Contemporary, Fast-paced Women's Literature

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Contemporary titles
• Fast pace
• Women's literature

The Truth about Forever
By Sarah Dessen
YA F DESSEN
The summer following her father's death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief.

My Sister’s Keeper
By Jodi Picoult
F PICOULT
Conceived to provide a bone marrow match for her leukemia-stricken sister, teenage Kate begins to question her moral obligations in light of countless medical procedures and decides to fight for the right to make decisions about her own body.

Interred with Their Bones
By Jennifer Lee Carrell
F Carrell
Receiving a mysterious box from her eccentric mentor, who claims it contains a newly found work by Shakespeare, theater director/scholar Kate Shelton is horrified when her theater is burned to the ground and her mentor killed, an event that identifies the work of a murderer who sets up crime scenes to resemble Shakespearean deaths.

The Time Traveler’s Wife
By Audrey Lee Niffenegger
F Niffenegger
Passionately in love, Clare and Henry vow to hold onto each other and their marriage as they struggle with the effects of Chrono-Displacement Disorder, a condition that casts Henry involuntarily into the world of time travel.

Watermelon
By Marian Keyes
F Keyes
When her husband, James, leaves her after she delivers her first child, Claire retires to her family in Dublin, where she slowly recovers from the experience, giving James a big surprise when he shows up again.

Women's Stories with International Settings

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Women's literature
• Female characters
• International setting

A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Khalid Hosseini
F HOSSEINI
Two women of different backgrounds share a life under the same roof with the same abusive husband. “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is a story of personal tragedy set against the backdrop of national tragedy in Afghanistan.

Girls of Riyadh
By Rajaa Alsanea
F ALSANEA
A series of emails tells the struggles of four friends. These close girlfriends from upper-class Saudi families attend universities in Riyadh and in Chicago and San Francisco. Searching for love, they cannot escape deep-seated oppressive traditions after they return to Riyadh.

Saffron Kitchen
By Yasmin Crowther
F CROWTHER
The relationship between a mother and daughter grows turbulent when the mother, Maryam, returns to the tiny village in Iran where she grew up to come to terms with her past, especially with the ghost of her father and with her first love, Ali, who has been waiting for her return

Women of the Silk
By Gail Tsukiyama
F TSUKIYAMA
Spanning the years between the world wars, this tale of a young Chinese girl forced to work in a silk factory describes the sisterhood of workers she discovers there.

A Golden Age
By Tahmina Anam
F Anam
As she plans a party for her son and daughter, Rehana Haque's life will be transformed in a story of one family caught in the middle of the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence, as they face changes and decisions that will have a profound impact on their lives.

Women's Literature

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Fiction
• Women's Literature

Letter to My Daughter
By George Bishop
F BISHOP
When her 15-year-old daughter runs away from their Baton Rouge home, a guilt-ridden mother writes a healing letter about her own adolescence, marked by a strict Catholic boarding school, a forbidden romance and the origins of an enigmatic tattoo.

The Accidental Bestseller
By Wendy Wax
F WAX
Once upon a time, four aspiring authors met at a writers' conference. Ten years later they're still friends, veterans of the dog-eat-dog New York publishing world. Together they collaborate on a novel using their own lives as fodder, assuming no one will ever discover the truth behind their words--but with success comes scrutiny and scandal.

My Sister’s Keeper
By Jodi Picoult
F PICOULT
Conceived to provide a bone marrow match for her leukemia-stricken sister, teenage Anna begins to question her moral obligations in light of countless medical procedures and decides to fight for the right to make decisions about her own body.

Eat Cake
By Jeanne Ray
F RAY
Ruth draws on her talent for concocting delectable cakes and desserts when her family begins to disintegrate around her--her husband loses his job, her mother moves in, and her long-estranged father shows up at the door with no place to go.

The Nanny Diaries
By Emma McLaughlin
F MCLAUGHL
A satirical glimpse into Manhattan's upper class follows Nanny, a struggling NYU student who takes a position caring for the son of the rich and glamorous X family, as she learns how to juggle a vast array of tasks so that a Park Avenue wife never has to lift a well-manicured finger.