Super Girls: Femininity and Agency in Young Adult Literature

Among the top ten things that strike terror into every middle-class, Western parent's heart, along with the possibility that their child may do drugs, drop out of school, and/or get arrested for indecent exposure, is the fear that their child may identify with the character of Bella Swan. (Yuck.) She is passive, stupid and inarticulate in a most infuriating fashion. No, the dreamy look in her eyes when she contemplates either one of her borderline-abusive love interests does not redeem her in any way. This has led many people to wonder, usually right after 'what is wrong with this world, and why do I live here?', whether there are other female characters in Young Adult literature who are worthy of the title 'heroine'. So here I provide some brief sketches of female leads who are not a complete waste of the air they breathe, and may have the potential to inspire young people, or even give an insight into the interactions between femininity and agency in young people today. Some are more successful than others, so I have given each a 'Supergirl Score'; rather than the overall quality of the book, this is meant to reflect the heroic credentials of the character discussed. As Katniss Everdean of The Hunger Games has been widely discussed as the Anti-Swan I've decided to go with a less famous bunch of heroines. There are actually plenty of them out there...

Gallagher Girls, by Ally Carter
Cameron (Cammie) Morgan

Cammie is one of the few female characters in YA fiction who is allowed to experiment with more than one boyfriend (go Cammie!). Cammie is a student at the Gallagher Academy, an all-girls' exclusive boarding school that trains future spies. You may think this demands an elephant's helping of willing suspension of disbelief, but actually the setting is sufficiently fantastical that it is quite easy to take it's silliness in one's stride, and believe that in Cammie's world it is perfectly normal for parents to sign their children up for a lifetime of morally ambiguous work that risks their safety and often involves shooting people. The Gallagher Academy is a bit like a Spy-Girls' Hogwarts, complete with recurring jokes about teachers (eg. the one who has plastic surgery before each new term because he is on the run), quirky classes (eg. the one which moves to a lower level of basement with each level of student achievement), and the inevitable luxurious dining hall (where students have to make conversation in a different language and regional accent at every meal).

Cammie's story begins in I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You with her using her spy skills to bend the rules at her exclusive spy school and flirt with a Normal Boy. In this book, the action is instigated by her crush on a boy, but all planning and shenanigans are carried out by Cammie and her crew of trusty female friends, demonstrating the fact that girls can plan, climb, run and break rules. All good things for a young girl to know. The fact that Carrie breaks up with said boy later on is even better - let's be honest, how many people end up in a lifelong relationship with the person they had a crush on in their early teens? It is useful, not to mention refreshingly believable, to portray female characters moving on from relationships. In later books, the plot gets a bit heavier and more melodramatic, as Cammie falls in love with mysterious spy-boy Zach, and discovers she is being pursued by an international organisation of super-spies, for no discernible reason. There is much excitement throughout, and even at her lowest points, Cammie is still an independent individual, who makes decisions for herself, and takes risks for the people she loves.

Supergirl Score: 8/10

Ringmaster, Empty Quarter and Deadlock, by Julia Golding
Darcie Lock

Darcie is a tomboy, reminiscent of George from the Famous Five, but without the cross-dressing. She also breaks multiple layers of social taboo: she plays with boys, makes friends with an older male soldier, as a white girl in Zimbabwe she learns the local language and interacts with the local residents. She is egalitarian in the way she views both herself and other people, and this is one of her greatest strengths. On several occasions, she defeats her adversaries because she has high expectations of herself and they underestimate her; likewise, she escapes some major trouble by befriending people other girls of her race and social class may dismiss: a Zimbabwean taxi driver, the chef on a luxury yacht etc. One of the best things about Darcie, however, is that she is mostly a completely unremarkable teenage girl. Her skills and talents are all acquired and developed through hard work; she is fit because she swims and plays football, she is clever because she pushes herself and tries to think, she makes friends easily because she takes the time to see the world from other people's perspectives. In this respect, Darcie is the best role model of all the heroines examined here. She is an ordinary girl who achieves extraordinary things through hard work and by forming healthy friendships.

Another fabulous thing about Darcie is that she does not have any sticky teenage romances going on with the male characters in her novels. She has friends of both genders, and of varying of social class and racial background. Though she also has enemies, she is often forced to relate to them on a human level, so the books challenge the notion that the world is divided into 'good' and 'bad' guys. Yet they still maintain narrative tension, move at a roaring pace and have satisfying, if not always happy endings. Unfortunately, it appears that Darcie has fallen victim to market forces, and her ordinary extraordinariness is no substitute for a good ole sticky teenage romance, because despite the fact that book 3 ends on a cliffhanger, Golding says 'I'd like to write another but would have to do so on my own time.' This suggests her publishers are not crying out for a continuation of Darcie's story. It's hard out there for real (-seeming) girls.

