8 Teen Fiction Books with Strong Female Protagonists

“You may say what you want to, but in my opinion, she had more sand [we’re pretty sure Twain means “grit” here] in her than any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was just full of sand. . . . And when it comes to beauty—and goodness too—she lays over them all.”

So says Huck Finn after meeting Mary Jane, the eldest of the three nieces of Peter Wilks, whom he saves from the Duke and the Dauphin by revealing where he hid their uncle’s gold. Mary Jane may play a small role in Huck’s story (though she certainly left a lasting impression), but a girl with that much sand in her has her own stories to tell.

Mary Jane lives in the North with her mother and grandfather, but at fourteen, she’s starting to feel caught between following wherever they go and having her own adventures. Named after two headless queens, Mary Jane adores her copy of A Child’s History of England, has an impressive knack for mental calculations, and is full of bravery and kindness.

When her Aunt Evelyn writes a letter requesting her mother’s help for a few weeks, Ma sends Mary Jane in her place, starting off a chain of adventures that involve a group of misfits about a steamboat who become family, illnesses to heal, slave owners to argue with, dangerous relatives to avoid, a white-mustached Samuel Clemens (iykyk), and eventually a run-in with a handsome boy with blue eyes and a blond ponytail.

We loved Mary Jane’s spunk as well as the look at mid-1800s America from a young woman’s perspective, and Jahren’s novel is full of clever allusions to Twain’s original. She captures its spirit while telling her own fresh tale, and while the story starts a little slowly, we were drawn in further and further with each page.

For the most part, the novel is appropriate for a wide range of students; however, there is one brief scene of sexual abuse to be aware of when making recommendations to your students.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Children’s, and Delacorte Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

We raved about the first novel in Gong’s duology in our post of historical fiction recommendations and immediately added it to our library holds list. Fortunately, it popped up just in time for this roundup of teen fiction books with strong female protagonists because the novel is teeming with them!

While we don’t want to spoil too much of the duology’s first entry (or the events in this one), we left off with Orion (the titular Huntsman) brainwashed and under his villainous mother’s control with a roundup of women—Rosalind and Celia Lang, Phoebe Hong, and Alisa Montagova—hard at work to rescue him.

Gong’s spy-thriller Secret Shanghai novels are set during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and this closing entry brings to life the Shanghai Incident that took place on January 28, 1932 (and the months that followed). Our characters have complicated relationships not only with one another but with the Chinese Nationalist and Communist parties, and their loyalties are constantly put to the test. What’s beautiful to watch is the way their loyalties to their loved ones—family, friends, and lovers—win out over their political loyalties.
The novel’s satisfying end is inspired by the ending of As You Like It, and we enjoyed our time with these tough ladies (and their male counterparts).

We all know the story of Hansel and Gretel: siblings, bread crumbs, candy cottage in the woods, cannibalistic witch, death by oven. But what happens after the siblings escape?

It turns out that their lives aren’t so happily ever after. Hansel has turned into an unpleasant young man, racking up loads of gambling debts in town. And Gretel (now going by Marga, short for Margarethe), despite her best efforts to overcome the trauma inflicted upon her by the witch, is the subject of town rumors and suspected of being a witch herself for her involvement in the events in the forest so many years ago.

When Hansel’s gambling debts catch up to him and the pair are forced to flee back to the gingerbread cottage in the woods in search of treasure, their paths intersect with a magical duck who has been waiting on them to undo the curse placed upon him by the same witch many years ago. In order to do that, he must convince Gretel to take her rightful place as the new witch-queen of the forest, a role she wants nothing to do with.

We always love a good fairy-tale retelling, and Noble’s version of events is an enjoyable one. We liked Gretel (and the handsome town baker) from page one, and we were rooting for her as she worked to overcome her traumatic past (and her horrible brother and neighbors) and build the life she deserves. We hope you and your students do, too!

Thank you NetGalley, Xpresso Book Tours, and Oliver Heber Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Marina Chan and her online gamer friends are thrilled: not only do they get to meet in real life, but it’s for a tour of Apocalypta Games, the company that makes Darkitect, their favorite game. And they’ve just received an invitation from the most renowned private Darkitect level designer, Cixi, to test a new mission.

But their excitement turns to horror when Ethan Wainwright, the CEO and founder of Apocalypta Games, is murdered while they’re there on their private tour. Marina’s uneasy because she recognizes the building’s layout from their Darkitect mission the night before, and her instincts prove to be right when they receive a video message from Cixi, telling them that if they don’t successfully make it through the next four private missions, she’ll start carrying out acts of blackmail against each of them.

As the teammates work together to carry out their missions, they discover that Cixi is trying to reveal some unpleasant truths about Ethan Wainwright. And the longer the game goes on, the more Marina starts to realize her own hidden past (including the scars hidden under her long sleeves) are right at the center of everything.

This was a great page-turning thriller, and we were eager to find out the truth behind Ethan’s murder and Cixi’s manipulations. 

The novel will appeal to many students—gamers and non-gamers alike—but do be aware that child abuse plays a central role in Marina’s backstory (and is described) when making recommendations to students.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

Grimes’s beautiful memoir in verse details her experience growing up in 1950s and 1960s New York City with a paranoid schizophrenic mother.

