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Messy girl protagonist book recs
105
items A list of diverse book recommendations with women and girl protagonists who may not be stereotypically “nice” or “easy.” All proceeds earned via Benable will go to a family in Gaza.
Sections
14
Contemporary (adult)
Contemporary (YA)
Fantasy
Historical
Horror
Magical realism
Contemporary (adult)
Contemporary adult fiction by a variety of authors.
Bianca Bridge is like an eyeshadow palette. She's a vibrant kaleidoscope of big personality and even bigger dreams, with a tendency towards messiness and fallout. Case in point: losing her job and ruining her reputation by having an affair with a mar...
The God of Good Looks by Breanne McIvor
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak acc...
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom's awkward energy, and their connection ...
Bellies by Nicola Dinan
After years of chasing the American dream, the Zhen family has moved back to China. Settling into a luxurious serviced apartment in Shanghai, Wei, Lina, and their daughter, Karen, join an elite community of Chinese-born, Western-educated professional...
What We Were Promised by Lucy Tan
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their fam...
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Juliet Milagros Palante is a self-proclaimed closeted Puerto Rican baby dyke from the Bronx. Only, she's not so closeted anymore. Not after coming out to her family the night before flying to Portland, Oregon, to intern with her favorite feminist wri...
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
Set in California in the 1960s and '70s, Guided Tours in Living Color takes Angie year by year from kindergarten through high school, offering a portrait of the artist as a shy, awkward Mexican-American girl. Taking place against the backdrop of the ...
Living Color by Donna Miscolta
Korede’s sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed through the heart with Ayoola’s knife. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. ...
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Contemporary (YA)
Contemporary young adult fiction by a variety of authors.
When Jo-Lynn Kirby 's former best friend-pretty, nice Maddie Price-comes to her claiming to be in trouble, Jo assumes it's some kind of joke. After all, Jo has been an outcast ever since her nude photos were leaked-and since everyone decided she dese...
Not Like Other Girls by Meredith Adamo
Sixteen-year old Niarah Holloway’s only goal in life is to get through it unnoticed. That, and to spend her first summer in LA building a doomsday bunker in her backyard. Because if the past few years have taught Niarah anything, it’s that the ocean ...
Our Shouts Echo by Jade Adia
Lou has enough confusion in front of her this summer. She’ll be working in her family’s ice-cream shack with her newly ex-boyfriend—whose kisses never made her feel desire, only discomfort—and her former best friend, King, who is back in their Canadi...
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
When legendary R&B artist Korey Fields spots Enchanted Jones at an audition, her dreams of being a famous singer take flight. Until Enchanted wakes up with blood on her hands and zero memory of the previous night. Who killed Korey Fields? Before ...
Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson
It’s the summer before college and Blake Brenner and her girlfriend, Ella, have one goal: join the mysterious and exclusive Serena Society. The sorority promises status and lifelong connections to a network of powerful, trailblazing women of color. E...
Thirsty by Jas Hammonds
Overachiever Luz “Lulu” Zavala has straight As, perfect attendance, and a solid ten-year plan. First up: nail her interview for a dream internship at Stanford, the last stop on her school’s cross-country college road trip. The only flaw in her plan i...
Lulu and Milagro's Search for Clarity by Angela Velez
Before that awful Saturday, Molly used to be inseparable from her brother, Hank, and his best friend, Tray. The indoor climbing accident that left Hank with a traumatic brain injury filled Molly with anger. While she knows the accident wasn’t Tray’s ...
A Constellation of Minor Bears by Jen Ferguson
Ryann Bird dreams of traveling across the stars. But a career in space isn’t an option for a girl who lives in a trailer park on the “wrong” side of town. So Ryann becomes her circumstances and settles for acting out and skipping school to hang out w...
The Weight of the Stars by K. Ancrum
Fantasy
Fantasy by a variety of authors.
Once a vicious street rat, Prudence Merriweather has clawed her way to the top of society and now enjoys newfound power as the Duchess of Talonsbury. All she has to do to protect her fragile position is maintain the act of gentility, make her husband...
