‘Women vs The Void’ Literature 

Categorising a wide array of books under this one tag might be vapid and reductive since the experience of young women in the cusp of real adulthood, navigating the banality of human existence is hardly singular. Regardless, the ‘Women vs the Void’ genre encompasses literature with female protagonists questioning their place in this world while often being entangled in complicated relationships with others and identity. These books tend to be especially character-centric, lacking a defined plot. Here is a selection of some exquisite, contemplative books which get it right.

Interesting Facts About Face by Emily Austin 

“I want to linger here in the in-between, half-made, in some permanent adolescence, forever. I don’t ever want to become my full self.”

In Emily Austin’s sophomore novel, we find ourselves in the head of Enid—a paranoid, bald men fearing lesbian woman who loves space. Equal parts hysterical and heartbreaking, this book is a poignant portrayal of isolation, self-loathing, estranged family dynamics, mental illness and disability.

All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

“I’d been on my own for ages, and I was convinced that there was no way I could be any more alone, but now I’d finally realized how alone I truly was. Despite the crowds of people, and all the different places, and a limitless supply of sounds and colors packed together, there was nothing here that I could reach out and touch.”

A moving mediation on urban loneliness, Mieko Kawakami’s All the Lovers in the Night follows a freelance copy editor in her 30s cooped up in her apartment. Set in the backdrop of Tokyo, the experience of isolation on page is palpable. 

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

“My heart is a thin thing, these days—shred of paper blown between the spaces in my ribs.”

Literary horror and science fiction are gorgeously interwoven by Julia Armfield in her work, Our Wives Under the Sea. When Leah eventually returns after a disastrous deep-sea mission, Miri believes she has her wife back only to slowly realise that she has been irreversibly changed in a story of the unknowable depths of the ocean, loss of a love and the grief that follows. 

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

“Beauty has always been one of the only ways women have been able to access power, and I can’t fault any of them for wanting more of it.”

The author describes the book as a “fantasy of escaping the performance of gender and the constant appearance labor our hypercapitalist society expects us to maintain.” This work of fiction is based on her first-hand experience of working in the wellness industry and the culture’s damaging and dystopian obsession on beauty and women’s bodies.

Luster by Raven Leilani

“I couldn’t tell if I liked being alone, or if I only endured it.”

Raven Leilani’s debut novel follows a 23 year old black woman’s entanglement in a middle aged white man’s seemingly open marriage. An introspection on racial and sexual dynamics, Luster is bold and tender at the same time.

Convenience Store Women by Sayaka Murata

“The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of.”

Keiko Furukura, a thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident, has never really fit in—not in her family nor anywhere else. What gives her life stability and purpose is being a diligent employee of the Smile Mart grocery store where she has been working since she was eighteen. Convenience Store Woman is a story of a woman who feels the pressure of conformity in a patriarchal, capitalist wasteland.