Author Sarah McCarry shares some of her favorite literary friendships in this piece excerpted from Kelly Jensen’s Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World. Which fictional friendships have made a lasting impression on you? Join the conversation using #HereWeAre.
1. Black Girl in Paris, by Shay Youngblood
Twenty-six-year-old aspiring writer Eden follows in the footsteps of her heroes James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes, landing in Paris with nothing but two hundred dollars and a handful of really big dreams to her name. Along the way, she meets up with a wily and complicated girl grifter who teaches her to survive by her wits on the streets of the City of Light.
2. The Elementals, by Francesca Lia Block
Spooky and surreal, The Elementals is the story of Ariel Silverman, who’s consumed by the quest to find out what happened to her best friend, Jeni, who vanished without trace years earlier. Ariel and Jeni’s friendship defines the course of Ariel’s life and leads her to the house of three mysterious strangers who may or may not be helping her find the truth.
3. Girl Walking Backwards, by Bett Williams
All Skye wants to do is survive high school, which is tough when your mom is nuts, your suicidal goth girlfriend is cheating on you, and your life is falling apart. But then Skye meets Mol, a tough and sweet-hearted girl who teaches her what real friendship looks like.
4. The Saskiad, by Brian Hall
Twelve-year-old Saskia White lives with her hippie mother on a run-down former commune in upstate New York. Saskia’s brilliant, solitary, and obsessed with Homer’s Odyssey and her best friend, Jane Singh. But when her long-lost charismatic environmental-activist father swoops unexpectedly back into her life, he comes between Saskia and Jane in a way she never could have imagined.
5. Uses for Boys, by Erica Lorraine Scheidt
Anna and her mother are everything to each other until her mother starts chasing one man after the next, leaving Anna to fend for herself. Like her mom, Anna seeks solace in boys, but it’s when she makes friends with a troubled runaway named Toy that she starts to take her own story seriously.
About the Book:
LET’S GET THE FEMINIST PARTY STARTED!
Have you ever wanted to be a superheroine? Join a fandom? Create the perfect empowering playlist? Understand exactly what it means to be a feminist in the twenty-first century? You’ve come to the right place.
Forty-four writers, dancers, actors, and artists contribute essays, lists, poems, comics, and illustrations about everything from body positivity to romance to gender identity to intersectionality to the greatest girl friendships in fiction. Together, they share diverse perspectives on and insights into what feminism means and what it looks like. Come on in, turn the pages, and be inspired to find your own path to feminism by the awesome individuals in Here We Are.
Welcome to one of the most life-changing parties around!
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