14 New Nonfiction Books By Women You'll Want to Read This Summer

When acclaimed author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie got a letter from a childhood friend, asking how she could raise her daughter to be a feminist, Adichie had some ideas. The result is Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, a smart, funny, and perceptive read about how we can raise our next generation to be strong women.

If you read Ariel Levy's harrowing essay Thanksgiving in Mongolia, then you know where her story starts off: a miscarriage that almost took her life and then a failed marriage. The Rules Do Not Apply takes off from there, examining the idea of having it all in today's world.

There are three trimesters to a pregnancy, and then there's the fourth, which encompasses those exhausting newborn days. But what happens when a working mom is ready to go back to work? That's The Fifth Trimester, and it requires a fair amount of negotiating. Let this no holds barred guide show you how to navigate this difficult time in every mother's life.

Eighteen years. That's a lifetime. That's a marriage. In her memoir Hourglass, Dani Shapiro examines her marriage and how it has been transformed by time and experience. In elegant prose, Shapiro uncovers universal truths about married life and life in general. This is a must read that you will want to start reading again as soon as you've turned the last page.

Sheryl Sandberg faced every wife's worst nightmare: the sudden death of her husband while they were away on vacation. How would she come home and tell her children what had happened? How would she go back to work? How would she ever experience joy again? She turned to her friend, psychologist Adam Grant, to help her through this life-shattering event. Sandberg and Grant teamed up to write Option B, which details her struggle to deal with her husband's death and also teaches us how resilience is a muscle that we can all build. This book is a must read for anyone who has faced adversity, anyone who has struggled in life, and anyone who has ever asked, will it always feel like this?

New York Times book review editor Pamela Paul has kept a journal of every book she has ever read. She calls this book Bob, and in her new memoir, My Life with Bob, she details these books that have shaped her life. The result is a smart, beautifully written memoir about the relationship we have with books and how the books we read frame our lives. This charmer is a must for every beach bag this Summer.

Patricia Lockwood’s funny, irreverent memoir Priestdaddy details her life growing up as the (nonbelieving) daughter of a Catholic priest. When Lockwood and her husband are forced to move back to her childhood home, will they be able to find common ground?

Plus-size model Ashley Graham is an outspoken advocate for the body positivity movement. In her collection of essays, A New Model, she shares stories of growing up, her early career, and meeting her husband. This deeply personal book encourages confidence and shows women what true beauty looks like.

Jill Dodd got out of an abusive home and made it as a model in 1980s Paris. From there, her path would take her to Monte Carlo to the harem of a Saudi billionaire and then back to her home town to find herself. The Currency of Love is a raw and inspiring story about one woman's search for independence.

We gobble up everything Roxane Gay writes, and her memoir, Hunger, has been hotly anticipated since it was announced. Gay reveals, in brutal detail, the act of violence that defined her young life and how that divided her life into before and after. Hunger is Gay at her most brave and vulnerable — a must read about food and how to nourish ourselves.

Are you Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud? If not, you probably know the type of person Buzzfeed writer Anne Helen Petersen is talking about. She’s an unruly woman, and people are threatened by her. Through the lens of celebrity, Petersen examines these women who break the mold.

Admit it: you're totally obsessed with celebrities. We all are. In The Stars in Our Eyes, Julie Klam asks, why? This funny, eye-opening look into our celebrity obsession will have you talking all summer about the stars and what our favorite famous people really say about us.

Who doesn't want the perfect body? We all do. Kimberly Rae Miller does. In her new memoir, Beautiful Bodies, Miller examines a life of dieting and seeks to find where this unattainable image of the "ideal body" came from.

A memoir by comedian Ms. Pat, Rabbit is the story of her childhood in the tough West End neighborhood of Atlanta, finding herself with two children when she was only 15 years old. Determined to create a better life for her kids, Rabbit is a story of one woman's resilience and persistence.