Young Women's Stories of Past and Present

Yesterday, March 8th was International Women's Day and March itself is Women's History Month. While a  Women & Gender Studies major in college, I learned all about how women's lives and experiences have NOT been front and center in literature, the news, history, media, etc. for far too long. Especially Women of Color (WoC) and queer and trans women. 

Therefore, I present to you five of my favorite novels about young women and their quest to better understand themselves and the world around them in the past and present.

• Displacement by Kiku Hughes: Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II. These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself stuck back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.
• Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera: Juliet, a self-identified queer, Bronx-born Puerto Rican-American, comes out to her family to disastrous results the night before flying to Portland to intern with her feminist author icon--whom Juliet soon realizes has a problematic definition of feminism that excludes women of color.
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo: Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father--despite his hard-won citizenship--Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
• With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo: Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago's life has been about making the tough decisions--doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it's not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.
• You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson: Liz Lighty has always done her best to avoid the spotlight in her small, wealthy, and prom-obsessed midwestern high school. Her family is black and rather poor, especially since her mother died. Liz has concentrated on her grades and her musical ability in the hopes that it will win her a scholarship to elite Pennington College and their famous orchestra where she plans to study medicine. When that scholarship falls through she is forced to turn to her school's scholarship for prom king and queen. Soon Liz is plunged into the gauntlet of social media (which she hates) and led to discoveries about her own identity and the value of true friendships.