FRIDAY FIVE: YA Heroines

This edition of Friday Five brought to you by this week's celebration of International Women's Day as well as the current YA-reading kick I'm on. I tried not to repeat books I've put on other lists, but some I just love so much!

Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
This one's obvious. What first attracted me to Katniss was her introversion. She never seeks to make a spectacle. She never wants to fight. What she does--volunteering in the Hunger Games on Prim's behalf, becoming the Mockingjay--she does out of necessity. A lot of YA I read tends to portray its heroines as brash and angry and vocal about it, which is understandable since YA's main target audience, teenage girls, so often doesn't have a voice. But Katniss's strength is quiet, and I've always loved that.

Vanessa Dahl, The Engelsfors Trilogy (The Circle, Fire, and The Key), Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg
Oh, Vanessa. She's one of six heroines in The Engelsfors Trilogy, and while I love them all, Vanessa shines the brightest. She struggles with normal teenage worries in addition to having one-sixth of the fate of the world on her shoulders, but she still finds time to love her two-year-old brother, Melvin, and to forge a deep connection with fellow witch Linnea.

Susan Caraway, Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli
It's been so long since I've read this book, but it still sticks out in my mind as the one that made being different and feeling out of place less scary. Preferring to go by the name Stargirl, she marches to the beat of her own drum, one she's probably made herself. She loves flowers. She cheers for both teams at basketball games. She people watches in the mall and has a happy wagon she uses to keep track of good things that have happened throughout the day. Unencumbered by the normal social restrictions of high school, she doesn't really find a place there, but the point is that she doesn't feel she needs to.

Jo March, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Jo is the Lizzie Bennet of Little Women. Who doesn't want to be her? She lets her imagination run freely in order to entertain her sisters. She speaks her mind and goes after what she wants, even if that's moving away from the family she loves to pursue a career in writing. Although her healthy temper means lots of sisterly fights, she loves her sisters more than anything.

Sara Crew, A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
It's been a while since I've read this one, too, but the thing about Sara that stands out in my mind is her eternal optimism. When she gets word that her father's died, she loses everything. She loses the only family she has left and all the privileges that came with his position, which means she's no longer Miss Minchin's student and is now a servant. And yet, despite this, with her friends at her side, she never loses hope.

Movie Review: Divergent

I read Veronica Roth's Divergent about two years ago when I didn't have much to do except read and when I was still jonesing for another Hunger Games-like story. I didn't find that exactly, but I did find a few hours of solid entertainment. I finally saw the movie adaptation this weekend and was pretty impressed. The film features some beautiful shots, especially at the beginning. I'm not sure if the first half was noticeable because it represented a shift from peace to chaos or if I just stopped noticing the cinematography. The ending has to set up the next two films/books and, consequently, leaves everything open, but I'd be happy with the ending if there were no remaining story to carry it forward. Tris has lost her parents, but she's gained a sense of self, kick-butt fighting skills, and a touchstone in Four. Even with the city in chaos, she's lived to fight another day, and there's no doubt that's what she'll do.

The film's biggest strength is Tris. Even familiar with the book and knowing what was going to happen at every step of the journey, I found myself worried for her. Will she choose Abnegation? Is she going to make the train jump on her first day in Dauntless? Is she finally going to win a fight? A little of that had to do with the score, which is pulsing and percussion-heavy, but a lot had to do with Shailene Woodley, who imbues Tris with a sense that she's just trying to stay on her feet in a world that's more than a little messed up.

And, I think, heroines like Tris are important in YA literature. She works hard to get better at the things she's not good at. She's searching for a place in the world but ultimately accepts she can't be hemmed in by the status quo. And she's brave even through her fear.Plus, her pants are the bomb.


However, it wasn't a total home run for me. There was so much violence (although none of it graphic) that it almost became meaningless by the end of the film. The climax involves lots of gunfire and hand-to-hand combat, but because all of the heavy consequences come in quick succession and much too close to the end, there's no time to dwell on them and render them important. Hopefully, they'll be dealt with in the rest of the series.

And then there's the whole mind-control thing. It was set-up well enough with the serums used for the faction tests and the fear landscapes, but I still didn't like it. I'd much rather see Erudite use manipulation and indoctrination over mind control, but that would drastically alter the storyline, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, actually. But I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and gloss over that because it's such an entertaining ride.