A biography or autobiography may be a place to look. Googling now.
eta: I mean, from what I can tell, "Eat, Pray, Love" would qualify.
Inara: So, explain to me again why Zoe wasn't in the dress? Mal: Tactics, woman. Needed her in the back. 'Sides, those soft cotton dresses feel kinda nice. It's the whole... air-flow.
'Our Mrs. Reynolds'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
DebetEsse - Apr 14, 2011 2:06:02 pm PDT #14391 of 28293
Woe to the fucking wicked.
DavidS - Apr 14, 2011 3:31:16 pm PDT #14392 of 28293
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I've never heard of this. How is that possible? Must remedy instantly.
Well, I'm enjoying them. I got the first three on audiobook and I'm racing through them. Stephen Briggs is a marvelous reader.
Emmett and I loved The Wee Free Man via Briggs audiobook. It's very funny and it's an excellent, very affecting book. And in some ways, I think, it distills a lot of Pratchett's morality, but not in a heavy handed way. It's just that Tiffany's path leads her to find these True Things.
Hil R. - Apr 14, 2011 3:42:42 pm PDT #14393 of 28293
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
I can think of a few that I'm not sure qualify as hero's journey (Davita's Harp by Chaim Potok) and a few that I'm not sure qualify as well-written (The Eight by Katherine Neville.)
t edited because I looked up "Hero's Journey" and it doesn't mean quite what I thought it meant.
Hil R. - Apr 14, 2011 3:55:46 pm PDT #14394 of 28293
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
I can think of a lot of books like that for elementary or middle school age, but not so many for high school. (I just tried to think backs on the books that I read in high school English classes, but I realized that was useless -- my senior year, AP English, we didn't read a single book by a female author, and maybe two with female main characters.)
Sophia Brooks - Apr 14, 2011 4:06:28 pm PDT #14395 of 28293
Cats to become a rabbit should gather immediately now here
Would The Color Purple work?
Jesse - Apr 14, 2011 4:13:32 pm PDT #14396 of 28293
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
I just read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Pix!
Did y'all see it's going to be a movie?
Ginger - Apr 14, 2011 4:48:57 pm PDT #14397 of 28293
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
It's sad how few adult novels I can think of that have women who go through aspects of the hero journey and are alive at the end. The Song of the Lark, maybe?
Kat - Apr 14, 2011 6:33:54 pm PDT #14398 of 28293
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
Pix, lots of the YA will not be what preps them for the texts you are talking about. What about popular contemporary fiction?
How about something like The Secret Life of Bees? It has been read by higher level Nines at my school to surprising popularity, and, though it doesn't have a perfect fit for Campbell's archetype, it has lots of it.
Strix - Apr 14, 2011 7:00:05 pm PDT #14399 of 28293
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Leah in the Poisonwood Bible? The protag in Speak, hmm, maybe?
What about Katsa, from Cashore's Graceling? Or some of Tamora Pierce's heroines?
What about the protag (blanking -- time to go to bed) from Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower?
Sherri Tepper's Beauty?
Consuela - Apr 14, 2011 7:29:24 pm PDT #14400 of 28293
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
Speaking of Sherri Tepper, I don't think I can read her anymore (although to be fair, I wasn't anyway): [link]