Tuesday 1 September 2015

Top Ten Tuesday | It's Not Me, It's You


Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week you compile a list of ten books which coincide with that week's theme. You can find everything you need to know about joining in here!


I've returned from my hiatus, so it's time to jump back into Top Ten Tuesday!

This week's theme is 'Ten Characters You Just Didn't Click With'. Thankfully this doesn't happen to me too often, but there's nothing worse than reading a book in which you don't give a diddly-squat what happens to the protagonist.



Tris from Divergent by Veronica Roth: I ended up DNFing Divergent when I tried to read it. I didn't believe the world and, more importantly, I just didn't care about Tris at all. I felt like she had zero personality and I didn't care what happened to her.

Lincoln from Attachments by Rainbow Rowell: Eh... I just thought Lincoln was a little weird. I enjoyed the sections between Beth and Jennifer for the most part, but I thought Lincoln was a pretty boring guy in dire need of a bit of a gumption.

June and Day from Legend by Marie Lu: Okay so technically this is two, but actually June and Day are basically the same person, only one of them's a girl and the other's a boy. I really, really didn't like Legend (check out my review here), and June and Day were such boring protagonists. I don't care about people who can do everything perfectly. Give me characters with flaws.

Snow White from Fables by Bill Willingham and Various Artists: I love Snow in The Wolf Among Us - in fact I love all the characters in that game - but in the graphic novels? Not so much. Snow in particular, however, grated on me. She was so self-righteous, and perhaps that might have worked with another writer, but I really wasn't a fan of how Willingham wrote any of the characters. You can check out my review of Fables, Vol.1: Legends in Exile here if you like!

Jocelyn, Allegra, Prudie, Grigg, Bernadette and Sylvia from The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler: I know, I'm cheating again, but this is another instance in which I found it very difficult to differentiate one character from another. I did like this book, but not enough to keep it once I'd finished it. You can check out my review here if you like!



Ayla from Darkhaven by A.F.E. Smith: I liked Myrren and I liked Elisse, but I just didn't get along with Ayla. She spent the entire book as a damsel in distress when she had the potential to look after herself. You can check out my review here if you like!

Stargirl from Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli: She was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and, as such, I found her impossible to relate to.

Tana from The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black: This was another book I didn't really like, you can check out my review here if you'd like to know why, and the characters were a large part of my dislike. I didn't really care what happened to any of them.

Jonas from The Giver by Lois Lowry: I wanted to love this book and I was disappointed, again you can check out my review here to find out why. I just couldn't connect to Jonas at all, and because of that I found it impossible to worry about what would happen to him. Like so many of the characters on this list, I just didn't care.

Ellen Laidlaw from Blood Sinister by Celia Rees: Ellen should have been very cool. She's a young lady in 19th century England who wants to study medicine, but unfortunately she fell into the poisonous 'I'm not like other girls' way of thinking and thought her dreams and ambitions were better than everyone else's; particularly the women who wanted to get married and have children. Feminism is all about choice, and if a woman chooses to be a wife and mother, and enjoys it, she has every right to be as proud of her choice as any other woman, and she shouldn't be criticised for it.

Who made your list?

25 comments:

  1. Definitely agree with Tris, I persisted enough to finish the book, but no more!

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  2. I agree with Tris, I finished this series and was just full of regret.

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    1. Haha, well done for making it through the whole series. ;)

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  3. You are right: sometimes the characters are hard to differentiate!

    I didn't connect with Bella either (really? a boyfriend who is a vampire? and an OLD boyfriend? I don't think so!)

    Here's my Characters I Just Didn't Click With.

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    1. They really are, aren't they? Thanks for stopping by!

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  4. Glad to see your're back!!
    I haven't actually read ANYTHING from your list, weirdly enough! But I have seen the Divergent movie and didn't find Tris to be anything special. I think that a lot of times dystopian novels relay on action to move the story forward and keep the reader engaged more so than character development, and that's just not my style of book! I like my characters well developed please and thank you!

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    1. Thanks, Mallory! ^_^

      I agree, I think so many YA dystopian novels were far more interested in jumping on the bandwagon and selling books than telling a thought-provoking story with memorable characters.

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  5. Tris and Tana made my list this week too! Ugh, I just could NOT with Tana. Tris, well after the Hunger Games hangover I had, I was sort of swept away by Divergent and even Insurgent, at first, before I thought about it too much. Tris was even worse in Insurgent but Allegiant really ruined her entirely for me. You made the right choice giving up on the series imo. And I never thought of Jonas but The Giver was a letdown for me too and I never really connected with him either! Awesome picks^^

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  6. I actually had a hard time with Stargirl too ... even though everyone else I knew when I read it seemed to love her.

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  7. I thought a long while about including Tris on my list as well, but ended up having other character i disliked more ;)
    I do love hearing about people honestly sharing what they disliked about very popular books, since i seemed to have this thing where i always don't really like the favorite books and i am so happy to hear others that feel similar :) Great list :)

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    1. It's quite nice, isn't it, to see someone say 'actually I didn't like *insert character here* at all'? You're not alone! If there's a very popular book chances are I'll find something about it I don't like!

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  8. I picked Caleb from Divergent! See my full list here!
    http://seeingdoubleinneverland.blogspot.com/2015/08/top-ten-tuesday-ten-characters-you-just.html

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    1. I disliked Divergent that much I can't actually remember who Caleb is... Oops! Thanks for stopping by!

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  9. I wasn't a fan of June and Day either. Great choices Jess! Thanks for stopping by my blog, as always :-)

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    1. *high five* Glad to know I'm not the only one! I feel like the only person alive who wasn't a fan of Legend.

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  10. How funny about The Jane Austen Book Club -- that's exactly the problem I had with that book! I just couldn't keep the characters straight, and couldn't bring myself to care about any of them. I have to differ with you when it comes to Fables, though -- I'm so in love with that series! I didn't necessarily love it as of volume 1, but I fell pretty hard soon after that. Snow White isn't really my favorite character, but she doesn't bug me either. (On the other hand, Bigby Wolf is probably the first and only time I developed a mad crush on a comic character!)

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    1. This is what I love about the book blogging community - everyone has a different opinion! I really wanted to like Fables, but something about it meant I didn't click with it. I do like The Wolf Among Us, though, and I agree that Bigby Wolf is a hottie. ;)

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  11. The more Top 10's I read the more I'm like, Oh YEAH! With Tris, I read the series, and sort of angry-read the 3rd one. You were wise to move along to better things...

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  12. I couldn't connect to Day and June either.

    Check out my TTT.

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  13. Fabulous list! I liked Tris (at least in Divergent) but I wonder if I'd like her now, knowing so many better characters. And I didn't love June and Day in Legend either, but they got better in subsequent books. Jonas was NOT easy to connect to, I totally agree with you there! Fabulous list!
    Shannon @ It Starts At Midnight

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