YA Novels and their Modern Leading Ladies

What is the ‘modern girl’ like? Is she wise beyond her years? Is she plain, but pretty? Is she constantly the object of heterosexual male lust? Readers of young adult (YA) novels would not be blamed for believing any of the above.

In contemporary YA fiction, female protagonists have become hugely prevalent. In theory, this should make stories written in this genre more relatable and attractive to their audiences, particularly the young women in their audiences. However, across many YA novels, the female leads are largely the same. More often than not, they are strong, both in terms of their physical abilities and their personalities, and a blossoming romantic relationship with a boy is almost always an integral aspect of their narratives. These tropes are common and even expected in YA novels. But while such tropes may sell books, they are not representative of all teenage girls.

Why are female characters forced into tropes?

Characters in popular fiction need to be dynamic. They need to have an interesting backstory and distinctive, somewhat overplayed personality traits, otherwise they risk falling through the cracks of the narrative and becoming unnoticeable. For too long, female characters in children’s and YA stories suffered exactly this. They were passive damsels in distress whose only prominent or mentionable characteristic was their physical appearance and who demonstrated a stereotypical and simplistic femininity. The popular fairytale Sleeping Beauty is a notable and long-famous culprit of this. Originally written by Charles Perrault and published in 1697, this story follows a young princess whom an evil fairy curses to one day prick her finger on a spindle and die. The curse is partially reversed by a good fairy so that instead of dying after pricking her finger, the princess will fall into a 100-year slumber only to be woken by the kiss of a prince. Not once in Sleeping Beauty does the female protagonist exhibit a sense of agency or control over her life. Her trajectory is defined and saved by others, leaving her unable to express how she feels about the events she experiences.

It is understandable that modern and contemporary YA authors have felt the need to fit female characters into tropes. While in older stories, female protagonists were the products of their narrative and had no strong character traits, many of them now have distinctive stories and personalities. However, when the aspects of a female characters are exaggerated and repetitive, the characters become unrealistic, which has proven to frustrate readers and critics of this genre.

The ‘Strong’ Female Character

A pattern amongst the leading ladies of YA novels is their embodiment of the ‘strong female character’ stereotype. In the blurb of Sarah J. Maas’ YA Fantasy novel Throne of Glass, it is said that its 18-year-old female protagonist Celaena Sardothien is ‘Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.’ Even just from this, the reader immediately gets an idea of Celaena’s character. Or do they? The characteristics of ‘beautiful’, ‘deadly’ and ‘destined for greatness’ barely scratch the surface of what a character is really like. But as the novel progresses, it is clear that this is as deep as Celaena’s character gets. Indeed, Celaena is ‘strong’: she is, after all, an assassin. However, it quickly becomes apparent after the first few chapters of Throne of Glass that her personality is one-dimensioned. The third-person narration says that Celaena was once a prisoner and the victim of hardship not to be wished upon one’s worst enemy and yet, Maas depicts her throughout the novel as brave, quick-witted and largely unfazed by her traumatic past.

Tris, the 16-year-old protagonist of Divergent by Veronica Roth, suffers from the same limited characterisation. She is also physically strong, brave and independent and while there are some occasions when she shows how her experiences have affected her, however such moments are few and far between and often overshadowed by her will to take risks. Moreover, Tris’ personality throughout most of Divergent is flat and one-dimensional and it is difficult to make sense of her values and how she feels about her relationships.

The ‘strong female character’ trope sends a message out to girls similar in age to Celaena and Tris that they would be more attractive if they refrained from showing how their experiences and relationships have shaped them emotionally. They may feel that they have to have mask their true feelings with an air of feistiness and flirtatiousness when, in reality, this may not be possible for all young girls.

The Heteronormative Love Story

A romantic relationship with a boy is a prominent plot point of several female-led YA novels. The Fault in Our Stars, John Green’s highly popular YA novel, centres around a heterosexual love story which defies all odds. Hazel, the novel’s female narrator, is a 16-year-old sufferer of cancer whose story in and of itself could have provided the bulk of the narrative. The novel could simply have been a survey of how such a young girl copes with experiencing such an intense struggle in her life. Instead, Hazel’s story is complicated when she meets Augustus, another sufferer of cancer, whom she inevitably falls in love with and whose presence overshadows that of Hazel’s sickness as the most important aspect of the narrative. He validates her beauty and gives her one more reason to be brave. When (spoiler alert!) Augustus ultimately dies, it is as if Hazel’s story dies with him. She says in her narration that she rated the worst pain she felt a 9 out of 10 because she was saving her 10 out of 10 and that now, this rating is applicable.

Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder is a dystopian novel about a girl named Trella living in the lower echelons of a fictitious society who occasionally enjoys exploring the area where the members of the upper class live. This ultimately causes her to unintentionally start a rebellion amongst her people. This is a unique premise for a dystopian novel and one in which Trella’s character informs the plot, rather than vice-versa. Such intrigue means that the story could have been interesting and enjoyable if Snyder had just left the plot there. However, a notable aspect of the plot is that Trella eventually meets and falls in love with a boy who is from the society’s upper class, making her motives less about her freedom and more about her love for him.

What the importance of a heterosexual romance subplot says to young female readers is that they can only fight against all odds and feel good about themselves with the help of a boy. This has implications for all teenage girls who might not have dated a boy, but especially for LGBTQ+ readers who might not be attracted to boys. As such, a heteronormative love story may not have a place in all YA novels.

What about racial and sexual diversity?

There are a select few popular YA novels which include women of colour and queer women and even fewer in which these women are the protagonists. This effectively demonstrates not only the lack of realistic portrayals of women in YA fiction, but also the whitewashing and heteronormativity that is still pervasive in this genre. If a reader of YA who is queer or a person of colour reads too many novels that lack diversity, they will be unable to identify with these stories. YA novels which address racial and sexual differences are necessary to ensure that this genre appeals to a wide and diverse teenage audience.

The novels by Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah are counterexamples of this. A Muslim woman of Egyptian and Palestinian descent, most of Abdel-Fattah’s YA novels centre around teenage girls who also come from a Muslim family and their experiences of growing up in Australia.

Van Uoc Phan, the main character of Cloudwish by Fiona Wood, is a second-generation Vietnamese immigrant living in Australia. As a character, she has both agency and complex and the novel explores a variety of issues that arise from being from a migrant family, such as class, racial conflict and social isolation.

Although there are some well-written novels which explore the lives of young women of colour, these are uncommon and often relatively unknown. Queer women arguably suffer even more greatly in this way. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell is a fantasy novel with a gay male protagonist named Simon. Penelope, one of Simon’s sidekicks is a mixed-race women of colour and Baz, another young gay man, is arguably the most important character in the novel with the exception of Simon himself. However, despite this diversity and detailed exploration of a romantic relationship between two young men, YA novels led by young queer women often go under the radar.

What makes a good female character?

In order for the female protagonists in YA novels to be relatable to as many of their readers as possible, they need to be versatile. They need to be complex. They need to have agency derived from within, not from a potential boyfriend.

Natasha Kingsley, the female protagonist (and a woman of colour) of The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon, first comes across as rather cold, basing her opinions only on science and refusing to believe in the power of art. However, the reader eventually discovers that her overtly applied logic is a result of her father’s inability to make his own dreams of becoming an actor a reality. By the end of the book, Natasha receives adequate character development in that she no longer believes that passion and idealism are useless. While Natasha has a love interest in the form of Daniel Bae, this love story is not one-sided; the first-person narration is equally split between both characters, implying that Daniel needs Natasha as much as Natasha needs Daniel. In addition, there is much importance placed on Natasha’s intelligence and ambition for a future career.

Alba from The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl by Melissa Keil is self-assured and interesting without the help of a boy. When her best friend Grady ultimately expresses his attraction towards her, she is not surprised by the fact that she could possibly be an object of desire but instead, by the simple fact that someone who has platonically loved her for years now loves her romantically. Even then, this plot point is unimportant compared with the novel’s central themes of coming of age and fearing the future.

Inej, one of the main female characters of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a young woman with extraordinary physical capability. However, this is not done at the expense of complex characterisation. Throughout the novel, Inej is seen to be brave and loyal, but to also carry the burden of her past and to constantly be fearing her death. Moreover, she at no point in the novel gains a heterosexual male love interest.

Perhaps best of all is Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. She is a master of spells, but also a great negotiator. She is strong-willed, but does not shy away from expressing her emotions. It is mentioned several times throughout most of the books in the series that Hermione is the best witch of her generation, clearly emphasising the importance of her intelligence. And despite having a romance subplot with Ron Weasley, this is not even close to being the most important part of her narrative. She is a talented witch as well as a loyal friend, making her one of the most inspirational female characters in YA fiction.

It is possible – and definitely important – for the female protagonists of YA novels to be simultaneously intriguing and relatable. Many YA authors are now attempting to avoid stereotyping their young woman characters and in particular, leaving them without a heterosexual male love interest. As long as this continues to occur, YA novels will be able to resist the stereotyping and heteronormativity of their leading ladies.

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