The Ultimate Girl Squad of YA Characters

For Women's History Month, we're doing a series on awesome girl squads, both real, fictional, and fan-slashed! Today, we're imagining all the fiercest nerd girls from different YA books coming together to form the ultimate crew. Who do we think should be friends? Read on! 

Jo March from Little Women

How much do you want to just lift Jo out of the Civil War era and into your time period so you could be her friend? Well, this is our game and we make the rules. So this teen girl squad is timeless (and death-free). Sure, Jo has strong bonds with her sisters, but these are the girls she’d come to when she didn’t want to do embroidery. If Jo started a newspaper with her squad writing for it, the stories would win Pulitzers.

Franny Glass from Franny and Zooey

Would Franny really have had her breakdown if she had friends in college who were at her level? We suspect not. They’d have lively debates with her about spirituality and would probably advise her not to date Lane in the first place.

Valentine Wiggin from Ender’s Game

Valentine would be the caring friend, the friend who’d make the others cupcakes on their birthdays and would listen to their problems. But she’s also an incredibly powerful ally. If anyone messed with her squad, she’d use one of her online personalities to turn the tide of the whole world against them. Like you do.

LaVaughn from the Make Lemonade series

LaVaughn has more to deal with than the rest of her squad, like poverty and her best friend’s abuse. She’d keep it real and put the other girls in their place when necessary . . . but she’d also talk politics with Valentine, philosophy with Franny, and would edit all Jo’s manuscripts. The girl can hold her own.