Welcome to day 2 of the 2011 best-of blog circus! Today I’m supposed to talk about my top 5 YA girls. But because I’m a rebel, I’m going to veer slightly off topic (please don’t hurt me, Sarah Enni!). Instead of my generic favorite YA girls, I want to talk about something pretty close to my heart–my favorite complicated girls.

YA authors get a lot of duff when they give us “unlikeable” heroines. But what’s a crabby witch to one reader is a complicated, vividly rendered person to another. These are my favorite thorny, complex, real girls in the YA I read in 2011.

5. Tris in Divergent

My relationship with Divergent is kind of complicated itself–though fundamentally it’s not my sort of book, it’s grown in esteem for me since reading it (spoilers: I’ll talk about this more in two days when I discuss my top 5 recommend books of the year). What’s stuck with me is Tris, a much more complex heroine than one usually encounters in dystopian YA. Tris is selfish–she says so herself–single-minded to a fault, definitely flawed. And yet she remains very real in my mind, months after reading. I think this is because of her flaws, not in spite of them. They make her a real person, one whose vividness easily rivals Katniss Everdeen’s but who feels, well, a little more grounded in the reality of what it is to be a teenage girl.

4. Chloe in Imaginary Girls

Either of the girls in Nove Ren Suma’s Imaginary Girls easily qualify as “complicated.” But narrator Chloe was the more compelling for me. She’s got a scary, obsessive focus on her older sister, and yet the narrative never quite tells us what to make of this. Are we to read their relationship as tender and loving, or fundamentally abusive? And who is crazier–Ruby, for manipulating the people of their home town, or Chloe, for going along with it? There are no easy answers, which is part of what makes Imaginary Girls so insanely compelling.

3. Lissa in Shut Out

Poor Lissa. Girl is a hot mess, caring for her brother and father like some kind of make shift parent, controlling in her relationships, less than honest to the guys in her life–and to the reader. She’s hard to like sometimes, but you know what? Her reactions to her situation are very, very honest. There’s a tendency in some fluffier contemporary YA to gloss over the kind of mistakes that teenage girls make in favor of making them more likeable. Keplinger doesn’t do that here, instead bravely showing us how blind we can be so she can also realistically show our growth.

2. Rosalinda in A Long, Long Sleep

Through the first half of Anna Sheehan’s debut, I was frustrated by the passive, mousey heroine. She reminded me of so many girls we encounter in YA Paranormal–Bella Swan and Nora Grey–whose passivity seems celebrated and is at least unexamined. That’s not the case here. The reader eventually learns that there’s a real, and really horrific, reason for Rosalinda’s passive nature. Suddenly, the book is elevated above a simple story of time-shifted romance to a narrative that’s . . . well, I don’t want to give it away. But I’m glad I didn’t give up on Rosalinda.

1. Micah in Liar

It doesn’t get more complicated than this.

I still don’t know what to make of Micah, the kinda queer, kinda pathological, kinda insanely complex narratior of Justine Larabalestier’s Liar. I still don’t know what part of her story is true, and not. And that’s what makes this conceit so great: Larbalestier refuses to give us easy answers, and instead builds  Micah in complexity as she layers one lie on top of another. One reading of this book renders Micah a psychopath. The other makes her more sympathetic, but more fantastic, too. I’m not sure if I’d want to be friends with Micah, but reading about her, and all of the possibilities that her narrative entails, was a fascinating experience.

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Check out what other characters people are celebrating today!

[Caroline Richmond] [Corrine Jackson] [Erin Bowman] [Kaitlin Ward] [Kate Hart] [Kathleen Peacock] [Kirsten Hubbard] [Kristen Halbrook] [Kristin Otts] [Lee Bross] [Lindsey Roth Culli] [Phoebe North] [Sarah Enni] [Stephanie Keuhn] [Sumayyah Doud] [Veronica Roth]

Welcome to day 1 of the year end best-of blog circus! (Also, welcome to my birthday! Yay!) Up today, my top 5 albums to write to.

