historical novel about murder, secrets, and is a tender and heartbreaking story of female friendship, sacrifice and loss, and the promise of new love.
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
The unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator’s lifelong love affair with flight. At the age of fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy patron who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
A story about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities.
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His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
“It’s all about the search for independence and being true to yourself and who you really are.” (Reese Witherspoon). Afi Tekple is a young seamstress in Ghana. She is smart; she is pretty; and she has been convinced by her mother to marry a man she does not know. A witty, smart, and moving debut novel about a brave young woman traversing the minefield of modern life. Afi is a delightfully spunky and relatable heroine who just may break all the rules.
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The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Adunni is a young Nigerian woman who is trapped in a life of servitude but determined to get an education. Her mother has told her this is the only way to get a “louding voice”-the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing. But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it.
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
Imagine a rebellious, ambitious young woman named Ana, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit, raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her, until an encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything. The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman’s bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her.
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The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
A story set in two eras: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s Creole half-sister, set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest in the tumultuous era of Reconstruction in Louisiana, 1875. Louisiana, 1987: First-year teacher Benedetta Silva lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town and discovers century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.
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The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
A remarkable story of friendship and courage centered around three women and a ring of female secret agents during World War II. Women who were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but never returned home, their fates a mystery. Vividly rendered and inspired by true events, a mesmerizing tale of courage, sisterhood, and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of circumstances.
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
Hedy Lamarr, screen star, possessed a stunning beauty and a stunning mind. Could the world handle both? Married to an Austrian arms dealer and underestimated in everything else, she overheard the Third Reich’s plans while at her husband’s side. But she kept a secret more shocking than her heritage or her marriage, and she knew a few secrets about the enemy. She had an idea that might help the country fight the Nazis…if anyone would listen to her.
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