Welcome to this week’s Top Ten Tuesday! This week, we’re supposed to talk about book characters we would like to switch places with, but to be honest, most book characters have horrible lives. Sure, maybe I’d like to switch places with them for a scene or two, but I’d rather just stay me, thank you. So I decided to pick out some characters that I would definitely NOT want to switch places with. I’ll try to avoid major spoilers. As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!
Christina: Divergent
While a lot of people are upset by what happened to Tris in Divergent, I think Tris’s friend Christina was dealt a pretty crappy hand too. I know Ms. Roth tries to make everything better with We Can Be Mended, but… no. I don’t envy Christina and I wouldn’t want to be her.
Maven: Red Queen
Of course Maven from Red Queen was evil, but like a lot of good villains, he’s a lot more complicated than just somebody that is evil for evil’s sake. Part of me feels a little sorry for him. Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t want to be him.
Lily: When Elephants Fly
It would be hard to be Lily from When Elephants Fly. Her mother is gone and she doesn’t know if she’s going to become schizophrenic. She had a pretty grand adventure, but it would have been a scary one to take nevertheless. I think I’d pass on wanting to be her.
Jem: The Infernal Devices
I do realize that everything works out, eventually, for Jem. But in The Infernal Devices, things aren’t going so well. He’s addicted to a substance that his friend has to get for him, and he knows he’s dying. Plus, things don’t exactly work out well for him until 100 years later. No thanks.
Tasmin – Pennies
I haven’t finished the series that begins with Pennies, but I think I would rather die a thousand deaths than trade places with Tasmin. She’s sold as a sex slave to this evil, disgusting man and… it’s a good thing that she escapes her predicament in the first book, or I might not have been able to continue the series. Even though she still has to go through some stuff. No thank you, no way, not for me.
Christina – Never Stop Walking
This is one of two real people on this week’s list. Sorry Christina, I would not want to trade places with you. Especially the you of this book. Christina went through a lot of difficult stuff as a child, which makes for good reading, but it’s not something you want to live. The sad thing is, this book reminds you that there are people going through stuff like this every day. I’m certainly thankful I’m not going through the life she lived.
Wren – Fangirl
I know that Wren from Fangirl makes a lot of the bad choices that lead her to the place where she ends up, but that doesn’t make me want to switch places with her any more. While Cath and I tend to have a lot of things in common (introversion, fanfiction writing), Wren and I do not. Nope, don’t want to trade places with her.
Cath – Heartless
I don’t want to become Cath from Heartless either. She didn’t wake up deciding that she wanted to become the villain in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, she went through a lot of bad experiences that led her there. Experiences that I would rather not go through.
Mary – Little House on the Prairie
Mary Ingalls’s life might have been okay in Little House on the Prairie, but if you continue reading the series, things go downhill from there. She becomes blind after contracting scarlet fever. Unlike in the TV show, she doesn’t even find true love. So I think I’ll pass on trading places with her.
Cassie – The 5th Wave
The world is destroyed and then invaded by aliens? Cassie from The 5th Wave has to deal with it. While I guess the ending was somewhat appropriate, it’s now how I’d want to end my story. If I had written the book, it would have turned out much better for her. As it is, she makes this list’s week of people I wouldn’t want to trade places with.
So who would you want (or not want) to trade places with? I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say this week. Next Tuesday we’ll be talking about stand-alone books that need a sequel. Or maybe… characters that need another book written about them, since I tend to read a lot of series.
I wouldn’t want to switch places with Cath, but I wouldn’t mind her baking skills!
My TTT this week.
Definitely, although I wouldn’t consider cooking to be a hobby of mine, so not gonna happen on my end, LOL.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to go to any of these universes either.
My Top Ten Tuesday post.
Lydia recently posted…Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Fictional Worlds I’d Rather Not Visit
It’s interesting to see the places people DO want to visit… I just don’t read too many of them myself.
I feel like most main characters, especially in speculative fiction, have really stressful lives, is the thing. It’s all “the world is ending” and “we have to stop the world from ending” and “this entire city was just eaten by a dragon and now we have to deal with it”. Stress.
Kelly @ Wandering Through Books recently posted…Top Ten Favourite Non-Fiction
Haha! The kinds of places we never want to see IRL. That’s what makes them interesting. We get to read about it without actually having to deal with it!.
Ugh, so many of Tris’ friends got the short end of the stick. And poor Mary, too. Had she been born in a different time, her life would have turned out so differently.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday. Thank you!
Although it depends on the time too. Probably if she lived in ancient Rome things would have been even worse. I see blind people every once in a while at Walmart and they probably have it better now than Mary did.
Yeah Christina definitely got the short end of the stick. Poor Cath, she just wanted to bake and be happy and her world totally ruined that for her, I definitely don’t blame her for becoming The Queen of Hearts.
Jo recently posted…Top Ten Tuesday #201
Royalty in general don’t always have happy lives… even though they’re rich. Money doesn’t always buy happiness. But if Cath would have been happy Alice in Wonderland wouldn’t have been so interesting.
Poor Mary! Good choice though.
She had it better in the TV show than IRL.
These do have some pretty cards given to them!
Definitely some bad cards were dealt.
As much as I loved the Ingalls family, I could never survive that time period, and poor Mary! She had one thing after the other happen to her.
We have it so much better than most of these people. If you ever read Better Angels of Our Nature… wow it is an amazing look at how good we have it now! We tend to think we’re violent now, but back in the day… eek!
Yup, I agree about Wren. And Christina’s another one.
Greg recently posted…Top Ten Characters I’d Switch Places With
I might be able to handle being Cath for a little while though.
Haha, I love that you changed the topic. I did, too. I’m too squishy to be a book character!
Aj @ Read All The Things! recently posted…Giveaway: Win A Book Of Your Choice
I’m not that squishy (I have a pretty high constitution), but I’d rather not be most of those people myself. Even if some of them have awesome boyfriends.
I love your twist on the topic! I wouldn’t want to trade places with anyone in a dystopian world either; pretty sure I would be dead instantly.
Leah recently posted…{Top Ten Tuesday} Trade Places With Me, Will Ya?
Most of the ones I can go with are the contemporary ones.
Haha I love what you did with this topic! Most of the books I’ve read have characters I wouldn’t want to switch places with. XD
My TTT post!
I think the people in contemporary books tend to have better lives than people in fantasy books.
Aw, Christina did have it bad throughout Divergent. And Jem… oh, I could just cry. What a sweet soul. And yes, everything did basically work out in the end but still, he suffered . And Cassie… I enjoyed the first book so much but then got spoiled for the ending of the series. Ugh! I was so disappointed I never continued reading the other two books.
Tanya @ Girl Plus Books recently posted…WWW Wednesday #43 | March 6, 2019
To be fair, the last two books of The Fifth Wave actually weren’t that good. When I put together my best books of the year list, I often throw all the books in a series together if I read them the same year and I think they’re all great. When The Fifth Wave made my best of list, I added (first book only) because the others were just okay.
Absolutely love your list! 🙂 I totally agree with you.
Thanks! I hope your week is going well.
*shudder* Anyone from the Divergent or Hunger Games worlds would NOT be top picks for me. Most of them meet too terrible a fate for me to risk it.
Thanks for the Finding Wonderland visit last week, Brooke! 🙂
Rissi JC recently posted…10 Amazing Books that Stand Alone | Top Ten Tuesday
I’d be very picky about who I switch places with if I was going to go to the Hunger Games or Divergent. Maybe Cara. She loses her brother, but she turns out okay. Plus she’s Erudite and I am too.