Her Story: Ladies In Literature is a special, month-long series on Pop! Goes The Reader in which we celebrate the literary female role models whose stories have inspired and empowered us since time immemorial. From Harriet M. Welsch to Anne Shirley, Becky Bloomwood to Hermione Granger, Her Story: Ladies In Literature is a series created for women, by women as twenty authors answer the question: “Who’s your heroine?” You can find a complete list of the participants and their scheduled guest post dates Here!
About Danielle Younge-Ullman
Danielle Younge-Ullman studied English and Theater at McGill University in Montreal, then worked as professional actor for ten years. This was character-building time during which she held a wild variety of acting and non-acting jobs — everything from working on the stage and in independent films, to dubbing English voices for Japanese TV, to temping, to teaching Pilates. She now lives with her husband and two daughters in an old house in Toronto that’s constantly being renovated.
I love a contrary heroine, the kind of heroine who gets labeled by others as “difficult” and who is often truly difficult to like…at least in the beginning. It takes incredible skill to write a seemingly unlikeable character that readers will stick with, but when it’s done well these are some of the best, most satisfying characters in literature. The contrary heroine usually has the most to overcome both internally and externally, her progress is the most hard-won, and her story is therefore the most inspiring.
My heroine, therefore, is Tess Dombegh from Rachel Hartman’s phenomenal book, Tess of the Road.
Tess starts out full of fury, bitterness, resentment, and desperation. She is grappling with pain and self-loathing that threaten to overwhelm her at any moment, and she seems to be willfully trashing her life. She drinks too much, gets into fights, spills damaging secrets, repeatedly refuses help while behaving like a jerk to those offering it, and even, in the height of horribleness, kicks a helpless, homeless old man.
Tess, in other words, is magnificently contrary. She is frustrating, petty, even cruel at times. Yet from early on you can tell she has REASONS. At one point she overhears her father hypothesizing that she is either “born bad” or “bad for the sheer anarchic joy of it,” but it’s soon obvious that neither of these is correct. Tess has been born into a society and family where the best things about her — intelligence, burning curiosity, thirst for adventure, and being female, are condemned as sins and punished harshly. She has been systematically ground down, and is walking through life shattered, despairing, and yet trying desperately to hold it together.
Tess’s outrageous behavior, though, is actually a manifestation of her fighting spirit, which, as much as it’s making things worse for her, might be the only thing keeping her going.
I have never been in as rough shape as Tess Dombegh is in the beginning of Tess of the Road, nor have I experienced the kind of abuse, or family, religious, or systemic oppression that she has. I have been mostly both fortunate and privileged in my life. However, like most humans, I’ve had my share troubles, and moments of pain and fury that I felt I had to repress. In fact, turning pain inward remains my first instinct. There have also been times when, particularly due to being female, I felt silenced, shamed and discounted, and in response repressed the very best parts of myself. Those situations when I absorbed negative feelings instead of dealing with them became a kind of physical and spiritual poison, and I recognized and empathized with that in Tess.
And so, when Tess walks away from everything and embarks on a journey that will, bit-by-bit, free her, heal her, challenge her, and allow her to become the person she was always meant to be, I loved it, and I loved her. I felt her every triumph and heartache. There were passages that made me leap up from where I was reading, gasping and with tears in my eyes. There is a magnificent scene between Tess and a nun she encounters, for example. She and the nun talk about Tess’s journey and the life philosophy/credo she’s working on, which at this point is: “Walk on.” They really dig into it, debate and expand it, and then the nun touches on grief and the body, and family. “Goodness withers when it is continually ground underfoot. We fulfill our parents’ direst prophecies, then curl around our own pain until we can’t see beyond ourselves. You want to walk on? Walk out of that shadow. Walk, girl.” This is, I think, good advice. (And by the way I’m not doing the scene justice at all here — you should read the book!)
The story is a grand adventure, with many funny moments, but also deeply emotional and philosophical. At first Tess is only surviving. Her “walk on” credo is literally just a decision she makes each morning to keep going — living and walking — for that day. Even in that state, though, she begins to help others along the way, and each time she does this you see her retrieve a part of herself, and heal.
Tess is so brave, so deep, so flawed and funny, smart, tough, vulnerable, tortured, and honest. Her story is wild and weird and profound, and watching her break away from society’s expectations, unchain herself from the inside out, and grow into her best self, is immensely gratifying. Tess is a badass from start to finish…and I know I’ll be turning to her for courage and inspiration for many years to come.
Find Tess of the Road on Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● The Book Depository ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
Title He Must Like You
Author Danielle Younge-Ullman
Intended Target Audience Young Adult
Genre Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Publication Date July 14th 2020 by Viking Books for Young Readers
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● The Book Depository ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound
An authentic, angry, and surprisingly funny and romantic novel about sexual harassment, from award-winning author Danielle Younge-Ullman.
Libby’s having a rough senior year. Her older brother absconded with his college money and is bartending on a Greek island. Her dad just told her she’s got to pay for college herself, and he’s evicting her when she graduates so he can Airbnb her room. A drunken hook-up with her coworker Kyle has left her upset and confused. So when Perry Ackerman, serial harasser and the most handsy customer at The Goat where she waitresses, pushes her over the edge, she can hardly be blamed for dupming a pitcher of sangria on his head. Unfortunately, Perry is a local industry hero, the restaurant’s most important customer, and Libby’s mom’s boss. Now Libby has to navigate the fallout of her outburst, find an apartment, and deal with her increasing rage at the guys who’ve screwed up her life – and her increasing crush on the one guy who truly gets her.
As timely as it is timeless, He Must Like You is a story about consent, rage, and revenge, and the potential we all have to be better people.
