Books about women growing up in different societies

How about the Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)?

Purple Hibiscus - About a girl growing up in Africa.

I lthink 'Prep' by Curtis Sittenfield and 'The Getting of Wisdom' by Henry Handel Richardson portray the transition between childhood and adulthood best and most realisticly for women.

Both The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch (both by George Eliot, which could be useful for comparison) would be apt choices as they each feature a female character - Maggie in the former, Dorothea in the latter - striving for education and something more than what society, especially their immediate families, attempt to reduce them to. Also, though not a novel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel is a brillaint detailing of the female experience in Somalia and Saudi Arabia and might be worth a read, it's a great book regardless.

"The House of Exile" by Norah Waln. I think it is autobiography, rather than fiction, concerning a young American growing to womanhood in a Chinese family in the 1920s. It is a remarkable story, giving a vivid picture of a society, seemingly eternally established but on the brink of change. Because of the circumstances, the author is able to present an outsider's view and also the view from the inside. At the same time the story is one of a person growing from childhood into womanhood.

Might be an unusual suggestion, but Fingersmith by Sarah Waters is excellent for a modern period novel (Victorian). It follows two women and their upbringing, one from poverty and the other from a middle class background who was raised in an institution until taken in by family.

It does of course have a homosexual theme for parts of the novel, but it isn't a predominant theme unlike some of her other work. I think there are only 2 or 3 scenes throughout the whole book that have any sexual content.

Just as a reminder to everyone contributing... This thread is over three years old.

:D