Supergirl Score: 10/10

Spy Society: An AKA Novel, by Robin Benway
Maggie Silver

Spy Society is derivative of Gallagher Girls. A girl with extraordinary abilities goes to a posh school and proceeds to use these abilities to pursue an attractive boy. In Maggie Silver's case, however, she is instructed to befriend the boy in order to gain access to his father's study, and crack a safe, safe-cracking being a skill she allegedly first demonstrated at the age of three. But all goes awry when she finds herself falling in love with the boy (shock! horror! bet you didn't see that one coming!) and she presumably re-assesses the ethical implications of her intrusive mission. Or maybe she just gets more worried about getting caught, I can't remember.

Anyway, as a veteran safe-cracker and member of a secret spy organisation, Maggie has a certain aura of competence, and the conceit of her being an experienced super-spy but inexperienced normal teenager is reasonably well-realised and
entertaining. She also makes a female friend called Ruby who wears her school blazer inside-out because she is a Rebel.This dilutes the potency of the icky-sticky teenage romance which inevitably develops between Maggie and her mark, and reduces the significance of the boy in Maggie's various decision-making processes. So overall, it is an entertaining little universe, with fun characters that don't contribute too drastically to the perpetuation of female oppression in contemporary society.

Supergirl Score: 7/10

A Spy Like Me, Laura Pauling
Savvy Bent

Savvy is annoying. In the opening scenes of her first novel, she ties up her love interest (Malcolm) and removes his trousers, which is all very funny, but then he gets shot, and she whines about how bad she feels for the next thousands and thousands of words. Savvy is eighteen, and working for her father who runs 'Spy Games' in Paris, sending his customers on a series of missions through Paris which his daughter and some other employees help to set up. Her mother has disappeared, which makes her Sad and Angsty, and leads to a teenage rebellion in which she is reluctant about her job, and skips her training runs. This catches up with her at some point when she decides she needs her fitness for a 'real spy mission', which leads to a 'training sequence' in which she goes for a run and does some sit ups, and then aches all over the day of the mission (really, what was the point in that?). The plot manages to be both complicated and daft, featuring secret spies, evil assassins, and a borderline-psychotic pastry chef. This sort of hinders Savvy's character development, a situation which does not improve in later books. Basically, the series is like a poorly-executed version of the Gallagher Girls. And Savvy really is annoying.

Supergirl Score: 4/10

Investigating the Hottie, by Juli Alexander
Amanda Peterson

First of all, what is with that title? I mean, I had a music teacher once who used to wax lyrical on the immense potential of 'the well-placed cliché', but this is really taking 'does-what-it-says-on-the-tin' to its absolute extreme. I suppose that's all one can expect from someone who voluntarily calls themselves 'Juli', but still, how could title possibly have seemed like a good idea? The book is nowhere near as bad as the title suggests (though that doesn't say much). Also, perhaps surprisingly, the main character (Amanda) is a reasonably inspiring individual. She plays sports, speaks languages, and argues with the adults in her life when they are being, frankly, ridiculous.

However, the entire plot is premised on the idea that there are people who are 'hotties', and people who are 'nerds', and that 'hotties' are more difficult to get to know, sort of like celebrities, or killer whales. The plot also seems to be derivative of both Spy Society and the Darcie Lock novels; in both Spy Society and ItH, the female protagonist is tasked with stalking an unsuspecting teenage boy for the benefits of a nefarious spy corporation; in both ItH and the Darcie Lock novels the protagonist is a tomboy who is forced to look more feminine and is not cool with it. However, a significant difference in the treatment of femininity in the cases of Darcie and Amanda is that Amanda comes to accept looking more feminine, while Darcie invariably manages to mangle her feminine finery, and even uses expensive trinkets to fashion life-saving gadgets, McGuiver-style. Amanda just has a mini-camera and cellphone in her bra. Because that gives Juli a reason to talk about her heroine's boobs. One redeeming feature is that by the end of the book, the 'hottie' is demystified, and revealed to be just another teenager, like Amanda.

