Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Kick-Ass Heroines

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week, various bloggers put together their top ten list on a specified topic.

I love girls who can hold their own, so it was hard to pick! Those are in no particular order. Sorry for the lack of pictures - after I watsted about half an hour trying to format them in only to have them wildly jump around, I gave up and deleted everything.

1. Rachel Morgan, from Kim Harrison's The Hollows series
   Rachel constantly has to defend herself and her friend against various supernatural creatures, be it demons, vampires, banshees or member of the council of the witches, her own brethren. She brings in Inderlander criminals for a living after all! She drops her adversaries with a boot to the butt as well as with her sleepy-time potions or ley line skills.
2. Ari Selkirk, from Kelly Keaton's Gods and Monsters series
   Ari is an orphan and grew up in the foster system. Her latest foster parents are bounty hunters. They taught her to fight with guns as well as with knives or the raw force of her own body. Ari is determined and self-reliant. However, she's not hothead - she's smart and tries to act on a plan. As she well needs to since she's up against Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom.
3. Lila Zacharov, from Holly Black's Curse Workers series
   Lila is the daughter of a mobster boss, spent several years caged up a a cat, and has a taste for vengeance. She's afraid of nothing and takes shit from nobody. She' smart and she's ruthless when she has to be. She's a liar. But she's not without a heart.
4. Rose Hathaway, from Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series
   Rose's strigoi-staking skills are as legendary as her anti-authorian attitude. She's fiercely loyal and never gives up on the ones she loves.
5. Isabelle Lightwood, from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series
   Isabelle crushes boys' hearts and demon guts under her boots. With her whip skills as well as her blade she can hold her own against her brothers. Also, she has great fashion sense.
6. Cat, from Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series
   At age 22, Cat's been hunting vampires all on her own for six years. After she meets Bones, they become a force to be reckoned with. I loved seeing her grow into her own. When the lives of those she loves are on the line, she's not afraid to get her hands dirty.
7. Lisbeth Salander, from Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy
   Hacker extraordinaire, math genius, abused product of a corrupt system. Anti-social, drives a moterbike and is a fan of vigilante justice. Follows her own sense of morals. If a girl who digs herself out of her own grave after she's been shot in the head and left for dead isn't kick-ass then I don't know who is.
8. Aya, from Melissa Marr's Carnival of Souls
   She might have been born part of the ruling caste, but she's ready to risk everything in the Carnival to gain autonomy over her life so she cannot be forced to mate and bear children. She defies all decorum for woman of her status to go her own way, and she'll fight by any means necessary to achieve her independence.
9. Eowyn, from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
   When I read LotR for the first time (I was 13) Eowyn sort of got on my nerves, but after re-reading it and watching the movies over and over I realized how strong she is. She wants to fight like a man, to support her uncle and brother. She wants more than the role fate and tradition usually dole out to women like her. She's been trained to fight and is eager to apply her skills in a real battle - especially since she knows that every 'man' is needed to fight Sauron! And I mean hello - just remember that amazing movie moment in the battle of Minas Tirith when she charges forward with Theoden's army and eventually kills the leader of the ring wraiths!
10. Allie Sekemoto, from Julie Kagawa's Immortal Rules
    I haven't read all that many dystopians but the world from The Immortal Rules was, in my opinion, one of the toughest. Allie is orphaned, has no one to stand up for her, and has to be happy to find way moldy, gross food to have anything to eat at all. She survives on a day-to-day basis until she is turned into a vampire and taught to fight, with a samurai sword among other things. I really admired how no matter how terrible the situation, she never gave up!

There are, as I said, more heroines I could have included. Katniss Everdeen. Mae fom Sarah Rees Brennan's Demon's Lexicon series (though she's more of a strategist). I thought about Rosalind from Shakespeare's As You Like It. Riley from Jana Oliver's Demon Trappers series...

Anyhow, I'm really curious about what you guys picked and what you think of my choices :) Leave me your links in the comments so I can check out your lists!