If writing helps makes sense of the world, then reading lets us explore it.

Harpy was created by women who love reading. For us, books can provide treasured glimpses into the multifaceted, painful, beautiful, inner lives of other women. From the spellbinding memoir of Carmen Maria Machado, to the hilarious personal essays of Samantha Irby, we’ve selected a few of our favourite books by women that we’re sure you’ll enjoy.

So, whether you read to seek new realities, or see yours reflected back to you, waste no time delving into the literary worlds below…

You Exist Too Much, by Zaina Arafat

This unforgettable debut from Zaina Arafat darts between vignettes from the life of a Palestinian-American woman navigating bisexuality, addiction, and turbulent relationships.

Arafat captures the reader’s attention effortlessly, her gentle touch and wry humour coaxing us through the trauma that lies at the heart of this novel. Whether it’s trembling desire, hapless apathy or cathartic rage, the various expressions of her protagonist’s quest for love are at once tragic, endearing - and totally seductive.

Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid

In Such a Fun Age, Reid manages to pack a shrewd social commentary on class, race and privilege into a deliciously readable package. Her protagonist, Emira, is a young, Black babysitter, employed by Alix, a wealthy white feminist with a book deal. When Emira is filmed in an altercation with a racist security guard, her life will become increasingly entangled in Alix’s White Guilt and highly-curated personal history.

Reid’s handling of Alix’s character is masterful. She creates a totally three-dimensional antagonist, so believable that you feel you must know her (or, god forbid, be her). Meanwhile, Emira’s struggle to find her feet after college is a relatable and empowering tale for anyone trying to figure out who they are in a world that insists on perceiving them only one way.

The Girl with the Louding Voice, by Abi Daré

Adunni is just fourteen when she’s forced to marry a man old enough to be her father. Abused, bereaved, and robbed of freedom, she dreams of getting an education - and of growing a “louding voice” so that she can speak up on behalf of herself and the girls of Nigeria.

Abi Daré peppers the novel with statistics from The Book of Nigerian Facts, highlighting the country’s economic power as well as its deep rooted inequality. Though the novel explores difficult issues, it remains imbued with warmth and humour. Adunni’s unique, witty perspective on the characters she encounters, as well as a handful poignant female friendships, will sustain her and you as you embark on this journey together.

We are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby

A selection of essays which covers everything from cats to abusive fathers to shitting yourself at the side of the road (with witnesses) – this book is bursting with the relatable grotesque of everyday life.

Regardless of the subject matter, Irby’s writing is consistently filthy, self-deprecating, and full of throwaway ‘fucks’ in all the right places. But while her brutal self-reflection will occasionally have you reading through splayed fingers, she gloriously grants herself permission to be whoever she needs to, and that’s contagious.

Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo

Evaristo takes a rich variety of perspectives and weaves them together in a single book; presenting each intimate story in its own right, rather than as a footnote to an overarching narrative. This modern masterpiece reminds us that there is no single archetypal experience of Black British women, allowing each story to ring out, diverse, real, and incredibly current.

Written almost in verse, every sentence of Girl, Woman, Other moves forward with minimal punctuation. The style actually makes the book surprisingly readable as it flows in conversation, navigates inner monologues, and tackles universal issues in a way that is natural and innately human.

In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado

Fans of Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other will enjoy similar themes in this memoir from the author of Her Body and Other Parties. Although In the Dream House recalls Machado’s own real life experiences, its dreamlike prose captures all the rhythms and atmosphere of fiction.

Machado addresses her memoir self as “you”, enveloping the reader in an intimate, confessional space which soon becomes treacherous. Each chapter title connects the titular symbolic dream house to literary motif(‘Dream House as Picaresque’, ‘Dream House as Lesbian Cult Classic’, ‘Dream House as Bildungsroman’ etc.), but what unfolds within resists the formula of genre. Instead, Machado burns through the fantasies of literary romance tropes to tell a very necessary, and very moving tale.

Lullaby, by Leila Slimani

International bestseller and winner of the Prix Goncourt, Lullaby begins with one explosive sentence: “The baby is dead.” Simmering with domestic tension throughout, this novel mercilessly deconstructs the middle-class nuclear family. When Myriam returns to work after her second baby, she takes on a nanny to help with childcare – but trauma lurks beneath Louise’s subdued exterior.

Thoughtfully probing privilege within the context of motherhood, and offering subtle commentary on the status of both paid and unpaid household labour, Slimani will make you think too hard - in the best possible way.

The Mothers, by Brit Bennett

Brit Bennett is perhaps better known for The New York Times bestseller The Vanishing Half, but her debut novel is just as immersive.

Set in Southern California, The Mothers is partly narrated by the collective voice of nameless Black matriarchs within a parochial community. Their oppressive judgement stalks the novel’s main character, Nadia Turner, as she navigates relationships, her body, and her grief, as a young woman. Bennett’s vivid characters give her writing life as she deftly handles the social obstacle course that is being a young Black woman in conservative America.

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Title image by April Mepham.