Feminist Reading Group

Welcome to the Feminist Fiction Reading Group!

Every month, we will read and discuss one book by an incredible female author.

Our new custodian for the reading group is bookseller Sammi, and her first choice is Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel.

Still Born, Nettel's fourth novel, explores one of life's most consequential decisions - whether or not to have children - with her signature charm and intelligence. Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilized, but as time goes by Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother.

When complications arise in Alina's pregnancy and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour's son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions.

In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Still Born explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon's touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.