I’m sick of every FMC being hot, confident and sassy because for me that’s not relatable. Looking for suggestions where the FMC is shy and lonely. I liked being in Kaya’s head in crawdads when she described how she’s always alone and lonely and how she copes with it. Thanks!
by islandgurlll
8 Comments
I related to Skeeter in The Help for this, although she is one of three main characters. Really annoyed me when the film cast Emma Stone. Listening to Emma Stone worrying that a man won’t find her pretty. Emma Stone is a great actor and the rest of the casting was top tier, but ridiculous that they kept the not-pretty story line with her.
In the book she’s legitimately not conventionally attractive and doesn’t fit in for a lot of reasons, but she’s unmarried, and socially isolated.
Dietland! It’s a banger.
I recently read a 1970s novella all about being shy and unattractive, **The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jr.** (pen name of Alice Sheldon). It’s a classic all about marketing and societal pressures on women to be conventionally attractive. However, it’s quite short, only about 30 pages. It’s been published in multiple short story collections, or in combination with another novella, [Screwtop/The Girl Who Was Plugged In](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/216333).
[Fairest by Gail Carson Levine](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/183660.Fairest). A long young adult fantasy novel loosely based on Snow White, about a lonely, tall, conventionally unattractive girl who has a beautiful singing voice.
Edit: I just remembered another! The [Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24770.Uglies), young adult sci fi set in a world where cosmetic surgery is mandatory and normal looking people are considered ugly.
_Sisters of the Lost Nation_ by Nick Medina. FMC is unattractive, doesn’t care, remains so.
She’s come undone – Wally Lamb
*Nettle and Bone* by T. Kingfisher – main character is a shy, awkward, covent raised woman in her 30s. She’s definitely not describes as conventionaly beautiful and at some point she damages her hand and permamently looses feeling in one finger. It’s a great novel, if you don’t mind fantasy.
*Milk Fed* by Melissa Broder – main character suffers from an eating disorder and is unable accept her body. She lives alone, doesn’t have friends and is far from a sassy smooth talker. Just a heads up, the book features graphic sex scenes.
You might like Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow
Milkman by Anna Burns