Top Ten Tuesday: The top ten literary characters I would love to be friends with

/ Lisa R. Howeler

|| Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. ||

This week’s theme is: Relationship Freebie (Pick a relationship type and choose characters who fit that relationship as it relates to you. So, characters you’d like to date, be friends with, be enemies with, etc. Bookish families you’d like to be a part of, characters you’d want as your siblings, pets you’d like to take for yourself, etc.)

From this prompt, I decided to make a list of ten characters who I would love to be friends with in real life – if they were real. Well, you know what I mean.

  1. Cynthia Kavanagh from The Mitford Series by Jan Karon

Cynthia is the wife of Father Timothy Kavanagh, an Episcopal priest in Mitford, N.C. He meets Cynthia either in the end of the first book or the beginning of the second, A Light in the Window. Their love story is so sweet and pure. It’s a beautiful example of what love late in life can and should be. Father Tim has never been in a relationship and Cynthia was in a cold, loveless marriage before. Their relationship starts slow and awkardly.

Cynthia is an illustrator who also writes childrens books about her cat, Violet, a fluffy, white monster who Father Tim and his dog Barnabas aren’t so sure about. I would love to be friends with Cynthia. We’d sit in her little yellow house and sip tea and talk books and cats and how neither of us are really very good cooks or bakers but like to try anyhow.

2. Elizabeth “Bess” Marvin in the Nancy Drew books.

I absolutely love Bess from the Nancy Drew books. I love how she is described as pleasantly plump and isn’t shy about eating whatever she wants and flirting with boys – not even caring that back when these books were written fat girls were supposed to be not who boys would be interested in and were shamed into eating lettuce and a tomato for dinner.

I could absolutely see myself hanging out with Bess. She’d be more outgoing and crazy and I’d be quiet and laughing at her crazy antics. We’d talk about what foods we like and how no matter what we do we can’t get ourselves super skinny but there are times we still feel healthy and happy.

3. Valancy Stirling in The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery

I would absolutely hang out with Valancy from The Blue Castle. If I met her before she received the bad news about her health, I would have been trying to pull her out of her dumps and encourage her to ignore her family’s rude comments about her.

After she received the bad news I would have joined her for tea at her Blue Castle and I would have walked with her in the forest, picking flowers, listening to the wind rustling the leaves and to her read excerpts from John Foster’s books.

4. Jo March from Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott

Jo and I would absolutely hang out in real life and talk about the books we are writing and the characters we’ve created and our fear of people reading what we have written. We would talk about how we feel like the stories and characters belong to ourselves and how we are sometimes afraid if others meet our characters they won’t like them and it will take something away from us.

We will totally talk about how we both snap sometimes and say mean things and have to wrestle the mean sides of ourselves the same way Marmee said she had to wrestle her feelings.

And we will absolutely dish about how publishers in her day were completely sexist and that if she were alive now she could write and publish whatever she wants.

5. Aunt Minnehaha Cheever from Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright

Aunt Minnehaha visited Gone Away Lake, really called Tarrigo Lake, with her family, including her brother Pindar, when she was a child. The site was a summer getaway for the wealthy but when a dam was created upstream it caused the lake to dry up and all the wealthy vacationers to leave, many of them leaving their homes behind. When Aunt Minnehaha hits hard times and can’t afford her home in the city she moves back to Tarrigo to live. Eventually, children named Julian and Portia discover the homes and become friends with Minnehaha and her brother, who has also moved there.

Minnehaha has had some sadness in her life but she is absolutely full of optimism and likes to look at tough situations in a new and exciting way. If she and I were friends we would look through all the old dresses she has and all the old china and she’d make me some of her amazing tea and then she’d tell me that what I am facing now is nothing compared to what they had to face when they were young, living among some very rich and arrogant neighbors.

6. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I’m sure Anne would be on the list of many readers. An imaginative orphan girl who comes to live with an older brother and sister on a farm on Prince Edward Island, Canada would absolutely be a very interesting person to be friends with.

She and I would go walk along the shores of the Lake of Shimmering Waters and pick apples from the apple trees. We would also walk through the falling leaves during autumn to Diana’s house to visit her and have pastries and tea together.

We would absolutely talk about books and, well, I hate to say it but I’d probably tell Anne she is way too focused on what is and isn’t romantic and what romance should look like. If it was older Anne we would talk about raising children and how she keeps the romance alive between her and Gilbert.

7. Angie Braddock from the Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries by Isabella Alan

I’ve only read one book in the Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries but I really liked Angie. She’s bold and not afraid to find out how someone has been killed so she can clear the name of another person. She’s also dating a handsome sheriff (at least in the one book I read) and has a great relationship with her father who is trying to figure out his place in the world now that he is retired.

She sells sowing materials at her shop and I don’t think I’d be able to talk to her too much about fabric but I bet we’d like other similar things and I would love for her to introduce me to her Amish friends.

