Rose McGowan's Reading List

"Through Eva Luna and her stories, I went on a shimmering odyssey of the mind. Allende’s writing has such texture, she makes me hear, see, feel, smell the world with her words."

"I imagine how delightful it must’ve been to write about mind altering characters. We all fall down the rabbit hole now and then. Such fierce creativity implanted young will last a lifetime."

"The hopelessness of character assassination and being trapped by evil people’s lies is something I know a little about. I fell in love with Dàntes and his quest for justice long ago. Dumas’ writing helped form me. I wish I could thank him in person, but this’ll have to do."

"The author says she asked, ‘What does it take for a woman not to be defeated when everything around her is telling her to sit down and mind her manners?’ Kadish answered the question by writing a superb novel. Reading it, I gasped out loud more than once with the sheer joy at Kadish’s use of language and intricacy of thought."

"I was working at a funeral home when I found this novel. Being 14, I did a lot of thinking about death, and, conversely, how to live. Love in the Time of Cholera made me feel as if I were walking next to the characters as they laughed, loved, lived and died in a world filled with spirits. Márquez raised my consciousness by taking me gently into other realms."

"I recently reread this study of feminine pain and pleasure that makes the heart and body and mind feel all the feelings. Mind sex is good sex."

"Consorting with Angels’ is one of my favorite Sexton poems, but with so much raw power it is hard to choose. ‘I was tired of being a woman, tired of the spoons and the post, tired of my mouth and my breasts, tired of the cosmetics and the silks.’ Sexton was and is so vital and so brazen. Mad respect."

"Luckily, I found this book in paperback when I was eleven. It is a book that should be required reading at a young age. Malcom X’s mind, struggle, fight, pain and truth will live on because this book will keep popping brains open. Look past the propaganda machine that reduces his role in history; there is a whole world of thought here, and that is a world I like to be in."