Are You A Kissing Book? Part II

[mothwing]

It seems that the best chance of finding books about women without love plots is when searching among YA novels and historical novels involving royal, crossdressing characters hell-bent on learning how to fight, as long as they can keep their hands off servants and mentors, that is. Not entirely surprising, but sad.

The books below, judging by summaries and reviews, have good chances of not containing love plots.

• Dorothy Canfield Fisher's Understood Betsy - orphan Elizabeth Ann leaves her sheltered city life for a life on her aunt's farm and its various chores, which she rapidly grows to love too much to leave again.

• Allan Frewin Jones' Warrior Princess series: Branwen, aided by faithful former slave Rhodri, becomes a warrior princess and defends her home and hearth against the Saxons. I'm foreseeing Branwen/Rhodri, but who knows.

• Astrid Lindgren's Ronja the Robber's Daughter - in spite of her family history, Ronja does not want to become a robber, neither does Birk, the son of her clan's closest enemy. They flee and their families have to work together to find their children.

• Donna Jo Napoli: Hush. Irish Princess Melkorka and her sister Brigid are sent away for safekeeping when a plot on her family is threatening her life and are captured by Russian slavers instead. They try to keep their royal birth secret by not speaking. Upside: no love plot, downside: gangrape.

• Rebecca Tingle's version of teen Æthelflæd, The Edge of the Sword. King Alfred's teenaged daughter Æthelflæd is not happy with the prospect of having to marry an older ally of her father, even unhappier with her bodyguard, but learns how to fight and protect those close to her gladly, which soon becomes necessary.

• Theresa Tomlinson's Wolf Girl. Wulfrun's mother is accused of stealing a neclace and Wulfrun sets out to prove her innocene.

Other loveplot-less books:

• Michael Ende's Momo- Orphan Momo live s in a ruined amphitheatre. When everyone she loves start falling prey to the Men in Grey and their timesaving bank, she steals their life time back. German classic really eveybody should read.

• Annika Thor's Sanning eller Konsekvens (Ich hätte nein sagen können)  -Nora doesn't like the way her class, especially rich Fanny, are mobbing big-chested Karen, but finds out to what lengths even she herself will go to get her best friend Sabina back, who is best friends with Fanny these days.

Comments

[ysilme]

I haven't followed the subject of yours very close so far, and I don't know what YA means, for example.
But since you listed Momo, I dare to mention two other children's or rather teenager's books I loved to bits when I was a teen and still love reading them over and over:

Ronja Räubertochter (Ronja the Robber's Daughter) by Astrid Lindgren - despite her friend and companion Birk, who shares part of her adventures, I always felt this to be a book about a strong and self-reliant girl. She declares him as her brother, and nothing else seems to be on her mind, relationship-wise. Her mother, Lovis, is also depicted as a very strong and leading character, and I always felt her to be the real leader of Mattis's robbers. Of course, the relationships are still hetero. I'm personally usually favouring (and always have been) books where the heroine is self-sufficient and a strong character, and having a partner/friend/any kind of companion is not important in the gender and role sense, but in the sense of having a companion at all, not being lonely, and sharing one's live.

The other one is Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, much better know to the English speaking reader than the German version, Das allerbeste Apfelmus. It is the story of a girl taken out of her surroundings of a pampered child of poor health by two lady aunts, into a rural life where self-reliance is important. She learns to realise and cherish her own worth and abilities, led by two strong female characters (the rural aunts). I have it read countless times in German, and have found the English audiobook on librivox only recently, so now know also the original. I don't know if you know librivox; volunteers read books out of copyright for free and for everybody, and the link to the Gutenberg e-text is usually also available.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

YA means Young Adult, the target audience that comes after teens and kids. I don't think we have an equivalent - we have Jugendliteratur, but we don't really have anything for Junge Erwachsene in specific.

Thanks for the recs. :) I was hesitant to include Ronja because I remembered her and Birk's relationship as romantic rather than strictly on a sibling-basis, but if I misremember, up it goes.

Ooh, another Librivox enthusiast! I've considered volunteering ever so often, but I'm just not a very good reader, so I'm hesitant. I used to volunteer as a proofreader for Gutenberg-related sites quite a bit a few years back, I love initiatives like these.

[ysilme]

I won't lay my hand into the fire for Ronja and Birk - but I suppose it's left to the reader's interpretation. Their relationship could be considered as a starting romantic one as well, if one wants so - after all, they are just - what - 11? 12?.

It's rare to find someone who knows about librivox at all! I'm not using it much, since I don't listen too often to audiobooks, but I love the idea and the amazing work the people do there, and love to spread the word. I leart about it by a volunteer reader, who even offered me to read one of my fanfics as an audio book! ;o) . It's not on librivox, though, since I didn't think I could give a fanfic into the public domain. It's available on my page in case you're interested.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

I know they're very young, but they'd not be the first - even though Lindgren's works are a bit early for the creepy prepubescent love craze that's been going on (looking at you, Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman!), so you're probably right. I think I'm influenced by the Romeo and Julean set-up of the whole affair here. :)

I didn't even know there were fanfic audiobooks! That's awesome, I'll check it out. :D I love audiobooks, they're great for housework, train rides, and even solo gaming. <3