Welcome to the new YA Fantasy Readers' Advisory Blog focusing on strong female characters in a series. Any current fans of YA fantasy will recognize the names in the title of the blog as Alanna from Tamora Pierce's Tortall books and Tally from Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. This blog will attempt to inventory Young Adult fantasy series featuring strong female protagonists.
Fantasy:
Fantasy, on this site, really means speculative fiction which includes fantasy, science fiction, utopia/dystopia, fantastic realism, faerie tales, alternate history, etc... anything that has an element of the fantastic. Series will include books that feature the same character in at least two books.
Posts:
Posts will be entered by the name of the character and the title of the book. Each post will include a list of the books in the series and where the featured book fits. Links to author websites or other book blogs will be included. For example, the book The Naming by Alison Croggon would be listed under Maerad, the main character of the series, and the other books in the Pellinor series (The Naming, The Riddle, The Crow, The Telling) would be included so that blog readers - should there be any - will know the order of the series. NO SPOILERS WILL BE INCLUDED - I will not give away any major plot twists or the ending. If something seems like it is a major give away you can guarantee that it happens right at the beginning of the book. In order to ensure not to give away too much, only the first book in the series will be written about.
Characters:
Characters will be examined for traits they have in common with other strong characters in YA fantasy series books.
Tags:
Tags will be added in three categories - character traits, series themes, and type of book.
Young Adult:
There is much overlap between YA and adult books in the fantasy genre. For this blog, main characters who are between the ages of 12 and 20 will be included here.
Ratings -
Strength Ratings will be assigned each protagonist. The rating will apply to her strength through the whole series and will follow the scale below:
5 – Consistently strong through all tests and situations in story. Her strength benefits others besides herself. She is likely a leader.
4 – Consistently strong, but possibly with some limit put on her by herself or her society that does not let her be all powerful. Still helps others.
3 – Strong character. Possibly still too young to reach full potential. Strives to help others and make change in society.
2 – Has some power or strength that can help herself and one or two others. Does not make an impact on greater society.
1 – Not physically strong or magical, but has determination and will stop at nothing to achieve goal. Actively tries to avoid being a leader or helping others.
All characters included in the blog are strong in some way, in my opinion.
Recommendation Scale:
5 - Read it right now. In fact, buy your own copy so you can reread it when you finish.
4 - Read it next. It is okay to get a copy from the library and decide for yourself if you need to own a copy.
3 - Good series. Put in on your "to read" list.
2 - Good series but I am not sure if I will gush about it to friends.
1 - Will not recommend, but there is something good about it or I wouldn't have bothered to finish reading it.
0 - Damn. I can never get those hours of my life back.
I will read as quickly as possible to provide you with a range of great YA fantasy! And fell free to leave comments if you have ideas for improvement.
Enjoy!~
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