WEDNESDAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE | CHARACTERS I WANT TO MEET

It took me a while to find people I connected with when I was a kid. Because I spent so much time alone and so much time reading, I have a very strong sense that some of the characters I read about in books were my friends. Some of the top characters I connected with back in those days were Trixie Belden, Cassandra Mortmain (from I Capture the Castle) and Anne Shirley. But there were many others.

Since then I have “met” so many wonderful characters in books I’d love to meet. But I don’t keep track of them the same way I did as a child, so I’m sure I’ve forgotten many of them. There are a few that have stuck with me, however, and these are some of them:

1. Aziraphale and Crawley from Good Omens. I would like to chat about books with Aziraphale because he ran a bookstore from before bookstores were even really a thing, and have a night out on the town with Crawley because he’d know all the best places.

2. The narrator from Ducks, Newburyport. I felt like she was a kindred spirit. She is a stay-at-home-mom who has so many hidden depths and is so intelligent, but spends her days cleaning up after her kids and making pies. Her interior life is so vivid and vibrant, though, and I felt so strongly connected to the way her mind works. She also had some health issues and back pain, so I feel like there’s some common ground there. She also has a lot of grief and pain, and though mine isn’t the same as hers, I do know what it’s like to live with a loss that never quite lets you let go of it. I would love to be her friend and start a moms’ reading group or something.

3. Bri from On the Come Up. She is not an easy character. But she is strong, layered, intelligent and a survivor. I don’t know if I’d have anything to offer her in a friendship, but I have so much admiration for her and would love to see what she does with her life. I think it’s going to be epic.

4. Several characters – but particularly Dawsey and Isola – from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I just love them.

5. Jenny Pepper from Vigilante. I read this starting when I was pregnant and finishing after my daughter was born. It’s not the most amazing book I’ve ever read, but I so relate to the mom who has kind of lost herself in the day-to-day and hasn’t really felt like she’s alive in ages. Her desire to take some power back and do something is something I relate to, and I just liked how real it felt to me at the time.

6. Veronica Mars from the series by Rob Thomas (and the TV series starring Kristen Bell). Of course. She’s a total badass, super smart, determined, resourceful and has never backed down, not even when she probably should have. I love her to bits.

7. Rhoda from Black Dove White Raven. Not only was she a stunt pilot in the 1930s, but after her Black female co-pilot was killed, she adopted her son to raise as her own. Realizing that raising an adopted black son and her White daughter alone in 1930s America would be a difficult – even dangerous – proposition, she moved her family to Ethiopia so her adopted son could grow up in a place where he would felt like he belonged. I loved this book – it’s a YA novel but has so much depth and taught me so much. But Rhoda just blew me away. She’s not the focus, of course, but even though she’s a background character her influence on her kids is something you are aware of constantly and she is so inspiring.

8. Will from If I Fall, If I Die. He and his mother, Diane, are two of the characters that I remember most vividly from my last half decade of reading. When I was scrolling back through the list, I couldn’t really remember many characters. But these ones I definitely did. They were drawn with so much tenderness and compassion that I loved them both, despite Diane’s flaws. It’s one of my favourite books for a reason.

9. Mark Watney from The Martian. Because of course. He’s smart, determined, calm in a crisis and totally hilarious. Who wouldn’t want to meet him?

A couple that probably don’t count:

The mom from Love, Nina (sorry I can’t remember her name). She works for a literary journal I think, and her sense of humour is just so on point. I don’t know if this counts as it’s a memoir, though!

Do historical figures count? Because I just read She Came to Slay about Harriet Tubman and man, would I love to have met her. Talk about a powerhouse of a human being.

That’s it for me this week! What about you guys? Which characters would you love to meet? Are any of mine on your list?

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge is a blog hop hosted every Wednesday by Long and Short Reviews. The weekly prompts range widely, including both book-related and non-book-related topics. The idea is to get bloggers to interact, share a bit about their lives and connect with other bloggers. Click here for the list of upcoming topics, and visit here to join in the fun!