oh, being 22 years old. I don’t know what your twenty-second year of life will bring, but for me this year has already been really weird and big, weirder and bigger than those other weird and big years. like 16 and 18 and 21.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I deserve this old age. Like many people who are introspective to the extreme, I went through several existential crises throughout my teenage years and 20 fetal years; but, at 22, I’m finally learning how to stop whining and be in the real world (but luckily not in the real world, which for a while was my plan if the whole writing thing did not work). doesn’t work.) but then again, I still feel like I’m 18. I find that I enjoy your novels much more now than I ever enjoyed them as a true anymore. I still need to call my mom about seemingly obvious tasks, like how much to tip the cable guy.
You are reading: Books for 22 year old woman
For many of us, turning 22 marks the true beginning of our twenties: You may have just graduated from college, officially moved out of your parents’ house, and are (hopefully) making some money. you may find that you have no interest in having a drink after work with your beloved high school friends, which makes you sad; Or maybe you’ve reconnected with some of your childhood friends, which gives you endless hope. maybe you have decided to break with your lifelong university. maybe you’ll finally allow yourself to date 30-year-olds (because we all know the male equivalent of 22 is actually closer to 17).
Whatever your 22 looks like, it always helps to have some literary support. here’s a list of 22 books that sum up all those weird and big times we’re experiencing right now, and may also offer some much-appreciated advice.
anthropology of an american girl by hilary thayer hamann
In this wonderfully complicated and (in my opinion) highly underrated debut novel, Hamann traces the growth of Eveline Auerbach, her introspective heroine, from high school to college, as she experiences all the big firsts, especially her first love. , a bittersweet adventure with a boxer in his twenties. reading this book helped me understand what it feels like to fall in love before falling in love in real life.
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the decisive decade by dr. meg jay
This is one of those books my mom bought me after I graduated that I quickly filed away with no intention of opening it (hi mom!). but i gave it a chance. As it turns out, despite the cheesy title and fundamentally off-putting subject matter (like, do I really need to read about exactly who and where I am? Can’t I just live it without analyzing it?), reading this clinical psychologist was a productive use of my time. In an approachable and surprisingly uncondescending tone, Dr. Meg Jay offers anecdotes, analysis, and advice about the hordes of mid-crisis 20-somethings he’s treated over the years. now when i make important decisions i often think about “intentionality” the trait dr. Jay says it’s very important in our 20s, but often overlooked by our still-developing brains. “It’s a pivotal moment when the things we do, and the things we don’t do, will have a huge effect for years and even generations to come,” he says. So make it count, people!
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in the background by ben dolnick
In this super millennial novel from 2013 (example: the book shares a title with a bright-eyed song), Dolnick tackles three major issues of his early 20s: losing and getting back a childhood friend; spiritual confusion and exploration; and learn not to be a jerk. the epigraph itself, by the 19th century philosopher william james, is strikingly indicative of how it feels to be in this age: “here is the real heart of the religious problem: help! help!”
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the loves of nathaniel p. by adelle waldman
we all know a nathaniel p.: if we’ve suffered his unnecessarily harsh criticism in our creative writing workshops (by the way, man: the appearance of a character dressed in white is not exclusively meant to be a symbol of innocence lost) or seen him brooding over whiskey and a paris review in a bushwick bar (true story), some iteration of the titular writer has likely crossed our post-paths collegiate. But Adelle Waldman’s book reveals that even these insufferable sons also have feelings: the real kind, not just the kind that drives that studied sensitive artist persona.
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and the heart says whatever by emily gould
sure, this collection of essays by former gawker editor emily gould has been criticized as self-indulgent; but aren’t we supposed to be self-indulgent right now? Isn’t that what our 20’s are all about? Regardless of whether you find her adorably vulnerable, or her graduate problems are too much like your own for comfort, Gould certainly captures the voice that’s trying to be cool but internally scared (or I-genuinely-voice-not-me). matter or voice-care-too-to-be-functional-right-now, depending on the day) of this particular time and age.
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bent towards bethlehem by joan didion
okay, i know you know joan didion is essay queen (or is she everything?). but it bears repeating: you should read “goodbye to all that” at some point in your life. It’s likely to resonate most in your 20s, when you embark on the journey to (relatively) independent selfhood that Didion reflects on here. Whether you move to a new city like didion did, all with glowing eyes and bushy tail and scared; or if you are starting your personality in the same place you have always been, albeit with an adult mindset, we are all at the beginning of something. “goodbye to all that,” which is slouching down to nativity scene, will not only help you get over the shiny new thing we’re doing, it’ll also teach you to face the inevitable bad with all your might. the good that comes.
