Top Three YA Heroines

You want to know what I love? Female protagonists. I love them a lot. I particularly love that, in recent years, we've been getting more and more of them. Sure, not all of them have been the most multidimensional or tolerable of creatures, but the fact they're on the upward swing marks a wonderful trend.

Perhaps in a few years' time I won't be so surprised when I find myself finding so many that I like.

So, in no particular order, here are my top three female protagonists of the year 2014! I've narrowed down the genre to YA, seeing as that seems to be where the best of the crop were at, and the 2014 indicates the year I read the books, not the year they were published, just to avoid confusion.

Here we go!

Vega Jane (The Finisher - David Baldacci)

Were this list ranked in any way, Vega Jane would easily steal a place toward the top on the basis of one thing alone: you could swap her out for a male character and, for the most part, that would make absolutely no difference. However, this does not mean the fact that she is female is irrelevant - just that the parts of the story where her gender is relevant do not define who she is.

From its cover, you might think The Finisher was aiming to cash in on The Hunger Games' racket; skilled teenage protagonist with incapacitated parents caring for a younger brother who ends up in a fighting tournament against her will, all the while slowly picking apart the lies and deceits of an isolationist society with a crippling fear of the outside world.

But thinking of it like that would do neither book nor heroine any justice: Vega Jane is a confident, competent, and wonderfully human protagonist whose emotional strength and versatility form the bulk of the story's impetus - most of which has nothing to do with said fighting tournament, and a lot more to do with Vega Jane's own determination to pursue a truth she feels is being wrongly kept from the people of Wormwood.

As a final recommendation: I liked this book way better than Divergent. How about that.

Karou (Daughter of Smoke and Bone series - Laini Taylor)

I have gone on and on and on about this series many times before, but until I find reason to shut up, I won't. Laini Taylor's sprawling urban/epic fantasy trilogy was the first honest-to-goodness love story where I was not only deeply invested in the relationship, but was so invested that the relationship became one of my favourite points of the story.

A lot of that is down to Karou. Karou is what so many superspecialchosenone heroines wish they could be; an anomaly torn between two worlds, at once elevated and isolated by her unique condition. Karou is well-balanced; her strengths do not outnumber her weaknesses, but nor are her weaknesses specifically contrived for cheap sympathy. We feel for her, however alien her situation, because her emotional core is so powerfully linked to the writing and the narrative that it's often hard to tell where Karou stops and the reader begins.

The conclusion of this trilogy had me crying my eyes out next to a pool in Budapest because I did not want to say goodbye to the world, to the story, and, most of all, to one of my absolute favourite protagonists. Period.

Penryn (Angelfall series - Susan Ee)

Confession: I did not expect to like this book. Not. At. All. I scooped it off Amazon while the Kindle version was free, and judging by a good number of its reviews (many likening it to the loathesome Twilight saga) I expected to be alternating between laughing and slamming this thing against the wall.

Have to say I rather ate my words on that front. For all I was not extremely fond of the story, per se, I really really liked  the protagonist, Penryn. In the vein of most supernatural post-apocalyptic heroines, she's tough and wily and knows how to look after herself - good stuff. What I was not expecting was how she would also manage to be a perfectly believable teenage girl in the process. 

While her resignation to the condition of herself and her world is palpable, the moments when her youth and emotional immaturity shine through are genuinely believable and rather touching. We, too, would rather she could swap worries over starvation and packs of cannibalistic neighbours for choosing her prom dress and debating what colleges she wants to apply to. It might be selfish, it might be a little jarring with the flow of her thoughts at times, but by gods it's real - and that is the best part about it. There's no alteration or idealisation there: it's just Penryn, the teenage girl surviving in the ruins of human civilisation looking for her sister with a mutilated angel in tow.

And if that doesn't sound awesome, I think you forgot to take your earplugs out.

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So now, over to you lot! Give me some of your favourite heroines of the year - or just favourite protagonists, from YA or otherwise. Or, if you've read any of the books above, or intend to, let me know if you agree with my judgement!

See you all next time.

~ Charley R

Rich and Strange ~ Charley R Reviews "Daughter of Smoke and Bone", by Laini Taylor

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal, otherworldly war.

***

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she speaks many languages - not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that colour. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

Fact: this is one of the best Young Adult books I've read all year.

Right from the first page, Karou's story pulls you straight into her world. No long explanatory digressions, minimal scene-setting; just Karou's voice introducing us to her and her world. Although the novel is third person, the writing is engaging and personal. Karou herself is eloquent, interesting, and more than slightly quirky. I liked her almost instantaneously . . . oh, come on, how on earth could a girl who entertains ideas about dyeing her hair ridiculous colours resist the pull of a blue-haired protagonist? 

Furthermore, although the book deals with supernatural elements - including the devil mentioned above, as well as many other things weird and wonderful - nothing is presented to either extreme of underappreciation for their strangeness, or over-described so that it loses its imaginative draw. Although the setting is described sparingly, there is enough of it involved to create atmosphere, without being too underpowering. Sometimes we may be  confused as to exactly what is where, but as the setting has relatively little influence on the tale itself, it's a fairly negligible point.

Likewise, the story's plot is pacy and quick off the mark. Things are revealed gradually to the reader without too much intrusion into the narrative and, after a slightly jerky introduction to our second narrator, the book settles into an easy-to-follow rhythm. It's not without its complexities, too - there's more than one sting hidden in this tale - and the sub-plot that later merges with the main part of the story is handled spectacularly, but, mostly, it settles for a quiet cleverness over anything more complicated.

What really won me over, though, was the prose. It is lyrical, taut, and deployed with excellent skill. Some of the metaphors were so lovely they could have melted on my mouth. The author is clearly in love with her craft, and it shows. The imagery occasionaly reaches for something abstract, but never pushes itself too far in its quest for poetic evocation.

The prose really comes into its own in the latter stages of the book, when we come across a flashback narrative. The otherworldly elements of the story are handled deftly and with confidence, and as there are relatively few complex revelations, everything is fairly easy to keep track of until it is all pulled together in the closing stages. 

The magical element of the story is original and fascinating, though it can be more than a little disturbing if you think about it too hard. Secondary characters, meanwhile,  maintain a bubbling vivacity of their own without impinging too much on the narrators. Lines between the good and the bad are kept suitably blurred to remind the reader that this is not a war of "good vs bad", as its premise might suggest. We see the good and bad aspects of characters from both sides of the war, and, although we can sometimes lose track of the bigger picture through Karou's personal standpoint, we are left mostly to make our own judgements on who's got their foot in their mouth.

Admittedly, the book does stumble over a trait rather typical to Young Adult novels - everyone is so pretty. There are very few characters described as being ugly, and most of our central cast - even the antagonists - are physically stunning. Even some of the more outlandish demons made me look in the mirror with disgust. I'm not usually one to gripe over shallow things like this, but I did get a little tired of everyone being so damned attractive all the time.

On the whole, though, the book is a refreshing take on the supernatural theme; it's original, it's exciting, it's emotionally involving, the prose is gorgeous, and I half wish I'd been the one who wrote it. The romance element may be somewhat discouraging to some, but it's not as intrusive as it might be, and merges with the story, rather than invading and squashing all else out of it.

Couple this with an ending with enough momentum to launch the Voyager spacecraft, and I can assure you that I will be getting my paws on the sequel, come hell or high water.

"Daughter of Smoke and Bone" is available in hardback and paperback from all major online retailers. I am unsure on its ebook status, however. Its sequel, "Days of Blood and Starlight", is due for release next month.

~ Charley R