I love a weird girl book, and I do use that term inclusively here. I already did a round of weird AND sapphic books, but these ones were weird in a category all of their own. So again, this is for the weird girlie pops:

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
I never expected to not only love but also relate to a sex robot so much, but Annie totally stole my heart. This book is so cleverly done, and challenges society’s views on AI, companionship, feminism, and so much more. It’s not only hilarious, but also thought provoking and completely unique. I could have followed Annie’s story for so much longer, but this was such a wonderful glimpse. Fans of Black Mirror should get this immediately!

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpmen
This was super unique and I really liked this one, although it’s definitely not for those who like to get lots of answers. The main character is trapped in a bunker with 39 other women and they are being held captive by an unknown authority that is also keeping them alive. The main character doesn’t know much else, but helps them break free and attempt to explore the world above them. Super different, super weird.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder
I was lucky enough to attend an author event at Strand NYC where Melissa Broder was speaking about this book and even read an exert, so I loved the little “in” that I had going into reading this. It’s a wild story that involves a giant, magical cactus and follows a woman who is anticipating the grief of her father, who is in critical care in a hospital. The book is inspired by a true experience, minus the magic cactus of course, but is a deeper look into what we experience when our loved ones are not healthy. My only critique is that I never really like when the main characters are novelists – it always just feels a little too on the nose – but I still liked this book none-the-less.

Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet by Samantha Allen
I was not expecting to love this as much as I did! It was so much fun, such a silly premise, and not a bad ending either. I love the play of a ghost writer working for an actual ghost, and then the food eroticism really takes this book’s weirdness to a new and awesome level. It’s so hard to explain why I loved this so much because of how goofy it is, but it’s also really heartwarming and down to earth. This book alone made me a huge fan of Samantha Allen!

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
This was such a fun concept – a woman starts cycling through different versions of her life each time a different man comes down from her attic and appears to be her husband. There’s so much commentary on modern dating, swiping on the apps culture, and dating for marriage versus just dating. I had so much fun and never knew where the story was going to go next – but I was always hoping for no bad husbands. Send him back! Send them all back! 🙂

Patricia Wants To Cuddle by Samantha Allen
What a weird one! The story starts out following the final 4 contestants of a reality dating show, starts to have some strange lesbian undertones, and then turns into a female bigfoot horror ending. It’s really unique – I can honestly say I’ve never read anything like it! And I really enjoyed it, but I do think it took a while for the story to take off. The first half of the book felt like a lot of set up that didn’t actually pay off or even matter in the end. Maybe that was to further the big tone switch at the end? Either way, I still think this was really fun.

With Teeth by Kristen Arnett
I think that I liked this more than her other book! I could have filed this one next to Mostly Dead Things under “Weird, Sapphic books”, but I feel like this book was more just weird and the characters happened to be queer. I wouldn’t read this book if you’re looking to become a parent anytime soon as it might give you nightmares – it actually sorta reminded me of The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry in that way. You’ll find yourself being frustrated a lot while reading, but also interested in where the story is going. The ending is a little unexpected and a tad open-ended, but with an unreliable narrator, what else can we expect?

Pure Colour by Sheila Heti
This is my second time reading this book and the first time it was very hard for me to get past the odd choice of using incestual language to describe her experience with her father’s death. Knowing about it already the second time around, I was able to better appreciate the parts of this book that I think are so wonderfully abstract and intriguingly beautiful. The book is a gently told experience of grief told in such a unique in a way that brought me back again and will continue to be something I return back to over time. It’s magnetic, even if not perfect. 

The Vegetarian by Han Kang
WOW. Okay, if you go into this book knowing that it’s a horror novel, it’s absolutely BRILLIANT. It’s truly horrifying, but almost in a quiet way. It’s told in three parts and from three different perspectives, which give their own unique insight into the unraveling of a woman who has chosen to stop eating meat after a bad dream. It’s so wonderfully dark, and amazingly written. Really really liked this one!

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers
I never expected to be so deep inside the mind of a middle-aged, cannibalistic serial killer with a high-end palette, but here this book is. It was written so poetically and beautifully, which was wonderfully contrasted with the graphic content that took up most of the plot lines. I will say that I felt that the book was a little scattered – almost as if this was her prison diary rather than a chronological retelling of her crimes. I felt that some of it got a tad repetitive, but perhaps that was partially the point? Either way, what a fun and weird read. I definitely get the hype around this one.

Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Buckle up, cause this was a HEAVY one. This is set in a world where animal meat was no longer safe for human consumption, so the government created a legal cannibal program where some people were essentially bred like animals for the rest of the world to eat. The story gets darker and darker, and while I understand the social commentary, it was a rough read. It speaks to the meat industry standards, but also humanity as a whole and how evil we really can be as a society who turns a blind eye to bigger issues in order to just get through our day. Left me feeling sick / isn’t for everyone but leaves a big impact.

