# Guys, which novels with a female main character do you particularly like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 8, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407 "2017-06-08T01:31:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/81 "2017-06-09T22:56:31Z")
I loved the Trixie Belden and Judy Bolton mysteries when I was a kid. I read Nancy Drew, too, but preferred the Dana Girls (another Stratemeyer series). All of those, of course, had brothers and friends and such, but the girls were definitely the main characters. Read a lot of Miss Pickerell books when I was a kid, too. The Diana Tregarde books by Mercedes Lackey. The Valdemar books were good, too, but my favourites were the Last Herald-Mage trilogy, which have a male main character. The Frostflower and Thorn series by Pyllis Ann Karr. (Frostflower is a mage, Rosethorn a warrior.) _Dicey’s Song_. _Friday_. _Podkayne of Mars_. _Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry_. _Sassinak_ (Moon & McCaffrey). ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/82 "2017-06-10T00:00:19Z")
Tanith Lee writes good female characters: _The Birthgrave_, _Delerium’s Mistress_, and the _Don’t Bite the Sun_/_Drinking Sapphire Wine_ duology in particular. Same for C.J. Cherryh, especially _Cyteen_. > [@Weedy](#): > > _The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped_ by Sheri S. Tepper > _The Heir of Sea and Fire_ by Patricia McKillop Also the _Jinian Star-Eye_ trilogy by Tepper. And _Beauty_. Much of her other books are too strident for me to like their main characters, though. McKillip also writes good female protagonists, although _The Forgotten Beasts of Eld_ is all that’s coming to mind right now. _Alphabet of Thorn_, maybe? don’t remember if it was one main character or not. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/83 "2017-06-10T01:00:08Z")
If Rebecca has been mentioned yet, it didn’t turn up on my search. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/84 "2017-06-10T01:02:23Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > The OPs criteria–if taken seriously–rules out many good books with good female characters who are the POV character for _some_ chapters but not _all_ of them. I won’t be offended if you’re interested in starting a spinoff thread about multiple main characters 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/85 "2017-06-10T01:40:10Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > McKillip also writes good female protagonists, although _The Forgotten Beasts of Eld_ is all that’s coming to mind right now. _Alphabet of Thorn_, maybe? don’t remember if it was one main character or not. Raederle in \*Heir of Sea and Fire, \*the middle book in the excellent Riddle Master trilogy. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/86 "2017-06-10T01:41:02Z")
Touching on the YA genre, I enjoyed the recent _Mad Skills_ by Walter Greatshell, _The Dust of 100_ _Dogs_ by A.S. King, and _How To Ditch Your Fairy_ by Justine Larbalestier. And considerably older (and first read when I was around the same 12 or 13 as the protagonist) _A Coming of Age_ by Timothy Zahn. (And now that I mention that, it brings to mind _Mirable_ by Janet Kagan, read at roughly the same time.) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/87 "2017-06-10T01:49:02Z")
I’ll add: _Addie Pray_ by Joe David Brown (which inspired the movie _Paper Moon_, although the book has several more adventures of Addie and Mose). _Elleander Morning_ by Jerry Yulsman (about a woman who kills an obscure painter named Hitler in 1913 Vienna, and how the world changes after that). ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/88 "2017-06-10T04:36:48Z")
I was fond of _The Hunger Games_ at first, until it became increasingly illogical as the series went on. But I felt that Katniss Everdeen was an interesting character, although it did feel as if the author wrote Katniss as being a female character with a male brain sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/89 "2017-06-10T05:45:03Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I was fond of _The Hunger Games_ at first, until it became increasingly illogical as the series went on. But I felt that Katniss Everdeen was an interesting character, although it did feel as if the author wrote Katniss as being a female character with a male brain sometimes. She felt like a woman to me (a woman.) But I’ve never felt that I have a brain much different than any man’s. I actually think the series got better as it went on, but that was in part because I think it’s one of the most realistic depictions of PTSD I’ve seen in a novel. It does fall apart structurally and get repetitious, but then so does reality when you have PTSD. And I loved the ending. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/90 "2017-06-10T10:54:58Z")
I am an adult male and I adore the whole Hunger Games series. I don’t care if it is high literature or not. I saw the themes clearly and thought they were well done and powerful. The other one is Gone With The Wind. Scarlett O’Hara is one nasty and complex bitch but she also has her good points. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/91 "2017-06-10T13:24:34Z")
Oh, another childhood favorite (that I never considered having a problem with for the POV character being a girl) was _The Girl Who Owned a City_. The ability to accept a female protagonist probably depends on the subject matter, though–I doubt I would have been as favorable for _Are_ _You There, God, it’s Me, Margaret._ ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/92 "2017-06-10T14:12:53Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > _Moll Flanders_, by Daniel Defoe. It’s a novel about a poor, powerless woman, born in the 17th century, who decides not to take any more crap—and doesn’t. She uses every skill and trick she has to level the playing field with men, and succeeds (with some ups and downs along the way). I’ll second that that sounds interesting. I like historical fiction. And underdogs. I’ve liked the J.A Konrath series Jack (Jacklyn) Daniels. About a dozen books. About a police detective in Chicago. It can get violent, but has quite a bit of humor. Also have like Angela Marsons Kim Stone series. About another female police detective. They can be a bit dark though. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/93 "2017-06-10T16:44:13Z")
