I will always remember Katsa, though, whose power and grace (not just her Graced power, which makes her a formidable fighter) as well as her compassion, strength and loyalty made her one of the best female characters I’ve ever read. It’s been far too long since I read these books, and I don’t own them anymore so I can’t just dip in and remind myself how good they are – curses.
#SOPHIE HATTER FULL#
Whatever she feels or thinks comes out in her expressions, which makes her incendiary in the world of Caverna, and marks her out as special – or, perhaps, worth getting rid of… Like all Hardinge’s heroines, Neverfell is spunky, sparky, clever, curious, undaunted by danger, possessed of a fierce determination to get to the bottom of whatever’s going on and full of hidden talents which come in handy at unexpected times. Neverfell, however, is not stymied in the face department.
#SOPHIE HATTER HOW TO#
The heroine of Hardinge’s masterful novel A Face Like Glass, Neverfell is the girl who falls into a vat of cheese in the underground city of Caverna, where nobody can form facial expressions and where everyone must be taught, by an elite group known as Facesmiths, how to arrange their faces to suit a certain, proscribed, set of emotions. I could have gone for Triss, or Hathin, or Mosca Mye, but Neverfell was the one who called to me. Also, she gets to use a sword and walk in Death, which is awesome.Ĭhoosing a top heroine from Frances Hardinge’s work was, I admit, a challenge. After struggling to fit in for many years, she eventually learns she has a far greater calling than she ever imagined and a much bigger role in the fate of her world than she or anyone else could have guessed. Lirael is a great example of all this fabulousness, but she’s also amazing in her own right – a girl who feels she has no role in her world, who is a Daughter of the Clayr but who never awakens into the Clayr’s power as a seer, and who feels for many years like an embarrassment or a mistake, she is forced to find her own path. They’re kick-ass (even the ones who don’t fight) none of them are superfluous, or objectified, or belittled because of their gender, or considered to be in any way less capable than the men in their world they own their own sexualities and are unashamed of their own feelings, and they prove, time and again, that they can meet and exceed any challenge put in their path. I love pretty much all of the female characters in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom books, and with good reason. Lirael of the Clayr from Lirael and Abhorsen I adore her, and I adore her story, and I love her parents (the non button-eyed ones, at least), and I love the cast of crazy supporting characters who people her world. I was given a copy of Coraline by a dear friend, many years ago, as a birthday present, back when I wasn’t entirely familiar with Neil Gaiman as an author who wrote for children, and it isn’t overstating anything to say it changed my life. What, I ask you, is not to love about this character? Clever, brave, adventurous, resolutely ungirly (oh, how I do love an ungirly girl), possessed of a powerful sense of justice and owner of the world’s coolest name, Coraline is a character who wriggled her way into my heart from the first second I met her. But, never one to shirk a challenge, I battled my way to a final list of ten.Īnd here they are, in no particular order of preference – because that, my friends, would’ve pushed my fragile mind right over the edge. I had to invoke criteria, like ‘no two characters written by the same author’ (which was painful, particularly when it came to Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett and Frances Hardinge) and ‘they can’t all be from children’s books’. I’ve sweated and wept over these choices. I have so many literary heroines that I had to create a longlist, and then a shortlist, and then a shorter shortlist. I had to get involved in this, even if it’s a day late.
They’re asking about my Top Ten Literary Heroines. Since I no longer regularly post on Tuesdays, this means I don’t really have any right, goshdurnit, to take part in the endeavour.īut this week – this week, I had no choice. The Broke and the Bookish, as you may know, host a fantastic meme every week called Top Ten Tuesday.
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