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how to build a girl by caitlin moran
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In her fiction debut, the witty, raunchy, candid and generally amazing British writer Caitlin Moran follows 14-year-old Johanna Morrigan, a smart, sex-positive working-class girl who longs to reinvent herself. like a Londoner. music journalist even though the heroine is eight years younger than us, at 22, johanna’s promise to literally rebuild herself from her name resonates a lot in this fresh new stage of our lives. “i want to be a self-made woman,” declares johanna. “I want to conjure myself up from every bright and fast thing I can see. I want to be the creator of myself. I will breed myself. you, my dear, would be lying if you said you had never thought about this at some point in your post-graduation life.
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I don’t care about your band by julie klausner
unless you’re a baby dr. ruth, you are going to make some dating mistakes during your twenty-second year of life. and there’s a good chance that one or more of those mistakes involved a musician. In this collection of essays, based on her epic modern love column, hilarious comedy writer Klausner shares her own horrific experiences dating a host of handsome but worthless guys, including headline artist types. I know it’s hard to break the loser musician habit (straight hair and a low bass are my personal kryptonite); But unless you, too, aspire to someday write your own dating confessional, take a cue from Klausner’s flops and think twice before giving that pushy DJ your number, even if he has a super cool descendants tattoo. .
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the opposite of loneliness by marina keegan
While you may know Marina Keegan for her tragic death (she died in a car accident at age 22, just five days after graduating magna cum laude from Yale), her posthumous collection of essays and short stories from our peers shows that she was, in fact, a very good writer who might one day have become great. The title essay, which went viral after Keegan’s passing, begins with the line: “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.” a simple and beautiful summary of a moment in our lives that is anything but simple.
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bad behavior by mary gaitskill
Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill’s 1988 collection of short stories, is a feminist read 101. Each of these nine gritty stories unabashedly explores taboo topics (think drug addiction, sadomasochism, etc.) in gaitskill’s eerily sparse prose. but the stories can also be jarringly funny, and it’s this expertly wrought tension between the utterly dirty and the unabashedly weird that canonizes a major writer’s craft. that tension is also, I believe, an important phenomenon to identify and appreciate in our everyday adult lives. Turns out the world is a stranger place than we thought. but all we can hope to do at this point is get stranger with him.
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a field guide to getting lost by rebecca solnit
In this brilliant collection of essays, Rebecca Solnit explores the many iterations of losing and losing, from the frustration of the tangible to the devastation of the intangible. In one example, Ella Solnit draws on an obvious case of loss when she asks a search and rescue team in the Rocky Mountains to tell her about her experiences finding wayward hikers. It turns out that people are lost when they don’t admit they are lost. we lose ourselves, and our place in the world, when we try to fight the system, fight nature, fight our instincts. Solnit’s book, and especially this lesson, has become my gospel over the past year. don’t fight the sentiment, fellow travellers: stay cool, stay calm and trust the deep dark forest. It’s not as scary as you think.
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Jeffrey Eugenides’ Marriage Plot
Equal parts a modern coming-of-age love story and a pretentious but lovable college novel (after all, the protagonists are linguistics students at brown in the late 1980s), the novel by jeffrey eugenides from 2012 perfectly sums up that strange precipice of last year. It’s a time when you think you know everything (you, like heroine Madeleine Hanna, who writes a thesis in the middle of her paper), you certainly know everything about Victorian marriage politics, but it turns out you know next to nothing. outside the lush green cocoon of the university quad. .
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the namesake of jhumpa lahiri
the namesake is a story of transition, assimilation and acceptance of a whole new world. But, as Gogol Ganguli’s rocky road to adulthood demonstrates, it’s also about keeping the unique markers of your heritage, continuing to acknowledge all that you’ve carried with you up to this point. You’ve likely read this book (or seen the movie) at some point in your high school/college career, but it’s worth rereading now as we assimilate into our own version of an alien world.
