Project Bookshelf: Savannah Roach

If you want to know who I am, look at my bookshelf. It’s stacked with stories that explore where and how women fit in our world, particularly through the lens of Southern culture and complicated love. I was born and raised in the South, so I’ve always been drawn to books that understand the heaviness and beauty of that inheritance. The sweet tea, the unspoken rules, and the expectations. The contradictions of being a Southern woman, soft-spoken but sharp, raised to be strong yet always remain passive in society, echo in so many of the stories I love most.

Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina lives at the heart of my collection. It’s raw, aching, and rooted in the dirt and pain of South Carolina. It tells the kind of truth that Southern women often whisper behind closed doors, and it always brought me a strange sense of nostalgia and an urge to retaliate. This book showed me what true heartbreak and hopelessness mean and where to go after.

My next pick is admittedly a bit sappy, but it will always remain on my bookshelf. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks tells a story of enduring love, societal pressure, and a Southern landscape that continues to resonate. This book is definitely a comfort read, and the one that reminds me that softness doesn’t always mean weakness. I find myself returning to The Notebook for a taste of true love and Southern charm.

Then there’s The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It might not be Southern, but Gloria Gilbert is one of those women who refuses to settle, even as the world tries to drown her in expectations. That tug-of-war between self and society feels familiar, like something Southern girls inherit through more than just words.

Delia Owens’s Where the Crawdads Sing has everything my kind of book has. Love, mystery, societal pressure, classism, curiosity: it’s a story about nature, loneliness, and survival. Kya’s life is shaped by the Southern wilderness, as well as by the social hierarchies that attempt to confine her.

And finally, Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors is the newest addition, but one that resonates deeply. While it’s more cosmopolitan in setting, the emotional unraveling of a young woman trying to figure out how much of herself she’s allowed to be feels incredibly familiar.

My bookshelf tells stories of women who don’t fit neatly into the roles society hands them, especially Southern women who carry the weight of tradition and the fire of rebellion. These books remind me that we are allowed to be messy, bold, hurt, hopeful, and everything in between.

Savannah Roach (she/her) is a senior at the University of Tennessee, where she majors in English with a concentration in technical communication and minors in advertising and public relations. She is a travel enthusiast, bookworm, amateur baker, and nature lover. While she enjoys books of all kinds, she’s especially drawn to the haunting beauty and rich atmosphere of Southern Gothic literature. With a great love for Knoxville, she looks forward to serving the writing community in this position.