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?

Speaking of Sherri Tepper, I don't think I can read her anymore (although to be fair, I wasn't anyway): [link]

Yeah, she crazy.

Why, Connie? I just read the interiew. I've never read her books but what about her interview would stop you?

Lemme see, there's this:

There is absolutely no difference between a writer doing a book about torture and pain for the delectation of perverts and a Roman emperor ordering a few dozen or hundred slaves into the arena to be tortured and killed by gladiators or beasts for the delectation of perverts, which, at that time, most of the population were because they had been taught to be.

Which indicates to me an inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality. I may have opinions about the fetishization of pain or incest, but I certainly know there is a difference between representation and reality.

The real killer bit is the three numbered paragraphs at the end, where she basically says that people who suffer from mental illness are equivalent to pedophiles and murderers, are not human (but many animals are), and should be sent into the wilderness to starve and die.

That's not a world-view I have any interest in sharing. Even people who hurt people are, in fact, people, and have rights--and the possibility for redemption.

And I loved Grass. Loved it. But I had to stop reading her a number of years ago when the sledgehammer got heavier and heavier and all the subtlety went away.

Which is not to say that I'm calling for a boycott or anything: it's just my instinctive response to that kind of toxic black-and-white attitude. The world is more complicated than that, and people who you are in opposition with are not by virtue of that necessarily evil.

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.

Tiffany is, hands down, my favorite Pratchett character of all time.

Have you heard Stephen Briggs' audiobook, Jilli? I think you would find it a comfort.

Thanks, Connie. Makes sense.

ETA: holy hell! I guess I read the first line of the numbered paragraphs at the end and super skimmed. I just went back and reread; it's by far the most damning piece of the interview. I guess it's safe to say that she's crazy enough to be placed behind the walls in the crazy prison she imagines.

Tiffany is, hands down, my favorite Pratchett character of all time.

Yeah, absolutely. There's a reason I've been borrowing all the Discworld series ebooks, but buying the Tiffany Aching ones.

Well, her and Vimes. I love me some Vimes.

Thank you for all of the suggestions, everyone! I'm looking into several possibilities now.

(Side note: Kat, I used to teach TSLOB as a summer reading for this age level, and they did enjoy it--I'm looking for something more epic/high fantasy in nature at the moment, but I may return to it.)