Ambitious Girls Starter Kit

January 30, 2018 | 1:00 PM

Ambitious Girls Starter Kit

By Laurie Devore
Ambitious Girls Starter Kit
To celebrate Winner Take All, I’ve put together a starter pack for ambitious girls—girls like my main character, Nell. I crowdsourced to some rad ambitious friends and included some of my personal recs to help you get s*** done! Afterward, all you’ll need is some coffee and water to hydrate with, and you’ll be ready to rock!

Fiction

Young adult fiction is well known for having some of the most butt-kicking heroines around. If you’re looking for some girls who are taking on fantasy worlds, look no further than An Ember in the Ashes and Song of the Current. Breathe, Annie, Breathe features one of my favorite sporty girls training for her first marathon (she even inspired me to run my first marathon!). Lastly, I love a good perfectionist going after what she wants, and you can find two excellent hyper-focused main characters in I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Not That Kind of Girl.

Nonfiction

From awesome ladies in television (Yes Please from Parks and Rec’s Amy Poehler and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? from The Mindy Project’s Mindy Kaling) to the first female major party nominee for president (Hillary Rodham Clinton’s What Happened) to feminist icon Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist) and a young adult anthology (Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World, edited by Kelly Jensen), nonfiction is the perfect place to hear from a variety of female voices. These books will inspire any girl to follow in these real-life heroines’ footsteps!

TV/Movies

Don’t miss the career woman of The Bold Type and How to Get Away with Murder (though I would not recommend following in the footsteps of the HTGAWM crew, I love how complex and goal-driven all the women on the show are). Veronica Mars is everyone’s favorite smart-mouthed teenage detective. Clueless features a girl with all the tools figuring out how to put them together and go after what she wants. And lastly, no ambitious lady list is complete without Hermione Granger—Harry’s name may have been in the book titles but we all know who the true hero was (obvious disclaimer here to read the books first . . . or again).

Music

Music to jam out to while you’re taking on the world spans genres. Cue up Spotify and check out country star Kacey Musgraves (don’t sleep on the titular “Pageant Material”) or indie hip hop’s Dessa (take a listen to new single “Fire Drills”) or maybe flip the station over to chosen queen of the free world Beyoncé (either of the classics “Love on Top” or “Formation” are excellent picks). Rihanna’s most recent album Anti is the perfect mix of vulnerability and her get-stuff-done attitude (“Desperado” and “Higher” are personal faves), and while T. Swift herself is often divisive, it’s hard to deny the cunning mind behind her new album reputation, as she finally embraces her status as antihero of the story (“Delicate” and “I Did Something Bad” speak to my soul). Who runs the world?

Decor

And finally some decor to feed your ambitious soul! Check out these fabulous female artists’ work!

Winner Take All by Laurie Devore

For Nell Becker, life is a competition she needs to win. For Jackson Hart, everyone is a pawn in his own game. They both have everything to lose. Nell wants to succeed at everything—school, sports, life. And victory is sweeter when it means Jackson Hart, the rich, privileged, undisputed king of Cedar Woods Prep Academy. Yet no matter how hard she tries, Jackson is somehow one step ahead. They're a match made in hell, but opposites do attract. Drawn to each other by their rivalry, Nell and Jackson fall into a whirlwind romance that consumes everything in their lives. But when a devastating secret exposes their relationship as just another game, how far will Nell go to win? Visceral and whip-smart, Laurie Devore's Winner Take All paints an unflinching portrait of obsessive love, toxic competition, and the drive for perfection. Start reading now.  

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