Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Character Names

Hosted by the Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Character Names

   

Atticus Finch- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Madeline- Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmens

Clarissa Dalloway- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Scout Finch- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Charlotte- Charlotte's Web by E.B. White 

Rhett Butler- Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Hermione Granger- The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling 

Tyrion Lannister- Game of Thrones Series by George R. R. Martin

Flavia De Luce- Flavia De Luce Series by Alan Bradley

Coraline- Coraline by Neil Gaiman

               

Monday Meme: Seven Deadly Sins of Reading Tag

For my first Monday Meme I am going to borrow from a BookTuber. Malyza adapted a tag for reading called the Seven Deadly Sins of Reading. Check out her original video here:

1. Greed: What is the most expensive and the least expensive book that you own?
The most expensive one is probably... hmmm.... my copy of The Joy of Cooking is going for $35... I know, not very exciting, but really I try to buy books used or in paperback whenever possible because I'm poor.

The least expensive one is any of the $1.00 or under books that I have picked up over the years at some of my favorite used bookstores (Ed McKays, The Last Word)


2. Wrath: Which author do you have a love/hate relationship with?
For me this one is defintley Jodi Picoult. I have found that I either love or hate her books. For instance, I LOVED My Sister's Keeper which was the first book of hers that I read and I HATED Perfect Match which was about the fourth or fifth book of hers that I read.

3. Gluttony: What book have you deliciously devoured over and over again?
I have read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman more than once. It's difficult for me to read books more than once though I would love to do a Harry Potter re-read at some point. There are so many books in the world that I find that I feel guilty if I read a book more than once. I feel like by reading that particular book a second time then I have decided NOT to read another book for the first time. It's weird, I know, but it's a tough thing for me to get over so..

4. Sloth: What books have you neglected to read due to laziness?
Les Miserables. So. Huge.

5. Pride: Which books have you talked about the most to sound like an intellectual reader?
Anna Karenina. Yeah, I read it! And that shit was loooooooooooooong!

6. Lust: What attributes do you find the most attractive for male and female characters?
Males: The protective nature that some males have for their friends, family, and leading ladies.

Females: Bad-assery.

7. Envy. What books would you like to most receive as gifts?

These!!!!: 

Stay tuned tomorrow for the top ten books I've read so far in 2013!

Top Ten Tuesday: Frustrating Characters

hosted by The Broke And The Bookish

Today's List: Top Ten Most Frustrating Characters in Literature

God from The Bible
Is it just me, or is he constantly playing the hypocrite? Plus, I'm not 100% sure that he likes women...

Scarlet O'Hara from Gone With the Wind
Vain, selfish, self-centered, basically your average sixteen year old. However, I am always so frustrated by how hung up on Ashley Wilkes she is and doesn't realize that she has Rhett Butler right in front of her for like, the whole book, well at least until the VERY END and then she says she's going to go after him NOW that SHE'S ready. Typical girl. However, she is so intelligent I have to love her for being able to survive in the time that she did. Scarlet is such a complicated heroine. She's so easy to hate yet you also have to love her.

image from enjoytherandom.com

The Mother from Perfect Match
Really, all the characters in this Jodi Picoult novel, but especially the mother. So basically what happens is that the mother thinks that this priest has molested her child and so instead of allowing the court to decide his fate she takes it into her own hands and kills an innocent man and then doesn't feel any remorse for him. The only remorse that I felt in this book was that she wasn't given to the chair.

The Parents from Matilda
What sucky parents these two were. They didn't encourage her to read. They didn't appreciate her intellect. They were just awful. However, our precocious heroine did get her revenge on them through some very sneaky and clever trickery!

Dolores Umbridge from The Harry Potter Series
You would think that I love this character since she also loves kittens, chocolate, biscuits, tea and cute things. However, this bitch was condescending and totally treated our delightful Harry unfairly. Plus she purposefully did things that she knew were wrong and I just can't stand people like that.

Elna Baker from The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance
Read the original review of the book here in which I relate why I do not trust her as a narrator and how I am constantly aggrieved about how she sabotages herself then plays the victim.

August from Water for Elephants
He's mean to animals. Enough said.

Lucy Hull from The Borrower
As a young persons librarian myself, I have felt that feeling of wanting to remove a child from a home environment that does not quite nurture the love of reading that a child has. However, I have never and will never act on it and the fact that this narrator did, and in such a sloppy manner, really pissed me off.

Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby
I hate stupid women characters. They make the rest of us look bad. However in the film version, Mia Farrow plays Rosemary which gives her a few more points in my book.

Each and every single character in Maine by Courtney J. Sullivan
Wealthy white people with problems. Ugh.

image from rich-people-problems.tumblr

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorites

hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

The topic for today is actually books that you are excited for in 2013, but I really don't know a lot of what is set to come out in 2013. I know that the 13th and final Sookie Stackhouse book is coming out. I am way behind on this series, so while I am excited to see how it all ends, I have some serious catching up to do before I get to the 13th. Jodi Picoult has a new book coming out next year called The Storyteller which sounds extremely promising. It's about a teen girl who befriends a beloved-in-the-'hood old man, strikes up a friendship, he asks her to kill him, she refuses, he admits that he was a Nazi SS Guard, her grandmother is a Holocaust survivor. Those are honestly the only two books that I even know will be published next year. I usually am way behind the world on reading because it takes me forever to get to the hot new books and by the time I've gotten to them they are no longer hot or new. Case in-point: I still haven't read The Casual Vacancy.
So, I looked back through the archives at the Broke and the Bookish and decided to compile a list of my favorites. Keep in mind that these are ten of my favorites and not my top ten favorites of forever. I can't narrow my list down to just ten favorite books. I went through my GoodReads "read" page and selected ten that I really enjoyed and would categorize as favorites.

10. Naked by David Sedaris
This one has been on my last three Top Ten Tuesday posts! There is a reason for it- it's just that darn good! Sedaris' writing is clear and relatable, it's wry and disturbing, it's honest and it's valuable. I just love David (not only because he once called me "enchanting", which he did) because he's so damn hilarious. His brand of humor sneaks up on you, takes you by surprise, and leaves you wanting more.

9. The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
I think I added this one having just watched the last movie in the series. These books are no literary masterpieces, true dat, but I enjoyed them and I liked the fact that I was on the Twilight band wagon long before the books became popular. I think what I liked most about the books was Bella's relationship with her father, I loved watching that relationship grow and become real. I wish that it had been explored further in the books- she should have cooked dinner for him in EVERY CHAPTER!

8. The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling
Because, really, who's NOT going to include this on their list?!



7. Charlotte's Web by EB White
The first book that left me in tears. I love a book that can bring out strong emotions in me. I look at pigs and spiders (and even rats, really) differently now having read White's classic story of friendship and overcoming differences. It's terrific!




6. Out by Natsuo Kirino
See last weeks Top Ten Tuesday for more on why I heart Ms. Kirino's tale of revenge.


5. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This is a well-loved book by many people. I love it because it makes me think of what I believe a great childhood would be like. Whenever I think of childhood, I picture a sleepy, small southern town with misunderstood characters and spry little children running around town innocently in coming to terms with the world around them.




4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
I am an only child and I spent most of my youth yearning for sisters. I never got any real ones, but I had four great ones in this book. I loved getting to glimpse what it was like to have sisters, the good and the bad. Plus, I am so in love with Jo.





3. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
This movie was on CBS the other day and I had it on in the background while I was cleaning the apartment. It made me want to re-read the book (which is very different from the movie). Again, I love the way this book explored sister relationships (there are THREE generations of sisters in this book, all living in the same house!) while using magical metaphors (pun intended), plus I love anything with a witch in it AND the cover of the book is gorgeus.

2. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty McDonald
I loved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle growing up. It's been decades since I've read any of the books in this series, but I want to read them again. Perhaps Mrs. PW can give me a little insight on how to deal with the rowdy kids I work with every day!

1. Bridge to Terabeithia by Katherine Paterson
This book was a last minute add-on to the list. I didn't intend to add it, but as I was typing up this list I knew I needed this one to be on here. I loved this book when I read it as a child because it was like someone was peering into my life and writing about me and my friends! I lived on the edge of a forest growing up and no doubt my friends and I made a bridge across the little stream that separated my back yard from the woods and we had secret hideouts all in those woods. Like Jess and Leslie my go-to place to escape was my on little Terabithia.