(Just a note that the music I love may contain dirty words and subversive ideas. Sorry, kids–when it comes to music, part of me is still a sixteen year old mohawked punk rocker!)

5. Now You Can See by the Thermals

On the surface, Now You Can See sounds like typical indie-punk. But take a closer listen to the lyrics: this is about evolution, the story (either) of a human turning into a sea creature or a race of sea creatures becoming men. There’s a strong sense of  epic history here:

We were born on an island,
we grew out of the sand.
Never saw another creature,
never knew another man.
Yeah baby we were nothing,
we existed for less!
Our present was empty,
our history a mess!

This is great music to write to when you want to mine the same sense of history. Who were your characters “before they could see”?

4. England Keep My Bones by Frank Turner

I first heard Frank Turner on late night television–he was playing his goofy quarter-life crisis anthem “I Won’t Grow Up.” When I picked up his album England Keep My Bones, I got the rousing drinking songs I expected–but I hadn’t anticipated his depth.

This is writing music for days when you have doubts, when you fear you’ve forgotten who you are and where you came from, when you need to be reminded the value of pure effort and moxie.

Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut,
not everyone was born to be a king,
not everyone can be Freddie Mercury,
but everyone can raise their glass and sing.

I may not be the perfect kind of person,
I may not do what mum and dad dreamed,
but on the day I die, I’ll say at least I fucking tried.
That’s the only eulogy I need.

3. On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel

If you’re the least bit of a hipster (I’m a pretty big hipster myself), you’re probably familiar with Neutral Milk Hotel’s seminal In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Aeroplane is a great album, but I prefer to write to their chaotic, raw debut, On Avery Island. There’s something desperately YA about these lyrics–I’m fairly sure it’s about girls who grow up poor and chaste in Louisiana. Or, uh, something.

Threw a nickel in the fountain
To save my soul from all these troubled times
And all the drugs that I don’t have the guts to take
To soothe my mind so I’m always sober
Always aching, always heading towards
Mass suicide, occult figurines . . .

2. Dead Media by Hefner

I love all of Hefner’s music–but Dead Media is what I reach for when I write. Trippy and electronic, it’s a great background soundtrack. And yet it remains just as deliciously character- and story-driven as Hefner’s other albums.

Moving to the west end was a big, big, big mistake
We lost all our money and we got mostly heartache.
Some nights she would sigh, and place her head upon my lap
And she would cry. I couldn’t stop her shaking.

And I said, “Let me let you let me down again,”
She said, “No.”

1. Every Scene Needs Its Center by Tullycraft

I can’t explain my love for Tullycraft.

They’re my favorite band. And this album isn’t just my writing album, but also my dancing album, my making-out album, my afternoon-pick-me-up album. If there’s anything wrong with Every Scene Needs Its Center, it’s that I’m prone to jumping up and dancing like a dork while it’s playing. Makes it hard to reach your daily word count goals, but it sure is fun.

Every song on this album is about loving music, except for that one that’s about aliens. Every song feels like coming home at 2 am from a concert, your hair stinking of someone else’s cigarettes, your throat raw from singing. You’re tired, but you’re so, so happy. Yeah. It’s like that.

An orange glow, some blinking lights.
Don’t know how most folks spend their Friday nights.
Well I’ve seen evidence no one would dare dispute–
Witness accounts make up my life’s pursuit.
And in those photos there’s a sadness
And a message I can feel
Just give me one sign that you’re real.

Please give me one sign that you’re real.

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Now go check out what all the other writers are rocking to!

Happy Christmas to all you Christians and Santa-lovin’ non-Christians out there! Just popping in for two quick announcements. First, the winner of the sonic probe for my big Doctor Who give away is . . .

Colin!!!!

Congrats, Colin! I’ll be in touch shortly to get your shipping info.

Secondly, I’ll be participating in a Best-of Blog Circus over the next five days, organized by the lovely in and incomparable Sarah Enni! Each day, stop by the following blogs to hear our favorites in writing music, YA novels, and more: