There’s trees in the desert since you moved out, and I don’t sleep on a bed of bones.

“We clutch at the tough, dangerous heroines like Katniss because they offer an alternative to the bubbly romcoms and typically one-dimensional female characterizations. But it’s become too much of a black and white dichotomy that refuses the deeply flawed and all-too-human lead for the emotionally shut-off heroine who kills, and refuses to recognize any similarities in the two. I often hate to talk in terms of masculinity and femininity, but Blackwood is right that we tend to equate effectiveness with attributes that have been traditionally coded as male. I won’t go so far as to say Bella’s foibles are coded as traditionally female—they’re not. (As I noted above with my own memories—the most distinct weaknesses I see in Bella remind me of boys from the past, not girls.) But romance certainly is.” —Monika Bartyzel, “The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Teen Heroines”