I actually just read a great book with a female protagonist - in fact, nearly the entire cast of characters is female. It’s called\* Red Sister\*, and it’s a fantasy (or possibly science fiction) novel by Mark Lawrence, author of the excellent\* Broken Empire \*and _Red Queen’s War_ trilogies. It also has one of the best opening lines I’ve read in a long time: _It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent, Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men._ And yes, it is about warrior nuns. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/94 "2017-06-10T17:26:17Z")
Second _Pride & Prejudice_ (and to a lesser extent Austen’s other novels), _To Kill a Mockingbird_, _The Hunger Games_, Thursday Next, _The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency_, and others that have been mentioned. Also _The Help_ by Kathrynn Stockett, _Walking Across Egypt_ by Clyde Edgerton, _A Green Journey_ by Jon Hassler, and probably many others that don’t happen to spring to mind right now. I could identify with **Ulf** ’s observation: > [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > As an adult, I liked the Little House on the Prairie seres very much. (I didn;t read them as a kid.) > … > I drew a sharp distinction as a boy between “books I would read” and “girls’ books,” and so did most of my (male) friends. What’s interesting, looking back, is how many books-with-girls-as-protagonists did not apparently qualify as “girls’ books.” I read, reread, and thoroughly enjoyed, among others > > Harriet the Spy > Ramona the Pest > Alice in Wonderland > The Wizard of Oz > A Wrinkle in Time > …Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler > Pippi Longstocking > > and certainly felt no embarrassment about being seen reading them. But things like the Betsy-Tacy books, or Little Women, or some other books that Madeleine L’Engle wrote, or A Little Princess…that was different, and I wouldn’t have been caught with one of those in my hands. (And maybe I knew something…I had to read a section of Little Women recently for a project I was wroking on, and we will just say it is very far from being my cup of tea…) Anyway, simply having a girl as the main character of a book did not damn it the eyes of me or my friends. I agree with the distinction between books that are perceived (and marketed) as “girls’ books” vs. books whose main characters happen to be female. And I think a similar distinction can be made in the case of grown-up literature, with romance (and its various subgenres) and “chick lit” being marketed toward and read by pretty much exclusively females; and I, as a male, don’t really have any desire to read any of that stuff. But I’m perfectly happy with books like _Pride & Prejudice_ or _The Help_, which show women’s concerns from women’s POV and which may not pass a reverse Bechdel test—as long as they’re _good_ books. But I’m wondering how to nail down the difference between chick lit and genuine good literature about female characters. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/95 "2017-06-10T17:34:36Z")
Like **jtur88** , I enjoyed _Smilla’s Sense of Snow_ by Peter Høeg. ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/96 "2017-06-10T19:12:54Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > _Life After Life_ by Kate Atkinson Oh, yes indeed. I think it’s my favorite book of the last two decades. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/97 "2017-06-10T20:25:32Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > That sounds interesting. > [@enipla](#): > > I’ll second that that sounds interesting. I like historical fiction. And underdogs. Regarding _Moll Flanders_, I just wanted to add (in case you’ve never read any 18th-century novels) that Defoe can be tough going at first—he writes _very_ long sentences, and doesn’t put paragraph breaks into dialogue. I suggest trying an audiobook edition, if you’re okay with that. I recommend the version by Virginia Leishman. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/98 "2017-06-11T02:07:12Z")
> [@UncaStuart](#): > > Oh, yes indeed. I think it’s my favorite book of the last two decades. Then I will again recommend _Elleander Morning_ by Jerry Yulsman, to you in particular. Some strong thematic similarities between the two; if you like one I suspect you’ll like the other. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2017, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/99 "2017-06-11T02:51:30Z")
Some of my favorites have been mentioned, including _Pride and Prejudice_ and _Corelia’s Honor_. One that I am surprised has not come up yet is _Modesty Blaise_, both the novels and the comic strips. Modesty’s side kick, Willie Garvin, is a major character but Modesty is (almost?) always the POV. And I am going to look up _Red Sister_. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2017, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407/100 "2017-06-11T05:23:30Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Hey, I downloaded one of her novels and never got around to reading it. Something about Jane Eyre? (do you have to know Jane Eyre to understand the novel?) You’re probably thinking of _The Eyre Affair_, the first of the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. You weren’t asking me, but I read _The Eyre Affair_ before having read _Jane Eyre_ and I did feel this left me at a disadvantage. A small but significant part of the story involves Thursday entering the world of _Jane Eyre_ and meddling in the plot so _Jane Eyre_ ends differently. This “different” ending is the real ending to _Jane Eyre_ and the version Thursday first encounters is an alternative one invented by Fforde, but while I was able to figure this out it really would have been a lot more interesting and effective had I already known how _Jane Eyre_ was supposed to end. FWIW, I really didn’t care for _The Eyre Affair_ even though it seemed like just the sort of thing I would like, but maybe you’d enjoy it more. I would recommend reading (or at least watching a decent movie/miniseries adaptation of) _Jane Eyre_ first, though. When I did get around to reading _Jane Eyre_ I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I’d expected. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guys-which-novels-with-a-female-main-character-do-you-particularly-like/788407.md?page=6)