Tee’s List

There are so many heroines I’d love to slap (I’m talking to you Bella);  girls who have no mind of their own, who forsake their friends and families, who have no drive or intensity or who are just flat out, cold-hearted witches.  More often though, I find myself loving the girl heroines of late. With many of them, I can relate to their oddities and tendency to spaz.  Their foolish insecurities are things I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at now, but would have spent hours obsessing over as a teen.  On the other hand there are the girls who will always have a seemingly untouchable cool that I wish I would have had in high school (or now. Now would be good too.) If these girls were real, I would totally be friends with them.

1. Frankie Landau-Banks (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks) Dog, I wish I’d been just like you in high school.
2. Mia Thermopolis (The Princess Diaries) I share her curse of being a spazzoid giant with absolutely no math skills.  I have that bizarre, panicked inner monologue thing down too.  I loved her journey through high school because it was as fun and cringeworthy as my own.
3. Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice) Refusing to marry for anything but love and basically telling Darcy to suck it (before he turned nice)?  Lizzie, you had me at hello.
4. Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre) I cried when she left, because I wasn’t sure I would be strong enough to do the same.  She was the ultimate feminist chick before feminism actually existed.
5. Taylor Markham (Jellicoe Road)- The mom in me makes me want to hug her out of pride for how she kicks butt in the territory wars, and out of compassion for her need to belong to a real family.
6. Mia(If I Stay)- Mia embraces her tendency to be geeky, she loves unashamedly and she’s painfully courageous in the face of a massive, earth shattering tragedy.  I love the way she views life and sees hope and joy despite the pain.
7. Hermione Granger(The Harry Potter Series) Hermione, you are so incredibly brilliant. If I didn’t love you so much I’d totally hate you.  But you probably already knew that.
8. Katsa (Graceling) What else can I say except she’s awesome? I, personally, would never want to be a trained assassin, but she’s really good at killing people.
9. Macy (The Truth About Forever) The most “real” girl on this list and,  I think,  Dessen’s best heroine.
10. Lennie Walker (The Sky is Everywhere) That girl is totally out of her tree, but I love it.
11. Hazel Grace (The Fault in Our Stars) I don’t really know how to describe her except to say that she carved such a place in my heart with her humor, her pain, her love.
12. Lara Jean (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before)- Lara Jean was clearly born in the wrong time period. She likes oldies and scrap booking. She likes to stay home on Friday nights and bake. She likes old movies and musicals. She’s a good girl, like goody two shoes good girl. And I love her. We were made to be best friends.