Supergirl Score: 6/10

Spark by Rachael Craw
Evangeline (Evie) Everton

Spark, unlike the other novels discussed in this post, has a sci-fi element to its plot: in Evie's world, a genetic experiment gone wrong has resulted in three mutations in the human population: Sparks (hopeless victims), Shields (brave defenders), and Strays (vicious killers). (Don't you just love alliterative jargon?) Evie's life is turned upside down when she discovers she is a Shield, and her Spark is her petite and very killable best friend Kitty. Conveniently, the moment of bonding between Spark and Shield causes the third side of the triangle, the Stray, to awake, drop everything and start planning murder. This is all delightfully silly, mercilessly sacrificing all concessions to common sense on the altar of narrative contingency. Evie is a sympathetic character. But it is disappointing that all her athletic prowess is obtained by means of a magical gene mutation, rather than pure hard work. Craw includes 'training sequences', but in these Evie is mostly encouraged to relax and let her mutant genes take over; this could cause the unfortunate belief in teenage girls that they cannot be physically active or powerful without mutant genes. (It's not true, girls. If you run every day, eventually you will run faster. Fact. Likewise, if you punch things, you get better at punching things. Give it a try.)

Worse still, Craw claims this mutated DNA has the side-effect of making the bearer 'hot', in order to increase their chances of reproduction and perpetuation of the gene. This suggests that there is an objective standard of 'hotness' which for girls is reached through the possession of big boobs, small bums and luscious hair, and for boys through the possession of washboard abs, above-average height and, counterintuitively, long eyelashes. Both genders benefit from razor-sharp cheekbones, for some reason. Back in the real world, which is where most of us are forced to live, people are attracted to each other for all sorts of different reasons, of which some make sense and some really don't. Attraction can occur in response to another person's body language, smell (pheromones are a thing) or even in response to the novelty of being found attractive. Because the 'love' narrative in Spark is discussed in terms of the results of genetically-induced hotness, it fails to engage with any of the real issues of teenagers learning how to conduct romantic relationships. It also radiates silliness into the stratosphere.

Nevertheless, the book was fun. I just wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has not yet had at least two serious relationships, including loss of virginity. Not because the content of the book is in any way raunchy, but because it has the potential to be so catastrophically misleading. Likewise, it should not be read by people who do not have at least a casual acquaintance with sport, lest they become convinced success requires magic genes, rather than buckets of sweat and bloody-mindedness. So despite the fact that Evie is a strong female character who is of pivotal importance for the future of her world, she is let down by the fact that all her achievements are credited to the effects of a mythical gene mutation, rather than her own hard work and ingenuity.

Supergirl Score: 5/10

Manly Magic: Harry Dresden vs. Alex Verus

Alex Verus is the star of an urban fantasy series of novels by Benedict Jacka, each titled with a past participle. So far there are five books: Fated, Chosen, Cursed, Taken and Hidden. Alex Verus is a wizard living in contemporary London, specifically Camden, who runs a shop selling magical doodads and doesn't really have any friends. He also has problems with authority. Despite his desire for a quiet life, Verus constantly gets embroiled in magical disputes, often as a result of the exploits of his sort-of apprentice Luna, mostly involving a Bad Guy of some flavour who is trying to kill him, forcing Verus to unleash wholesale destruction on Bad Guy and Evil Associates alike. I started reading the Alex Verus novels because Jacka (or his unnamed minion) writes a mean synopsis. Also, Fated was on sale, so I got it for 99p. As I read the novels, I became increasingly confused by the fact that the first review for every single one was by a guy called Jim Butcher, who smugly informed me that 'Harry Dresden would like Alex Verus tremendously - and be a little nervous around him.' Who is Harry Dresden? I thought, and, as the marketing staff of Amazon had intended (I imagined them secretly watching me, gleefully rubbing their hands/tentacles together), I googled him. 

Harry Dresden is the star of an urban fantasy series of novels by Jim Butcher, each titled with a two-

word pun. There are fourteen books so far, so I won't list all the titles; the first four are Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril and Summer Knight. Harry Dresden is a wizard living in contemporary Chicago, who runs a one-man wizard detective agency, concocts and creates magical doodads in his basement (with the help of an animated skull) and doesn't really have any friends. He also has problems with authority. Notice any similarities? One difference is that in Dresden's case, at least in the first few novels, it is not his personal attachments that lead him into trouble, but his need for cash - he starts most novels on the brink of bankruptcy, and wheedles consultant work out of the Chicago Police Department to keep himself afloat, which somehow always results in him saving the world from definite destruction. But both Dresden and Verus function in similar ways in their narratives: they are Unconventional, they are Mavericks, they Get Things Done and they are Manly Men.


