Doing a little research into the YA fantasy novel market. (Don’t ask why. Way too soon to talk about it.) Had to share this delightful bit from an Amazon reader review of Throne of Glass, by Sarah Maas. Calaena is the girl-assassin heroine of the series, but possibly not a character whose appeal will be universal:
“Celaena’s backstory is gruesome. Her parents were murdered when she was very little, and she was tossed out into the streets. Then an assassin adopted her, trained her up, and sent her out to kill people. She killed and killed and killed…until she was captured and sent to a labor camp at the age of seventeen. That’s a series of unfortunate events, right? That’s a grim, grim, grim life. And yet Celaena is a chipper, cheery sort of girl. She’s not troubled or wounded or broody or damaged. She thinks about murder in the bubbly, uncomplicated manner of a cheerleader practicing for the big game, and her primary concern after leaving the labor camp is eating enough to be svelte and attractive again.”
Zing!
Jim Aikin's Oblong Blob 