Today is International Women’s Day! What better time than to share my favourite literary heroines with all of you wonderful readers? There are countless wonderful women in literature, but I’m only going to include people from books that I’ve personally read and not any that have been recommended to me by others or the internet. I am also only selecting books that were written by women, so we get a double whammy of girl power!
Yelena Liana Zaltana- Study Trilogy by Maria V Snyder. Yelena is tenacious and imperfect, but she is strong and loyal, fighting for herself and those she loves. She has to face just about every fear I’ve ever imagined and she still manages to get through it. She is an excellent symbol that no matter how bad it gets there is always hope.
Anne Shirley – Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. My favourite redhead! Anne Shirley’s biggest gift is her imagination. She used her thoughts to create the life she wanted and was so passionate about everything around her. She’s bright, fiery and an eternal optimist, a wonderful role model for anyone.
Claire Norton – The Witches of Willowmere by Alison Baird. Claire is an average high school student, young, awkward, not particularly great at making friends, but faced with a unique issue. I love that Claire doesn’t lose herself despite all that happens, that she only becomes more confident and powerful overtime.
Lilly Ashford – Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson. Lilly is the daughter of an earl who has lived a very pampered life. What I love about her is that when the Great War arrives she isn’t content to keep living that life and in fact abandons it altogether. She loses her affluence, lives in a tiny flat without even a kitchen to cook food and then she goes and signs up to be an ambulance driver in France. Lilly is exposed to the harsh reality of war, nearly dies and is still devoted to the cause. She’s really quite admirable and I loved reading her story.
Niamh Power – Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. This story was so interesting to me and it covered a pocket of history that I had never known about. Niamh is an Irish immigrant and her entire family is lost in a fire. She spends the next few years being shipped across the country, placed with one family, then another, then another and she has no stability. She is a wonderful girl and eventually settles with a proper family, but she has nothing of her former life, not even her name as each family she lives with changes it. It’s a fascinating story and I highly recommend it.
Hermione Granger – Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. Who doesn’t love Hermione? She’s unapologetically intelligent, fiercely loyal and incredibly powerful. If you haven’t read this series you probably live under a bit of a rock. Go read it, love Hermione, be happy.
Thanks for stopping by!
-Erin