Weird Girl Fiction: What It Is and Why It’s Blowing Up
When books get “weird” — and suddenly you feel seen
Before I ever wrote Romantasy — or even knew what BookTok was — I had a little ritual: I’d wander into indie bookstores and lose myself for hours in the back corners. The places where the books weren’t curated to sell, but seemed to whisper, “Hey, you might like this — even if you don’t know why yet.”
I was sometimes drawn to the front‑table bestsellers, yes. But to be honest, in my teenage years… I wanted the weird ones. The overlooked ones. The books with strange titles, odd covers, and plots that didn’t quite go where they were supposed to.
That’s where I discovered the stories that stuck with me. Stories that didn’t fit cleanly into any genre. Characters that felt unpredictable, a little off, sometimes even unlikable — and that’s exactly what made them so compelling. Women who didn’t behave the way they were expected to. Books that left me unsure if I loved them… or if they just completely undid me.
Which is why I’m so fascinated that there’s finally a name for this exact kind of reading — even though it’s not really a genre: Weird Girl Fiction.
A term that’s everywhere on TikTok, usually under videos of books that refuse to fit any mold. And one that quietly shines a light on something many of us have been reading for a long time — or maybe even being.
Everything about Weird Girl Fiction & Literature
What Is Weird Girl Fiction Anyway?
You could call Weird Girl Fiction a genre — if you’re generous with the word genre. 😳
Actually, it’s more like a catch‑all term for a literary sidestep. A holding place for books that bend every genre boundary and yet share something essential. Not in setting. Not in plot. But in how their characters meet the world.
It’s a literary territory for things that don’t work, don’t fit, don’t go smoothly — and yet resonate deeply, especially with readers who often feel like observers in the world rather than participants.
It’s home to the “I’m not even sure I’m an anti‑heroine” stories. A stage for transformations that don’t feel resolved, but open. And often it’s not about self‑discovery in the classic sense, but about allowing yourself to get lost at all.
Weird Girl Fiction isn’t a manifesto that celebrates “being different.” But it could be — in a quiet, unapologetic way, whispering: “I don’t owe you a thing.”
And just by observing, you realize while reading: maybe you’re not as messed up as you thought. Or maybe you see that others perceive the world in ways that feel uncannily familiar.
Both are deeply comforting side effects ;-)
Weird Girl vs. Sad Girl Lit?
While they overlap, Sad Girl Lit tends to center around emotional stillness, passivity, and depressive introspection (think The Bell Jar or Normal People). Weird Girl Fiction, in contrast, leans into strangeness, transformation, discomfort — and sometimes surrealism. They're cousins, but not twins.
How Do We Define Weird Girl Fiction?
Try to explain it in one sentence, and the term slips through your fingers again.
As I said above… it’s not really a genre. It’s more like a feeling. A vibe, if you will.
A kind of literature that pushes back against anything that wants to be neatly categorized. The books that show up under this banner are as different as daydreams: sometimes dark, sometimes playful, sometimes unsettling, sometimes poetic.
And yet they share something unmistakable:
Usually at the center are female‑identified characters who don’t function the way we expect them to. Characters unraveling internally, or in some kind of transformation that we, as readers, are allowed to witness. Characters who break away from classical narrative structures. They are loud sometimes, quiet other times — angry, tired, or just odd. And precisely because of that, they feel like counterpoints to the smooth, “relatable” heroines we’re so used to.
(And honestly, I love reading about people I have absolutely nothing in common with. Empathy is one of reading’s beautiful side effects.)
Weird Girl Fiction is simply… not nice. Definitely NOT polished. (Or maybe polished and secretly breaking free!) Basically… not comfortable.
And that’s what makes it so compelling. It reflects something many readers quietly feel: that life isn’t always coherent, that we can hold multiple voices at once, and that female characters aren’t just here to give us role models.
Fun Fact: These Characters Aren’t Really “Weird” — They’re Just Not What You Expected
Protagonists in Weird Girl Fiction have one thing in common: they don’t play along. They don’t follow plot points just to complete a classic hero’s journey. They don’t carry immaculate moral compasses. And they aren’t aiming for likability.
Instead, they do things that can feel jarring, even off‑putting — but always with radical honesty toward themselves.
Someone wants to become a mermaid — not because it’s beautiful, but because it’s the only way to escape what the world keeps demanding of her. Another thinks she’s turning into an animal — and you wonder: is this madness? Or just a wholly logical consequence of too much conformity?
