Books with strong women leads that will charm you
Last Updated on October 23, 2024 by Ingrid
Every woman should read at least a few of these books with strong women leads and discover some inspiring female characters. Some are not made-up characters but tell us their real-life stories and encourage us to believe in ourselves.
I guess we’ve all been in that place where we’ve lost our motivation, lacked confidence, or felt that all is useless. If you’ve ever been there, you must read at least one of these books.
Strong women characters take us through their struggles, only to prove that women are stronger than they think.
Learn about these fierce female characters or real-life heroes with a story.
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Table of Contents
- Books with strong women leads
- Becoming – Michelle Obama
- I am Malala – Malala Yousafzai
- Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail – Cheryl Strayed
- Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Next year in Havana – Chanel Cleeton
- Out of Africa – Isak Dinesen
- Under the Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes
- Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert
- Dare to Lead – Brene Brown
- In order to live – Yeonmi Park
- Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- The book of fate – Parinoush Saniee
- Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi
- My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
- Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran – Shahrnush Parsipur
- The Help – Kathryn Stockett
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
- Little fires everywhere – Celeste Ng
- Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
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Books with strong women leads
Becoming – Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” made me hopeful.
I hope that there’s still a chance for us and that there are still people out there who are willing to make sacrifices for the greater good.
When I read “Becoming,” I heard the “Yes, we can!” slogan over and over in my head.
The most valuable thing I’ve learned is that no matter where you want to go, you need to be perseverant, trust yourself, and never give up because we’re always growing into a better version of ourselves!
But we also need to remember that no matter who you are and where you get to, we all need to make compromises. The hardest part is knowing when it is the right time to do them.
Favorite quote: ““For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.”
I am Malala – Malala Yousafzai
“I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died, it was just after midday.”
Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl who refused to be silenced and give up school, tells an impressive story.
She was shot in the head by the Taliban while riding the bus home from school. Once she recovered, she became one of the loudest voices to protest against terrorism and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Goodreads: “I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls’ education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.”
Favorite quotes: “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”
“If one man can destroy everything, why can’t one girl change it?”
“I don’t want to be thought of as the “girl who was shot by the Taliban” but the “girl who fought for education.” This is the cause to which I want to devote my life.”
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail – Cheryl Strayed
Another true story to make the list of books with strong women leads.
At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. Years later, she decided to hike alone more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State.
She takes us on her adventure, and we experience different struggles and emotions with her.
Favorite quote: “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”
Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The story of Ifemelu and Obinze, who both leave military-ruled Nigeria to build better lives in the US and UK.
They live and learn about culture, differences, race, immigration, and belonging. Fifteen years later, they are reunited in a different Nigeria and realize again what it’s like to be Nigerian in their own country.
Favorite quotes: “Racism should never have happened and so you don’t get a cookie for reducing it.”
“Alexa and the other guests, and perhaps even Georgina, all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him who were raised well fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for for choice and certainty.”
Next year in Havana – Chanel Cleeton
After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity.
Arriving in Havana, Marisol confronts the contrast between Cuba’s tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light, and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she’ll need the lessons of her grandmother’s past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.
Favorite quote: “Life is too short to be unhappy, to play it safe. To do what is expected of you rather than follow your heart”
Out of Africa – Isak Dinesen
Isak Dinesen’s memoir is about her years spent in Africa on a coffee plantation in the hills near Nairobi, Kenya. If the title sounds familiar, it might be because a movie starring Merryl Streep was made based on the novel.
“Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.”
Under the Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes
You might have already seen the movie I keep watching repeatedly, but the book is quite as lovely as usual.
Frances decides on a whim to buy a run-down house in Tuscany. While restoring the house, she fell in love with the local vibe, the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets, and delightful people.
If you’ve been to Italy or dream of getting there someday, this is one book you shouldn’t miss reading.
Favorite quotes: “Life offers you a thousand chances… all you have to do is take one.”
“Splendid to arrive alone in a foreign country and feel the assault of difference. Here they are all along, busy with living; they don’t talk or look like me. The rhythm of their day is entirely different; I am foreign. ”
Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert
In this book, Elizabeth Gilbert encourages us to unleash our creativity.
She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. The story shows us how to tackle what we love most and face what we fear most. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need to live our most creative lives.
Something we all need to read occasionally to grow more confident and develop new skills.
Favorite quote: “Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.”
Dare to Lead – Brene Brown
Leadership is not about titles, status, and power over people. Leaders hold themselves accountable for recognizing and developing people’s and ideas’ potential.
This book is for everyone ready to choose courage over comfort, make a difference, and lead.
Brené writes, ‘One of the most important findings of my career is that courage can be taught, developed, and measured. Courage is a collection of four skill sets supported by twenty-eight behaviors. All it requires is a commitment to doing bold work, having tough conversations, and showing up with our whole hearts. Easy? No. Choosing courage over comfort is not easy. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and work. It’s why we’re here.’
Favorite quote: “At the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of my life, I want to say I contributed more than I criticized.”
In order to live – Yeonmi Park
Human rights activist Park, who fled North Korea with her mother in 2007 at age 13 and eventually made it to South Korea two years later after a harrowing ordeal, recognized that to be “completely free,” she had to confront the truth of her past.
