We promised we would branch out into non-perfume content and here we are delivering on that promise. Because we are dynamic Renaissance women who have many voracious interests aside from scented water. We sample perfume, yes, but we are also sampling life. This week, books! The internet loves books by and about ~weird girls~ and so do we (one of us even writes them!). We’re leaning into the discourse to recommend 10 books that we consider to be perfect weird girl beach reads for your summer travels, no perfume attached.
What qualifies as a weird girl beach read? Our criteria probably encompasses most of what we read and includes: (1) weird/fun, (2) girlie, (3) not overly challenging, (4) bonus points for at least some scenes in a summery vacation locale, and (5) bonus points for a twist that made us gasp. Basically if it would feel both enjoyable and a lil unusual to read by a water feature, it counts. Let’s go!
The Worst Kind of Want by Liska Jacobs
What if Tom Ripley was a woman on the edge, and what if that woman was fixated on a really hot, off-limits young man? Liska Jacobs was unafraid to ask those questions in The Worst Kind of Want, a sun-soaked romp through Italy that you must read if your definition of a ‘romp’ is a mental breakdown. It’s gorgeous, sexy, and super fucked up. The twist? That nothing ends well, bambina! I revisit it whenever I need a dose of Italy and a dose of “I may be mentally ill, but at least that’s not what I’m doing right now.”
—Crissy
Corrigan by Caroline Blackwood
If you like your beach reads wildly offensive by today’s standards and filled with the blackest humor, look no further than Corrigan by Caroline Blackwood. I went on a bit of a CB binge earlier this year when I got a new Kindle and realized all her books were available on Libby. Caroline was both a proto-weird girl novelist and proto-literary It Girl. Her Wikipedia describes her as a “writer, socialite, and muse” (hell ya) who was married to both the painter Lucian Freud (Sigmund’s grandson) and the poet Robert Lowell. She also married this other dude I’ve never heard of so that one is less interesting to me, but three marriages feels extremely It Girl. Also her writing is smart and more importantly weird. I was LOLing through Corrigan to the point that my girlfriend had to check if I was okay. It’s about a widowed woman who’s taken in by a charming and manipulative wheelchair-bound (the book uses a less PC term) Irishman named Corrigan while her concerned daughter tries to step in and save her. It takes place in the bone cold English countryside so not exactly a summery locale but people do vacation there and there IS a twist.
—Anna
I am once again taking you to Italy, no surprise there. This time, it’s Rome in 1969 with Teddy, the beautiful, neurotic, and absolute freak-on-a-leash wife of an American diplomat. Teddy is a Texan woman who married a lowkey evil man whose position in government is, how do you say in Italian? Super sus. Set in a summer spent in between their tiny flat in Trastevere and the expansive villas of their wealthier diplomat peers, Teddy follows our protagonist’s slow unraveling and very poor decision making. There’s adultery, blackmail, sex, tabloids, and a few art history lessons woven in throughout. Perfect for Italia-philes, fans of Sylvia Plath, Mad Men appreciators, and anyone who loves a busty blonde making bad choices.
—Crissy
Last month I wrote a Substack note announcing: “the best genres of books are (1) interpersonally-challenged chica fucking shit up in increasingly humiliating ways (2) liar chica pretending to be someone she’s not but the jig is up very soon !!!! (3) delusional chica pathologically obsessed w loser w zero interest in her but it ain’t really about that ya dig.” Kitten is an excellent example of (1) and actually the book that inspired this note. The book’s protagonist Katie really can’t seem to get her shit together or figure out how to keep a conversation going at a party, which is my type of bitch. She becomes obsessed with her boyfriend’s cat because Silver gets to lie around all day, misbehave, and be fed. As I too struggle with small talk and have always envied the lives of housecats—I’d love to be reincarnated as one—this novel really spoke to me. It also gets bonus points because it mostly takes place in a fictional seaside town called Holme, so it’s beachy! And fun to read. And surprisingly heartfelt. I loved it.
—Anna
If you haven’t read The Compound yet, what are you doing? I must flag it to the few of you who haven’t been put on to my favorite ‘dripping with dread’ read. Set in a dystopia in which everything sucks and everyone watches a Love Island-style TV show to escape it—wait, that sounds just like our reality, haha!—The Compound follows Lily’s journey after she literally wakes up on TV. One of the novel’s many twists is that this competition dating show is incredibly depraved, forcing the contestants to essentially torture one another to amass winnings in the form of gifts big and small. As they’re eliminated, our cast of young, horny hotties get violent, set things on fire, and get lost in an unforgiving desert. Did I mention there’s a pool, though?
—Crissy
Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
If you like your novels completely unrealistic with batshit plot turns (i.e. if you enjoy my work), Who Is Maud Dixon? is for you. The novel follows low-level publishing employee Florence who believes she’s destined to be a famous writer (if you’re on Substack, you get it). When she gets a job as assistant to the über-famous anonymous novelist known as Maud Dixon (think Elena Ferrante meets Donna Tartt meets… someone a lot more fun), Florence jumps at the opportunity. It’s a dream at first—“Maud” is strange but filled with wisdom—but things take a dark turn when Florence starts to suspect the murder plot in Maud’s most famous novel might not be so fictional… Who is Maud Dixon? gets mad bonus points because the first half takes place in the Catskills (vacation-y) and the second half takes place in seaside Morocco, and it’s filled with twists! I inhaled this shit.
—Anna
Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller
Cookie Mueller was the original 365 party girl. In her collection of true stories, she recollects acting in John Waters’ productions (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living, and Multiple Maniacs, to name a few!) She travels the world, does a lot of drugs, gets knocked up and raises her son in a way that can only be described as actually punk rock. She also escapes a serial killer while wearing a G-string and details living through the AIDS crisis. Mueller died young at 40, but her stories are raw, hilarious, deranged, and immortal. A true legend and the mother of all us confessional freaks.
—Crissy
If you like your main characters borderline personality disordered, run don’t walk to read Kirsten King’s A Good Person. Severely BPD individuals make complicated friends but very fun antiheroines, and Lilian is the paragon. Like many great weird girl narrators before her, Lilian is a little delulu, and therefore thinks this dude Henry who is clearly using her for sex is actually in love with her. The reader is not remotely shocked but Lilian is very surprised when he ends things. After going on a textbook BPD rage spiral, she performs a YouTube hex on Henry in which she wishes for him dead. And as the angels would have it, Henry is dead the next day. It’s being investigated as a homicide, and Lilian becomes a suspect given the aggro texts she sent Henry just before he’s killed. What ensues is hilarious, fun, and shocking. (There is a twist!)
—Anna
Make Me Famous by Maud Ventura
“What if I told you I was a mastermind?” is both a Taylor Swift lyric and the thesis of the novel Make Me Famous. Told from the first-person perspective of a megalomaniac pop star, the novel very straightforwardly describes how one woman, Cléo, bent life to her will to be very fucking famous. I like to think of it as a little peek into the mind of Ms. Swift herself, if she were French and ruined her own life. No spoilers, but a beautiful remote island is involved, as well as several acts of violence and mouthwatering descriptions of gorgeous homes. Read it if you read about Taylor’s wedding and thought, “damn, this bitch is crazy.”
—Crissy
Afternoon Hours of a Hermit by Patrick Cottrell
This is perhaps the weirdest beach read on my list as it’s about suicide. But it’s really funny!! I read its sort of prequel, Sorry To Disrupt the Peace, on a beach in Malibu, so it only makes sense to read this one on a beach as well—crying on a beach can be very chic. Like its predecessor, Afternoon Hours of a Hermit is an autofictional account of the main character’s adopted brother’s suicide. And like Patrick, the main character has transitioned since Sorry To Disrupt the Peace (except in the book his name is Dan). When the novel begins, Dan is teaching in Brooklyn and working on his next novel when a mysterious photo of his deceased brother arrives in the mail. So Dan returns to his childhood home on the eve of his brother’s memorial dinner to investigate, driving around his brother’s Honda and believing he is a detective, all while his family looks at him like he’s completely insane. There are no summery vacation locales or twists, but this excellent madcap noir is perfect for fans of bleak humor and anyone who feels incredibly alone in their families.
—Anna
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