All to often. I guess it just means you need an author who is gender blind or at least considers both genders as different things, rather than better or worse options. See, usually for characters, the problem I have with kickass girl heroes is that people come up with "girl" and "kickass" and stop there. Then, in an ironically sexist twist, they consider their job done, because she's a girl and therefore that automatically means something. No, that means something to prospective romantic partners of the appropriate sexuality, and to her doctor and to the role in her societies. It has nothing to do with the ideals or morals she is expected to meet or live up to in order to be a hero. Defying social conventions is not a heroic thing in and of itself, especially not whent the defiant one profits. Defying social conventions to free a slave, simply because the slave is mistreated, is heroic. Defying social conventions to free a slave out of personal identification, physical attraction or other self-serving motive is NOT heroic. Yet all too often, girl characters are given lesser, selfish motives, and this is presumed to be heroic, for no other reason I can tell than the bar being set lower for a girl.

In aSoI&F Robb & Ned Stark are critiqued for not being politcally savvy enough to appease contemptible characters and are written off as incompetant and bad leaders. Yet, Daenerys Targaryen gets lauded and praised simply because she does things, whether good or bad, and still brings destruction and ruin, and what is more, owes a lot of her success to accidents of fortune and birth, and certainly gives no indication of operating under any code beyond her whims and sentiments. She is not heroic, and many things said about some of the worse rulers in the series could be applied to her as well. The worst of her trials have been in pursuit of personal advantage, which kind of undercuts any association of heroism.

The only explanation I can find for this unequal assessment of the characters (which I suspect the author may share) is lookism & sexism. She's an attractive teenaged girl, so there is already a sympathetic leaning to her actions and deeds, and they get interpreted in a sympathetic light unless she goes too far. It's the same thing for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The creator and showrunner of that character & show claims he was attempting to "take back the dark alley" for all the shallow blonde attractive victims in horror films, and calls himself a feminist. Yet, the character herself is explicitly stated on more than one occasion to have superior powers to her titular adversaries, and throughout the course of the show, humor is derived from her conflict between personal amusements and recreational pastimes and her supposed heroic vocation. She is supposed to be subverting the trope of the typical vampire-hunting scholar or detective or hard-bitten stake-whittler, by being a ditsy teenager who blows off hunting the undead for dances and shopping. And that's fine, if your work is merely parody or commentary on the others. But stop calling her a kickass action hero!

Buffy is Hancock, not Superman, but everyone has come to see powers as the measure of a hero, so Daenerys is a hero, because she has magic dragons. Katniss is a hero because she is a good shot and hunter. Captain America is a hero because he got instant muscles. The real measure of a hero is what they do, which is why someone with powers who acts in a heroic manner is a SUPERhero. Katniss is a hero because of things she did mostly before the story even begins, but readers and critics act as if what she does over the course of the book is what makes her heroic. She supports and protects her family, at great risk to herself. She does not volunteer for a heroic quest, she offers herself for death in place of her sister. Her better chance of winning/surviving over her sister never enters into her consideration except as a rationalization. She thinks it's certain death when she takes her sister's place, and so does pretty much everyone else. THAT is heroic. Winning a competition that is almost as much popularity contest as trial of skill? Meh.

Buffy is not a hero, even if she is a kick-ass girl. Katniss is a hero and a girl, and might be capable of kicking ass, but that is purely in potential. As the reviewer noted, she actually kicks very little ass.

Another fallacious version of the "kickass girl hero" is the belligerent and aggressive female who nonetheless has little or no cause for such behavior, or has reasons for personal maladjustment but takes them out on the wrong parties. The problem with such a figure is that her otherwise bad behavior is excused solely on account of her gender - behavior that would make a man a boor and a bully equates to "kickass female hero". Laurel K Hamilton's Anita Blake character, especially later in that series, fits that to a certain degree, and from what I recall of the Kevin Costner Robin Hood film, Maid Marian acts in such a manner, attacking Robin Hood without provocation when he comes by to pay a visit and continuing with unjustifiable physical confrontation once she is made aware of his identity (a neighbor, childhood acquaintance and friend of her brother), all of which seems to be intended to portray a strong, independant woman.

It seems all too many authors, in attempt to subvert a notion of female worth that is based on a relatively obsolete criterion of qualification for violence, fall into the trap of upholding that very criterion, by making their female heroes exemplify no other trait beyond qualification for violence!

The sexist reader, author, critic or character or institution would say "women should NOT have X power because of Y reason" and the inept answer of the post-modern "femalist" is to say "in my work women DO have X power! So there!" and they never actually adress the supposed fallacy. Sexists have said that women should not rule because of their emotional natures or romantic inclinations or sympathetic tendencies subverting their judgement, yet authors who would seem to be attempting to subvert that notion, such as Robert Jordan and George RR Martin, create female monarchs who are portrayed in the books as good and positive rulers, such as Morgase and Daenerys, who nonetheless DO create problems with their ill-advised romantic attachments and abuse of their authority to the ends of those attachments, who create problems for their subjects out of their sympathies for those suffering hardships, and who are frequently and explicitly governed by their emotions in making decisions.

Regarding the answer I gave in the title, Rachel from the Animorphs is one of the few examples who spring readily to mind, because she IS courageous, altruistic and heroic, often in explicit contrast to those with the same powers as she, and thus her exploits are shown to not be merely a function of her extraordinary abilities.

Thanks. Glad to help. I liked the book. I just liked it for what I perceived, rather than what everyone else seems to take out of it, which I A) do not find important or appealing in its own right, and B) do not actually find existing in the book/film itself.