The Friday Five!

Top Five Favorite YA Girls

1.   Alaska Young (Looking for Alaska): The girl down the hall who makes Pudge fall in love. She’s vibrant, free-spirited, hilarious and self-destructive. She breaks stereotypes, a party girl who loves books and deep conversations. Mood swingy, raw, edgy, and real. I’m pretty sure everyone who reads this book has a crush on her and/or wants to be her.
   
   
2. Taylor Markham (Jellicoe Road): The reluctant leader of her boarding school in the territory wars, Taylor has battled all sorts of demons since her mother abandoned her at a 7-11 at age eleven. She puts up walls and a tough exterior, when inside, all she wants is to piece together the novel—which may turn out to be more reality than fiction—that Hannah, her guardian, wrote before disappearing.
   
   
3. Hannah Baker (Thirteen Reasons Why): She commits suicide before the beginning of the novel, but she leaves cassette tapes behind, each side designated to one person—one reason why she was driven to suicide. These tapes make their way to each of the thirteen people. Hannah’s narration, while sad, is witty, sarcastic, and blunt, as real as it gets.
   
   
4. Auden West (Along for the Ride): She quit sleeping because her parents wouldn’t fight if they knew she was awaken. Now, even after their divorce, she can’t shake the insomnia. So she launches herself into this quest to do all the things she missed out on during her childhood and teen  years—grocery shopping at night, going to a club, learning to ride a bike. She’s book smart and practical, and throughout her quest she learns to have fun and be a teenager.
   
   
5. Mandarin Ramey (Like Mandarin): The “town slut” that fourteen-year-old Grace desperately wants to be like. Carefree and wild, Mandarin wants to escape Washokey, Wyoming, and passes the time by tossing animal-head trophies into the river and skinny dipping in the canal. Though she does poorly in school, she is street smart and manipulative, convincing Grace to accompany her on all her crazy schemes.