For readers, books that speak to their unique perspectives, minds, and souls are jewels worth looking for. Naturally, Black women are not the exception.
Sitting at the intersection between racism and sexism, Black women face unique setbacks that paint their experience differently from others. While finding themselves represented used to be a challenge, it is now easier than ever to find good books for an African American female audience.
Loved and praised by their target audience, these following books have been considered must-reads for Black girls and women. They effectively reflect countless women’s shared lives while portraying unique stories, tales, and anecdotes that stand out among their peers.
The books featured in this list—fiction and nonfiction in various genres and motifs—were penned by Black women, about Black women, for Black women. Nonetheless, they are outstanding reads for anyone looking to glimpse life through their eyes.
Books by Black Women, for Black Women
Before I Let Go
A must-read book for Black women who enjoy romance, Before I Let Go depicts the challenging relationship between Yasmen and Josiah, a divorced couple who co-parent and run a business together.
They finally settled into their new dynamic, but can they resist their pull to one another and heal the damage from the past?
Trust
Ruthena Gentry is part of a book club that has grown into something more: a friendship. However, the group faces turmoil and challenges, including Ruthena escaping her stormy marriage.
Survival is a challenge, and freedom is costly—can they end the poverty cycle and reach happiness for good?
Black Girl, Call Home
In this staggering poetry collection, Jasmine Mans uses the strokes of her pen to open up her heart and discuss queer identity, racism, feminism, and the intersection between them all.
It is the journey of a young, queer Black woman toward adulthood, self-understanding, and healing, making it a good book for Black women with a penchant for poetry.
The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom
Among multiple self-help books for Black women, The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom stands out. Rather than being a generic personal finance book, it focuses on advice that considers the challenges, pitfalls, interests, and ambitions of the contemporary Black woman, providing the best steps to achieve ultimate financial freedom.
Finding Me
This extraordinary autobiography by EGOT winner Viola Davis depicts her humble origins and the challenging path leading to her outstanding achievements.
From growing up in an abusive household to facing colorism for being a dark-skinned Black woman, Viola Davis narrates the trials and successes that shaped her.
Kindred
Dana is a 26-year-old writer who finds herself repeatedly transported from her contemporary Los Angeles home to a 19th-century Maryland plantation. There, she must ensure her ancestors follow their path while surviving slavery.
Kindred has been deemed one of the best books for Black women—and most audiences—for its antebellum-era neo-slavery narrative framed through the lens of fantasy.
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted
Tabitha Walker is the perfect example of an educated, ambitious, successful Black woman—she has a high-profile job, a lovely house, and a picture-perfect marriage prospect.
However, her ideal life checklist comes crumbling down after a terrible diagnosis that may destroy her carefully curated life plan. But not everything is lost—she has willpower, strength, and a team of unbreakable friends there for her.
Becoming
Before becoming First Lady of the United States and a successful lawyer, Michelle Obama was simply Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, a young girl with a dream. From her childhood to her contemporary success, Becoming narrates Michelle’s story on her own terms—adorned with her characteristic charm and wit.
The Other Black Girl
Nella Rogers is the only Black employee at Wagner Books until Hazel arrives. Initially happy to have companionship, things soon take a turn for the sinister—and the notes telling Nella to leave Wagner are not the worst of it.
Described as “Get Out meets The Stepford Wives,” The Other Black Girl is a good book for African-American female readers eager to read an enrapturing mystery thriller grounded in the Black experience.
Seven Days in June
Eva Mercy is a single mom and a bestselling erotica writer. Shane Hall is a mysterious and reclusive award-winning literary author. Sparks fly upon meeting—just as they did twenty years earlier. Since then, they’ve secretly written to each other in their books, but can they reconnect again?
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
This essay collection is an ode to intersectional feminism.
It addresses the importance of safety, food security, health access, quality education, and fair payment as feminist issues that the movement has forgotten—particularly concerning the most underserved women affected by discrimination of class, race, and sexual nature.
Black Cake
Eleanor Bennet has died, and her inheritance to her children Byron and Benny is more puzzling than expected: an eight-hour voice recording and a black cake.
Now, the estranged siblings must sit down together and listen to their mother’s last story—that of a girl named Covey, a young swimmer who escaped her home island under suspicion of murder.
The Color Purple
The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, but that still does not convey its importance.
Written through letters and centered on rural Georgia in the early 20th century, the story follows African-American women’s lives, with a strong focus on the bond between sisters Celie and Nettie and their desire to reunite, as well as the painful reality of abuse, domestic, and sexual violence.
Miss Pearly’s Girls
Upon receiving news of their mother’s terminal illness, four estranged sisters reunite in their family home in rural Arkansas.
They all lead different lives, and countless secrets and lies ensure they never want to see each other again. But given her illness, Miss Pearly is ready to help her girls fix their bond once and for all.
Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen
In this revolutionary mental health and self-help book for Black women, clinical psychologist Dr. Inger Burnett-Zeigler deconstructs the ‘Strong Black Woman’ image by discussing their unacknowledged suffering and trauma and the ways they can flourish their inner strength by embracing their vulnerability, compassion, self-care, and mindfulness.
A Black Women’s History of the United States
by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
Two award-winning historians retell the history of the United States of America through the often-silenced perspective of Black women across the centuries.
Beginning with the first African women who arrived on the continent, this journey spotlights the oppression that attempted to crush them and the prideful resilience that allowed them to thrive and shape the country in any form—enslaved or freed, artists or scientists, entrepreneurs or outlaws.
An Extraordinary Union
Elle Burns is a freedwoman who returns to the chains of oppression with only one goal: to become a spy for the Union Army. Malcolm McCall is a detective on a mission to infiltrate a Rebel enclave in Virginia.
In this enrapturing romance book, The Civil War rages on, and two undercover agents meet during wartime intrigue and join forces to change the course of the conflict—and maybe each other’s lives.
The Best Books For Black Women Are an Ever-Growing List
Black women have an endless pool of talent, and many of them choose to write their thoughts, ideas, and concepts every day. The result is a steady and ever-growing flow of masterpieces worth checking.
The books mentioned in this list are only a tiny sample of the vast range of extraordinary books written by Black women for their eager audience. Regardless of your demographic, these books are enriching texts worth checking out if you wish to see the world through a Black woman’s eyes.
If you’re interested in dark and gritty urban crime fiction by Black authors, consider reading The Cartel book series, as covered here on BookScouter.