What makes these characters special isn’t that they want to be strange. It’s that they finally get to be strange without anyone trying to erase that strangeness. And that — in the context of female characters — feels almost revolutionary. Because weirdness here isn’t the problem to overcome. It’s the mode of existence — given space and language.
What Makes These Characters… Weird?
They don’t do anything “right” — at least not in the conventional sense.
They’re contradictory, uncomfortable, unfinished. They don’t follow classic story arcs — sometimes not even socially accepted daily routines. They function neither as role models nor as traditional identification figures. Yet so many readers gravitate to them.
Maybe because you think while reading: OMG, I would never do that in real life.
Or: So this is what it feels like to be someone who moves outside every label…
Weird Girl Fiction allows exactly that: characters who don’t have to arrive anywhere to be worth reading. There’s no requirement for a Happy Ending or a prince to save anyone. It’s not about classical arcs.
Instead, it’s about:
Bodies that change — not always for the better, but into something other.
Inner worlds that are messy. In fact, as readers we watch all that mess, sometimes in shock.
Decisions that seem irrational, yet spring clearly from inner chaos.
And giving voice — or at least room — to thoughts that normally don’t get space: female anger, boredom, disgust, desire, disillusionment. Weird Girl Fiction gives these feelings language — or at least lets us read them aloud.
Sometimes it feels like an inner monologue with intense light shining on it. Sometimes like a diary someone forgot under a mattress. And sometimes like a perfectly normal novel — until a scene suddenly shifts into metaphorical metamorphosis.
And you think: Ah. Now it’s weird. Now it’s good.
So Why Weird Girl Fiction… Right Now?
Good question…
Maybe it’s the moment we’re living in — that strange simultaneity of permanent crisis and relentless self‑actualization. That constant “be your full self” — just make sure it looks amazing on Instagram. The sense that anything could be possible, but no one actually tells you how to start.
Weird Girl Fiction doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s a literary echo of a world where old life patterns are crumbling and new ones haven’t solidified yet. A world where many women feel pressured to be everything at once — and often don’t even know what they actually want. (Sound familiar?)
The stories we used to tell — the dutiful daughter, the fighter, the lover, the martyr — haven’t worn out. I mean, we still love those in genre fiction. But right now, there’s a hunger for something else.
For female figures who are confused, indecisive to a painful degree, or radically uncompromising (which — let’s be honest — is hard for most people pleasers in real life). For characters who don’t have to make decisions because they’re allowed to lose themselves first.
It’s basically a virtual boundary crossing.
Weird Girl Fiction mirrors that. These… let’s call them in‑between states. These stories don’t tell you how to arrive. They tell you what it feels like to be on the way — and sometimes to refuse the path entirely. That last part, I think, is a fantasy far more people share than they ever admit.
Weird Girl Cover Design: The Aesthetic of the Uncanny
You can often spot these books on the shelf — or while scrolling: books that look like someone layered a floral Pinterest filter over them, and then… something is just off. A font that’s too bright. A detail that disrupts. A tiny break that signals: this isn’t “nice.”
Honestly, I think Weird Girl Fiction has some of the most jaw‑dropping, coolest cover designs of the last few years. Especially in the English‑language market — my aesthetic heart cries with joy just looking at them.
The visual language of Weird Girl Fiction has developed its own cosmos. Delicate oil‑painted flowers meet neon type. Innocent, childlike imagery meets subtle hints of horror. (By the way — Gothic is having a moment again!!)
It’s an aesthetic contradiction through and through — and that’s precisely what makes it so intoxicating.
Because these books present themselves like the characters inside them: they don’t reveal themselves right away. They play with expectation and gently break context. While other genres are often clearly coded (“Here’s the spicy one,” “Here’s the romance,” “Here are the dragons”) and rooted in classic tropes, Weird Girl Fiction stays in flux. Anything can happen. Nothing is required. And that’s a huge part of the fun :-)
And that goes for language too. Some of these books read like literary essays, others like fevered diary entries, others like melancholic autofiction balancing on one skewed sentence. It’s a style that often carries mood more than forward plot — not plot‑heavy like many traditional genres. And that’s why it often feels closer than classic story arcs, even though we really do love a good plot.
