Faves of TwentyEleven: The Characters

Day #2 of Nomes’ fabulous Faves of TwentyEleven meme is dedicated to The Characters.
Who was the baddest villain for you this past year? Who the crush of all crushes?? Find out Maja’s and mine in this *short* conversation we had last night.

1. favourite female main character
Maja: Georgia Mason (Feed by Mira Grant)
Lisa: Josie Alibrandi (Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta)
Why am I not surprised by your choice? :D
Because you know me very, very well. I am, however, just a little bit surprised by
yours. I was sure you’d go with Francesca.
No, Looking for Alibrandi might be my favorite Marchetta ever. Francesca is slightly obnoxious so I didn’t pick her and so was George for me. :P
I was JUST going to say ‘and that’s why I love you’, when you wrote that thing about Georgia and forced me to reevaluate our entire friendship. It worries me.

2. favourite male main character
Maja: Froi (Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta)
Lisa: Froi (Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta)
What was the saying? Great minds...
I was 137% sure we’d make the same choice here.

3. best couple <3
Maja: Finnikin and Isaboe (Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta)
Lucy and Nicholas (My Love Lies Bleeding by Alyxandra Harvey)
Lisa: Kate and Curran (The Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews)
I am sitting here pouting. How could I have forgotten the two of them? Shoot.
Yup, I am asking you the same thing :D Bad kitty.
That’s why I have you. So Kate and Curran for me as well, as a third couple. It’s a huge category, I can’t just pick one! Lucy and Nick are awesome. You should read that series. They’re what you call 3-neuron books.
Will do.

4. who I so want to be best friends with
Maja: Ed (I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak)

Lucy (Bleeding Hearts by Alyxandra Harvey)

Lisa: DJ Schwenk (Dairy Queen by Catherine Murdock)
I don’t know any of yours but I guess I should make my acquaintance with Ed soon.
Well, Ed reminds me of one of my favorite people in the world. It’s no wonder I chose him.

5. who i fell completely in love with (new literary crush)
Maja: Alex (Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson)

Venec (Tricks of the Trade by Laura Anne Gilman)

Lisa: sorry girls, I’m gonna have to make a distinction here. My ADULT literary crush is still Barrons from The Fever Series, I’m afraid. Talk about an Alpha. My Young Adult literary crush is a new entry and would be Sam Henry from Catching Jordan, I think. Tucker Avery from Unearthly (not Hallowed, mind) would be a close second.
I guess the same goes for mine since Alex is more on the YA side, and Venec is anything but. There’s always Mircea Basarab, of course, but he’s not exactly a NEW crush.

6. worst (best & baddest) villain
Maja: Bestiano (Froi of the Exiles by Melina Marchetta)
Lisa: Moses (The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell)
ok, this is simultaneously best and baddest for me. Right as it says. I felt very ambivalent throughout the whole book in regard to Moses. But Bestiano is a kick-ass villain for sure.
Same here about Moses. I understood him pretty well, though. He didn’t really feel like a villain.

7. best character twist (who you loved then hated or vice versa)
Maja: Mrs. Sucksby (Fingersmith by Sarah Waters)
Lisa: Mac (The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning)
Mrs. Sucksby didn’t make my list because I never liked her. Mac, on the other hand, I despised with a fiery passion at the beginning. She grows a lot.
Actually, I hated Mac pretty much the entire time. Maybe it was a little less towards the end, but I certainly didn’t love her at any point.
I have one word to say to you: Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. And it’s not even a word! But then again, you didn’t like Barrons either. Pfft.

8. best kick-arse female
Maja: Kate Daniels (Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews)
Lisa: Kate Daniels (The Kate Daniels Series by Ilona Andrews)
DUH. Again: Bad kitty.
Well, what?!? I chose the right one this time!
I’d have asked for divorce if you’d said anything else.

9. best kick-arse male
Maja: Curran (Magic Slays by Ilona Andrews)
Lisa: Barrons (The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning)
Well, well. I guess we already established I’m Team Barrons and you’re Team Curran. I do love Curran too, but Barrons... mhhhhh. Do I need to paste the picture AGAIN?!
We always need that picture! Still, definitely Curran. Mircea can be pretty awesome too when he so chooses, but he prefers politics and Armani suits over fighting. Yum.

10. broke your heart the most
Maja: Shaun Mason (Deadline by Mira Grant)
Carly (Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar)
Lisa: Charlie (Please ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King)
I’m kinda surprised you chose Shaun, to be honest. I’d have chosen George from that series.
It was a tight competition. Eventually I chose Charlie because my heart was broken by how he was victim of his upbringing.
You know I can’t explain my choice without writing spoilers, but if you think about it, it’ll make perfect sense.
Not if you rememeber that I completely missed the hint :D actually, ALL the hints.

11. favourite pet/animal character award
Maja: Fang (Demon Underground by Parker Blue)
Grendel (Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews)
Lisa: Manchee (The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness)
Todd? Todd? There was NEVER a competition for me on this one. I’m still crying.
Oh, man, but you haven’t met Fang! I think you’d like him, he has a great sense of humor.

12. best YA parents award
Maja: Lena’s parents (Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys)
Lisa: Reggie and Bull (A Straight Line to my Heart by Bill Condon)
Ok, mine are not strictly parents - they’re respectively the foster father and foster brother, but they were so much better than any other parents I’ve encountered this year.
Well, with Lena’s parents, only her mother was there most of the time. Her father was absent, but we got to learn things about him through her memories. There were almost no parents to choose from, right?
Well, there were but almost all of them suffered from the “Disappearing Parent Syndrome” which I dislike.

13. favourite sibling relationship
Maja: George and Shaun Mason (Feed by Mira Grant)
Lisa: Sam and Riddle Border (I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan)
I don’t know them! I’m pouting now. :)
Says the woman whose majority of books I haven’t read. Sam and Riddle’s relationship was touching and heart-breaking.


14. favourite best friends/friendship award
Maja: Sirantha Jax and Velith (Aftermath by Ann Aguirre)
Lisa: Sam and Jordan (Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally)
Or how I would have loved for such a hot best friend to sneak into my bed in the middle of the night, just to sleep head to toe. Velith is awesome too but I’d like to hug my friends and insects are not included in hug carnet.
Their friendship becomes even more awesome in time, you just haven’t read that far yet. Maybe next year. :D
That doesn’t change the fact that he’s an insect. :D
Oh, hush, he even learns to hug. :P

15. best/worst character names
Maja: BEST - Deirdre Monaghan (Lament by Maggie Stiefvater)
Sirantha Jax (Grimspace by Ann Aguirre)
WORST- Daemon (Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout)
Rebekkah (Graveminder by Melissa Marr)
Lisa: BEST - Sirantha Jax (Grimspace by Ann Aguirre)

Riddle Border (I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan)

WORST - Cricket Bell and Lola Nolan (Lola and The Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins) ---- I mean, seriously?!

Merit (The Chicagoland Vampires Series by Chloe Neill) ---I’m still wondering why anybody would call herself like a brand of cigarettes... and bad ones at that. Hi, I’m Camel!

Oh, yes, true. Merit is a horrible, horrible name. But still, Rebekkah and Byron!

Bonus: best love triangle
Maja: Honestly, there’s no such thing as a good love triangle, but if I have to choose one, then I say Kara/Ryan/Ryzkahl from the Kara Gillian series by Diana Rowland. It is extremely well done and not very angsty. I don’t like it, but I can live with it, unlike so many others.
I have two faves: The first is from Flat-Out Love, Julie/Matt/Finn because it was an errrrr, unusual love triangle. Kinda.
The second one is Lennie/Joe/Toby from The Sky is Everywhere because... well, for the same reason as the first one. They were different from one another but definitely not canonical.

If you, once more, were so gracious to enjoy our ramblings about characters, you might be interested in checking out tomorrow’s topic of conversation: The Scenes!

Have a great day,
Lisa and Maja