Song of the Hell Witch by Taylor Hartley
Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She's a legend...
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole
In the world of Awei, magic is not fully understood. Humans can be born of air, guardians haunt old lands, and spirits make up most of society. Raised by a winged spirit in an enchanted forest, Wander is a stranger to the world. Forced out by a magic...
Wander by Allison Stalberg
This is the way the world ends ... for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts wi...
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
On the islands of Hans Lollik, Sigourney Rose was the only survivor when her family was massacred by the colonizers. When the childless king of the islands declares he will choose his successor from amongst eligible noble families, Sigourney is ready...
Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender
Olive Joshi is an imaginative sixteen-year-old with OCD. She checks and double-checks that the stove burners are off, avoids driving for fear of causing an accident, and constantly worries about hurting the people she loves. Olive finds refuge from h...
The Twin Stars by Bridgette Dutta Portman
Somadina and her twin brother, Jayaike, are practically the same person: they finish each other's sentences and make each other whole. When the twins come of age, their magical gifts begin to develop, but while Jayaike's powers enchant, Somadina's ca...
Somadina by Akwaeke Emezi
When August’s brother disappears before his sophomore semester, everyone thinks the stress of college got to him. But August knows her brother would never have left her voluntarily, especially not after their mother so recently went missing. The only...
A Mastery of Monsters by Liselle Sambury
In the first adult novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Ogress and The Orphans, Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours, except for its most seminal event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordina...
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her. Then an enemy's iron bullet kills her ...
The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste
Opal is a lot of things—orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier—but above all, she's determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two ...
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in wi...
What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo
When twenty-three-year-old surly, and slightly tipsy, Frankie finds her hag of a grandmother dead on the sofa, her best friend, playful Ben Bowen, introduces her to the magical underbelly of Aspen Ridge, Utah. Ben is a witch, a seer to be exact, and ...
Peachy by Camri Kohler
After Veronique’s parents died, her grandmother raised her on a farm in rural Louisiana. For sixteen years, it’s just been Veronique, MawMaw, and an ocean of trees. That’s because Veronique has a secret—one MawMaw has warned her she must always keep ...
Tempest by K. Ibura
Historical
Historical fiction by a variety of authors.
Gabi Keefer flees Holocaust-era Germany with nothing but her husband, her nephew, and the clothes on her back, but that isn't the whole story. Over generations, her granddaughter, Lena, struggles with drug addiction and an unplanned pregnancy; her so...
From Where We Are by Nicole Zelniker
Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha’s Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria’s parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, art...
A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo
Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocio...
Conjure Women by Afia Atakora
Horror
Horror by a variety of authors.
Flora Braddock Paz is not the girl who survives. A colorful creative who spends as much time fearing death as she does trying to hide that fear from her loved ones, she’s always considered herself weak. But half a year into the global outbreak of a r...
If We Survive This by Racquel Marie
After spending the summer wracked with guilt about causing the accident that killed her little sister, ambitious gamer and chronic liar Viv returns to Twitch streaming. She never told her parents the truth about the accident, but she hopes that maybe...
Such Lovely Skin by Schlote-Bonne, Tatiana
Chuck Warren died tragically at the old abandoned mill, but Paz Espino knows it was no accident — there's a monster under the town, and she's determined to kill it before anyone else gets hurt. She'll need the help of her crew — inseparable friends, ...
Lockjaw by Matteo L. Cerilli
Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice’s life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to ...
Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
Seventeen-year-old Hylee Williams didn’t ask to disappear. But she did disappear, and not only that, but when she vanished from our world, she materialized in a dark, twisted version of the night that changed her life forever: the night her older bro...
The Dark Place by Britney S. Lewis
Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure...
I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea
Leah is changed. A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost...
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath th...
Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey
The Soler sisters are infamous in polite society—brazen, rebellious, and raised by their fashionable grandmother who couldn’t care less about which fork goes where. But their grandmother also knows the standards that two Latina young ladies will be h...
