Ten Fantastic Female Characters You Should Totally Read About

This was a post I was actually meaning to post on Saturday (for obvious reasons), but, naturally, I didn’t actually get around to it, and here we are, on Wednesday, because I’m apparently equal parts forgetful and constantly exhausted.

Which, honestly, I know is just an excuse because I have had the time to do this I just haven’t wanted too. Because I’m lazy. Also, sadly undercaffeinated because all we have is earl gray tea and I don’t like earl gray tea.

But I’m getting mildly off topic.

I know, if I made this list with all the wonderful female protagonists I knew off, you’d get a list that consisted of Katniss Everdeen, Hermione Granger, Annabeth Chase, Cather Avery, Celaena Sardothien, ect. All great female characters. All very well known female characters. So I’m going to try to make this list mostly great female characters that aren’t as well known, so we can all broaden our horizons or whatever else.

And so, onward! All the feminism to flow.

Mackenzie Bishop | The Archived by Victoria Schwab

V.E. Schwab is known for female characters like Lila Bard and Kate Harker, and don’t get me wrong, I love those two to bits, but Mackenzie has a special place in my heart. She’s an adorable, tortured little sweetheart who loves baked goods and watches over dead people.

Yael | Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin

Yael is an A+ character. I love her. She’s totally an anti-hero. She kills people. She does bad things. But I love her. She’s a Jewish girl living in an AU where the Nazis won WWII, and was the test subject in her concentration camp, so now she has the ability to look like anyone she wants to. So what does she do with this ability? Impersonates a former winner of a Hitler Youth motorcycle race so she can assasinate Hitler.

She’s amazing.

Cara | The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

I’ve shrieked enough about my love for this amazing book, but I’m going to say it again! Cara is amazing; she’s whimsical and imaginative and the tiniest bit naive, but you can’t help but love her. She’s just so unapologeticly her.

Tiki | The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton

If you’ve followed this blog from the beginning, you probably remember me talking about this book. If you haven’t, please don’t go searching because everything was awful.

But Tiki is a pickpocket in Victorian London trying to take care of four other kids. She sees them on the streets and is like “NOPE YOU’RE COMING WITH ME”. Also there are faeries.

Ani Isilee | The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

Shannon Hale’s more well known for her MG novel, Princess Academy, than she is for these series, but I think that’s sad. This is a retelling of The Goose Girl story, except with magic and langagues and storytelling, and Ani is amazing. She goes from pampered, naive, somewhat shallow princess at the beginning of the novel to this amazing, complex character at the end, and I just love her.

Puck Connolly | The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Scorpio Races tends to fly under the radar when it comes to Stiefvater books. It’s not as wildly adored as The Raven Cycle, but it doesn’t have the admittedly quieter, but still large fan base that Shiver has.

But it’s full of amazing characters, and Puck is at the forefront. She’s quietly natured and slightly snarky and everything she does has a distinct reason behind it. She doesn’t do anything abruptly.

Rose Hathaway | Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Ignoring the totally awful cover (like, I’m cringing just looking at this), Rose is a pretty great heroine. She’s snarky and confidant and also she’d probably just straight up murder you if you gave her the chance.

Ms. Marvel | Ms. Marvel: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson

My love for Kamala Khan knows no bounds. She’s nerdy and awkward and constantly exhausted and just totally thrilled that she gets to be a superhero. And she nerds out over meeting her favorite superheroes. Her meeting Spider-Man: A+

Nimona | Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nimona got a lot of attention right when it first came out, but now it’s kind of died down, but I think it needs to come back into focus. Nimona is awesome. She’s a bloodthirsty shapeshifting pink-haired antihero who is also so complex and you kind of just want to hug her.

Amani | Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Amani is awesome. She lives in a world that’s part wild-west and part Persian folklore. All she wants is to survive, which is somewhat hard because she’s a woman and therefor is only around for sex and to make babies. But instead she teaches herself how to shoot and steals a magic horse and befriends a traitor to the crown.

I can never really tell what books are well-known and which ones aren’t. Sometimes I think they’re well-known but no one’s heard of them, and sometimes I think they aren’t well known but I’ve just missed out on all the conversations about them, but I’m pretty sure I have a list of not-so-well-known-slash-sort-of-well-known books.

But tell me, blogglings, what are your favorite female characters? Do our lists share any of the same ones? Did you go to one of the marches on Saturday? How was it?

Happy Wednesday,