In honor of International Women’s Day, here are six must-read women.
1. Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
I’ll let Jane speak for herself:
“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?”
“They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer.
“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?”
“A pit full of fire.”
“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?”
“No, sir.”
“What must you do to avoid it?”
I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: “I must keep in good health and not die.”
Drop the mic.
2. Libby Day from Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Gillian Flynn knows how to write women so complicated you feel that, if you searched the midwest thoroughly enough, you’d find them. Libby introduces herself as this ruined, irredeemable, kleptomaniac burden to society. By the end of the book, I was surprised that she was more than any of this. She was broken, compassionate, relatable.
3. Lily Bloom from It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
I don’t sleep well when I read Colleen Hoover. I either stayed up late or woke up before the sun to finish Ugly Love, Maybe Someday, and It Ends with Us. While I have been disappointed by some of Hoover’s female protagonists, (Tate from Ugly Love, for instance), Lily grows into one of the bravest characters I’ve read in romance.
4-5. Bronwyn and Addy from One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
Bronwyn doesn’t take crap from anyone. She’s repentant, humble, brilliant, and won’t let anyone master her fate–or the fate of anyone she loves. Addy grows from doormat to self-assured and selfless. That’s all I can say without spoiling the book. Read it!
6. Addie from As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Far and away my favorite antiheroine, Addie’s single chapter in As I Lay Dying is the most eloquent. And brazen. Her first line:
In the afternoon when school was out and the last one had left with his little dirty snuffling nose, instead of going home I would go down the hill to the spring where I could be quiet and hate them.
“Them” being her children and husband. She punished them by asking to be buried in her hometown, the trek to which all but destroyed them. I’m not drawn to Addie because she’s vindictive or bitter, but because she doesn’t attempt to hide her faults from the reader or soften them at all. She was the first self-admittedly awful woman I had read. Since I met Addie in my high school US Lit class, I’ve been looking for others like her in every book I read.
Did I leave out your favorite female character? Tell me! I’d love to read about her.