Has anyone noticed that the amount of book titles with the word “girl” in it has shot up exponentially? I thought it was only me, but then an article was published about it! Emma Oulton, the author, did a little digging and saw that the amount of titles in Goodreads database HAD increased in just the last few years.
Since the first few books that quickly came to mind were thrillers (The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, Gone Girl, Girl on a Train), I assumed that the majority of them were thrillers…Yeah, I was wrong. These books having been popping up in EVER SINGLE CATEGORY. It’s ridiculous.
The question that comes up though, why “girl”? Most of these books aren’t about girls, they’re about women. In fact so few of them have “women” in the title, that I was completely convinced that “The Woman in Cabin 10” was called “The Girl in Cabin 10” and caused me to think that the book didn’t actually exist (very meta if you’ve read the book).
So why do they all include the word woman? Um. Well, I have no idea. Anne, maybe you have some insight?!
Personally, I think it gives us all an interesting starting point. We know that it’ll most likely be focused on a woman dealing with a very personal issue. We also can instantly relate it back to other books we know with the word “girl” in the title, making us figure that we’ll either like it (or hate it), depending on what book we think the of.
Going off of this topic, I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite books with the girl in the title. And a quick round up of honorable mentions, because really there were too many too choose.
Books listed above
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I had noticed this too…definitely feels like a sales tactic in the thriller genre at this point, doesn’t it? And it does make one wonder a bit about the use of “girl” vs. “woman”. Perhaps it just rolls off the tongue better, or perhaps there’s something underlying that… For some of the other genres though it feels more appropriately used – but then maybe that’s just that it isn’t overused there – like Brown Girl Dreaming, or Funny Girl (I had forgotten about that title – loved it!), or The House Girl (also forgot about and rather liked).
I’m guessing you saw my shoutout to you then? Lol.
I know, I assumed they were all going to be thrillers because it’s so overused there. I was surprised by the numbers in other genres, but it’s a little more forgettable there.