Hi everyone!
I'm so excited to get back into my regular blogging schedule with this fun little post1 Talking about some of my favorite characters was something I had been wanting to do for a while, but I figured instead of just gushing about them in a very straightforward way, I could make this a collaboration with some of my very own favorite book bloggers and content creators and have them share some their favorite fictional people.
More specifically, some characters that just for no identifiable reason take permanent residence in our minds, and we never go too many days (or hours!) without them slipping into our thoughts.
So without further ado, let's go ahead!
(Note: No changes have been made to the content provided by the contributors. They are given here word-for-word. Their main platforms as well as relevant links to Goodreads and character art are linked to the text. My own entry is at the bottom of the list.)
From the moment that I first read about Jacks in the Caraval trilogy last year, he hasn’t left my mind. If I am thinking about morally grey characters, then Jacks is who comes to mind. After reading him as one of the protagonists in Once Upon A Broken Heart last year, there was no doubt that I was in love with him. He is a villainous person and he has done some pretty bad stuff. But there is a dash of kindness in him as well; it’s very small. But it’s there. And he has some of the best dialogue in the book series so trust me, it is very easy to fall in love with Jacks. At least, it was for me.
Only A Monster was a surprise favourite. I read this as an ARC last year and within the first few pages, I knew I had found a new favourite fantasy and new favourite fantasy protagonist. Joan was such a powerful and badass protagonist that I knew, by the time the book ended, I would have completely fallen for her. And here we are. I am seriously in love with her and I am just waiting for more news about book 2. I need to know what happens next.
A character who lives in my head rent-free is Moon Fuentez from How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe.
she’s a brave character who is so much like me and I couldn’t help but fall in love with her throughout the book. I loved seeing her grow and develop and learn to thrive by following her dreams. A lot of her personality and things she loves are things I enjoy as well, such as tarots and photography, and each time I see these now I think of her!
She also goes through a lot of the same things I am dealing with and seeing her deal with her problems and accept and grow from them was beautiful. I think of her a lot when I’m trying to be brave too. She is a wonderfully talented rotten character who comes alive in the small and big things in my life and I can’t help but think of her at least three times a day!
I’m going to pick Hilo from Jade City by Fonda Lee. I can write an essay on this guy but I’ll not bore you with it and will keep it short. Hilo has lived rent-free in my head for the past 8 months and has refused to vacate it. I’d remember all his best moments only to end up sad thinking about Jade Legacy.
Of all the characters in the Green Bone Saga, Hilo really stood out for many reasons.
I have a hate-love relationship with him. He was arrogant, fierce, a storm no less. He was someone whom I’d run from in real life but still admire his guts from distance, and never admit that to his face.
Ignoring his overbearing self, he was loyal to his clan, family, and anything he believed in. Qualities I respected and loved in a character. For him, the clan meant everything which was evident from Book 1, as if there was any doubt in that but being a Pillar changed him. It shaped him into a better character with a hint of grey.
Though he was the Pillar, deep down he was always a Horn, fighting tooth and nail for his clan. He showed so much growth from Jade City to Jade Legacy, which was a fascinating journey to follow. I could never picture him being anything but the Pillar.
All of this made him Hilo. The one character that I still can’t forget after 8 months. A-Pillar worthy of his title and reputation. A character who made took me on an emotional roller coaster ride, for the good and the worse.
When I started reading The Atlas Six, Libby was the first character the readers were introduced to and I immediately fell in love with her. An anxious and academically-driven Type A character, she was a character I both deeply related to and also admired. Libby showed to be both naive and headstrong at the same time, an interesting combination that made her interaction with different characters so fun to read and so chaotic. With some she was meek, in others she was fierce, and altogether she was just such a fascinating character and so easily lovable.
I’ve reread the Raven Cycle multiple times and I adore all the characters, but Adam Parrish especially lives in my head rent-free. He’s ambitious and prideful but also so humble and down-to-earth. Despite all the hardships he’s gone through, he’s not one to be pitied, and the depiction of his home life and his escape is so powerful that I always feel emotional when I read it. At the heart of his character, he’s someone full of love and loyalty and just wants his own place in the world, and I can’t help but love him for all of this.
And, finally.... mine!
Ronan Lynch from the Raven Cycle + The Dreamers trilogy
I know we've already had one character from the Raven Cycle on this list, but I can technically cheat because my fascination reached its peak with Ronan with all the complexities that emerged in his character throughout the Dreamer trilogy.
I can't talk too much in depth because it would give spoilers for the Raven Cycle, but I'll try my best.
After the conclusion in TRK, there are still so many questions that have yet to be answered, and a few of them even are, but it just makes things worse, if you know what I mean? Ronan's loneliness is so much more palpable. Because he becomes the main POV now, we get so much more insight to his own feelings of insecurity and fear and having to define himself without Gansey or his father or Adam.
Plus he also just represents so many thematic dlimemmas about what is real and what is a dream? Where do you draw the limits to creation, beyond which is "God's domain"? Is what he's doing right? Does it justify the harm he does along the way?
SO MUCH happens in those two books, and yet it is Ronan's sheer desperation to find some meaning to his existence (ik that sounds pretentious but it's not), because he's an infinite well of power that is cracking at the foundation. His life has been wrapped up in so much lies, dangers that is not his fault and the paradox of him being so desperate for someone to see him, to give him some direction to go that doesn't invalidate what he can do, that he subconsciously *spolier* dreams up Bryde?
Oof.
That is enough to even make my frozen little heart feel something fierce.
Needless to say, I live in a constant state of the Ronan Lynch brainrot.
Time to Chat!
Alright, that's the end of this post. It was so much collaborating with other bloggers and getting to know about their fictional obsessions 😉.
Nezha, Rin, and Kitay from The Poppy War Trilogy live in my head rent free for sure.