An Alternate Women’s Prize Longlist

As we all know, I’m a devoted follower of the Women’s Prize.  I tried my best with the 2020 longlist – I really did.  Here’s where I landed on this group of 16 books:

Shortlist

• Dominicana by Angie Cruz | read ★☆☆☆☆
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo | read ★★★★☆
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes | will read
• The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel | will read (entire trilogy)
• Hamnet by Maggie O’ Farrell | will read
• Weather by Jenny Offill | read ★★☆☆☆

Remaining longlist

• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara | will not read/don’t care enough to prioritize this
• Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner | read ★★★☆☆
• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams | will not read/don’t care enough to prioritize this
• Actress by Anne Enright | on-hold for now; I read 50 pages, had to put it down when various library holds all came in at the same time, and now it’s been too long to pick it back up, so I’m going to wait a couple of months and start over
• Nightingale Point by Luan Goldie | will not read/don’t care enough to prioritize this/have heard it’s awful
• How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee | read ★★★★☆
• The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo | currently reading/suffering
• Girl by Edna O’ Brien | read ★☆☆☆☆
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett | will not read/don’t care enough to prioritize this/have heard it’s awful
• Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson | read ★★★★☆

At this point, I’m just sort of fed-up.  I haven’t had a single 5-star read off this list, I’ve read two that I positively HATED, and if I have to read another book about motherhood I’m going to fucking scream.  Luckily the 3 shortlisted titles that I haven’t already read (A Thousand Ships, Mantel, Hamnet) are the 3 that I was most looking forward to off the longlist, so, that was fortuitous, and I’ll definitely be reading those.  As for the rest… nope!

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So a group of blogging friends and I decided to take the initiative to create our own 2020 longlist.  In a perfect world where we were the judges, these are the books we would have longlisted this year (adhering to all the Women’s Prize eligibility criteria):

It’s a group of 8 of us, so we each put forward 2 titles.  (See if you can guess mine.)

The Judges: Callum, Emily, Hannah, Marija, Naty, Sarah, Steph, and myself.

The longlist:

1. The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy | review ★★★★★
2. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell | currently reading
3. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
4. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo | review ★★★★☆
5. The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
6. Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
7. The Body Lies by Jo Baker | review ★★★★★
8. The Fire Starters by Jan Carson | review ★★★★★
9. Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips | review ★★★★★
10. Bunny by Mona Awad
11. Supper Club by Lara Williams
12. My Name is Monster by Katie Hale
13. Actress by Anne Enright
14. Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater
15. The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld
16. Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson | review ★★★★☆

All of us have a bit of literary prize fatigue at the moment, so we aren’t setting ourselves a deadline to read the list and come up with a shortlist.  It’s just something we’re going to meander through and hopefully revisit in a few months’ time.

That said, if you want to join us in reading any of these titles, please do!  The idea is ultimately to spotlight a group of books that we think either flew somewhat under the radar this year, or which we think are deserving of all the accolades they’ve been getting.

Comment and let me know your thoughts on the following: 1. the official longlist, 2. our alternate longlist, and 3. your own ideal longlist!