Looking for fiction recommendations w/strong female lead - clean w/no violence or mental illness

[Gerri]

Hello everyone! I'm looking for reading recommendations with some specific criteria:

- current or historical fiction
- strong, intelligent female lead, preferably in her 20s or 30s
- funny
- possibly romantic
- not too shallow
- not too predictable
- happy ending

Absolutely must not contain:
- violence, cruelty, war, mental or physical abuse, torture
- explicit content
- mental illness or depression
- miscarriage

An example that I think fits these criteria well would be "Pride and Prejucide", but of course I'm looking for other recommendations.

Thank you so much!

Gerri

 

[SuperReaderGirl]

Those are difficult criteria to fill..... I think most of the books I've read have had some violence, cruelty, or war ....or some degree of mental illness.

Maybe try Miss Spitfire - historical fiction about Helen Keller's teacher....pretty predictable though

I suppose you could try a light-hearted contemporary Young Adult fiction book. I just finished reading To Be Perfectly Honest, which is a novel written in verse (so it's a pretty quick read) and I thought it was not entirely predictable....but now that I'm thinking about it, some of the character actions could be construed as cruel....

These may be good for you:

Wanderlove by Kristen Hubbard
One Night That Changes Everything by Lauren Barnholdt
Anna & the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Life, Liberty, & Pursuit (I think there may be a brief bar fight) by Susan K. Quinn
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan
Wife 22 by Melanie Giddeon
Sean Griswold's Head - by Lindsey Leavitt

 

[steffee]

What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty. The protagonist does suffer from a fall, causing memory loss, but this isn't mental illness and doesn't cause her - or anyone - suffering.
From Amazon:

Alice is twenty-nine. She adores sleep, chocolate, and her ramshackle new house. She's newly engaged to the wonderful Nick and is pregnant with her first baby.
There's just one problem. All of that was ten years ago . . .
Alice has slipped in a step-aerobics class, hit her head and lost a decade. Now she's a grown-up, bossy mother of three in the middle of a nasty divorce and her beloved sister Elisabeth isn't speaking to her. This is her life but not as she knows it.
Clearly Alice has made some terrible mistakes. Just how much can happen in a decade?
Can she ever get back to the woman she used to be?

I find it hard to find examples of books without any suffering whatsoever, that aren't predictable. In fact, Pride and Prejudice also contains suffering. And is a bit predictable.