The benefits of reading are endless. From finding answers to life’s most sought-after questions, personal inspiration or the feeling of a warm hug and a sense of visibility when an author writes a story that feels like it came directly from your personal diary, there is a book out there for everyone. There can also be books that feel designed for certain periods in one’s life. Here are four books every woman in their twenties ought to read.
“The Group” by Mary McCarthy
For fans of “Sex and the City,” ever wonder where the inspiration for the four distinctively fabulous women came from? The eight Vassar graduates of Mary McCarthy’s 1963 novel “The Group” became the inspiration for journalist Candance Bushnell’s collection of essays on sex, dating and everything else taboo in the 1990s, and later, the hit TV show of the same name.
This story follows college-graduate women in the 1930s as they each pursue their unique life paths, from traditional domestic households to more unconventional ways of living. McCarthy’s original work, published in 1963, was scandalous at the time for its open discussion of contraceptives, socialism and sex, all from the viewpoint of the supposedly pure college graduate women. There are also underlying queer tones.
The novel exemplifies female friendships that outlast the tumultuous changes that come after one’s graduation cap is thrown. While the novel was particularly radical in suggesting, and according to critics, promoting alternative lifestyles for women outside of the domestic sphere, it still holds up for women in their twenties today. This story reminds women that they have the power to choose their own fates, and they should cling to their best friends as they do so.
“Everything I Know About Love” by Dolly Alderton
This may be the quintessential memoir every girl in her twenties must read. After all, Alderton is the source of the trending TikTok sound, “Nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learned from my long-term friendships with women.”
In this hilarious memoir, Alderton traces all of her past love experiences, setting up the reader for a revelation about romantic love. What she provides instead is an authentic confession about how her life has been shaped far more by her female friends than any potential partners. Whether you personally can relate to Alderton’s outrageous and downright stupid decisions when she is young or, if you are like me and you are definitely a Farly, Alderton’s more sensible best friend, her conclusions about the power of love between female friends is something every woman in their twenties ought to know. As Alderton suggests, men may come and go, but the friends who stay with you through all your dumb, adolescent mistakes are worth keeping around and investing in.
“A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf
In this classic feminist essay, Virginia Woolf narrates the history of women writers and their historical lack of free expression and equal opportunity as their male counterparts. But don’t be alarmed by the word “classic” because this essay is both easy to digest and immensely worth the time.
This essay hits everything. Published in 1929, Woolf discusses the state of education for women, the lack of financial independence that leads women to need marriage in order to survive, the few women of her time who have achieved mainstream literary success and more. However, perhaps most radical in Woolf’s essay is her honest confrontation of queer relationships between women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as she writes, “Then I may tell you that the very next words I read were these – ‘Chloe liked Olivia …’ Do not start. Do not blush. Let us admit in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen. Sometimes women do like women.” Woolf’s essay is a worthy read both for its significance for the time period, but also because it still holds up today in feminist and gender theory.
“Heartburn” by Nora Ephron
While books can offer powerful advice for women in their twenties, there are also books that are just downright delightful to read. This farcical short novel follows food critic Rachel, who learns her husband is cheating on her…while she is pregnant with their child.
Ephron has gained more notoriety as a screenwriter for iconic films such as “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless in Seattle,” but she actually first gained her prominence as a journalist. The real kicker about this funny story about a sad experience is that it is not-so-subtly based on her own unsuccessful marriage to Carl Bernstein–yes, that “All the President’s Men” Carl Berstein.
“Heartburn” is a sardonic look into married life, but more importantly, it is the story of a woman who learns that her worth is separate from her relationship status. As a bonus, the novel happens to be full of recipes, which provide cooking tips and tricks between the story of a breaking marriage.
