Top Ten Tuesday: 10 YA Characters Who Just Didn’t Click With Me

toptentuesday2

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish. For some reason, YA is the genre where I struggle most to connect with the characters. It isn’t a matter of likeability–I definitely don’t require that my characters be likeable. But sometimes I think I’m supposed to click with characters in YA when I really don’t.

hunger games

Team Gale or Team Peeta? Team Yawn, I say. I have had students get very passionate in their defense of one boyfriend-ish over another, but it’s really all about Katniss for me. Let her be single!

twilight

This is so obvious it isn’t even a fair choice, is it? This probably goes without saying, but Bella may possibly be the most boring character in all of YA literature. I stopped reading after Book 1, and so I’ve never found out the only thing I really wonder about with this series: Is it ever revealed that Bella has some sort of physical ailment that causes her to fall down so often and need to be rescued?

abundance of katherines

I always love John Green’s almost cool nerds, and I don’t even mind their single-minded devotion to manic pixie dream girls. However, Colin Singleton somehow never rang true to me.

eleanor and park

I didn’t click with Eleanor. I didn’t click with Park. I don’t understand the love for these characters or this book.

conspiracy of kings

This one hurts, because Megan Whalen Turner created my all-time favorite character in Eugenides and a few of my all-time favorite secondary characters in Irene, the Magus, and Costis. I love these characters so much that I reread Books 1-3 in this series just about annually only so that I can spend time with some of my favorite fictional people. But Sophos, who has a minor though important role in The Thief and takes center stage in A Conspiracy of Kings, doesn’t click with me at all.

the lost hero

A Rick Riordan series with not one, not two, but THREE main characters who don’t click with me. Jason made me long for Percy, and Piper made me long for, well, just about anyone else.

 


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9 responses to “Top Ten Tuesday: 10 YA Characters Who Just Didn’t Click With Me”

  1. Juliana Ellington Avatar

    I wish this had been the list of the top 20 non-clickers! I found this post very funny.

  2. carriegelson Avatar

    I giggled through this entire post – especially that you managed to find ten characters in just six books. I hear you on Abundance of Katherines. I felt exactly the same.

    1. Elisabeth Ellington Avatar

      I actually had 10 different books, but then realized there were multiple characters in a few of the books. I could probably have filled the whole list just with characters from Twilight!

  3. iloveheartlandx Avatar

    I had Jason and Piper on my list too, hate both of them!
    My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/top-ten-tuesday-20/

  4. ejmam Avatar
    ejmam

    I am so confused by the team Gale/Peeta stuff, when it’s so obvious that Katniss has far too much on her plate to worry about romance. And in the third book, the boys basically agree. It’s really the least of her problems.

  5. margaretsmn Avatar
    margaretsmn

    This is so funny. I didn’t even try Twilight. Hunger Games kept me going until the second half of the second book when they were training once again to kill. I’m wondering if you’ve read All the Bright Places. That is my favorite YA of this year. So heartbreaking, though.

  6. Carrie Avatar

    I completely agree with Bella – she’s on My TTT too. And YES to Eleanor & Park – the book and the characters! Agree!

  7. kelseyempfield Avatar

    Eleanor and Park….oye. Why did I finish that book?

  8. […] Top Ten list of YA characters who didn’t click with […]

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