It is an ugly, shameful story of being sold with her mother into slave marriages by Chinese brokers. Although she initially tried to hide the painful details when blending into South Korean society, she realized how her survival story could inspire others.
Moreover, her sister had also escaped earlier and vanished into China for years, prompting the author to go public with her story to find her sister.
Favorite quote: “We all have our own deserts. They may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free.”
Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Infidel shows the coming of age of this distinguished political superstar and champion of free speech and the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice.
Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived a civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries ruled essentially by despots.
She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament.
Under constant threat, demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from family and clan, she refuses to be silenced.
Favorite quote: “As a woman, you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn’t prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn’t have to beg him for financial support.”
The book of fate – Parinoush Saniee
A teenager in pre-revolutionary Tehran, Massoumeh is an ordinary girl, passionate about learning. On her way to school, she meets a local man and falls in love – but when her family discovers his letters, they accuse her of bringing them into dishonor.
Her brother badly beats her, and her parents hastily arrange a marriage to a man she’s never met. Facing life without love and the prospect of no education, Massoumeh is distraught – but a female neighbor urges her to comply: ‘We each have a destiny, and you can’t fight yours.’
The years that follow Massoumeh’s wedding prove transformative for Iran. Hamid, Massoumeh’s husband, is a political dissident and a threat to the Shah’s oppressive regime. When the Secret Service arrives to arrest him, it starts a terrifying period for Massoumeh.
Her fate, so long dictated by family loyalty and tradition, is now tied to the changing fortunes of her country.
Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi
For two years, every Thursday morning in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics.
As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi’s living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov.
In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with those they read.
Favorite quotes: “You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, I told him, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”
“Memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.”
My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
I’ve read many reviews about the four books in the My Brilliant Friend series, but I wasn’t influenced by any of them. I think it’s hard for people who haven’t lived in a “dark” society like Naples was (and maybe still is in certain places) to understand how real everything is.
Turning one page after the other, I returned to the narrow streets of Naples, the shriveled buildings, the lack of optimism, poverty, and the lack of desire to change something.
I went back to the streets of Florence, to a beach south of Naples, to Ischia. I read through the pages of Elena Ferrante’s books and the stories of one long friendship. It is a problematic friendship you cannot explain and probably shouldn’t even try to.
I loved it and was not too fond of it all at the same time. The characters made me angry, but I also understood them somehow. As always, I loved the books more than I liked the HBO TV series. But you should make your judgment after reading the books. They will definitely spark wanderlust.
“At that moment I knew what the plebs were, much more clearly than when, years earlier, she had asked me. The plebs were us. The plebs were that fight for food and wine, that quarrel over who should be served first and better, that dirty floor on which the waiters clattered back and forth, those increasingly vulgar toasts. The plebs were my mother, who had drunk wine and now was leaning against my father’s shoulder, while he, serious, laughed, his mouth gaping, at the sexual allusions of the metal dealer. They were all laughing, even Lila, with the expression of one who has a role and will play it to the utmost.”
Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran – Shahrnush Parsipur
Shortly after the 1989 publication of Women Without Men in her native Iran, Shahrnush Parsipur was arrested and jailed for her frank and defiant portrayal of women’s sexuality.
In the interwoven destinies of five women, simple situations such as walking down a road or leaving the house become horrific and defiant in the tumult of post-WWII Iran as women escape the narrow confines of family and society only to face daunting new challenges.
Read more about the book here!
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
It’s 1962 in Mississippi, and three very different women come together to write a book that will shock the town.
They prove that lines are made to be crossed, presenting the truth many families hide behind closed doors.
A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by and those we don’t.
Favorite quotes: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.”
“I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.”
“All my life I’d been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine’s thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.”
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
I somehow had this book on my list but had totally forgotten about it—that is, until one day, she found me.
We were on vacation on a Greek Island, and I was looking for a good book to take with me to the beach. I found it on a shelf at the hotel, waiting just for me.
I must admit this book exceeded my expectations. It managed to make me laugh and cry at the same time. The intrigue made me turn page after page in search of answers, and I breathlessly watched the answers unravel in front of my eyes.
Gail Honeyman managed to write a novel infused with British sarcasm and humor that conveys both a sense of deep sadness for Eleanor’s lonely life and a strong hope and anticipation for her strength to eventually change something about her existence.
Favorite quote: “If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”
Little fires everywhere – Celeste Ng
So much about this book made me read it in a few days.
This novel takes place in an all-American town and traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upended their lives.
The book tackles cultural differences, acceptance, the pains of growing up, and the secrets the female characters carry.
Favorite quotes: “Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”
“Most of the time, everyone deserves more than one chance. We all do things we regret now and then. You just have to carry them with you.”
Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens
The second book I read on the beach while in Greece, I couldn’t let this book off my hand.
I suffered along with the “Marsh Girl” during her childhood and wanted a better future for her. Like all of us, she desired appreciation and love.
I kept reading one page after the other, curious how it would all turn out.
Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
Favorite quotes: “I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.”
“Sometimes she heard night-sounds she didn’t know or jumped from lightning too close, but whenever she stumbled, it was the land who caught her. Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.”
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