Mindy Hung's previous work for The Toast can be found here. When a woman is famous, the focus is often on her body—her butt, her post-baby body, if and with whom she’s doing it. Recent romance novels provide an interesting space to explore women, fame, and notoriety, not only because of how often the arcs of these books play out over headlines, but also because they offer a way for these narratives to be critiqued or…

If you like your heroines pluck-filled and resourceful, it’s easy to enjoy just about all of L.M. Montgomery’s protagonists. Her most famous character, Anne Shirley, is charming and creative, at least until Anne’s six mediocre children hijack her personality and presumably bury it under some moon-kissed elfin rock in Rainbow Valley, where it remains for the rest of the series. Emily Byrd Starr writes with too many italics, has bursts of psychic power, and defends…