Happy Saturday Everyone, today I’m super excited to be part of The Burning blog tour. The Burning by Laura Bates, the founder behind Everyday Sexism Project, has created a book based on events that happen in society today, the pressures of growing up and what it takes to be a young girl today. It a powerful YA novel, that every teenager needs to read. Today Laura talks about her top 5 best feminist books, which I would highly recommend too. But before that, here is a little bit more about The Burning…
The Burning tells the story of fifteen-year-old Anna who has moved to a small Scottish village with her mother. There’s nothing to trace Anna back to her old life. Nothing to link her to the ‘incident’. At least that’s what she thinks… until the whispers start up again.
Desperate for a distraction to escape the brutal bullying at school, Anna loses herself in a history project about a young girl, Maggie, who was accused of witchcraft hundreds of years before. Anna finds herself irresistibly drawn to the tale of Maggie, a girl whose story has terrifying similarities to Anna’s own…
The parallels between the persecution of medieval witches and the social burning of modern day Anna become unnervingly apparent. The reader will be left in no doubt: it’s time to extinguish society’s sexist attitudes.
Laura Bates’ significant YA debut joins in the debate with Louise O’Neill and Holly Bourne about sexism and misogyny in today’s society. She explores sexting, revenge porn and the repression of female sexuality.
The Burning by Laura Bates is out now (Simon & Schuster, £6.99)
Top 5 inspirational books for young feminists
Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls
Set during the battle for women to gain the right to vote, this captivating and exciting book follows the stories of three young women who are caught up in the fight. Sweeping the reader through the exhilaration and terror of the suffragette and suffragist movements, this book reveals the real price paid by the women who fought for all of our rights.
I Am Malala
This memoir from the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is an inspiring and incredible story of courage, heroism, and daring to stand up for what you believe in. Full of Malala’s wit and wisdom, it reveals the power a single voice can have to change the world.
Am I Normal Yet? Holly Bourne
This brilliant book deals with everything from feminism to female friendship, relationships to mental health, all wrapped up in a hilarious, accessible and thoroughly enjoyable ride. Once you’ve read it, you’ll definitely need to move on to the other volumes in the fantastic Spinster Club series.
Can We All Be Feminists?
Edited by talented 20-year old feminist June Eric-Udorie, this uplifting and diverse anthology features 17 writers approaching feminism from an intersectional perspective and exploring the ways in which sexism overlaps with other forms of prejudice.
Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill
Another great novel exploring feminist themes, this brilliant dystopian read is terrifying and exhilarating and will leave you questioning everything we learn about what it means to be a teenage girl and how we are taught to present ourselves to the world.
About the author
Laura Bates is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, an ever-increasing collection of over 100,000 testimonies of gender inequality, with branches in 25 countries worldwide. She is author of Everyday Sexism, Misogynation and the Sunday Times bestseller Girl Up. Laura writes regularly for the Guardian, New York Times and others and won a British Press Award in 2015. She is a prolific media commentator, appearing regularly on Newsnight, The Today Programme, Woman’s Hour, Channel 4 News, BBC News, BBC Breakfast and others. She works closely with politicians, businesses, schools, police forces and organisations from the Council of Europe to the United Nations to tackle gender inequality. She was named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2015 and has been named a woman of the year by Cosmopolitan, Red Magazine, The Huffington Post and The Sunday Times Magazine. Laura is a contributor at Women Under Siege, a New York-based project tackling rape in conflict worldwide and she is patron of SARSAS, Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support.
Follow her on twitter @EverydaySexism and Instagram @laura_bates_
As a librarian and as a blogger I really value these books, I find them harrowing and not exactly the easiest of reads but they are so damn important. So I’m looking forward to reading this. Also I would wholeheartly recommend reading these books as well, they are brilliant.
Hope you enjoyed my post on The Burning blog tour, don’t forget to visit the other blogs.
This is such a great post! I’ve read so many of these, but I need to check the others out. The Burning is next on my TBR and I’m very excited to read it.
This is such an interest post! This book sounds really great, I hope so many young people pick this up and love it. I have never read the books you mentioned, but they do sound lovely. I hear Louise O’Neill has a lot of feminist books, but I have never read anything of hears… But I love how you framed this post — a recommendation and then more mini-recs 💕