Flawless Girls by Anna-Marie McLemore
Devon is always being left behind by her genius twin sister, Drew. At this point, it’s a fact of life. But Devon has one last plan before Drew leaves for college a whole year early—The Best Summer Ever. After committing to the bit a little too much, ...
The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington
Ruby Chen has always played the part of the dutiful eldest daughter: excelling in school; excelling in piano lessons; excelling at keeping her younger sister, Tina, focused on extracurriculars meant to impress college admissions officers. But when a ...
The Dark Becomes Her by Judy I. Lin
Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual—but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off bef...
The Dark We Know by Wen-yi Lee
So what if Sadie hears talking dead animals and a strange, comforting male voice in her head? The therapist insists these are just symptoms of PTSD. It makes sense considering that she hid under the bed and watched as her best friends were slaughtere...
The Mean Ones by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
After a meltdown in her school cafeteria prompts an unwanted autism diagnosis, Cassie Davis moves back to her hometown in upstate New York, where her mom hopes the familiarity will allow Cassie to feel normal again. Cassie’s never truly felt normal a...
Hollow by Taylor Grothe
When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She's always lied to fit in, so if she's straight enough, Vi...
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
Rory Morris isn’t thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is temporary. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby’s father, and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she tho...
Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison
Magical realism
Magical realism by a variety of authors.
Isla Larsen Sanchez's life begins to unravel when her father passes away. Instead of being comforted at home in New Jersey, her mother starts leaving her in Puerto Rico with her grandmother and great-aunt each summer like a piece of forgotten luggage...
The Storyteller's Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal
The Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low, or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers—not for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea ...
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova
Graciela Cristales’ whole world changes after she and a boy she barely knows are assaulted at the same party. She loses her gift for making enchanted pan dulce. Neighborhood trees vanish overnight, while mirrored glass appears, bringing reckless magi...
The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore
Mystery & thriller
Mysteries and thrillers by a variety of authors.
A Black teen desperate to regain her Ivy League acceptance enters an elite competition only to discover the stakes aren’t just high, they’re deadly, in this searing thriller that’s Ace of Spades meets Squid Game with a sprinkling of The Bachelor. You...
Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington
When Mikky Graves left his small, stifling hometown of Prophets Lake to live with his estranged mother, he thought nothing could ever make him return for good. Until his sister Kyla’s best friend, Erin, is murdered. Mikky never worried about leaving ...
Girls Who Play Dead by Joelle Wellington
A year ago, beloved cheerleader Stella Blackthorn vanished without a trace. Devastated, her younger sister, Iris, launched her own investigation, but all she managed to do was scare off the police’s only lead and earn a stern warning: Once she turns ...
How to Find a Missing Girl by Victoria Wlosok
Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all: an Ivy League law degree, a well-paying job as a corporate attorney in midtown Atlanta, great friends, and a “for fun” relationship with a rich, charming executive, who just happens to be her white boss. But ev...
All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris
It’s the summer of 1964 and three innocent men are brutally murdered for trying to help Black Mississippians secure the right to vote. Against this backdrop, twenty-one year old Violet Richards finds herself in more trouble than she’s ever been in he...
Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris
Last summer, Luce, Edie, Jane, and Nan took a boat out for one final swim in the river. It was a perfect summer night. But the only one who returned that night was Nan. Edie, Jane, and Luce disappeared, and Nan’s story has always been the same: She h...
Kill Creatures by Rory Power
Out from under her overprotective parents, Jordyn is ready to kill it in prelaw at a prestigious, historically Black university in Washington DC. When her new roommate’s brother is released from prison, the last thing Jordyn expects is to come home a...
The Scammer by Tiffany D. Jackson
Nonfiction
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school i...
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir: Zauner, Michelle - Books
Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned ...
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
Novels-in-verse
Poetic prose by a variety of authors.
Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people… In New York City, Yahaira Rios is call...
