words by Chloe Milne
What does it mean for a woman to be ‘weird’? ‘Weird girl lit’, TikTok’s latest micro-trend and literary sub-genre, has attempted to answer this question, and resultantly, bookshelves have been inundated with stories praised as ‘unhinged’ (Bunny), ‘psychedelic’ (A Touch of Jen), ‘incendiary’ (Boy Parts) and ‘strange and dreamlike’ (Earthlings). These titles are all genre-bending, often experimenting with horror and humour in the same breath, but the most notable feature that they share is their strange, and deeply unlikeable female protagonists. This emerging genre is known as ‘weird girl literature’.
In exploring a huge range of unique plotlines, this genre challenges the expectations we may subconsciously hold for female characters by exploring taboo relationships, gore, and behaviours that earn women the polarising label of ‘weird’. But what exactly has created this appetite for unhinged heroines?
As talk of weird girl fiction has dominated social media sites and book clubs, each new title can’t help competing with one another – who can be the most controversial? Who can be the most ‘weird’? We have seen this pattern emerge in television before. It seems as if there is an almost-constant cycle of brand new television shows being released, each one promising an out-of-this-world, shocking plot twist.
Thirteen Reasons Why faced controversy when it began to almost methodically kill off a new main character each season for shock value, as well as showing unnecessarily graphic depictions of suicide. Behind Her Eyes adopted the hashtag #WTFThatEnding (which was originally created for Sarah Pinborough’s novel of the same name) to drum up engagement and prepare audiences for a shocking plot twist. This was incidentally the driving point of the show’s trailers, rather than the plot itself. Weird girl fiction follows suit in over-emphasising how outrageous or taboo the book’s contents are, with many readers consequently going in completely blind about the plotline.
To society’s desensitised audiences, there is now such an emphasis placed on shock value, to the point where the character development and plotline retreat into the background. In weird girl lit, authors attempt to shock in various ways; from graphic descriptions of gore, body horror, and violence (Tender is the Flesh), to more provocative and outlandish discussions of taboo subjects like incestuous relationships and child abuse (Earthlings).
As the literary world becomes more vast, it is increasingly difficult for seasoned readers to find (or write!) an entirely unique story. Perhaps we are turning to the taboo in an attempt to find something that will truly shock us, after reading so many variations of the same predictable thriller. It is questionable whether readers are truly fans of the genre at all, or if they are simply intrigued by the sensationalist taglines that causes these books’ reputations to precede them.
So why are weird girls so often at the centre of such disturbing literature?
The fact that it is considered surprising for a female protagonist to be ‘weird’ in her desires or behaviours highlights how heavily other genres still rely on misogynistic stereotypes when creating female characters. In our mission to find a book exploring something unprecedented, we find ourselves craving more feral female characters to defy expectations we didn’t realise we had.
When I suggest that weird girl literature’s success relies on readers’ lust for unhinged and depraved women, please note that I am mostly calling out myself. When people ask me what kind of books I enjoy, I respond: “the weirder, the better”. Having read so many ‘twisty’ books, my brain recognises the formula of many of my favourite genres and tries to predict the ending on autopilot (much to my irritation). I turned to weird girl fiction because generally, the plot is so innovative that I am fully immersed in the chaos, analysing the weirdness instead of trying to figure out what will happen next.
There is nothing quite like the excitement I feel when a blurb promises to explore topics that other authors shy away from, and Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings was a book that was truly so strange I had to sit in silence for a while after finishing it. It was one of the only novels that I couldn’t rate out of five stars, because I was so disturbed, which is a feat in itself. I was conflicted; I loved the abstract descriptions of how the protagonist saw the world, and, as a horror lover, found myself squealing at some of the gruesome descriptions. But there was so much about Murata’s candid exploration of abuse and violence against our female main character that made me deeply uncomfortable – and what a great writer it takes to provoke such a reaction in their readers.
We turn to literature as a means of escape from real life, but sometimes, it can be necessary for a bold story like Earthlings to hold a mirror to society’s darker corners. It is clear that Earthlings’ Natsuki’s weirdness is a result of traumatic childhood abuse. Perhaps for readers, it is preferable, and necessary, for a fictional ‘weird girl’ to face life’s horrors, so that we can explore the most disturbing subjects from the safety of the pages.
Before this genre of weird girls existed, some authors were still subverting the expectations of female characters with a sub-genre of misery literature, ‘sad girl lit’. Stories such as Normal People by Sally Rooney and Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason paint their protagonists as deeply complex women, tormented by periods of depression and moving in and out of toxic relationships. Much earlier, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar could be labelled as the original ‘sad girl lit’ novel, detailing the female protagonist’s mental breakdown and its effects.
It is no coincidence that these three examples were heavily influenced by the (female) authors’ own lived experiences with depression and mental health crises. This leads us back to our initial supposition that readers have a strong desire to read about unspoken, shameful ideas. Sylvia Plath initially published The Bell Jar under a pseudonym, hinting at a sense of embarrassment at the vulnerability of the novel’s subject matter. Of course, at its time of publishing in 1963, mental health was much less talked about, particularly among women, making Plath’s semi-autobiographical work much more scandalous, but also garnering her high praise for her honest portrayal of mental illness.
Not only were sad girl lit books written as a way for female authors to speak out about female hardship, which was otherwise difficult when mental health connoted such shame, but it is also a revolutionary genre for readers who see their own experiences reflected back at them on the page. It could be said that as the conversation surrounding mental health has gained more traction, sad girl lit has succeeded in its mission of de-stigmatising female depression, making room for weird girl lit to take its place on shelves.
Allowing fictional women to be as weird as possible does not demonise them as characters. Breaking the constrictions of femininity in the fictional world instead creates space for real women to break free of outdated stereotypes that they may still feel confined to. Obviously, women aren’t going to read The Eyes are the Best Part and immediately set off on a copycat cannibalistic murder spree, but radicalising the behaviour of female characters to such an extreme reminds us of our own autonomy.
In other words, these ‘____ girl lit’ micro-trends may seem asinine as they buzz around TikTok, but they are playing an important feminist role in empowering women, and advocating for female issues that are otherwise ignored. Sad girl lit exposes the stifling constraints of the patriarchy, and normalises mental health struggles. Weird girl lit shines a light on female victims of experiences that society has deemed too evil to mention. By directly confronting this corruption, the genre refuses to allow readers to be complicit in female erasure.