Give Me Ladies With Blood On Their Hands

[redbrunja]

Does anyone have recommendations for books about bad girls? Girls who are not nice? Who prioritize their survival over other people?

Because I was reading the opening of Keturah and Lord Death and when I got to the part (about four pages in, so not a spoiler) where Death tells the heroine that he’ll spare her if she names someone she’s prefer to die in her place and she’s like, ‘oh, no, I couldn’t possibly!’ and I’m like, ‘BOOM, DONE WITH YOU, POLLYANNA.’ It could have been anyone! It could have been someone she hated! Someone she barely new! Sweet jesus, I can think of five people who I’d be willing to trade for my life WITHIN THIRTY SECONDS.

Comments

[tobu-ishi.livejournal.com]

Smack me if you've already read them eight times, but have you tried Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce? I wouldn't call Aly an out-and-out bad girl, persay, but she's definitely willing to snark hard and fight dirty to achieve her ends, in ways that you don't often see in female protags.

(Incidentally, that kind of who-do-I-have-to-kill-to-get-out-of-here mercilessness was one of the things I liked about first-book Katniss. It's so unusual to see a non-villainous girl written caring about her own skin first.)

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Smack me if you've already read them eight times, but have you tried Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce?

I have!

(Incidentally, that kind of who-do-I-have-to-kill-to-get-out-of-here mercilessness was one of the things I liked about first-book Katniss. It's so unusual to see a non-villainous girl written caring about her own skin first.)

Fuck yes. I adored Katniss' ruthlessness and how she really didn't care about anything beyond her sister's life and then her own and then her mother's.