Favorite Female Characters in Books

Welcome back to Musings of an Arthritic Artist! Today I decided to do another easy post. I did one almost exactly like this one last week that I posted on my 18th birthday (linked here: Favorite Male Characters in Books (opens in new window)). 

I mentioned that I had initially written with both male and female characters but had divided it in half when I thought the word count became too long. 

So for this post, I'm going to be listing my favorite literary female characters (in no particular order after the first one) and why I like them so much.

King, Alexandria. Musings of an Arthritic Artist. 2021.

Annabeth Chase

First up on my list (and the only one that's 100% ranked) is Annabeth Chase from the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles in the Riordanverse books. Annabeth is first on my list for multiple reasons. For one, I love her as a character. I admire her bravery and level-headedness, along with her cleverness and love of architecture (which actually made me enjoy architecture more, especially the ancient Greek kind). For another, I've read a lot of books in the last decade. I've read a lot of Children's, Middle Grade, and a decent amount of YA novels, and for me it's very hard to come across girls I actually like, especially ones who are written by male authors. 

Most of the time, females written by male authors are either flat and two-dimensional or just aren't very interesting. In other cases where female characters are written by women, I just can't connect with a lot of the females in them. My list of favorite female characters is much shorter than my list of favorite male characters.

This is one of the main reasons why Annabeth is my favorite female book character. She's got so many layers, she feels human, and she was written by a male author. I can't count how many books I've read by male authors with female characters who aren't great. To be honest, most are either forgettable or boring (I love Newt from The Maze Runner series, but I can't think of many personality traits for Teresa, Brenda, or Trina; when I envision them in my mind, almost everything about them comes up blank). In my opinion, Annabeth is one of the most well-written female characters in Middle Grade/YA. 

To be honest, my list of female characters is actually pretty big, but 95% of my favorite female characters are from Rick Riordan's books. The main reason why I didn't include all of my favorite female characters is because I didn't want this post to have too many Riordanverse characters. Even though I won't go into detail, I will list some of my favorite Riordanverse characters I don't include on this list (Thalia Grace, Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano, Hazel Levesque, Calypso, Silena Beauregard, and Rachel Elizabeth Dare).

Sadie Kane

Sadie is one of my favorite characters in The Kane Chronicles. She's either tied on my list with Carter or just slightly below Carter (I have a hard time deciding, so I just like to say that I love them both equally). Sadie reminds me of myself (though Sadie's a bit more extreme than I am). She's stubborn and has a bit of a mischievous and rebellious side. 

It was enjoyable to read about her and Carter's relationship over the three books, and intriguing to read about how their relationship grew over time. It was also fascinating to read about her partial British side (she was born in Los Angeles, but after her mother died, she grew up in London with her grandparents).

Inej Ghafa

Inej is the most recent addition on this list. Inej is one of the six main characters of the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo. She isn't my favorite character in those books (that would be Kaz, as I mentioned in two other posts), but she's definitely well-written. I find that she and I are very similar, which isn't an incredibly common thing for me to come across in books. 

As I mentioned with Annabeth, most girls I read about are boring or flat. Inej was fascinating and I was excited to read about her. I wanted to read more about Kaz, but Inej is easily my second favorite.

Laia of Serra

Laia from An Ember in the Ashes is another one of my favorites. I love how loyal she is to her family and friends. She's compassionate and determined, which is something that immediately made me more interested in her story. I love the relationship she has with her brother and grandparents, and I love how she's determined without being too arrogant or dramatic. She's a genuinely strong female character that I loved reading about.

Hermione Granger

Hermione used to be my favorite female character. She was the first Middle Grade/YA female character I loved. Up until I read the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles, Hermione was at the top of my list. I love Hermione's personality. I love how curious and intelligent she is. She can be very blunt, to the point of being brutally honest (which is something I relate greatly to). 

Katniss Everdeen

Katniss from The Hunger Games is another one of my favorite book characters. I love the relationship between her and Prim. As I've mentioned in many other posts, I love reading books that have characters who are siblings. I find them interesting and usually relatable. The love Katniss has for Prim was a fascinating and intriguing thing to read about. Generically speaking, we don't see them together very much, but it was written so well that I scarcely even noticed how infrequently they interacted. Overall, Katniss is a very interesting character who made me--like a lot of teens--more interested in archery.

Alice Cullen

Alice is a newer addition to my list. When I read the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, I honestly didn't expect much of it. I didn't expect to love it, but I didn't expect to hate it. I had already heard all the backlash and hate for the series, and I was curious to see what all the hype was about. Alice surprised me. She was my favorite female character in the entire series (though Esme is a close second). She reminds me a lot of Thalia Grace from the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles. 

I love how caring Alice is regarding her family and friends. She's very optimistic, which is usually a trait in characters that tires and bores me (usually the characters are overly optimistic, almost like caricatures, which frustrates me). Alice is a character I wasn't initially expecting to have on this list, but I really like her. She's definitely not super high on my list, but she's definitely on it.

Elizabeth Bennet

Since I had Mr. Darcy on my list of favorite male characters, I feel like I had to include Lizzy on this list. I loved how independent and headstrong Elizabeth was. She wasn't arrogant, but she was self-assured and enjoyable to read. I enjoyed reading about how her opinion of Mr. Darcy changed the more she was around him. Lizzy was a fascinating character, and she's definitely one of my favorite female characters. 

That's it for this post! I hope you enjoyed it!

Until next time, 

Lexi K🖌