Top Ten Tuesday – Favorite Heroines

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish.

One of the things that I love about reading is finding strong female characters, especially considering we live in such a male dominated society. Men are viewed as strong, they make more money than a woman who holds the same level and position at work, and don’t even get me started on having to ‘obey’ a man when you make wedding vows. I’m pretty excited about today’s topic.

1. Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice – Without fail Elizabeth Bennett tops my list. Ever since I read Pride and Prejudice she has been one of my favorite heroine’s. She is not afraid of standing up for what she believes in. She’s also courageous and would take being an old maid over marrying a man she would ultimately be miserable with in a time when such action was scandalous.

2. Ruth Ramsey from The Abstinence Teacher – Ruth Ramsey is a favorite for many reasons. My most important however is this. She was very firm in her beliefs against religion. She did not want to be sucked into it nor did she want her daughters to be sucked into it. However, when it came down to it and her daughters wanted that freedom she was able to do what she didn’t want to and let her daughters make their own choice. I may not be a parent, but I’m pretty sure that stepping aside and starting to let your child or children make their own decisions is not an easy feat, yet that is exactly what she did, started to hand over the reins.

3. Rose Hathaway from the Vampire Academy series – She is a literal ass-kicking heroine. She is faced with so much before she even turns 18. But what I like most about Rose? When she was asked about how she was able to kill a strigoi before she even graduated or finished her training she didn’t try to play it off like she was the biggest bad-ass out there. She straight-up said that she got lucky in the beginning. The humility shows more strength in her than her mad skills.

4. Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird – During the favorite characters post I said that Scout simply kicks ass, and while that is true, there are reasons. I love how Scout is uninhibited. She will say what is on her mind with no qualms. She is straight-forward, honest, and curious and I just love that about her.

5. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter – I’m not sure that anyone who grew up in my generation could not have Hermione as a favorite heroine. She’s intelligent, honest, she puts up with the boys, and she punched Malfoy for crying out loud. She could have done some witchy sort of thing, but instead she straight-up decked him. Awesome.

6. Morgan from the Sweep series – I absolutely loved the Sweep series growing up. Morgan finds out that she is a blood witch and from that day on things get crazy. People try to kill her, her friends get jealous, her parents think she must be going crazy, and then there is that Seeker who stole her heart. She has a the type of courage and strength that I wish I had.

7. Rhoda Janzen in Mennonite in a Little Black Dress – Can a real woman from a memoir be considered a heroine? If not I’m changing the rules. When I read this memoir of everything she went through from a second divorce from the same man, a serious car accident, and then officially losing her ability to have children I wonder if I would have been able to keep it all together. And instead of completely just falling apart and sulking curled up in bed like I would have been she takes a trip back to roots. In doing so she re-learns to appreciate all that she’s got. A mid-life crisis? I’m sure I would have been a scarier wreck myself.

Wow, I wrote all of those so quickly and then I realized I only have seven. But I feel like I’m missing someone important, I’m wracking my brain all to no avail. So if I remember I’ll come back to add it in, otherwise there are my top heroine’s.

Who are your favorite heroines? Did I miss anyone important in my moment of brain-blankness? Am I the only one who hasn’t read the Hunger Games books and put the girl from them on my list?