Dazed Digital: Cited as one of the Top Ten Female Protagonists in Books in which Girls Rule

To say some feminist protagonists are undaunted by topics like violence and bodily fluids would be an understatement: often, women writers react to entrenched sexism and misogyny by relishing the realms of life supposedly forbidden to them. Reading their stories might make you cringe—or vomit—but their unashamed dedication to uncomfortable vocabulary and taboo topics can only make you proud to have a vagina.

Others are less intense, but no less ground-breaking; subtle stories of sexual and personal awakenings achieved in spite of antifeminist environs make it clear that girls rule both worlds, the interior and the exterior. Check out our top ten picks for bad-ass female protagonists, written by authors just as empowered.

Levine’s protagonist is the opposite of pissed off, really; she’s excited and funny, grateful to have emerged from a dead-end job and lifeless relationship with a lease on life gleaned from the book Treasure Island. Despite farcical elements and lighthearted punctuational choices, the narrator’s new values are still super feminist: boldness! Resolution! Independence! Horn-blowing!

-Lauren Olyer