Growing up, I was such an angry teen, although most people who knew me during my teenage years would probably be surprised to hear this. I was raised in a Southern family where the unofficial but uncontestable motto was, “Never air dirty laundry in public.” This meant no matter how bad things were at home and no matter how miserable I was, I was never to speak about it outside the house. And not only was I supposed to keep the truth to myself, I was also supposed to pretend like the truth didn’t exist…because heaven forbid anyone in the community find out my family wasn’t perfect.
For better or worse, I was very good at the role I was forced to play. What I didn’t realize, however, was that the things you ignore don’t actually go away. I could pretend I was fine all day long, but pretending never made me fine. It only made me more disconnected from myself and the world around me, and made me feel like I couldn’t trust anyone, including myself, because when you’ve been raised to spout lies, you slowly lose your ability to recognize the truth.
And so, I stuffed my anger, betrayal, disappointment, and fear down deep inside me and hoped they’d go away.
They didn’t.
In fact, they did the opposite…they grew. Sparks turned into flames that built into an inferno that burned. All. The. Time.
It wasn’t acceptable for a good Southern girl to be angry, but I couldn’t deny my feelings even though I also couldn’t acknowledge them outright, which led to a terrible predicament. The best I could do was try and keep my fire to myself, keep the lid on my constantly boiling temper, and since I didn’t have healthy coping strategies to draw on, keeping the lid on my temper meant isolating in my room or spending hours at the barn with my horse.
Now, this is by no means an abnormal revelation, as most, if not all, teens have their sullen, surly, or irritable moments (or months). Often this is due to the hormonal fluctuations we experience during our teen years, when our bodies are hijacked from the inside out by mood-altering chemicals we have no control over. These chemicals can take us from ecstatic to miserable to optimistic to despondent in the space of a single hour or less. But for me, it was more than that.
I wasn’t allowed to be angry. And because I had no experience or practice being angry, I didn’t know how to handle the feeling when it surfaced. I became stressed out reading books where the protagonist was angry, especially if the protagonist was a girl, like me. I’d shake my head and mutter things like, “She should have known better than to say that,” unconsciously siding with those in the book who refused to allow the girl the right to feel her feelings. Over time, I recognized this tendency born from my trauma, and by slowly exposing myself to books where girl characters were allowed to be mad, it helped me become more comfortable around that particular emotion. I could relate to how the character felt, and I could review the decisions they made and decide for myself whether I would have acted similarly or different. Most importantly, I could do this safely, without worrying my anger might overwhelm me or bring everything I knew crashing down around me.
Books taught me that I wasn’t alone, that others experienced intense feelings they also worried might bring about unwanted or dangerous consequences. They showed me different ways to respond, ways that were healthy, as well as ways that were destructive, giving me information and allowing me to choose what I wanted to emulate. Here’s just a few of my favorite books with angry female characters:
- Rage is a Wolf by KT Mather. The main character, Elaine, is mad. She’s mad about global warming, how animals are being mistreated, the apathy of her classmates, and the lies told by adults that perpetuate the status quo. She finds ways to take action, and I just love watching her wrestle with her rage.
- The Conqueror’s Saga by Kiersten White. This is a genderbent retelling of Vlad the Impaler…Lada is angry about how she’s treated for having been born a girl, she’s angry about her homeland being invaded, and she’s angry about being denied so many things she thinks ought to be hers. While she’s not necessarily the most likeable character, she never fails to impress and inspire me.
- Blood Scion by Deborah Falaye. Sloane is furious…furious at how her people have been treated, furious at how she has been used and manipulated, furious at how she’s been lied to, and furious over feeling powerless. This wasn’t the easiest book to read, probably because much of it just hit too close to home, but it was powerful and one I still think about frequently.
As my fantastic blog partner, Jen, so beautifully said, “The power of YA stories doesn’t come from sharing the same experiences. The power comes from validating your own experiences.” Knowing others feel angry, even if they’re only characters, and seeing how they express their rage has been immensely cathartic for me, and I hope everyone has the chance to see their self and their own experiences reflected in the stories they read.
ALSO, if you ever wonder why my main character, Sebastian, in Reign Returned is a Pyromancer with unquenchable fire running through his veins…well, now you know.