Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish
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| Not the best scene, but gets my point across. Stop being so damn stubborn! |
- Scarlett O'hara - Great balls of fire! (See what I did there?) Scarlett. My love. ASHLEY WILKES IS A SCUZBALL. He's not even attractive. Look at Rhett Butler. Just look at him. He's everything a man should be and HE LOVES YOU. Ugh.
- Ashley Wilkes - Grow a pair of balls man and tell the woman that you don't love her. Don't lead her on for 1000 pages and completely destroy her one chance at happiness. And stop whining about the damn war, it's over. Get over it.
- Daisy Buchanan - The whiniest most annoying character ever. I don't understand at all why Gatsby is in love with her. She has no substance, she's just a beautiful, stupid ball of fluff.
- Kartik - You should have not have sacrificed yourself the way you did. I understand you felt it was necessary because of love but it wasn't. Now you and Gemma can never be together and I want to cry, so just stop.
- Anne Boleyn - I understand that she was ambitious and (possibly) in love, but did she have to be so damn rude? Try a little kindness Anne, and maybe people won't be so supportive of your head getting chopped off.
- Jane Eyre - Possibly one of my favorite characters of all time, but she's just tedious sometimes. I get it, life sucks, and you are trying to fix it, but really? Running away is going to fix it? Thinking of marrying a guy whose first name is St. John? That's just obnoxious.
- Mr. Darcy - I JUST WANT TO KICK YOU. You love her now stop smoldering about and just tell her!! Without the insults please, you are not that wonderful, get over yourself. (Ok, yes you are, but still.)
- Everyone in Wuthering Heights - You all know how I feel about this book. Everyone in this book needs to just accept that they are all royally and incestuously disgusting and just move far far away from that moor.
- Romeo & Juliet - First of all, you are twelve, you really need to get a hold of your emotions and go to school. Secondly, really Romeo? Really? You can't wait 7 seconds to check and see if she really is dead. You are just going to take someone's word for it. You can't even check to see if she's breathing? Ugh.
- Everyone in Twilight - No one in this book has any substance at all. They are just annoying archetypes who create their own problems and then complain about it. And Bella is just useless. You could've used a cat in her place and it might have been a better story.
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| Someone tagged Kartik in this on tumblr and I almost died laughing. |
. I love Sherlock, in every single incarnation. He's like the Doctor, he just keeps changing his face and coming back just as awesome. I love all his weird little idiosyncrasies. My favorite moment is in one of the stories, when he tells Watson that he didn't know that the Earth revolved around the sun because it had no bearing on his everyday life. To him, until the day that the Earth stops revolving around the sun, there's no reason for it to take up space in his mind. I think it would be awesome to just delete information in our brains to make room for other information. “Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of
knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the
highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out
the useful ones.”
and less importantly, 
. The picture to the left is from my favorite scene and it depicts exactly why I love Scarlett. She seems like a silly, self-centered wench when in reality she is a strong and resilient woman. Are her methods a little crazy? Yes. Is she dumb to be in love with a man who is so obviously not good enough for her? Yes. But she works hard for herself and those she loves. She puts others before herself even when it seems like she is being selfish. She takes in and helps to care for the bride of the man she loves. "As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me.
I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be
hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or
kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!"
, 
, and 
. Gemma is everything I love in a heroine. She's kind, smart, a little out of the ordinary, doesn't really fit in but is very likeable. When faced with danger, even though she is a Victorian lady, she doesn't shy away from fear. Instead she confronts the problem head on, even when it is something as personal as her father's opium addiction. I've been wanting to re-read this one for a while. I think it might be time. I've written on my blog a couple of times about how much I love Gemma
and the relationship that develops between her and Kartik. I can't really blame him for falling in love with her. She's pretty much perfect. “And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.”
, 
, 
, 
, and 
. George George George. Thou art the bane of my existence. I could write this entire post on the my top ten favorite characters from Game of Thrones alone. For those who haven't read the books, they are from multiple character points of view. One of those is Tyrion Lannister, the youngest Lannister, brother to the Queen, and oh yea, he's a dwarf. He is also the most awesomely bad-ass character in the history of characters. He doesn't take shit from anyone, including his wench of a sister and jerk of a father. He fully accepts what he is and what he is capable of. “My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my
mind...and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to
keep its edge. That's why I read so much Jon Snow." Sheesh, I need to make room for Jon Snow on this list somewhere too. So much awesome. I still hate you George.
. I love Oscar Wilde. He was waaaay ahead of his time. He was sarcastic and witty and had an amazing view on people. Dorian Gray is probably his darkest work, but it is my favorite. The story of a innocent young man who is corrupted by culture and inscrutable people, all while he doesn't age a bit and his portrait does. Oscar's writing will creep you out and have you laughing all one the same page. The story itself is actually rather sad, since Dorian starts off as an innocent and becomes a monster by the end. “You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
. I couldn't choose just one character from Lord of the Rings, so I choose the entire fellowship. I love Gimli, Legolas, Boromir, Pippin, Gandalf, Merry, Samwise, Aragorn, and of course, Frodo. They each are brave and amazing in their own way. Tolkien's ability to create well-rounded characters and fully-fleshed out worlds is unsurpassed. “I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
. Pip has been my favorite character since I was a kid. He was always the literary character I felt the most like. No one has any expectations that he'll become anything, so he has to have expectations for himself in order to become something. And he does, all on his own terms (eventually). “There either is or is not, that’s the way things are. The colour of the
day. The way it felt to be a child. The saltwater on your sunburnt
legs. Sometimes the water is yellow, sometimes it’s red. But what colour
it may be in memory, depends on the day. I’m not going to tell you the
story the way it happened. I’m going to tell it the way I remember it.”
