Hey, there, everyone! Isabelle Knight here again with another book recommendation!!!!!!! OOHH!!!!!! I am positively BEAMING because I absolutely love books like this (don’t get me wrong, male leads are fine too, but I’m a girl so… GIRL POWER!!!). For me, they are just so relatable, so inspiring, and honestly, really help brighten up your day. I know Coral from Adrift by Tanya Guerrero did! She is just one of the amazing female leads in MG Fantasy that really helped brighten up my day when I was feeling super down. I remember I was homesick at the time, in Thailand so… Yeah, anyway, you can definitely be sure that Adrift by Tanya Guerrero is going to be in these book recs!
Yeah, so if you are looking for fantastical, adventurous books then look no further, cuz here are my top book recs of all the books I’ve read with strong female leads that are both relatable and inspirational!
1. Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
I’m pretty sure we’ve all read the fairytales and old-school books about princesses with the usual ‘maidens-in-distress’ cliche, but trust me on this, Dealing with Dragons, is toooootally the opposite of that. The MC of this book, Princess Cimorene (though just referred to as Cimorene throughout the book) could give a whole lot of villains and bullies running for their money, including the evil magician in this book…
The book is about Cimorene who is, as I have mentioned, a princess. And to my great (and VERY happy surprise) she is a princess who hates all things traditional – the embroidery, dancing, curtsying, and all the ‘proper’ things a princess should do. She is definitely extremely strong, brave, witty, and determined, all of the things I love in a strong female lead. And she’s very smart but also very relatable at the same time. I could really get all of her thoughts, emotions, and I’m pretty sure all the usual tweens and teens will too (especially the rebellious ones).
And when Cimorene discovers that her parents have arranged a marriage to a prince she doesn’t really want to marry, what does she do? Well, she runs away! But she doesn’t run away like the usual princess. Oh no… Instead, she runs away to find a dragon. (FYI, I totally do NOT recommend running away to find a dragon no matter how upset you are with your parents. Dragons are complicated creatures as you will find in this book and in the Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine.)
She has a whole lot of adventures as the dragon’s princess (she finds a female dragon named Kazul. I think her name was Kazul), including dealing with all the annoying princes and guards and knights that keep showing up to ‘rescue’ her when she doesn’t want to be rescued in the first place. I love the way she deals with them which involved her just saying VERY firmly that she does not want to be rescued. In some cases, she sent them off to rescue another princess. (There are many dragons here and two other princesses. Sadly, they are rather the opposite of Cimorene). And the biggest adventure she has there is dealing with all the annoying wizards and magicians. Dragons and wizards don’t get along.
And so many more things happen, but sadly, I can’t give away any spoilers of what is to come. You shall just have to find out yourself. This is an amazing book, a must read, and perfect for a lover of MG Fantasy, dragons, and who is looking for a book with a strong female lead. I’m pretty sure Cimorene would classify as that so… go get this book! It’s on Kindle Unlimited right now.
2. Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
Ooohh!!!!!!!! I absolutely LOVE this book! I found this in a bookstore at Taikoo Li in China (this mall lets you read their books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), and I really loved it! Morrigan Crow is definitely a strong female lead, though she’s not quite like Cimorene. She isn’t particularly firm and strong like Cimorene, but she just has all the quirks and just the usual sarcastic personality that I think a tween/teen would really relate to, and I just love her character as she grows and changes throughout the book.
The book is about an eleven (technically turning twelve a few chapters later in the book) year old girl, Morrigan Crow, who is cursed for being born on Eventide, and literally everyone in the city blames her when something bad happens. And adding to all that misery, Morrigan Crow is said to die on the next Eventide day, twelve years later. But a whole bunch of things happen and she does not die because a strange man by the name of Jupiter North appears and takes her away to the secret, magical city of Nevermoor, and she discovers that Jupiter has chosen her to compete for a place in the Wundrous Society which is the city’s most prestigious organization. And basically, she has to compete in four incredibly dangerous trials against so many other children.
I really love this book and would love to tell more, but this book has a lot of plot twists and so telling more would just give away a bunch of spoilers. Plus, I was only able to read this once and had to read it in one sitting (and no, I so do not recommend trying to read Nevermoor in one sitting), so my memory probably isn’t the best. I really love this book, and the only thing I dislike is that it’s pretty long and complicated, so I’d recommend this book… probably to 10 to 14 year olds. Do not read this in one sitting.
