Hot Girl Books 2.0 — ALL STARS EDITION

what your favourite hot girls think you should read in 2026

Julia Novis, Ismene Ormonde, Madison Huizinga, and 4 others

Jan 05, 2026

Hello, hello and Happy New Year! Thank you for having me in your inbox, and I hope your 2026 is full of fabulous things. I slowed down a bit towards the end of last year, but I promise to make it up to you with my first proper newsletter of the year. I figured I’d bring something special as a treat (for my readers, and selfishly, for myself) and help people out if they included “read more” as one of their New Year’s resolutions. Last year was one full of firsts, so I tried to come up with something that would commemorate that. My first piece after making my Substack public was Hot Girl Books; my first byline was a list of Summer Literary Recommendations for Wonderland Magazine, and one of the most exciting things that happened to me was getting first dibs on proofs of some of the most exciting upcoming 2026 titles. In celebration of all things hot girls reading, I decided to reach out to some of my favourite literary hot girls (on Substack and beyond) for their own best book recommendations. Keep reading to find out what Ismene Ormonde, Madison Huizinga, Bea Isaacson, Elle Jones, Leah Commandeur and Marlowe Granados think you should put on your list.

Ismene Ormonde

Izzy and I bonded over our shared love of the hot girl bible, Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados on the first night we met (I’m a loyal reader of HOT PURSUIT OF PLEASURE and slid into her DMs when I realised we’d be at the same event), and I’m obsessed with her list of books where women have FUN, so she was the first person that came to mind when I was trying to come up with literary hot girls to dish out book recommendations.

Something I’m realising as I get older is that one of the hottest things you can be is funny. Also, that funny books are often denigrated as being less literary or less worthy or less impressive than sad books. To that I say: having a sense of humour in this world is both an act of moral strength and a deeply sexy quality! Books about funny broads (and even funny gentlemen – yes they exist!!) are therefore very necessary in the literary diet of a hot girl. I am constantly recommending, for this reason, Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which is one of the maddest (in the most British sense of the word) books I have ever read and also one of the most delightful: you could swallow it down in a sitting over a couple of French 75s and call it a party. I am also deeply in love with Elaine Dundy’s novels The Old Man & Me and The Dud Avocado – the latter is much funnier and the former leans more towards black comedy. And a special mention to the series I pick up when I am very sad and desperately to laugh out loud: P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels (which also happen to make WONDERFUL post-break-up reads – no romance, just life-affirming silliness).
This isn’t to say I don’t love an intense novel which makes me cry and think and brood. The first book to make me cry in 2024 was Set My Heart On Fire by Izumi Suzuki, which I picked up in a bookstore in NYC and read it in the bath at The Public, a nicely melancholic but actually quite nice setting in which to devour this weird, dirty, fizzing, erotic, dizzying novel about a young woman in the underground music scene in 1970s Tokyo. I also cried on the tube reading two James Baldwin novels this year: Giovanni’s Room and If Beale Street Could Talk. Because you know what else is hot? Being moved to tears by great art!

Madison Huizinga

I have been a long-time reader of Cafe Hysteria and in the midst of a career crisis, I slid into Madison’s LinkedIn DMs to ask for advice (if you learn anything from this piece, it’s that you should be in everyone’s DMs in 2026). Once again, I regained my faith in humanity as we performed time-zone gymnastics and got on a call where we bonded over our childhoods spent in dance studios, so I was obviously back in her DMs when I started working on this piece.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin - I dove into James Baldwin’s work for the first time this year, and Giovanni’s Room was such a great place to start. It’s such a rich exploration of love, internalized prejudice, and what you love about someone being the exact thing that causes you to resent them. I’ve never read a book that’s managed to articulate the feeling of release and anxiety that comes from someone holding a mirror too close to your face. Regardless of how deeply we try to suppress our true selves, elements always have a way of bubbling back to the surface. The last scene of this book left me so speechless, I had to put the book down and take a lap around the room.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - Demon Copperhead is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, set in a working class community in the Appalachian Mountains in the late 90s and early aughts. Resurrecting a beloved novel like Copperfield doesn’t come without controversy, but I adored living in this book’s universe, narrated by a hilarious, thoughtful, horny, comic-book-obsessed teenage boy protagonist. This book confronts weighty topics like opioid addiction, rural poverty, and the gaps in American social services, while maintaining a heart and a sense of humour. Laughs, tears, sentiment, it’s all there.
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray - The Bee Stingfollows an Irish family experiencing financial and interpersonal crises following the 2008 recession. The book switches perspectives between all four members of the family: a teenage daughter, a preteen son, and a middle-aged mother and father. Murray does such a great job inciting empathy for each of these deeply flawed characters, even developing distinct writing styles for each of their inner monologues. The book is deeply emotional and hilarious and builds to a satisfying conclusion, in which all four storylines converge unexpectedly. I also loved watching Dua Lipa’s interview with the author after reading it!

