Check out this thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=256092 , about "series that covers one character from beginning to end on a path to greatness".
A couple of other suggestions, which fit your description, but not the "...to greatness" in the other thread:
Sarah Rees Brennan: the Lynburn Legacy series. Ordinary schoolgirl (more or less) who has to save the idyllic English village (with a lot of help from her friends) from the lords and ladies of the manor. Both funny and heartbreaking, often both at the same time.
Elizabeth Wein: "Code name Verity" and "Rose under fire". Young women during WWII. The first one starts with the protagonist telling her story from a Gestapo prison, and the second mostly takes place in the concentration camp Ravensbrück, so they are not happy books, but they are really, really well written and memorable.