3. Adrift by Tanya Guerrero
This isn’t exactly fantasy, but I said this blog was about MG Adventure/Fantasy with strong female leads, so you can expect a few adventure books without a whole lot of magic in these recs. But before you leave, please at least let me explain this book because it is truly an amazing book with not one, but two strong female leads.
This book is about two cousins (though they feel more like sisters), Isa and Coral who grew up together on a small island. They are so close they’re practically sisters, but when Coral and her parents leave on a month long voyage, something devastating happens – Coral’s boat capsizes and her parents vanish and she ends up stranded on an island for months where she has to learn how to survive on her own. Mentally and physically.
I just love this book so much! All the characters’ emotions and thoughts are just so real, and the author does an amazing job of making the reader feel exactly what the characters are feeling. I felt like I was right there in the book with Coral and Isa. The emotions and thoughts were just so real – so real I actually wondered if the author herself was ever stranded on an island once… Hopefully not.
The books alternates between the POVs of Isa and Coral, and you just really get that sense of hope and loss, and I love this book mainly because of the MCs. They are just so strong yet also so relatable, and they just feel so human. I highly recommend this book, especially to readers who are close siblings because they will undoubtedly get this book and enjoy it. My favorite character is definitely Coral, and she really helped inspire me to keep going when times were tough with writing and feeling homesick in Thailand.
4. Poseidon’s Academy by Sarah A. Vogler
This is a truly amazing book, and one I absolutely LOVE! The ideas in here are pretty similar to Percy Jackson, what with all the Greek gods and stuff, but the plot and the heart of the story are clearly different. The MC in this book series, Hailey, is truly one of my favorites and just so relatable with her personality and also inspirational and strong.
This book follows Hailey’s adventure as she goes to Poseidon’s Academy, which is an underwater academy/palace for people like her – people who sort of inherited the late gods’ powers. And I say late because long ago, there was a battle. The Great Battle. It changed the world, and humans killed the gods and absorbed their powers. Zeus’s power was the most powerful, and Hailey is the first Zeus in a pretty long time. But she doesn’t really like her power because an ancient prophecy says that a Zeus will have to save the world someday, and all Hailey wants to do is be a normal teenager.
She is definitely a strong female lead with all of her struggles, personality, and how she handles things in her attempt to save the world, and I definitely recommend this book. I would recommend it to older readers of MG fantasy (the 10 to 12 range) because this series has a few complicated things that would probably be better for the older range. Honestly, just depends on your maturity. I took a quiz and it said my mental age was 30 to 35… Weird.
5. Enchantria: Guardian’s Heir by Isabelle Knight
Come on, you know this was coming, didn’t you? 🤣🤣🤣 This really is a good book! Plus, it does have a strong female lead who grows and changes and learns throughout the series.
My book follows the adventures of Elena Ramirez whose mother mysteriously vanished, never to be seen again, eleven years ago, leaving behind only a mysterious golden key that refuses to open any lock. But on her sixteenth birthday, Elena finds a hidden secret about the key. It’s not just an ordinary key. Far from it. Instead, it unlocks a portal in a mirror which immediately sucks Elena into a brand new world. The magical kingdom of Enchantria. But not everything is all magic and fairies there. Upon arrival, Elena discovers that she is the subject of a long forgotten prophecy, and Enchantria’s old enemy, Ravena, the dark sorceress, the Lady of Ravens, is awakening. When the Moon Crystal, Enchantria’s orb of magic is stolen and Ravena is starting to gather her dark forces, Elena has no choice but to become a guardian-in-training and embark on a dangerous quest to find a group of people called the Tribe. A group of people who may or may not be real.
Elena definitely isn’t quite as developed in book one (but that’s to be expected), but she definitely grows and changes throughout the series as more and more of her fears become apparent and she finally has to learn to overcome them if she wants to save Enchantria. This series is incomplete, but books one and two have been published and I am working busily on the others. I definitely recommend this book to tweens and teens and lovers of MG Fantasy. It is perfectly suitable for MG readers of all ages (8 to 12) and is available on Kindle Unlimited as an ebook. And it costs 0.99 cents if you want to buy it. Perfectly affordable.
So, yeah, these are my top MG Adventure/Fantasy books with strong female leads. If you haven’t read them yet, go and check them out! They are amazing books and are extremely inspiring with strong, relatable female MCs!
Thank you so much reading, I hope that you find a favorite book among one of these recs, and I shall see you again soon! Also, don’t forget to go buy Enchantria (if you don’t have Kindle Unlimited) or go read it for free (if you do have Kindle Unlimited)! I’ll give the link below or just find all my books on the Books page of this blog!
Isabelle
