The Women: A Raising Women Expansion Pack

by Shannon Waite

Thirty-Nine transgressive short stories that are raw, relatable, and fearlessly honest.

Welcome to this nostalgic museum of girlhood, where eleven self-loathing and self-destructive girls are on display. Watch as feelings of confusion, rebellion, and a desire to belong turn them into defiant women, unruly mothers, and unsavory wives. Roman leaves prison with a dangerous man; Kia attends a locker room sermon on period sex; Carly escorts her boyfriend’s ex to the abortion clinic, and you develop nudes at the local drugstore. Through sharp and visceral prose, Shannon Waite gives life to the women you know, have been, or will be in ways that break you but won’t let you look away.

Both a prequel and sequel to Waite’s interactive novel Raising Women, this expansion pack allows the novel’s girls to bravely tell their own gut-wrenching stories in unapologetically bold voices—and though it expands on the novel’s characters, this gritty, unsettling, and vulnerable short story collection can be read before, after, or isolated from the novel.

262 pages, Paperback

Published July 19, 2025

About the author

Award-winning writer and educator Shannon Waite writes stories about norms, characters who break norms, and society's wounds. They're always contemporary, often transgressive. Her debut novel, Raising Women, is an interactive novel in which readers make self-destructive decisions that explore the wild that is growing up girl.

Her short fiction has been published in PANK, Hobart, and elsewhere. She has two bachelor’s degrees in English and Creative Writing from Oakland University and an MA in Teaching and Curriculum from Michigan State University. Shannon lives in Michigan with her hamster.

Reviews

[mey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hadn’t read the original Raising Women interactive novel before diving into The Women: A Raising Women Expansion Pack, but that didn’t stop me from thoroughly enjoying this collection. It stands confidently on its own (no prior knowledge required) while still serving as a strong companion piece for fans of the original.

This book slips under the skin of what it means to be a girl or a woman, letting you inhabit the emotional weight, contradictions, and complexities of womanhood. It’s sharp, insightful, and laced with humor and grit. There wasn’t a single page that felt slow or unnecessary. The stories are fierce and unfiltered, a series of sharp-edged vignettes that range in length but are unified in their raw honesty. Each one digs into the messy, uncomfortable, and often unspoken realities women face.

Whether you’ve explored Raising Women before or are coming to this one first, it stands strong either way. It expands on the world of the interactive novel but is fully digestible on its own. With its brisk pace and varied structure, the collection pulls you forward quickly, never lingering too long yet never lacking emotional depth. The shorter stories carry just as much weight as the longer ones, often delivering a gut-punch in just a few pages.

What makes this book especially powerful is how much it feels like a reflection: you see your own buried feelings, intrusive thoughts, and quiet fears mirrored back at you in the characters. The tone shifts seamlessly from story to story, perfectly matching the theme, rhythm, and emotional charge of each piece, which only deepens the immersive quality of the read.

As a whole, this is a collection that reminds us of the shared essence of women’s lives, the universality found in even the most personal experiences.

One note, though: unlike Raising Women, this book isn’t interactive, and that changes how the stories are consumed. Because it focuses on telling each woman’s journey rather than letting the reader choose their path, I would have preferred if each character had her own distinct section or chapter, rather than being interwoven throughout. A more structured division might have made their arcs clearer and more resonant. Still, this doesn’t take away from the strength of the writing or the emotional impact of the collection.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the e-arc!

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shannon Waite’s The Women is like being handed a rusted key to a locked cabinet in your own memory, one filled with the jagged, painful, private parts of girlhood you forgot you remembered. It’s unflinching, sometimes brutal, often strange, and always electric.

Each story is a little grenade. Thirty-nine brief, blistering vignettes, some as short as a paragraph, others a few pages, each packed with raw honesty, blood-and-bone truths, and sentences that slice you open when you least expect it. The characters are messy, mean, vulnerable, and so real you feel like you know them (or were them). They are the girls who grew up behind the bleachers, in the nurse’s office, under streetlights, in church pews and detention halls. And Waite does not look away from their beauty or their damage.

