Happy Friday! I hope you’ve all had a great week. I’ve been all over the place this week, a few trips, lots of house projects and planting stuff in the garden!

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly bookish discussion meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and Dini @DiniPandaReads. Each Friday, bloggers will write posts about a particular topic and share on their blog.

For the last week of March, we have another Women’s History Month topic – underrepresented female character types.

Do you notice certain female character archetypes that you think are used too often?

Being primarily a fantasy reader, it’s always the ‘not like other girls’ or a female has to be from a tough background. I’ve noticed that a lot of books seem to require one or both of these things in order for a female character to be worthy enough of an arc where she becomes a ‘strong female lead’. While it is good that this allows a female character to actually be a main character in a book, for female characters are often just there to support the men, I think it would be nice to see female leads who come from more ordinary backgrounds sometimes too. Not all of us need to go through trauma in order to flourish!

While I am fairly new to the romance genre, I have already noticed that the female characters in the cast majority of books have traditionally feminine jobs. They’re all painters, bookstore or café clerks, florists and nannies. Of course, women do have these jobs but not literally all of us!

What types of female characters do you want to see more of in fiction?

As I just mentioned I’d love to see more women non-traditionally female jobs! Give me a forensic scientist, a gardener or a doctor!
While this is on the rise in the romance genre, it’d be great to have the same across other genres too. Let’s combine science and fantasy and get our FMC’s working in magic tech or sci-fi robotics!

I’d also love to see more characters with disabilities and illnesses. Again, as I am primarily a fantasy reader I may have missed a lot of fiction that has this, but I do think it is still not that common. I understand that people think fantasy worlds require their characters to be strong and healthy, but to that I say – it’s a fantasy world! We can decide if a disabled character can do well, it’s a made-up world! Why should there be limits on our characters if there don’t have to be? Have our disabled characters create or uncover something to help them get by. Have adaptations for disabilities simply be built into the world already.

My final one for this part is to have more older FMC’s, again, especially in fantasy and science fiction. Not everyone needs to be 21. I’d argue that characters who are 30+ are better. They are wiser, they have more life behind them. I love a competent character and competency comes with age.

Who are some female characters that inspire you?

Honestly, I don’t tend to get ‘inspired’ by characters but there are characters I enjoy and love to read about.

• Circe from Circe by Madeline Miller
• Shae from The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee
• Alanna from the Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce
• Misaki from The Sword of Kaigen by ML Wang
• Granny Weatherwax from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett
• Lady Trent from The Memoirs of Lady Trent series by Marie Brennan
• Xiala from the Between Earth and Sky series by Rebecca Roanhorse

You Tell Me – Who are some of your favourite female characters?