Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created over at The Broke and the Bookish. Each week they post a new Top Ten list and everyone is invited to share their answers. If you’re interested, head on over to The Broke and the Bookish to take a peek at upcoming Top Ten Topics.
This week’s topic: Top Ten Characters I’d NEVER Want To Trade Places With
Sansa Stark from George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series. Life in Westeros is not pleasant, but especially for the poor girl used as a bargaining chip on more than one occasion.
Mark Watney from The Martian by Andy Weir. Because if I were left on Mars I wouldn’t survive. I can’t do math and I’m not great with science.
Ursula Todd from Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. Can you imagine reliving your life over and over again and hoping you finally get it right? While I think the idea of reincarnation is plausible, it’s the remembering previous lives that I wouldn’t be crazy about.
Darcy from America Pacifica by Anna North. Despite the fact that I didn’t like this book, the world Darcy lives in sounds TERRIBLE. She lives on a floating island made of trash because the Earth is experiencing an Ice Age and land is inhabitable.
Jonny Valentine from The Love Song of Jonny Valentine by Teddy Wayne. I never want to be famous and I never want to be pre-teen or teen-aged boy.
Ben Benjamin from The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison. Heartbreaking. I don’t know if I keep going.
Harry Potter from well…duh. Like with the above “never want to be famous”, can you imagine the pressure of being THE BOY WHO LIVED. I mean, Harry’s life sucks and then he has moments of “woo! not sucking” and then it goes back to him having to save everyone he loves from a terrible future. I would NEVER want to trade places with Harry Potter. Magic is cool and all, but…the pressure.
A member of the jury from The Submission by Amy Waldman. Talk about an impossible situation. You make a choice without knowing anything about the designer and that one decision turns the world upside down.
Darrow from Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Red Rising’s gods and peons universe is brutal. First, I feel like space travel is great in theory, but would suck in real life (I’ve read Chris Hadfield’s autobiography — it takes a lot of pressure to fly into space). Second, Darrow is a red so he’s pretty close to the bottom and life for Darrow SUCKS.
Tie: Offred from The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Hannah Payne from When She Woke by Hillary Jordan. Both of these women have to deal with tyrannical, religious and oppressive governments. No thank you.
Red clearly equals bad in literature — thanks, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
