Eight books about young women searching for identity & purpose through work

Vanessa Lawrence is a writer, editor and native New Yorker. For almost two decades, she covered fashion, society, culture, design, art, and beauty on staff at publications including WWD and W Magazine. She has interviewed a wide range of creative personalities, such as Anna Sui, Kristen Stewart, Norma Kamali, Janelle Monae, Sandra Oh, Emma Watson, Kyle Abraham, Laura Kim, Judith Light, Sarah Sze, Timothée Chalamet, Jennifer Hudson, and Riley Keough, among many others. She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in history and she has an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.

Lawrence debut novel is Ellipses.

At Electric Lit she tagged "eight books ... featur[ing] women protagonists coming-of-age through and against the backdrop of their work." One title on the list:

All this Could be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

Sneha, the protagonist of Mathews’s novel, moves to Milwaukee for a corporate consulting job. She is fresh out of college. America is enveloped in a recession. Her parents have returned to India. Sneha is exploring her queer identity for the first time in the local dating pool. At first her traditional gig seems to provide her with the kind of cushy stability of which many a recent graduate might dream. That security proves a mirage as a mix of work troubles, housing insecurity, romantic turmoil, and family secrets threaten Sneha’s burgeoning adulthood. Interrogating the promise of a capitalist American Dream, this novel explores the role of community and human connection vs. individualistic success in personal happiness.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue