5 x 5

This week's topic: Five literary characters you hate/love

Five characters I hate!
1. Dolores Umbridge, from the Harry Potter series. Of all the villains in this series I loathe her the most. She is concern only with retaining her power and obtaining more. She cares nothing for the truth or fairness, and what's worse, she pretends to be sweet while doing horrible things. Plus, the bitch escapes punishment. HATE her.

2. Nurse Ratched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Another person who is only concerned with her own power and who misuses it.

3. Fudge, first appearing in Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. I feel like I am alone on this one, since so many reviews of these books talk about how he is a typical little boy and how funny he is. I completely disagree. I think he is a horrible brat.

4. Debbie van Pelt, the Sookie Stackhouse series. She is a character with no redeeming qualities whose death can't come quickly enough.

5. Tinkerbell, from Peter Pan. I know that Tink commits an act of great self-sacrifice, but this is after a great deal of extremely bad behavior, including trying to murder Wendy. I don't find her sympathetic in the least, and am shocked by how many people seem to think she is wonderful.

Five characters I love!
1. Flavia de Luce, first appearing in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Flavia is a precocious and entertaining narrator and sleuth. She's also a little scary at times which adds to her appeal for me.

2. Fred/George Weasley, from the Harry Potter series. Yes, I know that they are two characters, but as they are always together in the books I'm counting them as one unit. Fred and George provide the best examples of comic relief in the books, and I think that Rowling's choice to kill Fred in book seven is highly unacceptable and flat out wrong.

3. Miranda Melendy, first appearing in The Saturdays. When I was younger I harbored a desire to either be her, or at least be friends with her. To this day, I would like to be friends with her.

4. Gen, first appearing in The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. It is difficult to discuss why, precisely, I love Gen without giving away major plot points. Suffice to say that he is clever and talented, loyal, brave and very complex. If you haven't read this book you should. It is the first in a trilogy, but after what happens in the second book I became furious with the author and thus haven't read the third. The first book, however, is brilliant.

5. Abby Normal, first appearing in You Suck by Christopher Moore. This little goth teenager is one of the funniest narrators I have ever come across and two of her more colorful catch phrases (Fucksocks and Fucktard) have wormed their way into my vocabulary.

So what about you? Who do you love and hate? Or love to hate?

W3dnesday

Everyone should know the drill by now!

What have you recently read? Since my last W3dnesday post I have read the following books: The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, Still Life by Louise Penny, Folk Wisdom for a Natural Home by Beverly Pagram, A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie King, and Dinner at Miss Lady's by Luann Landon.

What are you currently reading? I am currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.


What will you read next? I'm not sure what I will read next. I keep hoping my copy of A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny will come in, and if it does I will start it next, probably before I finish the Kingsolver book. We've gotten a ton of new books in here at work and I may cave and check one of those out before anyone else. The perks of being the cataloger!

Challenge complete!

This weekend I managed to complete one of my challenges when I finally finished reading The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells. I read four books for the Our Mutual Read: Victorian Challenge, hosted by Amanda from Blog Jar. The challenge has its own separate blog though, Our Mutual Read. I did level one participation which means I read at least two books written during the years 1837-1901, and the other two were either non-fiction or neo-Victorian.

Here is my list:
King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, published in 1885
Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, published in 1897
The September Society by Charles Finch, neo-Victorian
Below the Peacock Fan: First Ladies of Raj by Marian Fowler, non-fiction.