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Alwyn Hamilton

Five Heroines Who Are Better at Kicking Butt Than Keeping a Level Head

I’m honestly amazed I never got into debating. I am basically an expert at looking at any kind of decision from both sides, and then finding a few bonus sides to look at it from too, weighing things up, and finally making a decision. Maybe that’s why I look for the opposite in fiction. I seek out characters who jump in head first and make a decision halfway down—characters who go on gut instincts and then act on them and bend the world by doing it.

And when I say characters, I usually mean female characters. Even nowadays there’s a tendency to cast women in the cautious, levelheaded role in fiction, warning the hero off whatever rash thing he might be doing, whether that hero is the sword wielding prodigy or the sitcom dad about to enact shenanigans. But give me a girl who acts quickly, and violently, and in doing so cuts, punches or shoots her way out of any attempt to but her in a stereotypical gendered box, and I’m all over her.

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Series: Five Books About…

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