My Year Of Rest And Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
So many of us I’m sure would love to sleep a year away, especially right now. But, this woman makes it a reality through the many many MANY sleeping medications that are prescribed by her wacky therapist with a terrible memory. The concept is fun, the main character is super weird and unhinged, and there’s many levels to the story. I can see why people ride so hard for this book, and I’m a big fan as well. Highly recommend for anyone who is tired. Goodnight!

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
I’m sorta torn on how I feel about this one. On one hand, I think it was a really fun concept of watching a mother descend into madness and werewolf-dom alongside her son – with tons and tons of metaphors baked in. However, I’m not the biggest fan of the way it was written. I also think some of the plot points were underdeveloped, like the MLM piece or even the art performance at the end. The cover and the title are just so captivating, that I guess I had higher hopes for this than I realized. It was still good, but a lot of it left me wanting more.

How To Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann
This was one of my favorite books that I read so far this year, and was absolutely perfect to read during October/spooky season. This followed a support group of women with unique stories – several of which are from popular “fairy tales”. We follow Gretel without her brother Hansel, Little Red after she’s survived being eaten by a wolf, Rumpelstiltskin’s situationship, and more. I wanted a little more from the ending, but I had so much fun along the way that I still gave it 5 out of 5 stars. SO. FUN.

God Shot by Chelsea Bieker
This was so much more interesting and wild than I could have ever expected. This is unique because it comes from the perspective of a teenage girl who had a tumultuous life prior to joining the cult with her mother. It seems like the discipline has improved her life, until the cult starts to take a weird turn and her mother leaves her unexpectedly. Some things you might not expect: a smut novel addiction, a phone sex line operation, and a lot of arson. Overall I really enjoyed this one and thought it had a good pace, a good plot, and a decent ending.

The Girls by Emma Cline
I liked this one a lot, although it had sort of a slow growth since you had to wait for her to join the cult. The main character stays enough on the outside of the cult to avoid some of the blame when all the chaos goes down, but she’s inside enough to give us good insight. It speaks to the human need to belong while also paired with the ridiculousness of arbitrary rules and the cult followings of the 70’s. There’s a good balance here coupled with interesting details and an ending that I didn’t hate, so I would recommend.

The Guest by Emma Cline
This was like if the worst New York transplant girl you’ve ever met made you listen to her victimize herself over situations that she made her personal mission to destroy and then asked if she could sleep on your couch for a while until she “figures things out”. And I’m not saying I didn’t like it, but the journey was definitely a frustrating and problematic one. I wanted more from the ending, but it was a fun ride to go on. Perfect for someone feeling a little adrift in life.

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter
I definitely think that this book is for the same audience as The Guest. This is very unhinged, straight behavior – to the point of destruction, one could argue. The main character is doing drugs in her high-pressure work environment and is fooling around with a couple different situations and ultimately ends up getting an abortion after being a constant terror to herself. I didn’t love the ride, although I think I would have liked this one more if I was in a more unhealthy place in my life.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
This book felt more like a commentary on relationships that surpass the typical boundaries that society puts on us. The main character loves her best friend as more than platonic, even if not sexual. It’s often familial, but also romantic, and their connection is intimidating to others in their lives. Thus, messiness ensues. Some parts were much more captivating than others, but still overall, I wanted the tea. Lowkey, I think this is based on a true story most likely, even if made into fiction. The story felt real.

Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan
I do actually understand why this book was linked with Euphoria, mostly for it’s themes around alcoholism. But also for the obsession around the relationship, which could be compared to the way Rue sees Jules. The dynamic hurt my heart, but was also pathetic, even though often unfortunately relatable. The exploration over this wildly desperate desire to be loved is poetic in a way that I never want to experience firsthand. Even though I spent most of the book feeling sorry for the main character, I actually still liked it. However, please know before reading that it should come with a trigger warning for eating disorders and self harm.

Inappropriation by Lexi Freiman
Well.. this was an interesting read. I was drawn to the cover when I found this in a book store, but it was a classic case of don’t-judge-a-book… not to say the book was bad. But the characters are reactionary, problematic, confusing and contradictory. The main character is in an all-girls boarding school in Australia and is trying to figure out their identity as a possible genderfluid queer, and befriends two girls obsessed with the Cyborg Manifesto. From there, the character starts making bizarre choices, acting oddly entitled, and honestly everyone in the book starts being annoying. The focus on glamorizing trauma is potentially damaging, and the casual mention of date-rape culture is startling in a concerning way. Overall, I guess I didn’t like this book, but I do recognize and respect the boundaries it was attempting to push.

The Book Of Ayn by Lexi Freiman
After reading Lexi Freiman before and then reading this one, I’m gonna go ahead and say that she is just not for me. This book is about a canceled author seeking some sort of resolution from problems that she created, and the manic-pixie-dream-girl aspect of everything made this incredibly cringey to me. I also don’t think older women are more interesting just because they slept with younger men, and it bothers me when books reference other authors or works in a way that make them seem like pre-work. BUT, I do think others might be more into this than I am, so I feel bad knocking it entirely. Just… definitely not my favorite.

More to come! Thanks for reading. (Last Updated: Sept 2025)