Monday, July 14, 2025
As an avid reader, I’ve always had a fond place in my heart for historical fiction and period pieces, but I enjoy exploring a number of genres. Toward the end of 2024 and so far this year, I’ve found myself gravitating toward women-centric contemporary fiction and coming-of-age novels, which would normally imply that they feature teenagers or young-adult characters and themes, but I think their impact is broader. We’re constantly changing and growing, and whether we come to realizations about life at 15 or 55, they impact our sense of self.
I’ve often said that the best writers are also the best readers, and as a young woman navigating the craziness of life, I’ve found comfort in books that showcase both the hardships, and the joys, of girlhood. There is so much pressure these days to adhere to societal standards — which can vary so greatly depending on whom you’re talking to — and not enough conversations about what’s actually important to modern, up-and-coming women. Everything we want for ourselves, and every decision we make, is so important.
March is Women’s History Month, and I considered just rattling off a number of my favorite empowering reads, but I realized I could never narrow down the list. So instead I’m switching gears, and homing in on a recent read of mine, the young adult novel “Firekeeper’s Daughter,” by Angeline Boulley.
This was my first exposure to Native American literature. The book’s protagonist, Daunis Fontaine, is a biracial high school senior who lives in a mostly indigenous community near an Ojibwe reservation in Northern Michigan. The Ojibwe are a large Native group in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada. While the book is largely about a drug-related scandal that wreaks havoc in Fontaine’s Native community, it also conveys so many important undertones relating to her culture and womanhood. Full of twists and turns, it kept me on my toes, and left me with an understanding of a culture I wasn’t familiar with and a sense of comfort in knowing that the struggles of young women aren’t unique to our culture, but rather, are shared by many.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve thought a lot about the concept of privilege because of another book, “Difference Matters,” by Brenda J. Allen, which I read for a class I’m taking through Stony Brook University. Allen crafts meaningful observations about various social groups, and effectively communicates why and how our differences matter in fascinating ways. She defines privilege as “unacknowledged entitlement that one receives,” and in a series of exercises, she encourages readers to think about the things in their lives that have given them privilege.
I’ll be the first to admit that some days, it is so hard to be a woman. The negative rhetoric, and the legal moves that are stripping women in the United States of rights they previously had, sometimes make me wonder if we’re heading backward. Despite those doubts, I am also so proud to be a woman — one with a voice, and drive, and dreams that I know I will work hard to achieve.
Daunis Fontaine has a voice, drive, and dreams, too. As do Rocky, the middle-aged, comical protagonist in Catherine Newman’s novel
“Sandwich”; Caroline Ferriday, a real person whose story is told in Martha Hall Kelly’s “Lilac Girls”; and Isabelle Rossignol, a young woman who is part of the French resistance in World War II in Kristin Hannah’s work of historical fiction, “The Nightingale.”
I’ve listed a few additional reads of mine to make this point: I am so privileged to have had access to these works — to read and think about things with free will — and to be able take the time to ponder what they mean to me, and hopefully to other women, too.
The weight of girlhood is heavy, but so is its strength. Reading these stories has reinforced what I’ve always known to be true — that women’s voices, whether in fiction or in real life, hold immense power.
The privilege of having access to these narratives is one I don’t take lightly, and as I continue to learn and grow, I hope to carry that same power into the spaces I occupy. Because every woman’s story deserves to be told, and more important, heard.
Jordan Vallone is a senior editor of the Herald Community Newspapers. Comments? jvallone@liherald.com.
