WORLD INSANE
READING LIST
View our five stories of the month below! Our stories are always written by women and highlight female characters. We hope to promote stories across a variety of genres, and want stories that promote discussion and social change. Follow us on Instagram @worldinsanelitmag to comment your ideas and thoughts on the books! We hope you enjoy.
All old lists can be found at the bottom of the page and on our Instagram, and comment sections are always open.
*Blurbs from Goodreads and content warnings from Common Sense Media
JUNE
Here are June's stories! We hope you enjoy.
1.
PACHINKO by min jin lee
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant—and that her lover is married—she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
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*includes assault, rape, war, and alcoholism
2.
LITTLE WOMEN by louisa may alcott
Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.
*includes death
3.
THE COLOR PURPLE by alice walker
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.
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*includes explicit sex, rape, incest, sexism, violence toward women
4.
THE ISLAND OF SEA WOMEN by lisa see
Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.
*includes war, violence, domestic abuse, suicide, death, sexual assault
5.
THE RADIUM GIRLS by kate h. moore
The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.
Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.
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*includes death, gore
MAY Where the Crawdads Sing The Joy Luck Club Persepolis The Handmaid's Tale Lessons in Chemistry
APRIL The Poppy War The Nightingale All My Rage Bright Young Women The Husband Stitch