There’s a defiant, punk lit energy to Waite’s writing. It reminded me of early Mary Gaitskill or Jenny Zhang, blurring fiction and confession, girlhood and womanhood, danger and desire. And yet, it feels completely its own thing: nonlinear, lyrical, and quietly revolutionary.

This isn’t a collection you breeze through. You flinch, pause, reread, wince, maybe laugh (a little too loudly), and feel exposed. But by the end, you’re not the same.

Waite has written something bold and brilliant. A love letter to the girls who never learned how to behave. A battle cry for women trying to survive their own softness and sharpness.

My Highest Recommendation.

[Samantha Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Raising Women and the only critique I had was that the format made it difficult for much character development. This was before I knew The Women was coming, so to say I was eagerly anticipating this would be an understatement. I love Waite’s decision to tell these stories in a series of vignettes from differing times throughout the characters lives. The structure of both stories compliment each other extremely well. I especially enjoyed learning more about Roman, from the beginning that character intrigued me. Being able to dive deeper into each character and their past traumas really helps set the scene for why they may have made some of the choices they (could have) made in the other novel. That being said, this is a short story collection that stands extremely well on its own. If you haven’t read Raising Women, this is still a hauntingly beautiful trip into the traumatizing thing that is growing up female.

[Kyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here’s a more personal, conversational version for Goodreads:

Review:
Reading The Women by Shannon Waite as a guy was really eye-opening. It’s not often I pick up a book that gives me such a deep look into women’s experiences and perspectives, and it honestly made me stop and think a lot. The characters felt so real, and I found myself connecting with their struggles and triumphs in ways I didn’t expect. It was one of those books where you put it down and feel like you understand a little more about people and the world around you.

What I loved most was how it balanced storytelling with insight—it never felt like it was preaching or trying to make a point too hard. It just told honest, human stories that naturally made me reflect. It challenged me and made me a better listener to perspectives outside my own. Definitely worth the read.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this interactive novel, readers have twenty-four possible pathways with four unique endings to explore what it’s like growing up a girl, Thirty-Nine stories all together.
The Women by Shannon Waite is a gripping collection of short stories about girlhood & womanhood. They are all extremely raw, honest & emotional with absolutely no sugar coating and many of them relatable for many women.
I advice you to please check trigger warnings before reading as these short stories contain sensitive themes and subject matters that some readers may find disturbing. There is a content guide page that tells you which stories have which sensitive subject matters.

Keep your eyes peeled in July for the release!

Thank you NetGalley & Shannon Waite for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Emi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publishing date: 22.07.0000 (DD/MM/YYYY)
Thank you to NetGalley and Shannon Waite for the ARC. My opinions are my own.

TLDR: A collection of stories about, the experience of, and being a woman

As a woman, this was an obvious read for me. The stories are relatable in some shape, way or form. Some are uncomfortable, others empowering. This collection is raw and doesn't hold back anything. Negatives and positives.

Positives:
- Lots of variety in stories both in terms of time, age, and situation
- Emotional and raw
- Tackles uncomfortable topics in an understanding, but challenging, way

Negatives:
- Some stories would need a little more time

Even with the knowledge that this would be women-experience centric, and our experience is often really heavy, the triggers in this book can come suddenly and hard. Check triggers

I personally did not read the first one, but I feel like this works fine as a standalone too. Maybe the experience for others who have read the first book was better. I was still very pleased. I am interested in reading the first one and will be keeping an eye out for it.

I would recommend this to women, the girls'-girls, and anyone more interested in our experience.

Giving this 4 stars. Moving, thought provoking, quick and impactful. Highly recommend. I will be reading the first book as well.

[RecycledWords · Rating 4 out of 5]

Building around the brilliant pick-your-own-adventure novel Raising Women, Waite has provided additional stories on all of the female characters from the original book. They are jumbled up and non-linear and provide extra context for the women we meet in Raising Women.

Whilst this short story collection is billed as working as a standalone as well, I feel I would have needed to dip in and out more had I not already met the characters. The stories are a mix of short stories and stories so short I would call them vignettes or snapshots rather than short stories. I enjoyed having a mix and read a few stories in the beginning then decided to follow a single character at a time through the book. I will definitely be reading The Women alongside Raising Women when I return to it in future as it really fleshes out many of the characters and their backstories and past experiences.

