2017 was a bang on year for feminist victories. From the Womenโs March in January and the subsequent record number of women running for political offices, to the #MeToo movement, 2017 has been a remarkable year for women.
Thatโs why weโve pulled together a list of some of the best feminist books from the year, so we can head into 2018 with a burst of girl power to take us over the finish line.
Take a look below at 21 of the best feminist books of the year:
1
"Stay With Me" by Ayobami Adebayo

From Goodreads: "Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage--after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures--Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time--until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife." Get it here.
2
"Sing, Unburied, Sing" by Jesmyn Ward

From Goodreads: "Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. His mother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is black and her childrenโs father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she wants to be a better mother, but canโt put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use." Get it here.
3
"The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas

From Goodreads: "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed." Get it here.
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4
"Sour Heart" by Jenny Zhang

From Goodreads: "Centered on a community of immigrants who have traded their endangered lives as artists in China and Taiwan for the constant struggle of life at the poverty line in 1990s New York City, Zhangโs collection examines the many ways that family and history can weigh us down and also lift us up." Get it here.
5
"Refuge" by Dina Nayeri

From Goodreads: "A moving immigrant story that looks at the larger contemporary refugee experience. Refuge charts the deeply moving lifetime relationship between a father and a daughter, seen through the prism of global immigration." Get it here.
6
"What Happened" by Hillary Rodham Clinton

From Goodreads: "For the first time, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history." Get it here.
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7
"Dear Martin" by Nic Stone

From Goodreads: "Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy Leagueโbut none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can't escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates." Get it here.
8
"The Not So Subtle Art Of Being A Fat Girl" by Tess Holliday

From Goodreads: "Plus-size supermodel Tess Hollidayโs passionate plea for modern women, whoever and wherever they are, to be comfortable in their own skin. In her first book, she shares her powerful personal story and offers inspiration and tips to women everywhere that will help them not merely survive, but thrive and chart their own course to acceptance, power, and true beauty." Get it here.
9
"The Mother Of All Questions" by Rebecca Solnit

From Goodreads: "In this follow-up to Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit offers commentary on women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the gender binary, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more." Get it here.
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10
"History Is All You Left Me" by Adam Silvera

From Goodreads: "From the New York Times bestselling author of More Happy Than Not comes an explosive examination of grief, mental illness, and the devastating consequences of refusing to let go of the past." Get it here.
11
"Difficult Women" by Roxane Gay

From Goodreads: "The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail....From a girlsโ fight club to a wealthy subdivision in Florida where neighbors conform, compete, and spy on each other, Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America reminiscent of Merritt Tierce, Jamie Quatro, and Miranda July." Get it here.
12
"Large Animals" by Jess Arndt

From Kirkus Reviews: "Teetering between the everyday and the surreal, Arndtโs debut collection investigates narratives of the queer body." Get it here.
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13
"The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit Of Happiness" by Jill Filipovic

From Goodreads: "What do women want? The same thing men were promised in the Declaration of Independence: happiness, or at least the freedom to pursue it." Get it here.
14
"Too Much And Not The Mood" by Durga Chew-Bose

From Goodreads: "On April 11, 1931, Virginia Woolf ended her entry in A Writerโs Diary with the words โtoo much and not the mood.โ She was describing how tired she was of correcting her own writing, of the 'cramming in and the cutting out' to please other readers, wondering if she had anything at all that was truly worth saying. The character of that sentiment, the attitude of it, inspired Durga Chew-Bose to write and collect her own work." Get it here.
15
"Somebody With A Little Hammer" by Mary Gaitskill

From Goodreads: "From one of the most singular presences in American fiction comes a searingly intelligent book of essays on matters literary, social, cultural, and personal." Get it here.
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16
"The Rules Do Not Apply" by Ariel Levy

From Goodreads: "When thirty-eight-year-old New Yorker writer Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true. Her own story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed--and of what is eternal." Get it here.
17
"Hunger" by Roxane Gay

From Goodreads: "From the bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself." Get it here.
18
"Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From Goodreads: "A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response." Get it here.
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19
"All Grown Up" by Jami Attenberg

From Goodreads: "From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middlesteins comes a wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection." Get it here.
20
"There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncรฉ" by Morgan Parker

From Goodreads: "There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncรฉ uses political and pop-cultural references as a framework to explore 21st century black American womanhood and its complexities: performance, depression, isolation, exoticism, racism, femininity, and politics." Get it here.
21
"All The Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen To Be Famous Strangers" by Alana Massey

From Goodreads: "From columnist and critic Alana Massey, a collection of essays examining the intersection of the personal with pop culture through the lives of pivotal female figures--from Sylvia Plath to Britney Spears--in the spirit of Chuck Klosterman, with the heart of a true fan." Get it here.
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