Passes the "Bechdel Test" Public

Created and curated by Phil in SF

This list contains books that:

  • have at least two women in them,
  • who talk to each other,
  • about something other than a man.

Wikipedia has a decent intro on the origins of the metric: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test

Beware that this test is very limited in probative value. "The Bechdel test only indicates whether women are present in a work of fiction to a certain degree. A work may pass the test and still contain sexist content, and a work with prominent female characters may fail the test." This is just one thing a person may want to consider in their reading. There are many others.

I (@kingrat@sfba.club) track this in my reading as a check to make sure I am including reading that includes non-token female characters because American publishing often overly focuses on men's stories, and that is quite often reflected even more strongly in what American men choose to read.

  1. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

    4 stars

    From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to …

    Phil in SF says:

    Babel is told from the perspective of a young man named Robin, so the narrative can only see the conversations of women when Robin is there for them. However, Robin does get to witness his friends Letty and Victoire discuss balls and translation and probably a few other things I haven't got to yet.

  2. The Traitor by 

    3 stars

    British spy Emma Makepeace goes undercover on a Russian oligarch’s superyacht, where she’s one wrong move away from a watery …

  3. Station Eternity by 

    3 stars

    Amateur detective Mallory Viridian’s talent for solving murders ruined her life on Earth and drove her to live on an …

  4. Blanche on the Lam by 

    No rating

    Blanche White is a plump, feisty, middle-aged African-American housekeeper working for the genteel rich in North Carolina. But when an …

  5. Little (Grrl) Lost by 

    No rating

    Fourteen-year-old T.J. and her new friend, sixteen-year-old Elizabeth, a six-inch-high "Little" with a big chip on her shoulder, help one …

  6. Hollow Beasts by 

    3 stars

    After a long stint in academia, Jodi Luna leaves Boston for the wilds of New Mexico to start a new …

  7. The City Inside by 

    3 stars

    The City Inside, a near-future epic by the internationally celebrated Samit Basu, pulls no punches as it comes for your …

  8. Sing Her Down by 

    4 stars

    No Country for Old Men meets Killing Eve in this gritty, feminist Western thriller from the award-winning author of These …

  9. Relentless Melt by 

    4 stars

    Stranger Things meets the Golden Age of Detective fiction in a rollicking supernatural detective thriller that introduces Artie Quick, a …

  10. Phil in SF says:

    our protagonist Emily discusses aging & making music with fellow female musicians

  11. A Shadow in Summer by 

    No rating

    From debut author Daniel Abraham comes A Shadow in Summer, the first book in the Long Price Quartet fantasy series. …

  12. Red Mars by 

    4 stars

    In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in …

  13. The Wall by 

    No rating

    ‘Imagine a horizon.’

    ‘I can’t.’

    Mithila’s world is bound by a Wall enclosing the city of Sumer — nobody goes …

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