Seven top novels that subvert social norms

A. Natasha Joukovsky holds a BA in English from the University of Virginia and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business. She spent five years in the art world, working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before pivoting into management consulting. The Portrait of a Mirror is her debut novel. She lives in Washington, D.C.

At Electric Lit she tagged "seven novels that irresistibly subvert social norms and etiquette," including:

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

At a time when mainstream depictions of trans women generally range from offensive to flatly glorified symbols of their authors’ open-mindedness, Torrey Peters’s debut offers a much-needed third path, revealing trans and cis women alike to be just what they are: no less—but also no more—than human. Ingeniously, her novel not only subverts cis norms, as Reese, Katrina, and Ames navigate the complexities of queer domesticity, but trans norms, too—the titular concept of detransition being one often weaponized against the trans community and taboo within it. Peters undertakes the subject with nuance and empathy through the character of Ames, whose desires thrum with the same flawed specificity as Reese’s and Katrina’s—and Emma Bovary’s.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue