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Original poster

Which characters in a book have stayed with you long after reading the book?

56 replies

MyBrilliantDisguise · 17/01/2018 20:31

Are there any characters in books that you almost see as real people? Where you're almost wondering how they are now, or how they'd react to something? Have any made a huge impact on you and the way you live your life?

There are a few for me. Holden Caulfield. Anne Shirley. Fay and Tom in The Republic of Love (one of my favourite books.)

How about you?

OP posts:
MsGameandWatching · 22/01/2018 00:53

Abileen from The Help. She broke my heart, I cried so much reading that book. Then she was perfectly played by Viola Davis in the movie.

Boris from The Goldfinch. I loved him, he was such a survivor. I'm interested to see how he will be played in the movie.

There's a book called Officer Quality that pretty much no one will have read but I loved it as it was about a female soldier and in an army setting and I used to be in the forces. Her name is Esme Hansard. The author that wrote that book got it absolutely spot on, I recognised so much from my own time in the forces.

tobee · 22/01/2018 00:33

Off the top of my head:

Charlotte from Charlotte Sometimes
Josephine from Cold Christmas

CloakandDaggerNameChange · 21/01/2018 21:23

What a great thread!

The second Mrs de Winter (Rebecca) and Claire and Jamie Fraser (Outlander series). So many to choose from but these were the ones that immediately sprang to mind.

Charismam · 21/01/2018 21:13

holden caulfield

runningoutofjuice · 21/01/2018 21:09

I read Therese Raquin over 40 years ago and often thought about what it would be like to be her in that dingy, lonely, hopeless existence. And then, a chance for happiness! But no....
So depressing thinking about it even now. I never read the book again, left me feeling really low.

newtlover · 21/01/2018 19:54

Grin annandale I'm sure that was deffo not what CS Lewis had in mind!

missyB1 · 21/01/2018 19:51

Joey Bettany / Maynard from the Chalet School books. I often imagine myself being invited to stay at her house as a guest! Blush Grin

brokenshoes · 21/01/2018 19:46

I often find myself wondering what happened to Offred at the end of The Handmaid's Tale.

highlandcoo · 21/01/2018 12:36

Yes, SingingSands! Prentice and Ash from The Crow Road, definitely. Totally believable and you're really willing Prentice to wake up, and see how great Ash is.

Also Dan Weir from Espedair Street, again by Iain Banks. Deep down he's decent person who just isn't getting things right. I think a lot of people can identify with that.

Kikashi · 21/01/2018 10:17

Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair. She had such a sad life. - she tried so hard but it all fell away. I always wondered if she was sexually abused as a child (by the men her dad had hanging around). I really liked her until she had her child and was horrid to him.

MybrilliantDisguise I agree about Jane Eyre. Perhaps because she expects so little from life and has only ever met a very few terrible men she would be content.

Roystonv · 18/01/2018 09:33

I think Calypso appears in her other books as a side character.

PaulPatterson · 18/01/2018 09:27

Eliot Waugh from the book "King of Magicians"

Murine · 18/01/2018 06:10

Oh my goodness, Sati! I'd totally forgotten about it, I used to love that book as a teen.

LadyGAgain · 17/01/2018 23:54

Scarlett O'Hara & Rhett Butler but also Melanie Hamilton. Her capacity to forgive, love and see good was quite a lesson.

lastqueenofscotland · 17/01/2018 23:03

Jude in A Little Life

Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited I totally relate to him

Cecilia and Robbie in atonement. I felt hollow after reading that

mrswarthog · 17/01/2018 22:43

Calypso Grant in The Camomile Lawn.

mmack · 17/01/2018 22:37

Scarlett and Rhett. Anne Shirley and Rilla. Julia and Charles from Brideshead Revisited. Dellarobia from Flight Behaviour. Rabbit and Janice from the John Updike books. Reta and Norah from Unless by Carol Shields. Arley from The Most Wanted by Jacquelyn Mitchard.

DaisysStew · 17/01/2018 21:04

Phillip Herriton in Where Angels Fear to Tread. I really thought he’d end up with Caroline and I like to think that at some point (in the fictional future) he told her how he really felt.

gottachangethename1 · 17/01/2018 20:58

The Chinaman from Marguerite Duras’ ‘The lover’
Bert Baxter from the Adrian Mole series.
The family in the Helen Forester series about Liverpool.

Original poster
MyBrilliantDisguise · 17/01/2018 20:58

Jane Eyre. I worry about her happiness.

OP posts:
Tryingtogetitright · 17/01/2018 20:50

Christopher Pike - Sati

Read it when I was a young teen and have read it many times since, enjoy it even more now as an adult.

Orlandointhewilderness · 17/01/2018 20:50

Another Sophie - titular character in Sophies world by Jostein Gaarder

Death in the Terry Prachett books.

Winnie the pooh. always!!

Original poster
MyBrilliantDisguise · 17/01/2018 20:49

So good to have some new book recommendations!

OP posts:
IrisAtwood · 17/01/2018 20:48

The eponymous Madame Bovary
Miss Haversham and Estelle from Great Expectations
Toby, Ren, Amanda, Jimmy, Oryx and Crake from Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy.
The Bennet family from Pride and Prejudice
The eponymous Emma, her father, Mr Knightley.

So many others. They are like friends and family to me.

SingingSands · 17/01/2018 20:48

Anne Shirley.
Prentice and Ash from The Crow Road.

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