Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Today’s theme: Ten Characters Everyone Loves But I Just Don’t Get or Ten Characters I LOVE But Others Seem To Dislike.

I couldn’t choose one or the other so I decided to do:

Some of us love ’em and some of us hate ’em and some of us love to hate ’em!

 

Amy March (Little Women) — Who doesn’t love to hate Amy March. She is the embodiment of the word snob. I don’t even know where she got her pretentions because the rest of her family was fairly level-headed. Certainly they strove to present themselves well (maybe not Jo, but we LOVE her), but none of them tried to rise above their station quite like Amy. Petty, cruel, vain. Blech! I think some readers forgave her her shortcomings; I wasn’t one of them.

Bella Swan (Twilight) — I loved her; I know a lot of people didn’t like that character or the book series, but it found me right when I needed it, and I loved Bella’s starry-eyed and awkward approach to her undying love for Edward. Sue me.

Celaena Sardothien (Throne of Glass) — I loved her but a lot of book bloggers seemed to dislike her. I thought given her circumstances she was pretty damned amazing. An assassin rising above a world filled with hate and violence, maintaining her humanity and capacity to love? Yes, please!

Greg Gaines (Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) — I HATED him, mostly because his jokes were so NOT PC, but a lot of people really loved him and this book. It left me feeling a little bruised and disillusioned in terms of how teenage boys view the world.

Holden Caulfield (The Catcher in the Rye) — The quintessential angsty teen. I loved him when I was a teen because I heard my own anger and frustration coming out of his mouth. I don’t think I’d like him today. Unrelenting negativity is exhausting.

Margo Roth Spiegelman (Paper Towns) — I HATED that girl omg, but she had her fans. I dunno. Her whole bit was just entirely too selfish for me. Whatevs.

 

Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) — Please someone explain to me how this character got romanticized and now girls are “looking for their Mr. Darcy”! Dude is a straight up privileged, pompous, jerk face! Sure, he’s sexy and eloquent and RICH. Mk, I may be talking myself into love/hating him. Buzzfeed explained it best a couple years ago.

Nynaeve al’Meara (The Wheel of Time) — Bossy, quick to anger, inflexible. God I loved her from the moment I met her! She reminds me of a school marm, constantly wagging her finger at her brood and unaware that her opinions are not always wanted or needed, but you can just tell that underneath she has a heart of gold (and of course we do learn that throughout the series). She’s fiercely loyal, resourceful, intelligent, and just delightfully flawed. She’s my absolute favorite character in the whole series, and I KNOW there are people who would fight me on that.

Severus Snape (Harry Potter) — Talk about a contentious character. Snape really whips your head back and forth AMIRIGHT!? He’s team good guy, no team bad guy, ohmigod I don’t know what side he is on! How can I know if I love him or hate him!? Is it weird that I still loved him even when he went dark-side full on? IDC — love you Snivelly!

Thomas (The Maze Runner) — Oh, Thomas. I loved your slightly awkward, oh-my-gosh-I-just-can’t-adjust-to-my-new-reality bit. You were kind of shy, sad, and bewildered, but then you showed great courage and strength. All of that was delightful really. Then I spent the rest of the series silently yelling at you in my head because you were being so bloody stupid and unaware. Like, why can’t you just remember stuff already!? P.S. I still love you.

These were just the first ten to pop into my head. I’d love to know what you think. Do you love these characters? Hate them? Who would you include in your list?