, 
, 
, etc. I might be obsessed with Captain Hook. He's the absolute perfect villain. My dream is to someday write a book about him. I've got the start of it down, but haven't gotten too far. I love everything about him, except I hate the Disney version of him. Way too goofy. The way I imagine him was best portrayed by Jason Isaacs. Suave, debonair, and supremely evil. "After all, what would the world be like without Captain Hook?"
. In my opinion, The Great Gatsby is the perfect novel and Nick Carraway is the perfect narrator. He is the perfect everyman. He observes everything all while being a part of it and apart from it. He's watching a train wreck in Jay and Daisy and is powerless to do anything to stop it.
“I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”
- I read these all over three days. Admittedly, I stayed up way past my bedtime to do so, but they are really quick, but good, reads. I'm not going to bother with a synopsis, because if you don't know what the Hunger Games are, you have been living under a rock for the last few months. The books are the top 3 books on the NYT best seller list, the movie is number 1, and the soundtrack to the movie is number 1.There's a ton of action, some dystopia, just enough romance, and some really evil villains. 
and the rest of the series by Lauren Willig - Look at this cover. That is the reason I chose to read them, and I wasn't disappointed. They follow a series of spies during the Napoleonic Wars. Eloise, the main character, is an American grad student who is in England doing research on spies for her dissertation. The books alternate between modern day and the Napoloenic era. If you would like a little Austen-esque fix, these are a great choice. There are I believe nine books currently, with a final book in the works now. 
by Charlaine Harris - If you are looking for something extremely light, no brain required, with a bit of sex and the paranormal, this is for you. The basis of the True Blood series, the books are about a dumb blonde waitress who has the ability to read minds, except for those of vampires. Vampires who, in the series, have "come out of the coffin" and admitted their existence to the world. 
by Maggie Steifvater - If werewolves are more your thing, the Shiver trilogy is awesome. I am not really a big fan of paranormal YA these days, so I wasn't expecting much from this story. It is a love story with a paranormal twist, but it isn't done in an obnoxious way. I'm in love with the main characters Sam and Grace. I also love the covers with the wolves just barely peeking out of the woods.
- Whether or not you have children, you need a copy, preferably the boxed set, of these books. They are classics that everyone needs to read. A magical land of talking animals hidden away behind cupboards and stairwells. If you do have kids, you must read these to them. I'm trying to re-read them all this year, which isn't too hard as each book is about 120 pages. DON'T READ THE ANNOTATED BASED ON THE MOVIE VERSIONS! You have to read the original words of CS Lewis. If you are worried because you've heard that they are "Christian-based", you really don't have to. Yea, as an adult, you'll be able to get that Aslan is very much like Christ, but your child will just think he's a magical talking lion.
by Arthur Conan Doyle - Thanks to the show Sherlock on BBC, Sherlock's books are becoming popular again, and I couldn't be happier. There are 4 full length (but short) novels and I think 56 short stories. They're all great detective fiction. When I was in Egypt, I bought an awesome edition to read because I was sort of lonely for the written English word. Reading Sherlock is like visiting an old friend. You should definitely have some, if not all, in your library. 
by John Steinbeck - Reading Steinbeck always intimidated me. I thought all of his books were great long clunkers like The Grapes of Wrath (450 pages) or East of Eden (600 pages). Then I got the free edition of Of Mice and Men on my nook and I accidentally clicked on it. When I saw it was only 107 pages, I decided to give it a try. And I was pleasantly surprised. As short as it is, there's a great story in there. So if you too are intimidated by classics or Steinbeck, give this one a try. You can probably finish it in an hour or less. Then you can go impress all your friends with your learned-ness. 
by Steve Kluger - This book is written in epistolery form, a series of letters between a young kid and a famous baseball player. It all takes place before, during, and after World War II. It is a coming-of-age tale with a ton of humor and wit. Kluger has another similar book that is also a quick read called My Most Excellent Year. These are probably meant for middle graders and up, but they deal with some heavy stuff. 
by Oscar Wilde and 
by SE Hinton. As far as I'm concerned, these two books should be required reading for the human race. I've read both of these numerous times, and unlike when I re-read Gone with the Wind, it doesn't take me a week to finish. Every time I read Dorian Gray, I find some new awesome thing that Wilde put in there. He is the master of subtle humor and dry wit. There's a new unedited edition that I can't wait to get my hands on. If you have a teenager in your life, you should get them The Outsiders. It will help them see that they're not alone and that others have it a bit tougher than they do.