Throughout Grimes’s early childhood, she and her sister Carol support one another through poverty, an absent father, abusive babysitters, and their mother’s delusions and alcoholism. They’re placed in several foster homes, initially together and then separated, and move through a series of schools, constantly ahead in some subjects and behind in others.

When Grimes’s mother is granted custody, Grimes must leave the comfort and safety of the foster family she’s been placed with in Ossining to live back in the city with her mother and her new stepfather, Clark. It’s not a good living arrangement from the start, and it gets worse when Clark sexually abuses the sisters.

As Grimes gets older, she finds solace in writing, filling her notebook with poems and prayers and flourishing under the encouragement of her English teachers. Despite her father’s absence through much of her life, he plays a bigger and bigger role in her life as she gets older, introducing her to Black artists and writers. These supports enable Grimes to survive until she is old enough to move out on her own, and based on her lengthy career as a writer, we can see the value words have held for her throughout her life.

The memoir in verse inspires readers with Grimes’s resilience and the power and beauty of words and supportive friends and family. Racism and the Civil Rights Movement are undercurrents playing in the background of Grimes’s personal struggles and family issues, but they intersect with her story and we get to attach a face and a personal story to the history.

In many ways, the novel is appropriate for a wide range of students, but alcoholism and abuse (physical and sexual) are parts of Grimes’s story, so keep that in mind when making recommendations to your students.

As longtime fans of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, we’ve been eagerly anticipating Jackson’s newest standalone novel, and it was definitely worth the wait!

Bel’s mother, Rachel Price, disappeared when Bel was only two years old, and Bel was the only witness. This history has gained her notoriety, but Bel has never been able to remember the details of her mother’s disappearance. Her father has held the family together and when, in need of financial help, he agrees to do a true crime documentary about Rachel’s disappearance, Bel is thrown back into the spotlight.

Imagine everyone’s surprise when, amidst the filming of the documentary, Rachel reappears. She’s bedraggled and wearing the same outfit she disappeared in sixteen years ago, claiming to have escaped when her kidnapper released her on the side of the highway, but something isn’t sitting right with Bel. Maybe it’s just that she’s grown up her entire life without her mom . . . or maybe it’s that someone isn’t telling the truth.

Bel, with the help of a member of the documentary crew, sets out to discover what really happened, and along the way, she discovers her family has got a lot of secrets.

While not quite as good as AGGGTM, this novel was far superior to Jackson’s last standalone novel, Five Survive, and we were happily along for the ride. The novel had some definite Gone Girl vibes (and some big surprises) as we tried to figure out which version of events we could trust, and we were satisfied with the suspenseful ending. 

Your students are sure to love this one, but do be aware that it includes quite a bit of profanity when making your recommendations.

Bayron’s Snow White/Rumpelstiltskin mashup adds depth and richness to the classic fairy tales, giving the characters complex motivations that are far more compelling and understandable than those we see in the original fairy tale.

Princess Eve of Queen’s Bridge has been training all her life to take on the Knight, a treacherous foe who roams the countryside in his dark castle (it is, after all, an enchanted castle that can grow legs and walk away), granting wishes to the town’s inhabitants in exchange for terms and payments that ruin their lives, for no other reason than to satisfy his own cruelty. She’s grown up knowing that asking for wishes from the Knight is not done in her family, but when she discovers her family’s secret connection to the Knight, she’s thrown into danger.

After fleeing to the forest for safety, Eve must work alongside the Kingfisher (Bayron weaves in the Fisher King narrative as well) and the Knight’s mysterious liaison Nova to save herself, her mother, and her kingdom. If, that is, their combined forces can uncover the truth behind the rumors of a weakness that will bring the Knight down.

This was a compelling fairy tale makeover that made Princess Eve a strong hero rather than a damsel in distress, and we flew through the pages, eager to see what would happen next. All of the interwoven fairy tales and biblical allusions delightfully worked together to tell a story of hard-won love.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.

It’s almost the end of senior year, and Evelyn Lassiter is sick of everyone’s expectations that she figure out what she’s going to do with her life. In an effort to get everyone off her back, Evelyn organizes a bit of a prank to overthrow the local sheriff: she gets herself elected as a write-in candidate.

In her first act as sheriff, Evelyn gleefully replaces the former sheriff’s “Blue Lives Matter” flag with a “Black Lives Matter” flag, enjoying the media spectacle. But it’s not long before she realizes the sheriff’s job is a lot more work and responsibility than she had anticipated. Sure, her goal is to get recalled and help Deputy Leo Paige get elected in her place, but in the meantime? She’s in over her head, and she’s made enemies of her employees in the sheriff’s office.

Things get even worse when she and Deputy Paige uncover evidence that someone in the sheriff’s department is involved with the presence of the designer drug Blue 82 that is circulating in the community and leading to multiple deaths by overdose. It’s up to them to get to the bottom of things before Evelyn is recalled and the former sheriff regains control of the office.

While the novel starts off a bit glib (including some profanity in the early chapters), it becomes immediately clear that Evelyn wants to do right by her community and see her responsibility through, and it’s hard not to root for her, especially as her family and friends come alongside her. Evelyn is a great role model, and this fun crime novel is reminiscent of Veronica Mars. We think your mystery lovers will enjoy it.

Thank you NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are our own.