This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s senior fall editorial intern Lauren Sanchez. Find her on Instagram at @lauren.sanchezz. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
If you’ve been on TikTok recently, you might have seen women posting videos proclaiming themselves as certified “thought daughters.”
The concept of a “thought daughter” was born out of backlash of an offensive internet question where street interviewers would post TikToks asking people whether they would rather have a “gay son” or a “thot daughter” – blurring the lines between homophobia and slut-shaming. But because women have had enough of the slut-shaming rhetoric, women on TikTok took control and turned the “thot” into “thought” – completely shifting the narrative and reclaiming the label as one of intellect and emotional maturity.
Building on the “eldest daughter syndrome” trend—where women opened up about their hyper-independence and the pressure of being the family fixer—the “Thought Daughter” label goes deeper. It taps into the introspective side – defining those who live in their heads and those constantly overanalyzing everything down to the tiniest detail. “Thought daughters” are the overthinkers who can’t help but break things down to the bone.
These women are often deeply empathetic, thoughtful, and caring, with a constant desire to be truly understood—whether by someone or through something meaningful. Hence why so many of these women gravitate toward music, poetry, movies, and of course, books to find meaning and fulfillment. If you consider yourself a “thought daughter” and are searching for books to help process your thoughts or feel seen, we have some book recommendations for you to check out!
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
One of the most iconic books ever to be written about the highs and lows of womanhood, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women celebrates four sisters and the different paths each of them takes in life. The four sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy each have unique desires and things they want out of life. With Meg dreaming of a cozy family life, Jo aspiring to be a writer, Amy pursuing her passion for art, and Beth finding joy in her close-knit family, each of their stories resonates with women everywhere. Their strong sisterly bond highlights the importance of supportive relationships among women, while their struggles against societal expectations encourage readers everywhere to embrace and reclaim their narratives.
It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over by Anna De Marcken
“Then I have the feeling of needing to let go and the feeling of having let go at the same time. This – this – is what it feels like to be undead. And this is what it feels like to be alive.” reads a quote from It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over. Anne De Marcken’s life-after-death, horror-fiction novel invites readers to ponder how much of our memories, bodies, and the world around us can be lost before we lose ourselves completely. The heroine in this book navigates the afterlife and though she’s forgotten her name and much of her humanity, she clings to an overwhelming longing for a place where she truly knew herself.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
In her highly anticipated follow-up to the bestselling Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi brings us a new novel that delves into the lives of a Ghanaian family living in Alabama. We meet Gifty, a fifth-year neuroscience Ph.D. candidate at Stanford, on a mission to crack the code of reward-seeking behavior in mice while exploring the neural circuits behind depression and addiction. Her life is anything but ordinary: her brother Nana was a star athlete whose promising future took a tragic turn when a knee injury led him down a dark path, resulting in a heroin overdose. Now, her mother, battling her own demons, spends her days lost in bed, leaving Gifty with the weight of her family’s grief on her shoulders. This book should resonate with thought daughters who truly feel the weight of the world every day, while also diving deep into to complexities of faith, love and family.
Crying In H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Winning the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Memoir and Autobiography in 2021, Zauner (also known as the singer and guitarist for Japanese Breakfast) writes this beautiful memory about what it’s like to grow up mixed-race, Korean food, and familial loss. She tells her story about growing up as the only Asian-American kid at her school in Oregon and the struggles of dealing with high expectations from her parents, while also grappling with her mother’s diagnosis with terminal pancreatic cancer and her Korean identity. Not going to lie, this book had me in tears (especially as someone who is Asian-American and mixed race) so prepare to have tissues on hand!
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
While you might have have seen the 2018 film starring Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell, this completely raw and vulnerable story based on a real-life father/son relationship is one of my favorite books I have ever read. Beautiful Boy is a memoir describing the struggles of drug addiction and its impacts it can have on family dynamics. Sheff, the father, writes about the pains of seeing his son deal with drug use and how heartbreaking it was to see his “beautiful boy” change into something completely unrecognizable. He opens up about his journey through the world of addiction, attending countless Al-Anon meetings and therapy sessions along the way. Here, he encounters the powerful mantra of the “three Cs”: you did not cause it, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it. Yet, as he navigates the emotional landscape of his son’s struggle with addiction, Sheff grapples with these truths, making his journey with his son all the more relatable and heart-wrenching.
To be a “thought daughter” is to be constantly curious and never stop overthinking and analyzing the smallest details about what makes the world tick and drives our experiences of pain and love, all at once. Hopefully with these book recommendations, it fuels your inner “thought daughter” and can give you the fulfillment you need to make sense of the world around you.
What do you think of our list of thought daughter books? Do you have a recommendation we missed? Let us know in the comments below!
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