If you’re a fan of Fleabag, we know you still have not moved on from “it’ll pass”, and rightfully so. We haven’t either. So, the biggest joy for any Fleabag and book lover is finding books that have the same vibes. Fortunately, you don’t need to go looking for them. Here is The Bombay Circle Press’ book recommendations for fans of Fleabag.
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
A novel about a young woman’s efforts, to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation, with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature, and the battery of medicines she prescribes.
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000, in a city glittering with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies.
- All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyuko stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it.
As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko’s past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale. All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and engaging; it will make readers laugh, and it will make them cry, but it will also remind them, as only the best books do, that sometimes the pain is worth it.
- I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee
Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her—what to call it?—Depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgmental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends, performing the calmness her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can’t be normal. But if she’s so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?
Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions, and harmful behaviors that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse.
If you liked this list of recommendations, check out our blog on modern women’s fiction that is taking the world by storm.