Recs if you like The Vegetarian...

An emergent subgrene by and about strange women on themes of female rage, sisterhood, hunger, attraction, beauty, motherhood, violence, and much more.

Shorter books (under 200 pages) that are part of at least one quest. Many are also in the public domain, making them easily accessible when you want to grind for that next badge.

books about people transforming into, or being reincarnated as, plants 🌱 (or trying their best to)

suggestions welcome!

literary (or literary-leaning) fiction focused specifically on isolation, disconnection, loneliness — and what they teach us about life and humanity.

ft. recs from the community!

Books that are atmospheric, emotionally unsettling, beautifully written, a little weird, and linger long after you finish them.

Not all collections hold things you can touch. This one holds worlds that breathe, selves that dissolve, and realities that refuse to hold their shape. These are the fictions that live on the edge of what language can contain - and sometimes just beyond. Admission is free, through entry requires a signed waiver: the curator cannot be held responsible for any transformations that occur upon your exit. We welcome specimen recommendations!

these books use (literal) hunger as a political tool to speak to women’s oppression, repression and desire, whether through overt cannibal metaphor, speculative dispatches, or more subtle nuances of appetite in literary fiction. these women are hungry for something more, whether they’re allowed to act on it or not.

recommendations welcome!

Horror novellas under 200 pgs. Bite size scary reads for spooky season. These span the horror spectrum from psychological horror to gory, body horror to gothic ghosties and more. Let me know what else I should add!

...are unhinged, lonely, tortured, kooky, crazy, unmoored, yearning, plotting, stalking, monologuing, self-pitying, lost, etc.

Following women on journeys to do weird and maybe violent things.

Horror books with a page count of 200 pages or less.

Before we started defining novellas by word count, they were defined as being any book less than 200 pages. Source: my Analysis of Short Stories & Literature professor in community college. I loved that class. But he loved James Joyce. So, ymmv, I guess.

supporting women's rights and very very wrongs

pink, sophisticated & sometimes fatale <3 curating the personality of my aspirations (added some essential nonfic & poetry!)

Fiction has always been where truth hides. Across horror, thriller, literary fiction, fantasy & mystery every book on this list has something to say about power, who holds it, who destroys it, and how it reproduces itself.

Fictional stories. Real consequences. Profit > People is dedicated to books with capitalist critique, focusing on the lives - and bodies - sacrificed at the altar of industry and interest. Always taking recommendations!

the warm, fragmented interiors of women navigating emotional turmoil, relational dysfunction, identity crises, and existential malaise. intense, immersive, atmospheric, and deeply felt. stories of mundanity and despair, but also of a different beauty, some subtler strength. let's wallow freely and without shame.

note: open to recs, but those focused on interiority rather than romance (e.g. not Normal People)

Short, quick reads that still pack a punch and wake you from your numb slumber