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
Nima wishes she were someone else. She doesn’t feel understood by her mother, who grew up in a different land. She doesn’t feel accepted in her suburban town; yet somehow, she isn't different enough to belong elsewhere. Her best friend, Haitham, is t...
Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo
As far back as anyone can remember, the women of the Strand family have been magical. Their gifts manifest when they each turn fifteen, always in different ways. But Nell Strand knows that her family's magic is a curse. Her mother’s age changes every...
I Am the Swarm by Hayley Chewins
Bavaria. 1880. Hilde was dreamed into existence by the god Odin and, along with her five sisters, granted cloaks that transform them into swans. Each sister’s cloak is imbued with a unique gift, but Hilde rejects her gift which allows her to lead the...
A Warning About Swans by R.M. Romero
Older classics
Older classic novels by a variety of authors.
In life, Bill Cosey enjoyed the affections of many women, who would do almost anything to gain his favor. In death his hold on them may be even stronger. Wife, daughter, granddaughter, employee, mistress: As Morrison’s protagonists stake their furiou...
Love by Toni Morrison
Los Angeles Times Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ...
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Retellings
Retellings by a variety of authors based on classic literature, fairytales, Greek mythology, and more.
Princess Eve was raised with one purpose: to destroy the Knight. Far too many of subjects of Queen's Bridge have been devastated by this evil sorcerer's trickery. Eve's own unique magic--the ability to conjure weapons from nature--makes her a worthy ...
Sleep Like Death by Kalynn Bayron
Meka is used to death. After all, it's the family business. As a newly certified mortician's assistant at her parents' funeral home, her days are not for the faint of heart. Luckily her boyfriend Noah isn't squeamish, and Meka is finally feeling read...
Make Me a Monster by Kalynn Bayron
I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions--much good it did me. So begins Kaikeyi's story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on legends of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean...
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
Princess Aurora has a secret. She thinks she owes everything to her fiancé, because he is kind and is helping save her kingdom from war debts. But, inside her heart, she knows she will never belong to him. Prince Elias has a secret. He loves Aurora w...
Vow of Moonlight by Morgana Stewart
Sixteen-year-old Winnie Bray is a liar. As the resident psychic at an oddities shop, Winnie truly can see the future. But her customers only want reassurance, and Winnie only wants their money. Favorable fortunes are a fast track to funding her way o...
Roar of the Lambs by Jamison Shae
To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in th...
When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
It's Zinnia Gray's twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no-one has ...
A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow
Romance
Romance by a variety of authors.
Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He’s a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine. Celine Bangura is conspiracy-theory-obsessed. ...
Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
Hollis Beckwith isn’t trying to get a girl—she’s just trying to get by. For a fat, broke girl with anxiety, the start of senior year brings enough to worry about. And besides, she already has a boyfriend: Chris. Their relationship isn’t particularly ...
The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall
Seventeen-year-old Jamie Taher-Foster has big plans for senior year. She's made a list of things and places in Toronto she and her boyfriend of three years, Ben Cameron, need to check off before graduating. And the biggest plan of all: a very special...
You Started It by Jackie Khalilieh
Always a matchmaker, never a match. Olivia Huang Christenson is excited-slash-terrified to be taking over her grandmother's matchmaking business. But when she learns that a new dating app has made her Pó Po's traditional Chinese zodiac approach all a...
Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen
Mahalia Harris wants. She wants a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend, Naomi. She wants the super-cute new girl Siobhan to like her back. She wants a break from worrying — about money, snide remarks from white classmates, pitying looks from church...
Friday I'm in Love by Camryn Garrett
Tilly Twomley is desperate for change. White-knuckling her way through high school with flawed executive functioning has left her burnt out and ready to start fresh. Working as an intern for her perfect older sister’s start up isn’t exactly how Tilly...
Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings
Winning the lottery has ruined Opal Devlin's life. After quitting her dead-end job where she’d earned minimum wage and even less respect, she’s bombarded by people knocking at her door for a handout the second they found out her bank account was over...
Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings
Amelia Applebaum isn’t in love with Walter Holland. He just happens to be her favorite moderately famous, chaotically bisexual YouTuber. Who she just happened to invite to prom. (But it’s fine. No, for real. If you delete the post, it didn’t happen.)...
Amelia, If Only by Becky Albertalli
Short story & essay collections
Short story and essay collections by a variety of authors. Collections are contemporary, horror, nonfiction, and more.
The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is a teacher, jaded after decades of work in Londo...
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Funny and touching, Behind You Is the Sea brings us into the homes and lives of three main families—the Baladis, the Salamehs, and the Ammars—Palestinian immigrants who’ve all found a different welcome in America. Their various fates and struggles ca...
Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj
Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and surviv...
The Black Girl Survives in This One, edited by Desiree S. Evans
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and K...
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Outsmarting deadly video games, hunting the predatory monster in the woods, rooting out evil within their community, finding love and revenge with their newly turned vampire friend—this anthology upends expectations of the roles disabled people can p...
These Bodies Ain't Broken, edited by Madeline Dyer
In her electrifying debut, Julia Armfield explores women’s experiences in contemporary society, mapped through their bodies. As urban dwellers’ sleeps become disassociated from them, like Peter Pan’s shadow, a city turns insomniac. A teenager enterin...
Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by ...
Ghost Summer by Tananarive Due
AMERICAN BOOK AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR TANANARIVE DUE's second collection of stories includes offerings of horror, science fiction, and suspense--all genres she wields masterfully. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pand...
The Wishing Pool by Tananarive Due
Award-winning novelist Randa Jarrar's new story collection moves seamlessly between realism and fable, history and the present, capturing the lives of Muslim women and men across myriad geographies and circumstances. With acerbic wit, deep tenderness...
Him Me Muhammad Ali by Randa Jarrar
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relatio...
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Speculative & sci-fi
Speculative and science fiction by a variety of authors.
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program in America’s increasingly ...
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
In 2364, eighteen-year-old Liv Newman dreams of a future beyond her lower-class life in the Metro. As a Proxy, she uses the neurochip in her brain to sell memories to wealthy clients. Maybe a few illegally, but money equals freedom. So when a custome...
The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew
Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. H...
Chlorine by Jade Song
The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense. Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth, first in The Locked Tomb Trilogy, unveils a solar system of swo...
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Sixteen-year-old Rumi Sabzwari has spent his entire life behind the armored walls of St. Iago, which protect citizens of the Union of Upper Cities from the outside world’s environmental devastation. But when rebels infect his father with a fatal viru...
Under This Forgetful Sky by Lauren Yero
Nestled in the Hudson Valley is a sumptuous retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, private fitness trainers, daily massages—and all of it for free. In fact, you get paid big money—more than you've ever dreamed of—to spend a few seasons in thi...
The Farm by Joanne Ramos
Girls in New America must have a chaperone with them at all times. Because of this, Stella is never alone. She can't go out by herself or learn about the world. She can't even spend time with boys except at formal Visitations. Still, Stella feels luc...
The Chaperone by M. Hendrix
Charlotte "Chuck" Barnes is an agent in the Roger's Family, a secret society created to protect cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster from the outside world. Life is usually quiet at the aging Site Alpha where Chuck is stationed, but a seri...
Site Alpha by Neal Romriell
The Carls just appeared. Roaming through New York City at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—Ap...
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
In an alternate 2020 timeline, Al Gore won the 2000 election and declared a War on Climate Change rather than a War on Terror. For twenty years, Democrats have controlled all three branches of government, enacting carbon-cutting schemes that never ma...
The Free People's Village by Sim Kern
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall of China. It doesn't matter that the girls die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetia...
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning the...
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
It's always just been Margot and her mother, struggling to get along. But Margot wants more. She wants family. She wants a past. And she may have just found a clue: an old photograph of her mother's, pointing Margot to a town called Phalene. Yet when...
Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power