Escaping into My Books

It hit me recently that almost every YA book I have read, involves some kick-ass heroine. I realized that this is the appeal of YA books to me. Traditional fantasy always had the typical rough and ready manly, man and the women were there to die tragically to cause them main pain, and further their character growth. And there were only two types of women...cackling villain or virginal saint. So boring after a while...especially if you are a woman. So basically...they were written by men, for men.

But here comes YA, were in majority of the them...the girl is The Chosen One. She is the one going on the hero quest, and beating up the bad guys...saving the day! And most importantly...she has a personality....good, bad, whiny, stubborn, rash, brave, loud...whatever...there were all kinds of women being women. I love it all. So when people ask me why I read some much YA...this is the reason. Because in them...girls are allowed to be full people. We get to read ourselves as the hero who saves the world. Growing up...this was missing from the books I read.

All this to say...this book is anther perfect example of what I like about YA as a genre. The heroine is not perfect, you want to smack her a couple times...but she is real. Complicated. Brave, heroic, makes mistakes, and has a full range of emotions. She is everything male characters are allowed to be in books and media. So even when I don't like her...I'm like.."good, more of this!" 

Miera is part of a small group of refuges from the Winter Kingdom, who was defeated and enslaved by the Neighboring Spring Kingdom and their madman of a King. That King also stole their magical conduit, that females Queen and their heirs have used to help their Kingdoms throughout history. In this world 4 Kingdoms control magic through their female lines and 4 through their male. Her group's, that includes the refugee King, mission outside of staying alive, is to find that conduit so they can regain their magic and fight for their kingdom back. There is magic, a bit of romance, good fight scenes, and a big twist. It was a twist I saw coming from the second chapter, but know it was coming still did not take away from the journey of the reader and Meira's journey to discovering it. So over all..I enjoyed this book a great deal. Loved the characters and look forward to more.