Bea Isaacson

When I first met Bea, she was wearing a fur coat, impossibly low-waisted jeans and her eyeliner smudged under her eyes in a way that made her look incredibly cool (and makes mere mortals look sleep-deprived and hungover). She radiates hot girl energy, and she’s yet to let me down with her reading recommendation, so I figured I’d redistribute the wealth.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac - OMG I’m so sorry. It’s four hundred pages of some of the most indulgent prose of the last century. Women exist within a dogmatic commitment to the Madonna Whore complex, a product of its time, homophobic and racist slurs are thrown around with abundance. Often nothing really happens. As Paris Geller puts it: edit, man, edit. And yet On The Road really is as madly brilliant as its legacy dictates. Something of a counterculture bible, this madcap assortment of bohemian students race across the vast American cities and plains, under the white picket fences of its postwar zeitgeist, and earnestly pledge themselves to a hedonist mandate of dancing and drinking and drugs and jazz and everything that falls in between the cracks of a law-abiding life. Of course it comes with its moments of pathos. But even when the characters are not actually at a party - Kerouac pens probably the best party scenes I’ve ever read, no doubt aided by his copious drug taking when writing - with its aching commitment to freedom and nihilism, the party spirit pulses throughout the novel like circulation of red, hot, All-American blood.

elle jones

Elle’s Notes In My Handbag has something for everyone, including comforting nostalgia via teenage-magazine-esque quizzes and some of my favourite thought-provoking though never pretentious pieces here, including let’s be snobs again, and in the club table economy, women are the currency. Scrolling through her archive is the digital equivalent of finding your favourite lip gloss at the bottom of the bag you never cleared out and haven’t worn for the past six months—a true delight.

Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera - Laughable Loves is a collection of seven short stories which are comedic, tragic, and erotic (sometimes separately, and sometimes all at once). If you haven’t read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, that should be your first Kundera, but if you’re looking for something genuinely funny, profound, and easy to read on the train, Laughable Loves is the one.

Female Friends by Fay Weldon - Criminally underrated by younger readers into feminist literature, Female Friends follows three friends, Marjorie, Grace, and Chloe, through post-war British society. All Fay Weldon has the ability to make you feel unbearably seen, but Female Friends is the best combination of funny, poignant, and political without bonking you over the head with obvious ‘social commentary’.

Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis - Read with caution, as with all of Ellis’ works, but he really started his career with his best. Many 2000s novels about vacant rich kids doing horrible things are poor emulations of this one, and it’s a masterclass in creating unease. The LA wind blowing through Less Than Zero is the same one whistling in much of Joan Didion’s work, and Ellis’s gross descriptions of heinous acts will appeal to readers of Ottessa Moshfegh, Irvine Welsh, John Waters, and the like.

Leah Commandeur

Leah writes DUST BUNNY and has impeccable taste in films. She has a recommendation for every mood and situation, and I’ve enjoyed all of her suggestions so far, so I figured I could trust her taste in other mediums as well.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini1 - I have read this book only once, for it wrecked me all those years ago so much so that picking it up again was met with unwavering trepidation, but I would still not hesitate to call this my favourite book of all time. This is a heartbreaking tale not all that untrue which follows two Afghani women, Miriam and Laila, who must live their lives in line with the Taliban’s rule. Despite there being 20 years between them, they are united by the cruel Rasheed and must adapt to a life with one another in it. Hossein’s writing is arresting, penning the most tragic of moments with words that can still manage to inspire levity and awe. I looked back over some of my favourite quotes from this novel and couldn’t help but cry, feeling just as impacted as I did when I first read my mother’s copy of this which she gave to me 5 years ago. Sometimes it takes a book like this that truly solidifies the idea that there is nothing more enduring, more indestructible than the human spirit, even when life has dealt you an awful hand.
Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna - As a Dubliner in London, I couldn’t help but feel that I was one of the background characters in this stunning debut novel from Oisín McKenna. This read features a well executed ensemble narrative, which helps you sink your teeth into the intertwining stories set to the backdrop of a very realistic London. Oh, and there’s a whale too. I actually listened to the audiobook of this, which was my first foray into listening to a story on my walks around the park or on my way home from work. It added another layer to my experience of the book that made it even more enjoyable for me, plus the fact that the narrator is brilliant. This one is messy, raw and gritty in the way the life truly is - which made this so all consuming of a read, what more could you ask for?

Marlowe Granados

The ultimate hot girl final boss. Happy Hour is every hot girl’s Bible; I’m due for my yearly re-read. I’ve gifted it more times than I can count, and it’s usually the first thing I recommend when I meet someone new. I once again did some DM sliding (it’s an art) and was over the moon when Marlowe sent over her recommended titles. Consider this required reading to tide you over until her next novel, Petty Intrigues, comes out next year.

If Only by Vigdis Hjorth - This novel is for those who have purposely invited someone to ruin their life. It’s a book of discord and obsession, which sometimes we choose for relationships because we think that’s where we’ll find the most growth. This book is a Scorpio in the worst way.
The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy - Everyone always recommends reading The Dud Avocado by Dundy, but out of the two, this one is my favourite. I’m realizing that I’m recommending books that use men as levers for personal growth and torture. This was a theme for 2025.
Life with Picasso by Francoise Gilot - I listen to biographies of artists constantly. Francoise Gilot was one of Picasso’s long term partners. By listening to biographies of 20th-century figures, I can now map out the social circles of groups like the Surrealists or Modernists. Francoise was really from the school of hard knocks, never letting Picasso destroy her like he did to many of his partners. As I listened I started to call my friends to exclaim, “He acts like Picasso but he just isn’t Picasso!”

If you made it to the end, I hope you enjoyed this piece! It was one of my favourites to put together, and though there was very little writing on my end, I am honoured and excited to share recommendations from some of my favourite literary voices. If you liked this piece, tell a friend! If you’re not already subscribed, consider dropping your email below (it’s fun! it’s free!), and if you want some of my book recommendations, check out some of my other pieces!