In celebration of International Women's Day on March 8th, we are highlighting a favorite strong heroine every day!
Why Penelope? I could spend time telling you WHY Penelope but Julia Quinn herself sums up why Penelope is a lovely, strong heroine in 1 sentence/30 words:
"Deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often funny, but somehow her personality got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth,"There are A LOT of shy heroines in both the romance genre but especially in YA. Which is fine. There is nothing wrong with being shy but there is only so many "wah wah I don't have any friends. Wah wah I'm so misunderstood. Wah wah let me draw/paint/sing/play an instrument to practice my underrated creativity. Wah wa- hot boy actually likes me!" scenarios I could handle before I CRAVE a heroine without 99 social problem. WHY does being shy mean that you don't have any friends or a life and you have a million and two problems? Being shy is not a disease or a disability.
Penelope is known as the biggest wallflower with an ill suiting wardrobe which sometimes makes her the target of mean gossip but she never falls into a self pitying and sad hole. She has friends and people she loves, she has a hobby and most importantly, she KNOWS that just because she's shy and sometimes she's subjected to cattiness, that does not make her any less awesome. She was confident in herself and just because most of the world didn't see her confidence, that didn't make it untrue and THAT makes her a strong heroine. I'll leave you with this quote again:
"Deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often funny, but somehow her personality got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth,"I wish there were more characters like Penelope. She's stronger than strong! Being shy is not the end of the world. Yes, I understand sometimes it does cause problems and keeps a person from creating relationships and doing things they love but that's not always the case. I believe characters like Penelope can really speak to a reader because she proves that being shy is not such a negative thing and she doesn't need anyone to help her discover her inner voice, because she already did by HERSELF. Now, that's my type of strong!
And if you missed our previous Strong Heroines post:
This post started somewhere then it went to unknown place and it's definitely the antonym of eloquent but I hope you understood something! And if you did understand, what do you think?
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