But that’s kind of the point: Weird Girl Fiction isn’t there to shape itself into something neat — neither linguistically nor visually. And that’s what makes it a sort of literary surprise bag: you never know what you’ll get — just that it won’t be what you expected.
Fine, You Wanted Tropes! Here Are Common Tropes in Weird Girl Fiction (BookTok Style)
Over on BookTok, Weird Girl Fiction has its own language — certain tropes pop up again and again. They’re not plot formulas (as we talked about in great lengths above!!), but emotional signals.
Here are a few you’ll spot again and again:
Girl turns into an animal – or at least thinks she might
Becoming a mermaid, but not in a cute way – more like escaping human expectations through myth
Unfiltered inner monologue – chaotic, poetic, spiraling
Female rage – not always loud, but deeply present
Surreal or metaphorical horror – sometimes she is the monster
Mental unraveling instead of self-discovery
Fixation over romance – but without the actual romance arc
Repetition, loops, stuckness – the plot doesn’t “move,” it warps
Constant self-observation – like reading someone reading herself
Body + appetite as rebellion – hunger, disgust, desire = language
By the way, a lot of “raw-ness” in general is to be found, too. Eating raw meat is just one example.
Who Reads This — and Why Does It Feel So Familiar?
Okay, real talk: a lot of readers are internally weird. Not in an eccentric, loud way — more in the “I live in the external world, but inside there’s something else” way. I’d go so far as to say we all have parts of ourselves that are a bit weird. And books have always been a place to explore that hidden terrain without having to say it out loud.
Weird Girl Fiction speaks exactly to that inner landscape. It lets you escape — not into perfect fantasy (like, say, Romantasy!), but into in‑between spaces. Into messiness, contradiction, emotional overflow. And that’s why it’s especially appealing to people who behave in real life like they’re adapting, observing, or holding back. Or even to the loud ones who want to read something more introverted. The shy reader gets permission for boundary‑breaking. The outgoing reader gets a quiet perspective. Everyone finds something they didn’t know they needed.
What’s better than discovering parts of yourself in the pages of a book?
The Weird Girl Lexicon 🤓
Weird Girl Fiction doesn’t just bend stories — it’s created its own language. On BookTok and beyond, these terms keep showing up in reviews, memes, and aesthetic guides. Here’s a quick glossary for your next scroll session:
Terms you might see floating around Weird Girl TikTok
✷ Feral femme — wild, intuitive, outside all “good girl” expectations
✷ Girlcore surrealism — aesthetics that feel soft, strange, and slightly unhinged
✷ Goblin mode — rejecting polished perfection, embracing chaos
✷ Soft girl rage — quiet anger that simmers beneath pastel surfaces
✷ Diary-lit — confessional, intimate writing that feels like reading someone’s secret notebook
I don’t know who invented these, but I am sure there will be many more to turn up on all of our For You pages very soon.
Is This Just a Trend?
Of course you could say Weird Girl Fiction is just the next social‑media label. A hype like #darkacademia or the “Clean Girl” aesthetics.
But that would be too short‑sighted.
Behind the term isn’t just a fashionable buzzword — it’s a literary response to a world in flux: dissolving and redefining at the same time. Or whatever you want to call what’s happening right now.
These books don’t tell you who you should become. They tell you what it feels like when you don’t know who you’re allowed to be. That’s not niche — that’s pretty universal. It just got a slightly weirder context than usual.
Weird Girl Fiction is for anyone who knows they don’t fit cleanly into a box — and maybe never had the words for it. And for anyone who’s always known that if you think a little differently, you might find yourself in the very books that don’t fit anywhere else.
Forecast: New Hybrid Forms
My prediction? We’ll see not only more Weird Girl Fiction (which is already happening), but also classic genres like romance borrowing from it.
Sure, it might feel strange to squeeze Weird Girl elements into a traditional plot structure. But the more I think about it, the more refreshing it sounds. Like… Think about a “Weird Girl Romantasy” or a “Weird Girl Romance in Southern France”. Now that’s what would be a crazy mix.
I’ve definitely noticed that the characters I remember most from any novels often have something a little weird about them.
What Are the Most Well‑Known Weird Girl Fiction Books?
A few have become almost canonical: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh is often cited as a must‑read. Milkfed by Melissa Broder shows up on practically every list. Night Bitch by Rachel Yoder and Bunny by Mona Awad are perennial BookTok favorites on this topic.
I’m still working my way through a lot of these myself — and of course I’ll update this article as I discover more!