I discovered
Sarah’s blog last year and immediately became one of my go-to places to find book recommendations, insightful discussions and more recently, a must-listen
podcast. Also, her mom is one of her co-bloggers!
*****
The Other Brave Girls of YA by Sarah from Clear Eyes, Full Shelves
In the young adult fiction universe, there’s a common association with strong characters and their physical strength. I love some of these tough female characters.
Katniss’ fierce loyalty to her sister is admirable in
The Hunger Games; I loved Cassie’s tenacity and unflinching willingness to do what it takes to survive in
The Fifth Wave’s post-apocalyptic world. But, the YA novels that speak most to me are those featuring heroines whose journeys are fraught with internal conflict.
Being a teenage girl is hard, and sometimes the bravest choices aren’t whether to pick a faction a la
Divergent’s Tris, but rather the bravest choice is that of living one’s own truth.
This is something that today’s YA authors do very, very well. They acknowledge that growing up is hard; that young people often deal with grown-up problems all alone; that secrets are kept, that lies are told; that family and friendship are often messy. The fictional teen heroines who tackle realistic challenges in YA novels aren’t often labeled as “brave” girls, like Katniss, Cassie and Tris, but in my eyes, they’re the most courageous.
I’ve highlighted twelve (I tried to limit myself to ten, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be) brave heroines from the YAverse whose personal journeys speak to the struggle of finding their path. I’ve actually omitted a few of my favorites, because I think they’re quite well-known already. The
Jessica Darling series, for example, is one of my favorites in terms of the messy realism of growing up.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks is another that’s quite popular which would definitely qualify as a brave YA heroine, the same with multi-award winning author
Sara Zarr’s heroines.
