get in babe we're dissociating
the roots of the literary sad girl trend, its relation to contemporary tragedy and my pitch list for the canon reading list <3
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The sad girl literary trend is a part of a larger cultural cycle that I have been studying for my publishing dissertation, which prompted this piece. Another instance in history where we have seen a similar cultural revolt was in the 50’s with the trend of “bad girl paperbacks” (coined by Nick Bentley in this paper), novels about female delinquency in a pushback to ideas of femininity rooted in subservience and domesticity. Post-war and during an increasingly fraught political time in the US, the way stories were consumed was changing, as well as the scope for imagination in how they were received. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is often referred to as the predecessor for the sad girl literary trend, the prototype for dissociative feminism in response to overwhelming societal injustice.
Of course this novel contains many of the limitations that are found in the trend it has inspired - mainly in terms of its alienation of diverse readers - but there is no doubt it was influential, and Tik Tok has adopted it as part of the trend alongside contemporary titles.
While this trend has been growing for a long time in various subcultures (this article from the New York Times was penned in 2019 about the “Cult of the Literary Sad Woman”), social media and the pandemic have converged to intensify participation in it. We needed a new approach to connect online through our neuroses without it turning into the hell-scape of 2012 tumblr (except now we are older and hopefully have more developed prefrontal cortexes). With the climate crisis reaching a peak, war in Ukraine, overturning of critical bodily autonomy legislation in the US, economic fascism in the UK, a fatal wave of transphobia globally being normalised, and so many injustices constantly spinning through the news cycle, we have begun to dissociate to cope, because how can we process it all?
Tik Tok is seeing a sort of canonisation of books featuring female protagonists struggling with mental illness spurred on by dissociation from some form of injustice or another, books that appear again and again in videos set to Mitski songs, in pile deconstruction videos with jewellery and Phoebe Bridgers vinyl records sprinkled in for dramatic effect. The books featured vary between US and UK based creators. The trend has been accused of homogenising these experiences, the books criticised for being “all the same” (which to me is reductive and misogynist but anyway), it has become a thriving subculture in a trauma bond that is at least one of the healthier coping mechanisms out there. God thats so depressing!
Maybe also its just a funny little joke and not that deep, but I don’t know how much I can believe that…
This is my pitch for my literary sad girl canon, the books that have added value to my life as an honorary sad girl living under capitalism trying to find meaning in my existence amidst a brutal news cycle and distilling a little bit of hope that is so much needed.
conversations with friends by sally rooney
Conversations with Friends follows Frances, a quiet girl with a rich inner life who becomes intertwined with an older married couple. This book made me reevaluate my relationship with power and the meaning of love in platonic relationships. I felt held by Frances’ stumbling through her early twenties, battling mental and chronic illness, cognitive dissonance and a debilitating nihilism that is somewhat cured by her love of the people in her life.
my year of rest and relaxation by ottessa moshfegh
Some of Ottessa Moshfegh’s work falls into the other Tik Tok trend that has diverged from the literary sad girl: the unhinged woman trend, that comes with its own set of criticisms and book recommendations (and is also definitely borne from the female delinquency concept I mentioned in the intro). My Year of Rest and Relaxation falls somewhere between the cracks, but the narrator’s recent grief and mental struggle for me places it firmly in the sad girl trend. Her infamous attempt to sleep for a year is snarky and satirical on a sentence level, yet as we learn her motivations her vulnerability shines through and gives her mission some sort of religious fervour.
luster by raven leilani
One of the best of the bunch - and unfortunately pretty rare in its addition of race into the mix with the themes I’ve already mentioned, something I’d love to see more of from this genre. The unravelling of a life spurred on by depression caused by capitalism and racism, the analysis of being an outsider and standing alone in life. Her spiral is stopped by a duty of care thrust upon her, giving her both a sense of meaning and a sense of hopelessness.
bunny by mona awad
Another book that toes the line with the unhinged woman trend is Bunny. A lonely sarcastic writer on an MFA course falls in with an enigmatic clique called the bunnies: pretty, pretentious, rich, and murderous. This book explores self-alienation, Samantha feels left out by the bunnies when she has in part isolated herself from them, and struggles to connect with others without sacrificing part of her identity. This book will leave you questioning what is real as Samantha’s mental state floats in and out of intoxication, and gets existential real quick.
acts of desperation by megan nolan
What happens when a young girl with unstable self worth falls in love with a manipulative narcissist? Megan Nolan’s protagonist is a black hole of need, and the author explores love as something to be consumed, that fills a void, that puts a bandage on a lifetime of being denied emotional dignity.
the idiot by elif batuman
Irony is the name of the game here - a book called The Idiot with a protagonist who is studying at Harvard. This is exactly what Batuman is interrogating, the concept of intelligence in relationships and in self-understanding - a subject on which Selin is a little bit of an idiot. She chases an emotionally unavailable boy to Hungary, out of her depth in her experience and in her crush on Ivan. She is exploring linguistics in the classroom and failing at employing them in her life. This one is funny in a mildly depressing way, I loved it.
assembly by natasha brown
We need to get this one onto more lists!!! This is a beautiful little sad snack of a book, the writing so beautiful and devastating and full of pathos. Set in the UK, a young successful black woman evaluates the process of building a life that should bring fulfilment and respect, and her discovery that she has been sold a lie about what it would take to be accepted in her society, and if that’s even possible.
exciting times by naoise dolan
Maybe a little controversial as I know people have major issues with this book, but I loved it. I haven’t read anything else that deals with “the new Irish emigrant” concept so well, the locations change but the driving factors remain the same: lack of opportunity at the hands of past colonialism creating a rite of passage that breeds mass exodus. The narrator is snarky, exploring her sexuality and above all protecting her emotions. She is critical of the institution that has sponsored her emigration, and of the restrictive nature of the English language that furthers her depression. She meets a girl who will help her find an acceptance that allows her to keep living.
no one is talking about this by patricia lockwood
Another potentially polarising option with a lot of discourse online recently about its relevance, but for me this book encapsulates that time on the internet where we watched Harambe memes grow into the election of Donald Trump through the devastating power social media has on alt right radicalisation, and the despair that came with watching this grip on what was right slowly slip away. It is part absurdist meditation on the internet as its own bubble, with its own set of social rituals and the narrators place here. A real life tragedy brings her abruptly out of this space and she reevaluates what matters to her - and the role of the internet in her life.
severance by ling ma
The sad girls can have a little dystopian fiction as a treat. Seriously though while this book has a dystopian overlay, it very much critiques the demands of capitalism on your mental health, especially during a global pandemic. The narrator is a first generation Chinese-American woman working at a publishing company when a global pandemic hits New York, and without much going on her life she works up until a delusional point, when people have fled the city and her company is dying and its not safe to live there anymore. She meets a group of millennials heading to a safe place and reluctantly joins them, while they encounter infected people who go through the motions of their previous life despite their bodies decaying.
I think these novels present a unique experience, each of them with excellent prose and unique protagonists that struggle with similar experiences yet in widely different circumstances. If you’re interested in this genre (? I guess its a genre by now, right?) these are my top picks to slap a bandaid on your existential crisis.
I also wanted to say thank you for all the love on the substack so far, it has been so cathartic to me and has received really good engagement, I’m shocked! I thought no-one would be here so thank you xx