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17 Books for a Thought Daughter’s Reading List

The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UFL chapter.

Shout out to all the thought daughters out there; no one understands your niche (and sometimes concerning) taste in books. You just have immaculate taste, and that’s OK. So if you’re a girl who’s scared to tell people what your favorite book is, you’ll probably like this list. 

Favorite Five

To give you a feel of my literature taste buds, I’m going to start our list by rattling off a few of my all-time favorites. This list is in no particular order. 

  1. “Dark Places” by Gillian Flynn
  2. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera
  3. “My Husband” by Maud Ventura
  4. “Lisey’s Story” by Stephen King
  5. “Tender is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica

Recent Rotation

The following books are some of my recent reads. Rose Madder is my current obsession, so I listed it first, but the rest are not in any order. I will make a note on “Luckiest Girl Alive”: This might be a controversial one to include, so proceed with caution. I’ve heard of quite a few people who didn’t like it, which is fair because the main character is seriously insufferable at times. She narrates it, so that made it challenging to get through some of the chapters. Overall, I did enjoy it and found a few parts to be insightful. You could feel the author’s emotional connection to the subject, and I think that’s why I enjoyed it.

  1. “Rose Madder” by Stephen King
  2. “Luckiest Girl Alive” by Jessica Knoll
  3. “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut 
  4. “In the Woods” by Tana French
  5. “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn
  6. “Touch & Go” by Lisa Gardner
  7. “The Roanoke Girls” by Amy Engel
  8. “Joyland” by Stephen King
  9. “Before I Go to Sleep” by S.J. Watson
  10. “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath” by Sylvia Plath
  11. “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong
  12. “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer
  13. “Letters to Milena” by Franz Kafka

On My List

Finally, I have eight books that are on my wish list, waiting to be devoured. I handpicked these for my list, so I can’t vouch for them just yet, but they have promise!

  1. “A Very Easy Death” by Simone De Beauvoir
  2. “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway
  3. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  4. “L’Étranger (The Stranger)” by Albert Camus
  5. “L’identite (Identity)” by Milan Kundera
  6. “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath
  7. “The Dictionary of Lost Words” by Pip Williams
  8. “Writers & Lovers” by Lily King
  9. “An Unfortunate Woman” by Richard Brautigan

OK, I want to get back to reading Rose Madder now, so I’ll leave you with a quick closing statement: Don’t be scared of literature from foreign writers like Bazterrica, Kundera or Ventura. They often have incredibly unique, lyrical writing styles that can be difficult to find in English literature. Just pick up some Kundera and you’ll understand.

Riley is a third-year advertising major. Weymer is passionate about entrepreneurship, writing and motorsports. Fueled by her love of cars, she is currently a digital marketing intern with the National Auto Sport Association. When she isn't editing track footage for TikTok or writing about the latest motorsports equipment, the Florida native can be found reading a mystery novel, trying a new recipe, watching a horror movie or conquering new PRs in the gym.