About Bad Girls....

lemonhead

Life isn't all beer and skittles.
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Does anyone have links or thoughts on "bad girls" in Young Adult, but not just a run-down of what books are out there but a dissection of the trope or some sort of scholarly think piece of what is out there and what it means?

I tried google. haha. Not that helpful. I want to read a piece that blows my mind with non-obvious truth.
 

Hapax Legomenon

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Well there are many ways a girl can be "bad". Probably if you try to look it up you're not going to find much on heroic girls, though. The first thing that springs to mind is the Broken Bird trope on TVTropes.
 

KateSmash

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A quick Google didn't really provide much. A few blog posts, most of which notice the complete lack of actual bad girl protagonists - and recommendations for the usual suspects (Before I Fall, everything by Courtney Summers, etc.).

I did find this Goodreads discussion, which I think illuminates the problem. We're conditioned not to like "bad" girls. Massive trigger warnings for a whole bunch of gendered slurs. Notice how bad boys get to sexy and romantic while the female characters who behave similarly are whiny and promiscuous and ... Ugh. Kind to f makes me want to smack a few of the commenters.

You may have more luck searching "unlikeable female characters". It was a pretty big topic over the summer with Kelly Jensen (@catagator), Claire Legrande and others weighing in on the issue.
 

Debbie V

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Femme fatales come to mind - though that's not YA specific.

Then there are the girls you love to hate, who really need some real love in their lives.

There are huge gender biases in high school about sex. Boys are just beginning to be called sluts. Girl have always been conquests. Bad girls would use sex appeal to get what they want, because they can. They don't necessarily deliver on the promise. The tropes should be the same, but aren't. Sexism abounds.
 

Channy

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Well there are many ways a girl can be "bad". Probably if you try to look it up you're not going to find much on heroic girls, though. The first thing that springs to mind is the Broken Bird trope on TVTropes.

Thanks for that, I got sucked into TVTropes for 2 nights after having multiple open tabs left.. Broken Bird, Main/Alpha Bitch, Main/Lady of War... many good examples and different ways how I can tweak my lead, female anti-hero in the third planned book of my series.

Took a long time to get through all of it though. -_-
 

breaking_burgundy

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What exactly do you mean by "bad girls"? Are you talking about mean girls or black-clad girls who cut class, smoke in school bathrooms, get into fist fights, and have lots of one-night stands?
 

Lord of Chaos

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When I hear the term "bad girls" I jump to a similar thought as I do "bad boys" in that they break rules/laws/defy authority without thought to the consequences and generally act as a poor to horrible influence on another individual. One key difference that usually appears with my connotation of the word is that "bad girls" tend to avoid the consequences of their actions, whether because they show a different face to said authority figures or because those they influence are willing to take the fall for it.

Just my 2 cents