One of the things I find particularly entertaining when reading the Dresden Files is that I get the feeling the books are addressed explicitly to a male reader, in much the same way that Twilight or The Hunger Games are directed at girls. While the reader is expected to relate to Dresden's various heroic activities, and Butcher does a decent job of making him both admirable and vulnerable, the books exude an expectation of heterosexual maleness with regard to the reader. As a woman, this creates moments of cognitive dissonance for me. For example, Dresden often says that in defiance of women's status as independent subjects, he still has a chivalrous, protective urge hardwired into his very being that leads him to try and defend women, and forget the consequences. One cannot help but feel that this is addressing a male heterosexual reader who is expected to relate to Dresden, while women should want to sleep with him, because he is oh-so-sexy in his leather duster and frankly bizarre hat. As a result, in defiance of authorial intention, I experience a gleeful sort of schadenfeude when women fail to be swayed by Dresden's last-knight-of-the-round-table act, show up at the location of the novel's climactic showdown, and screw everything up. Of course, it is disturbing that a series of novels written in the twenty-first century should peddle the notion that weak women should stay out of things, otherwise people will get hurt. Especially in the case of Susan. Susan is a cretin. But it is hard to take offence; after all, this is a series of novels about a sleuthing wizard in Chicago. There is a limit to how seriously one can take them.

Like Dresden, Verus is presented as a character men should want to be and women should want to bed (though he has a kind of rubbish sex life, and his only meaningful emotional attachment for most of his life has been to a gargantuan talking spider).  Indeed, both Butcher and Jacka seem to create characters who function to some extent as wish-fulfilment: Butcher's Harry Dresden is a geeky, slightly strange misfit, but he turns out to be right all the time, and his enemies routinely have to eat their words, either because they turn out to have been wrong about him, or because he has set them on fire. Verus is also a somewhat strange misfit who is weaker than his enemies, but somehow always prevails in the end. This character structure actually causes Jacka some problems as the series progresses: in the first two books, Verus grows from a sarcastic, solitary misanthrope into a rounded person with life experience, as he gradually faces the traumas of his past (inflicted upon him by the hilariously named supervillain Richard Drakh) and learns to play with the other children. By the end of book two, Jacka is faced with a problem: Verus has started to get his act together. He's not really a loner, he's not really a misanthrope, and he's already killed most of the people who were trying to kill him. This leaves little cause for adventure, and raises the dreadful possibility that Verus will settle down with Luna and pop out some perfect yet cursed babies. Jacka averts this development in book three by broadening Verus' world. Luna becomes Verus' apprentice, which forces him to engage with the Light Council, because Luna has to attend a training program. This introduces new characters, and a whole new range of parameters affecting Verus' life and relationships, enabling Jacka to maintain the narrative tension. It also helps that the mystery at the centre of the novel is engaging, unpredictable, and features a creepy villain. 

All is good in book three, but once again the loose ends of Verus' existence are tied up a little too neatly, leaving no fertile ground for a new plot. So by the time we get to Chosen, Jacka has to turn to Verus' less-than-pristine past to dredge up some adversaries. Here the problems begin. In Chosen, Verus is pursued by a gang of teenagers with funky hairstyles and bad attitudes, who seek vengeance for something awful he did in the past. This leads to a blood-soaked showdown, because for some strange reason even though Verus and all his friends are adult mages, and their adversaries are teenage adepts (i.e. half-magical people) they are unaccountably unable to disarm the vicious teenagers without doing them terminal harm. 

In the context of Chosen, this all works fine. The denouement seems unnecessarily bloodthirsty, but the outcome makes sense according to the rules of the world Verus lives in: everyone is violent, murderous and unpleasant, the difference between Dark and Light being that the former are more up-front about the whole thing, and the latter have a more kafkaesque bureaucracy. Where it all falls down is in book 5, Hidden, when the entirety of the plot is determined by the fact that Verus' friends are all cross with him because he committed mass-murder at the end of book 4. Wake up guys, he does this all the time! This is clearly a device to get Verus back to his former Lone Wolf status, so that he can function as a masculine maverick and save the day. Not only is it grating as a device, but it also costs us two sympathetic characters, Sonder and Anne, who play a pivotal role in earlier books. In Anne's case, her reasoning for avoiding Verus is sort of believable, though her inability to communicate this earlier in the plot is sort of annoying. In the case of Sonder, on the other hand, his reasons for rejecting Verus' friendship make him seem like a whiny, entitled brat. Overall, one gets the impression that Jacka is trying to emphasise Verus' aura of 'danger', as a means of maintaining his exceptional status with reference both to the real world and the fantasy world he inhabits. Unfortunately, what makes Verus interesting is not his ability to be exceptionally violent when needed, but his Odyssean ingenuity and resistance to authority. The whole 'dangerous' aspect gives the impression that he's trying to look cool in front of a bunch of teenage boys.

Having said all this, I am looking forward to the release of Veiled, the next instalment in Verus' adventures, this August. And I'll probably keep reading the Dresden Files as well, although if I buy them all I'll probably have to declare bankruptcy...