Why are so many female protagonists suddenly obsessed with being unhinged, under-medicated, and inexplicably drawn to rot? The girlboss is long dead, the sad girl has been shoved to the curb, and in their place stands the ‘weird girl’—disaffected, grotesque, and completely detached from the idea of self improvement.
Whether they spend the length of a novel pill-dazed in a pastel-lit bedroom (My Year of Rest and Relaxation), withering into chronic pain and inescapable performance (All’s Well), or cultishly clinging to a deadly creative writing group (Bunny), the protagonists of what’s now loosely labelled ‘weird girl fiction’ have taken over bookshelves and social feeds alike.
If the 2010s idolized the ambitious, overachieving woman and later romanticized her burnout, the 2020s have rejected both. In their place: novels about women who are self-destructive, offensive, and of course, very weird—all narrated with sardonic detachment that feels both too online and deeply personal. But what is it about this particular brand of dysfunction that resonates so strongly? And does every book wearing the ‘weird girl’ label actually deserve it?
Origins: The Weird Girl Chronicles
Most agree that the modern wave of ‘weird girl fiction’ was kickstarted by Ottessa Moshfegh with her debut novel Eileen (2015). Eileen is grimy, self-loathing, and narrates her story with caustic detachment. She’s not just sad—she’s off-putting, unreliable, and fully aware of her own unpleasantness. Eileen went on to win the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, demonstrating its strength.
However, it was Moshfegh’s second novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), that became the ‘weird girl’ archetype. While published in 2018, it didn’t enter cultural ubiquity until 2020–2021, when BookTok, Bookstagram, and literary Twitter picked it up. Its lethargic, deadpan protagonist resonated with a new generation of readers navigating disillusionment and identity in increasingly online, post-ironic ways.
Moshfegh’s viral resurgence opened the floodgates. In the years since, authors like Mona Awad (Bunny, All’s Well, Rouge) and Melissa Broder (The Pisces, Milk Fed, Death Valley) have carved out their own niches in the ‘weird girl’ canon—each featuring alienated, emotionally volatile female protagonists.
The Allure (and Limits) of the Unhinged Protagonist
The appeal of ‘weird girl’ fiction lies in its embrace of the grotesque and unstable. These books offer catharsis through protagonists who are unapologetically messy—drawn to rage, obsession, or deadly apathy with unnerving intensity.
Chelsea G. Summers’ A Certain Hunger takes this to the extreme. Its narrator, Dorothy, is a former food writer and convicted cannibal whose voice veers between sharp wit and eye-rolling pretension. She compares mass murder to McDonald’s “chopped beef,” whereas serial killing, she insists, is “bespoke carnal dining.” Like many others in the subgenre, the novel toes the line between satirizing and indulging in unlikeability.
Readers, especially young women, are drawn to this kind of dark humour and emotional rawness. These protagonists reject the pressure to be likeable or redeemable; they offer emotional release in their refusal to conform. But as the subgenre grows, it risks becoming a caricature of itself. Some books rely so heavily on gore or crude behaviour that any real critique of femininity, violence, or mental illness gets lost. The narrative voice starts to feel like a dare: “Are you disturbed yet? How about now?”
Social media has only intensified this trend. On platforms like Goodreads and BookTok, critique is often drowned out by five-star raves, aesthetic posts, and surface-level takes. With books being consumed, reviewed, and shelved so quickly, it’s hard to tell which stories are genuinely resonant and which are just trendy.
A basic Google search for ‘weird girl fiction’ brings up a Goodreads shelf called “Popular Weird Girl Books,” a Penguin Random House list entitled “Weird Fiction About Weird Women,” and a 125-comment Reddit thread full of recommendations. Publishers, readers, and algorithm-driven recommendation tools alike are invested in expanding this subgenre’s popularity. The story often matters less than the kind of book it appears to be.
What Kind of ‘Girl’ Comes Next?
The truth is, I don’t know what kind of female protagonist is coming next, or if we even need to crown a new literary archetype. I still love ‘weird girl’ novels when they’re done well, when there’s actual momentum to the plot and something meaningful anchoring all the chaos. All’s Well, for example, remains one of my favourite books of all time. Mona Awad’s writing is surreal and emotionally gutting in a way that stuck with me long after I closed the book.
But not all ‘weird girl’ books land. A novel like Eileen, with its disturbing descriptions and meandering storyline, didn’t work for me; it felt more like a test of endurance than a story with something to say. And that’s kind of the point: maybe the issue isn’t that ‘weird girl fiction’ is everywhere, but that we’re too eager to shove every female-narrated novel with a little edge onto the same aesthetic shelf.
If we focused less on categorising and more on the actual merit of individual books and authors, we might be in a better place as readers. Not everything has to belong to a trend. And not every protagonist has to represent a movement. Sometimes, a weird book is just…a weird book. And that’s enough.
Words by Dana Elrufaei
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