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the rachel papers by martin amis
martin amis is probably the most difficult modern author i have ever read: his work is dense, cultured and very, very british. but the rachel papers , amis’s first novel about an oxford student in his late twenties whose main goal is to get laid and piss off his father, is worth a try. once you get into the swing of things, it turns out to be funny and moving and, in true amis fashion, brilliantly tongue-in-cheek. it’s also the source of one of my favorite quotes in all of literature:
Has a more faithful summary of that strange time ever been written? I think not.
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paint it black by janet fitch
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You probably know Janet Fitch from her critically acclaimed 1999 novel White Oleander; but paint it black , fitch’s eulogy for the 1980s in l.a. punk scene, it’s just as lush, intense and terribly sad as his previous novel. The story follows Josie Tyrell, a 19-year-old model and runaway who struggles to come to terms with the sudden suicide of the love of her life. (I told you it’s terribly sad.) In addition to being a super cool snapshot of the brutal L.A. punk scene, fitch accurately captures the agony and confusion of a young woman going through an inexplicable and unjust tragedy. Whether or not you experienced the death of a loved one, Josie’s story will stay with you forever.
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the brief and wonderful life of oscar wao de junot diaz
ah, the special growing pains of the ghetto teen nerd afflicted by the ancient curse. junot diaz’s colorful and poignant novel is unlike anything you’ve read before: equal parts immigrant epic, magical realism saga, and an ode to loyal dungeons and dragons players, the short wonderful life of oscar wao is totally original and totally cool. Diaz’s unique Dominican-American-New York storytelling will stick in your head for days.
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franny and zooey by j.d. salinger
yes the catcher in the rye is a perfect summary of the harrowing teenage experience, franny and zooey, the two best known stories of salinger in his family series crystal, illustrates the existential quarter-life crisis that those same teenagers will all too likely suffer. On the surface, the stories offer an endearing insight into the fraternity and conscious selfishness that we twenty-somethings habitually display; But they are also wrought with religious allegories, demonstrating the Eastern spiritual tradition Salinger was so fascinated with.
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summer sisters by judy blume
although judy blume is legendary for her already beloved novels, summer sisters, full of heterosexual and homosexual sex; friendships complicated by time, experience and betrayal; and family tribulations – it’s aimed at a more mature audience (hey, that’s us!). Whether it’s the deep adolescent connection between the two “sisters” of the title or their subsequent separation, you’ll recognize some aspect of the complicated female friendships in Blume’s powerful novel.
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the language of flowers by vanessa diffenbaugh
former foster child victoria jones is only 18, but now that she’s emancipated from the system, she only has herself, and her newfound passion for flower arranging, especially using her gift to create unique and expressive packages based on the Victorian language of flowers, to make their way in the world. In this elegant and understated novel, Diffenbaugh shares the struggles of being a lonely but ambitious young woman, and how being forced to face the past – and the present – forces you to grow up in ways you never imagined you could.
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fangirl by rainbow rowell
if you ever were, or still are, a slightly nerdy fangirl who lived more within her chosen fictional world than the bright and scary real world (ugh), you’ll love rainbow rowell’s funny, honest and sweet novel . In his characteristically self-deprecating but always candid tone, Rowell follows titular fan Cath as she navigates her freshman year of college: what it means to be separated from her father, estranged from her twin sister, feeling generally weird and homesick all the time, and learn. to reconcile her obsession with the fantasy world of simon snow (think gay harry potter) with her responsibility to the outside world. oh, and falling in love with the lovable farmer levi, who i’m convinced is actually my otp, but whatever.
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lucy from jamaica kincaid
In this coming-of-age novel, Kincaid follows protagonist Lucy on her journey from the Caribbean to the United States, where she moves to be an au pair to a wealthy family. This is an intimate, semi-autobiographical look at a young woman forced to come of age, both physically and emotionally, as she reconciles her status as a perennial outsider in a foreign culture, as well as her own unresolved emotions about her estranged mother.
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the country girls by edna o’brien
The Irish censor banned this 1960 novel for its overt sexual content, its glorification of women’s independence, and its otherwise blatantly rebellious and highly un-Catholic subject matter – a good sign that it’s well worth reading. first novel by edna o’brien. O’Brien, a real-life wild child, tracks the coming of age of two best friends who navigate the post-school terrain together as they seek romance and adventure in the city. if you have ever fled your small town for the promise of a big city; have struggled to maintain a beloved childhood friendship; or you’re an Irish literature addict, you’ll have fun reading this modern classic.
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image: denise p.d./flickr
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