STRONGLY seconding Tamora Pierce. I grew up reading her Tortall books, and they were hugely influential on my worldview. Start at the beginning (Alanna: the First Adventure, the rather blandly named first book in the Song of the Lioness quartet) and proceed in order from there. While her earlier books are less polished, the protagonist (Alanna, a girl who disguises herself as a boy for years in order to become a knight) is spectacularly kickass, and remains a strong presence in all the following series in the Tortall universe.
Also recommend Patricia C Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which twist all kinds of fairy tale tropes upside down and backwards and are very, very funny. Both Wrede and Pierce are YA authors, but don't ever dumb down their subject matter (though Pierce tackles more difficult issues than Wrede), so their writing should be fairly accessible to non-native English speakers.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-03-17 04:55 am (UTC)Also recommend Patricia C Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which twist all kinds of fairy tale tropes upside down and backwards and are very, very funny. Both Wrede and Pierce are YA authors, but don't ever dumb down their subject matter (though Pierce tackles more difficult issues than Wrede), so their writing should be fairly accessible to non-native English speakers.