Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baise-Moi | 1993 | Virginie Despentes | Buy |
| 2 | Apocalypse Baby | 2013 | Virginie Despentes | Buy |
| 3 | Bye Bye Blondie | 2016 | Virginie Despentes | Buy |
| 4 | Pretty Things | 2018 | Virginie Despentes | Buy |
| 5 | Dear Dickhead | 2022 | Virginie Despentes | Buy |
Virginie Despentes published her first novel, Baise-Moi, in 1994. The book follows two women who go on a killing spree after one of them is raped — a story Despentes wrote directly from her own experience of sexual violence — and its refusal to offer moral clarity or narrative redemption made it controversial enough that the 2000 film adaptation was briefly banned in France. It announced a writer with no interest in making her material easier to receive.
The standalone novels that followed apply the same unflinching quality to different registers. Apocalypse Baby (2010) won the Prix Renaudot and is her most plot-driven book: a two-hander detective story that moves between Paris and Barcelona, featuring a charming, anarchic figure in the Hyena alongside a more conventional narrator. Bye Bye Blondie and Pretty Things explore women navigating institutions and relationships built without them in mind. Dear Dickhead (2022) is formally inventive — an exchange of letters between a male celebrity author and a feminist blogger who knew each other years earlier, sharp and funny about how men and women talk past each other on questions of accountability and art.