8. Miss Jane Marple from the Agatha Christie series

I would love to be friends with Jane Marple and ask her questions about various “goings on” in the village she – er- we live in. We’d of course – like with everyone else – sip tea – probably real English tea and have a few coo—biscuits while she tells me about her latest case.

Since I’m her friend, I’d also follow her around while she solves various cases. And maybe get some credit with her. *wink*

9. Sam Gangee from The Fellowship of The Ring

Sam and I are kindred spirits. We both like second breakfasts and are a bit nervous but also pretty loyal to our friends. Since we are friends we would enjoy meals together and we would be friends after the adventure to get rid of the ring so I’d ask why he did everything for Frodo and ask if he’d like to get more credit.

10. Flo and Lady Hardcastle from The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries by T.E. Kinsey

    I know…I popped in two into this one but they come as a pair, I’d say.
    I would love to be friends with Flo and Lady Hardcastle from The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries. Flo is Lady Hardcastle’s maid but really she is her best friend. Both of them have been spies and investigators and solved mysteries during the early 1900s. Flo has no fear when it comes to tracking down criminals and solving mysteries. She fights the bad guys, cleans up, and then heads home with Lady Hardcastle and serves her tea.

    Lady Hardcastle, like Flo, has no fear and is like a dog with a bone when it comes to solving a case. I love how both women break barriers, ignoring all “rules” of society in England in the early 1900s.

    I could see us enjoying tea (I know! I like tea! What can I say?) and talking about cases we’ve solved together and laughing about how we’ve shown the men in our small town that women can do more than cook and clean and keep house.

    How about you? What literary characters would you love to be friends with?

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    38 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: The top ten literary characters I would love to be friends with”

    2. What a fun idea for a post. I’m with you on Miss Marple. I’d love to follow her around all day. 🙂 I love this idea of being friends with someone you’ve read about. I read “Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words” by Lynn Sherr, and although it’s obviously not a work of fiction, I immediately felt like I would have been friends with Susan B. Visiting from the very first 🙂 Bookish Bliss linkup.

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    3. Pingback: Sunday Bookends: The last of the summer swimming, planning for autumn reading, and lists of mysteries to read – Boondock Ramblings

    4. What a fun post, Lisa and there are many literary characters you have mentioned that I am yet to meet. Our Book Club have read Little Women and Anne of Green Gables this year and we all agreed that re-reading these childhood favourites brought a new dimension to the characters. Thanks so much for sharing and co-hosting #WeekendTrafficJamReboot. I’ve selected your post as one of my favourites to feature next week. xx

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    5. What a fun post. It definitely got me thinking. I have not read many of your books but I would definitely like to be friends with Jane Marple. I am currently rereading the Thursday murder club books by Richard Osman and would love to hang out with the members.

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    10. Oh fun… I did see this question pop up on a couple of blogs yesterday and I was stumped! LOL. Many of the books I read I tend to enjoy because I think the characters are a riot but so unlike me… any of the people that decide to investigate murders and nearly always put themselves in danger would make me so anxious to have as friends. Characters like Hermione Granger and I would clash because we both tend to be know it alls that want to be right. LOL.

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      • Most of the books I read have characters totally opposite me as well. In fact, many of these characters are unlike me so I think that’s why would we work as friends. I’d be in the background just watching them do all the bold stuff I am too shy to do! 😂😂

        My daughter said the other day that she’d choose Hermione as a friend and I thought the same thing about that friendship. My daughter would be just as mouthy as Hermione and they’d definitely clash 😂😂

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    15. I also would love to hang out with Jo March, Anne Shirley, and Sam. But I also would like to meet Beth March while she was still full of life and so giving. I would like to learn more about Lavender Louis in Anne’s neighborhood too. Her garden would be my favorite place to see! Such a fun post, Lisa! Thank you for sharing this bright spot today!

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    18. I would love to hang out with Bess, too! She always felt like the fun one and I always loved how she felt real. My daughter and I have been reading through some of the classics for a couple of years and our next one is Anne of Green Gables, so I can’t wait to meet her. I remember you’ve written a lot about those books, so I’m excited to get to read the first one and see what you love so much about them, and share it with my daughter, of course.

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      • Here is a tip for reading Anne to a child – skim, summarize, and skip. lol. I summarized some of the more flowery language and skipped some entire sections that would bore an 8-year-old. That’s how old she was when I read it to her. We loved Anne though and Little Miss loved how I made her voice all perky and excited. I made her too excited – we had to read it during the day because Anne was too exciting to fall asleep to she said.😂

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        • I can absolutely see that, haha! We’re on chapter 6 and, oh my goodness, I don’t know how one little girl can talk so much. I don’t know why (maybe I just remember you writing about reading these books so much), but I also find myself reading her dialogue in a very perky, excited voice, and I’m reading it to my daughter to get her to fall asleep. Hmm, maybe that’s why she had a hard time falling asleep last night, haha. It’s a fun book, though, and Green Gables sounds lovely.

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