Books About Nasty Women?

“Nasty Women” is a title which has become part of everyday parlance since Donald Trump called Hilary Clinton a nasty woman in the third presidential debate.  It is a title many women have appropriated and use with pride.

This phrase came to mind when I came across a BookRiot article entitled “100 Must-Read Books with Unlikable Women”; this list features women who “refuse to be boxed into the idea of what girls, women, mothers, sisters, and girlfriends should be. They refuse to smile through their problems, to not be a burden, to make the right decisions, to play nice. They are human. They are hot messes. They have mental illnesses, are addicts, are aggressive, violent, complicated, and flawed. They are many times products of abuse and/or gaslighting. Sometimes they are killers. Sometimes they are just unlikable.”  See the list at http://bookriot.com/2017/03/20/100-must-read-unlikable-women/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Riot%20Rundown&utm_term=BookRiot_TheRiotRundown_Tue-Thur. 

I’ve read 16 of these books.  Here are my reviews of nine of them:

The Widow by Fiona Barton:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/search?q=fiona+barton

The Girls by Emma Cline:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2017/03/review-of-girls-by-emma-cline.html

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2015/08/review-of-dark-places-by-gillian-flynn.html

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/search?q=gone+girl

Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2017/01/review-of-under-midnight-sun-by-keigo.html

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/search?q=gone+girl

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2016/07/review-of-eileen-by-ottessa-moshfegh.html

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2015/10/review-of-bell-jar-by-sylvia-plath.html

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware:  http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2017/02/review-of-woman-in-cabin-10-by-ruth-ware.html

I’ve also read Gone Girl and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn; The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud; and Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.  I read these four before I started my blog so I will go through my archives and post them over the next three days.  (I also read Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy but didn’t write reviews of any of the three books.)