“All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”
In a world where friendships can be as complex as they are uplifting, stories featuring strong female friendships remind us of these bonds’ unique power. These friends are there through all of life’s challenges, celebrate the wins that come around, and provide strength during times of doubt. Books featuring these connections provide insight into the richness of female companionship, demonstrating how loyalty, vulnerability and resilience can intertwine to create friendships that can stand up against the test of time. Which is why we here at What We Reading thought we would compile our favourite books about female friendships that celebrate its power in all its forms. From childhood friendships to unexpected allies or companions bound by their shared experiences, these are the stories that prove that true friendship can be one of life’s most profound relationships.
The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
First up on our list of the best strong female friendship books comes from Taylor Jenkins Reid in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. The story centres around ageing and reclusive Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo, who is finally prepared to tell the world all about her glamour-filled, scandalous life. However, no one is more stunned than Monique Grant, an unknown magazine reporter, when Evelyn decides that she is the person she has chosen to tell her story to.
Beckoned to her luxurious apartment, Monique listens in awe as the movie icon tells her story. From finding herself in Los Angeles in the 1950s to leaving showbusiness in the ‘80s, picking up seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unveils a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship and a great forbidden love. Monique soon feels a connection blossoming between them. But, as Evelyn’s story winds to a close, it becomes clear that her life interweaves with Monique’s in tragic and irreversible ways.
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Such A Fun Age – Kiley Reid
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who is used to getting what she wants and has made a living showing women how they can be the same. Naturally, she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted one day while shopping with the Chamberlains’ toddler. The security guard accuses the young Black woman of kidnapping the child, a small crowd forms and an onlooker tapes the whole affair. Alix becomes determined to make things right.
Emira is short of money and initially wary of Alix’s help. When the video of her unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women soon find themselves on a collision course that will upend all that they think they know about themselves, and each other. A striking and surprising look at race and privilege, Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age is one of the most timely novels featuring strong female friendships.
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants in San Francisco, meet every week to play mahjong and tell stories about what they left behind in their homeland. Bound together through their hopes for their daughters’ futures, they dub themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these tales, dismiss their mothers’ advice as irrelevant in their lives in contemporary America. That is until their own inner crises reveal how much they’ve unknowingly inherited from their mother’s past.
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club is one of the best female friendship books for exploring the tender and sometimes painful ways in which mothers and daughters connect. As each woman reveals her secrets, these connections become more strained and more entwined, making for a sensitive and immersive reading experience.
Big Little Lies – Liane Moriarty
Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She is funny, compassionate and caring, remembering everything and forgiving no one. Celeste is the sort of beautiful woman whom the whole stops and stares for, but is paying a price for this facade of perfection. Jane is the newest to town and so young that many mistake her for a nanny rather than a single mother; she comes with a secretive past and sadness beyond her years. All three women are at different crossroads in their lives, but all find themselves winding up at the same shocking place.
One of the most infamous books about female friendships in the mystery genre, Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies is a take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, school playground scandals and the sorts of little white lies that can turn deadly.
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants (Sisterhood #1) – Ann Brashares
Carmen got the jeans at the thrift store. Worn, dirty and speckled with bleach, they don’t look great. The night before she and her friends part ways for the summer, Carmen decides to throw them away. But Tibby says that the jeans are great and that she would love to have them. Lena and Bridget also think they’re wonderful. Lena decides that all of them should try them on; whoever they fit the best, gets to keep them.
Nobody is sure why, but the jeans soon turn out to fit them all perfectly. Over several bags of cheese puffs, the friends decide to form a sisterhood and take the vow of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The next morning, they all say their goodbyes. In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Ann Brashares follows the journey of these jeans as the most memorable summer of their lives gets underway.
The Long Weekend – Gilly Macmillan
Dark Fell Barn is advertised as a ‘perfectly isolated’ retreat when Jayne books a reservation for her friends. A quiet place, far removed from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world is exactly what they all need. The women arrive at the barn for a girls’ night ahead of their husbands: ex-army Jayne, new mother Ruth and recently-wed Emily, the newest and youngest member of this tight-knit friendship circle. The one absentee for this trip is Edie, the glue at the centre of their lives whose husband has just died suddenly.
But, what had been planned as a relaxing getaway soon takes a horrifying turn. Upon their arrival, the women are greeted by a devastating note claiming that one of their husbands will be murdered. With no phones and no means of escaping, Gilly Macmillan provides one of the most gripping books about female friendships in her 2022 mystery thriller, The Long Weekend.
Check Out Our The Long Weekend Book Review
Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Ya Yas #1) – Rebecca Wells
When Siddalee Walker, eldest daughter of Vivi Abbott Walker, Ya-Ya extraordinaire, is interviewed in the New York Times about a play she has directed, her mother is described as a ‘tap-dancing child abuser’. Furious, Vivi disowns Sidda. In response, Sidda pleads with her mother for forgiveness, postponing her upcoming wedding.
Things are looking rather bleak for Sidda, at least until the Ya-Yas intervene and convince Vivi to send Sidda a scrapbook of their memories together from the past, which they call ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’. As Sidda continues to struggle to understand her mother, she is forced to face the tangled beauty of imperfect love, as well as how forgiveness is far more often what the heart craves in Rebecca Wells’ acclaimed Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
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The Help – Kathryn Stockett
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just graduated and returned home. Whilst she might now hold a degree, it is still 1962 in Mississippi, meaning that her mother won’t be satisfied until she has a ring on her finger. Normally, Skeeter would find solace in her beloved maid, Constantine. But Constantine has disappeared, and no one will tell her where she has gone.
Aibileen is a wise Black maid raising her seventeenth White child. Whilst something snapped within her following the loss of her own son, she nevertheless dotes on the little girl she looks after. Minny is Aibileen’s best friend and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi and finds herself with a new employer housing plenty of secrets of her own. One of the most poignant books about female friendships and empowerment, The Help follows these three extraordinary women as they embark on a movement that forever changes a town and how women view one another.
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
Thank you for linking to my review of one of my favourite books.