Top Twelve Favourite Literary Heroines

“Top Ten Tuesday” is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is the Top Twelve Favourite Literary Heroines.

I’ll be the first to admit that today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was one of most difficult I’ve encountered thus far. When you read as much and as often as I do, you encounter no shortage of wonderful literary heroines and the possibilities for today’s post seemed nearly endless. Narcissistic though it might sound, I admire the women included in today’s post in no small part because I see so much of myself in them. In their boundless imagination and their plucky enthusiasm. In their sharp tongues and their even sharper tempers. In their single-minded determination and their hard-headed stubbornness. In their vibrant confidence and their quiet insecurities. Whether they are twelve-year-old food critics or twenty-something governesses, each character on this list nestled their way into my heart and remained with me long after I closed the final page. Most importantly of all, they reminded me of the awesome strength and power of women. Because who run the world? Girls!

As always, these choices are listed in no particular order.

“I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”
– Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

“I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.”
– The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

“I don’t think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it’s the little things that are harder anyway.”
– Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson

“We’re all more than the person we show to everyone else. At least I hope so. Because I feel like there’s more to me than that. I just haven’t had the chance yet to show it.”
– Golden by Jessi Kirby

“What a spineless thing I must be not to have one enemy!”
– The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery

“I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle — something heroic, or wonderful — that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead. I don’t know what, but I’m on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all, some day.”
– Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

“It won’t make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life.”
– Anne Of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

“Gladys knew one thing for sure: Today would not be remembered as the day she proved what a great cook she was and earned more kitchen privileges. No, today would forever be the day Gladys Gatsby set the house on fire and, if her family survived, the day she got into a great, big, fat amount of trouble.”
– All Four Stars by Tara Dairman

“I am no bird and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will.”
– Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed – or worse, expelled. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”
– Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

“I felt my shoulders relaxing, my nerves disappearing. I felt like Queen Boadicea taking on the Romans. I leaned forward, propped my chin in my hand, and stared out at the boys.
Now I’m one of you.”
– A Mad, Wicked Folly by Sharon Biggs Waller

“Jocelyn also made great strides with her mastery of French. Miss Eliza was most certainly pleased, though I imagine she would have preferred Jocelyn memorize phrases such as Mais oui, J’ai en effet trouvé le Camembert délicieux (“Why yes, I did find the Camembert delicious”) instead of Pardonnez-moi, mais il semble que j’ai coincé ma fourchette á poisson dans votre oeil (“Pardon me, but it seems that I have lodged my fish fork in your eye”). Still, it could not be denied that progress was being made.
– Hook’s Revenge by Heidi Schulz

So, what do you think? Is there a heroine that I forgot to list that I just have to include? Let me know in the comments – I would love to hear from you!