When discussing fiction, you’ll come across the idea repeatedly that girls will readily read books about boys, but boys usually won’t willingly read books about girls. Does this change when the boys grow up to be men? I bet for a lot of men it does.
So guys, please think about books you’ve read with just one main character (so, nothing like Game of Thrones with its mixed gendered cast of characters that are focused on in turn in alternating chapters, obviously), who happens to be a woman or girl.
Which books fitting the bill have you particularly enjoyed? I’m not asking only about ones you identified with – though it’s great if that’s why you liked the book – but simply enjoyed reading about.
Ladies, can you think of any books with female protagonists that the boys and men in your life raved about?
Best Served Cold (Joe Abercrombie)
The Stars are Legion (Kameron Hurley)
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books about the witches (don’t recall their names)
Most of Mercedes Lackey’s novels, but primarily
Arrows of the Queen and the other two books in the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy
By the Sword
also This Case is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bournikova.
The Deed of Paksenarrion, by Elizabeth Moon. Fantasy novel (originally a trilogy), about a female paladin.
“The Mirror of her Dreams” and “A Man Rides Through” by Stephen R. Donaldson.
“Wintersmith”, “Lords and Ladies”, and “A Hat Full of Sky” by Terry Pratchett.
“Chapterhouse: Dune” by Frank Herbert.
Atlas Shrugged, The Spy who Loved Me, The Scarlet Letter.
A few juvenile fantasy novels that I liked (women here have a knack for playing the lead character, don’t know why):
Moonheart
Masters of Glass
The Sorceress, The Enchantress (Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott)
Snow like Ashes
School for Good and Evil
I forgot “The Beauty and the Billionaire” by Teri Moore, “Mommy Dearest”, “Michelle Remembers”
Hands down, my favourite would be Vanity Fair. It’s one of my favourite books, period.
A Wrinkle in Time? Where the Lilies Bloom, back in the day?
Honestly, though, I don’t really keep track of my favorite books by the sex of the protagonist, so it’s difficult to answer with very good exactness.
Mick Kelly in’ The heart is a lonely hunter ’ by Carson McCullers
Lisey’s Story and Carrie by Stephen King are both excellent.
Clearly, a man of good taste. 
Gytha Ogg
Esmerelda Weatherwax
Magrat Garlick or Agnes Nitt
I want to be Nanny Ogg when I grow up.
I like Emma and Jane Eyre.
Seconded on both points.
P.C. Hodgell’s Godstalk (which I also cited in the thread the OP linked) has a female protagonist, and it has been my favorite novel since I was a young boy. Later books in the series do switch to her brother’s point of view sometimes, but the first one is entirely Jame’s show.
For an example I first encountered as an adult, there’s Kat Richardson’s Greywalker novels. The protagonist is a woman, and a supernatural PI. I’m a bit conflicted about her. I like the novels quite a bit, but I’m not sure I actually like her, particularly in the early books.
I’m one of those people who always read all sorts of things, so it’s hard to remember such a narrow specification. When I was VERY young, I got hooked on the “wrong” childhood series of books. I wasn’t intrigued at all by the Hardy Boys, but found Nancy Drew to be a huge draw. From there, I got into science fiction, by chance starting in with some Dragon stories, which I think were by Ann McCaffrey. Not sure, because it was SO long ago. I barely noticed the gender of the main characters, since I read so much, as well as watched all sorts of films.
I have read everything that Agatha Christie ever wrote, with her wide variety of male and female lead characters. I read a dreadful long science fiction novel which was SUPPOSED to be brilliant, called Triton, which had what turned out to be a transgender main character in the lead. Horrible book, can’t recommend it to anyone, not because of the whole transgender thing, but because it was depressing tripe.
I do chance to be reading Atlas Shrugged right now, but that probably doesn’t count much, since I’m very critical of it. I don’t remember particularly about other female main characters, since again, as long as the story makes sense to me, I really don’t notice the gender.
Oh, thought of another: Middlesex. Although the main character didn’t start off as a woman anatomically.
Douglas Kennedy is an author I really like. And he has several novels where the lead is female. The Pursuit of Happiness, A Special Relationship, State of the Union, and especially Leaving the World.
Dang, I see from wiki he has several novels I haven’t read yet. I love when I discover something like this.
I’ll add:
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
*Dark Places *by Gillian Flynn
Monday’s Lie by Jamie Mason
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
anything by Margaret Atwood
mc