Mountain Bike advice, please

[Artista]

Absolutely full suspension!!! I'm a smidge bigger than you are & have ridden rigid bikes, hard tails & FS. I'm no expert on mountain bikes but here's what I learned in my quest to find the best bike for me.

• I chose FS over a hard tail for safety reasons. FS maintains better rear wheel contact with the ground which improves the bike's handling. Tiny people, on small, hard tail bikes, tend to bounce around more than normal size people on larger bikes. The excessive bouncing makes it even harder for tiny riders to acquire the necessary handling skills & increases our risk of injury.
• It seems that many FS bikes have more stand over clearance than hard tails in the same size. This is an important consideration if you've hit the top tube as many times as I have when coming off the bike hard & fast. I've never hit the top tube on my new FS bike that has more stand over clearance than my old bikes did.
• I wouldn't worry too much about 80mm vs 100mm of travel. The 20mm difference equates to only about 5/8". It is unlikely that you'll notice that 5/8" at your size. Also, the shorter travel forks keep the top tubes closer to the ground for more stand over clearance. This may be a moot point if you're shopping for a new bike since all of the newer models seem to have 100mm anyway. (ETA: Turns out that 20mm is closer to 3/4". I still don't think you'll notice a lot of difference in the travel at your size unless you are a very aggressive MTB'er.)

The bottom line is that FS bikes are safer & more fun to ride than hard tails...especially for us small women. Life is short...have as much fun as possible soon as you can. That means FS asap