Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras by Scott Westerfeld and Midnighters by Scott Westerfeld :) Holly Black's Books of the Fay are also good

One for the Money, Two for the Dough etc, by Janet Evanovich. About an inept bounty hunter (Stephanie Plum). They are hilarious! Oh and they should be read in order (currently up to 15, with 4 shorter, between the numbers novels)

I'm not a feminist so I don't like female characters too butch

Wait. What?

Apparently I never got that memo. Bugger. )

Leviathan and Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld.

Try anything by Tamora Pierce, if you're into fantasy at all.

Lock and Key ~ Sarah Dressen
The Lovely Bones ~ Alice Sebold
Confessions of a Teenage Amnesiac ~ Gabrille Zevin

Back Home,

Try Maria V. Snyder's Study series, starting with Poison Study. It's a fantasy series about a young woman, who was sentenced to death for a crime that she did commit and is given a reprieve by working as the poison taster.

Now if you want someone a bit more emo then read the trilogy after that, which is the Glass trilogy, which is about a young woman who has glass magic and she's a bit more angst-ridden than Yelena from the Poison Study series is.

Both of the series have romance subplots with the Glass trilogy one doing the whole love triangle thing.

I was about to start suggesting books, but I got a tad distracted:

"I'm not a feminist so I don't like female characters too butch but I don't like weak female characters either"

...er, mate, I think you may be labouring under some misapprehensions about what feminism means?

Feminism doesn't mean wanting women to be men. Feminism means thinking that women are people, and are entitled to the same rights and responsibilities as any other people.

End of.

If you genuinely think you're not a feminist, then what you're saying there is that you think women ARE NOT entitled to the same rights as men (equal pay, the right to vote, the right to initiate a divorce if they need to, the right to fuck or not fuck, to have kids or not have kids, marry or not marry, as they see fit, rather than their fathers, brothers and husbands deciding these things for them, etc etc etc).

Sorry - not trying to be a dick, but it makes my head explode when I see women doing this "I'm not a feminist" thing, as if feminism is something awful and embarrassing and unattractive which must be shrunk away from at all costs.

If you genuinely do think men are inherently superior to women, and that women shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions about their own lives, or be allowed to work in "men's jobs", or expect equal pay for equal work - well, okay, then I guess you AREN'T a feminist.

But given the fact that you liked 'The Hunger Games', I can't help rather suspecting that you are, in fact, a feminist.

Feminism is not actually a euphemism for man-hating lesbian nazi bitch.

It just means believing that women should have the same political, social and economic rights as men. That's it. That's all it takes to be a feminist. Base-line normal for most of the Western world, in fact. Believing that rape is not okay. Believing that women are people, just as much as men are.

Unfortunately this is still something we cannot take for granted. I'd love to live in a post-feminist world, where everyone genuinely DID see men and women as equal.

Unfortunately that's not the world I'm living in right now, so this particular lipstick-wearing, Jane Austen-loving, parasol-wielding, cleavage-flaunting, cupcake-eating chick will be identifying as a feminist for the foreseeable future.

I wish you had the balls to do so too.

Edited at 2010-11-14 03:36 am (UTC)

As several other people have said, you seem to have a fairly warped idea of what the word "feminist" means. If you'd like to share what you think it means, and how you came to this conclusion, I'd be interested to know it; but, as people say above, you're definitely on a wrong track, and should rethink your assumptions.

I second the recommendations for Maria V. Snyder's "Study" series (Poison Study is the first) and Sarah Dessen's books. Also Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest, which has great fantasy elements and a really fantastic love story.