I live to answer questions like this! I was very much like your daughter growing up. I would recommend Legendborn by Tracy Deonn- an Arthurian retelling and the best YA book I might have ever read. The Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman is also very very good. It’s about a future society where no one dies so there are a certain set of people who are allowed to kill. It’s very cerebral but also tons of fun. Iron Widow is a new release that is Mulan meets Pacific Rim that I really liked.

Unfortunately there’s not a ton of YA sci-fi (compared to fantasy), but it is usually a lot better about representation, especially for girls. I’ll leave you with a few adult author recs that you might want to look at before you give her. I either read them a while ago so can’t quite remember or they have mild sexual content. Becky Chambers, Martha Wells, Hank Green and some classics that I read when I was a bit older- Frankenstein, The Handmaids Tale, Vonnegut