The trigger warnings at the back of the book will be useful for anyone who wants to avoid certain topics as there is plenty of heavy material.

Thanks to Netgalley and the author for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Quinty · Rating 2 out of 5]

In The Women we follow multiple women in their lives. Every story is set in a different point of time, often years in between.
One thing these women all have in common: self-loathing and self-destructive behavior.

I expected to feel really connected to them all and see their characters develop in the years that we follow them, but that wasn’t the case for me.
Their stories were often extremely short and felt quite random. I don’t think the moments we witnessed were always the most interesting ones. Especially if that one story is the only one we’ll read of them in the course of multiple years.

In the end I just never felt like I could connect to any of the women and that made the book less impactful to me.
If you’re thinking of reading this I would recommend checking trigger warners beforehand. Some of the subject were extremely heavy so keep that in mind.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher, for the arc

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Women is a gritty, thought-provoking collection of stories about different women. There were elements in every story that I could relate to, even though they’re set in the US (I’m in the UK), which made them feel universal. Waite doesn’t hold back, and a sense of fear, guilt, shame, and impending doom runs through each story, capturing the reality of being a woman and a strong sense of girlhood.

I read this as an ARC and hadn’t initially realised it’s a follow-up to a previous book. I haven’t read the first one, but the stories work well as standalones. That said, as some characters recur across different timelines, it would have been nice to see the stories tie together more clearly by the end, so readers wouldn’t feel like they were missing out. After this, I’m definitely curious to read the earlier book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Victory Editing, and Shannon Waite for the ARC!

[Xavier Iriarte · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Women is a collection of short stories that cuts to the heart of girl/womanhood. Following the characters from Raising Women (but perfectly readable independent of it), Waite captures the indescribable but universal experience of being a woman. The Women is as unapologetic as it is hauntingly authentic, presenting women who survive on the margins of a world that is not built for them.
As a man, this book was an uncomfortable look at a reality that I had long been able to avoid. Waite writes characters that are complex, powerful, and unsettlingly real, creating a short story collection that feels like a set of journal entries. The highest praise I can give this book is that it helped me deepen a number of friendships by providing me invaluable insights into the experiences of my female friends. This book is real, you know these women (or have been them).

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that climbs into the skin of girl/womanhood and lets you walk around in it. Sharp, witty, and never had the pages dragging. A razor-tongued combination of short stories varying in length, detailing the knitty gritty, dark, and dirty. A great extension to the Raising Women interactive novel, or perfectly digestible by itself. A relatively quick read with a good, fast pace that draws you through the chapters, featuring lots of smaller stories that pack a punch. A mirror of your hidden thoughts, feelings, and anxieties, reflected in the characters. The tone of the novel pivots perfectly in line with the theme and pace of each short story, adding to its immersive nature. A collection that acts as a reminder to us of the universal nature of women's lives.

[dani ୨♡୧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each one of these stories was brutally honest and fractured. The focus on these girls’ relationships and sense of self without holding back any messy flaws and emotions, felt like a dramatic and often painful coming-of-age film. Waite’s writing captures the anxieties and isolation these women experience, and pours it out on the page with all its sharp edges. Thank you to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for this ARC copy.

[Daisy Magnolia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished this piece of raw honesty. No sugar, no sweeteners. Just brutal, gut punching truths about being a woman in this f*cked up world ☠️

A collection of sharp, unfiltered stories that’ll make every woman feel seen… or maybe a little exposed 👀

A solid 4 ☆ read. But, don’t walk in blind. Check those trigger warnings. This book hits heavy and deep. Your mental health matters 🌼

[Vela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sigh... this was a book. 4.5/5


Beautiful but heavy. I did not read the interactive novel but I think these short stories hit hard on their own. Women and young girls everywhere experience these things all the time and its so gut wrenching. A lot of relatability and vulnerability in this collection. It was moving and heartbreaking...I loved it!

[Lindee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cover drew me in!
Its a great book if you love raw transgressive stories about women.