Top Ten Tuesday: My bookish girlfriends 👩‍❤️‍👩

I’m not super fond of guys in books. If I had to date one, it’d likely be Jacob Black or Peeta. I can’t think of any others whatsoever, so I won’t bother. This post is in conjunction with Top Ten Tuesday by That Artsy Reader Girl. I’m also linking it up with #LetsDiscuss2018. This list is based on what I have already read, which isn’t a lot-a lot, but anyways. Here we go!

A watercolor illustration of arrows and text reading "You make me happy flap" in caps
Neurodivergent Valentine’s Day card by Amythest Schaber.

10. Bella Cullen

Cullen because she married Edward Cullen, who—I want to scream at my teenage self for loving him so much—is creepy and manipulative and controlling. I can’t even.

Bella got a lot of flak for being this or that, as did Kristen Stewart.

It’s fine if you don’t like her. One less person to fight to the death. 👌

Except I ship Bella with Jacob. And I’m not sure I’d want someone who would act as dramatically as Bella Swan when Edward distanced himself from her. Obsessive girlfriend personalities don’t attractive me…at least past the Bechdel Test, come on!

09. Anne Shirley

While I admire her smarts and creativity, I am not so fond of her talkativeness. She could infodump on me a lot, but what if I never get to infodump? What if dating her is the demise of my infodumping because I’m forced to suppress it?!

Also, she belongs to Gilbert Blythe. Even if she could have had a thing with Diana. FOR THE RECORD, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SHIP THE LIFE OUT OF ANNE x DIANA.

08. Abra

She’s a middle-grade character who lived a life full of goodness and self-sacrifice, hence why she’s made the list. Not a lot about her in terms of romance was provided, but the tragedy of her childhood that befell her became what she spent the rest of her life fighting against—and that’s why she’s on this list.

07. Cece Goddard

She’s charming and real. The reason she and I wouldn’t work out, however, is how she always wears statement shirts. I’m not into making every part of who I am a political statement. Sometimes I get mad and am like, Okay, you won’t like me when I’m mad. I’m gonna scream this shit from the rooftops, and vent-vomit all up on my blog, but it reminds me of a kiss in She Marched that was done in public to make a statement more than it was to express affection…and I don’t like that.

But I understand it’s a young adult book; she’s still a kid. I was dumb AF in high school and on Team Edward. 🤦 I’m in no place to judge her. 😂

06/05. Clarke Griffin/Octavia Blake

Okay, but why is she so weak in the novel series? In the TV show, she’s super badass, so it confuses me and is why she’s #6.

Like Clarke, Octavia (#5) is written to be a weak female character in need of saving by an egotistical man. BUT IN THE TV SHOW, Octavia kicks ass. I like Octavia of the book series more than Clarke Griffin of the book series in terms of GF material.

Both are straight in the book (because what is this, the 21st century?), but sexuality is flexible in the television series. Its creator, Jason Rothenburg, said sexuality is not as big a prejudice in a post-apocalyptic world, because there are more important things to worry about. Thus, if we weren’t talking books, but any fictional character instead, I wouldn’t be able to choose. Clarke is a strong character in TV, but so is Octavia. The female characters can hold their own in the show, and I like that. I’m not completely into ranking women, so going there makes me a bit uncomfortable, but again, this is fiction, so I like to think it’s OK. In a year, I might be disgusted I ever made this post, but…whatevs, man.

04. Jacob Black

I know, I know. Jacob’s a guy. I’m not even a dog person. But I gotta fill this list somehow, so I had to resort to expanding my horizons a bit and allow at least one guy into the mix! Also, if I’m gonna be making this list, I may as well. I probz won’t be making a list like this again, regardless of gender identity. Ergo, I should include for you all the only male character I have ever considered to be boyfriend material for me, myself and I in this list while it’s happening.~

As a teenager, I shipped Bella with Edward. I thought it was super attractive how he manipulated her into being with him and she was somehow happy. She had a side of her that craved the danger of it all, as did I. However, in my early adulthood and onward, I’ve found myself respecting Jacob more. Ideally, Bella should have wound up with Jacob. It could have been an underlining lesson of hey, kids, Jacob is better for Bella because Edward is actually abusive and writers don’t write books in hopes of pleasing readers, but to tell their stories. But it wasn’t, so…whatever.

Jacob was a greater friend to Bella and allowed her to be more of herself, whereas Edward didn’t give me the impression that he had respect for her.

So…you could say I’m smitten with Jake. Taylor Lautner’s not so bad, either. 👌

  • The Twilight Saga

03. Katniss Everdeen

She doesn’t want to bring kids into a fucked up world. I respect that. I relate to it. Do you know how hard it is to find people like that? Oh, wait—it’s not super hard. What’s hard is finding people who want to adopt instead. 😒 Not that I’m in a rush. Kinda prefer having a partner beforehand…

Putting aside Jennifer Lawrence playing Katniss, can we bask in how badass Miss Everdeen is?

Unfortunately, I wholeheartedly ship her with Peeta, ergo she is unavailable.

02. Kizabel

I’ve been smitten with Kizabel ever since reading her. She’s intelligent and has all around goodness for the future of the world. I can’t say a lot about her without spoiling the series from which she comes, but 👋 hello Kizabel is an adorable mess. I shipped her hard with a character who wound up with a guy 🙄…so it’s frustrating, but technically it means she’s still available, right? 😏

01. Evelyn Hugo

Evelyn Hugo is old in the fictional memoir of her life. But in her youth? UM, YES?

I respect Evelyn Hugo as a older person, probably too much to have actual romantic feelings for her, but isn’t that what sometimes makes love so tragic? For Evelyn, I surmise I feel more of an admiration for her than anything, but she still tops my list. I think respect is important in all relationships, and romantic relationships don’t get excluded from that. She’s got multitudes and has had to make hard decisions. She’s made mistakes and done things I, as a reader looking at the bigger picture, mayn’t have made, but…in the heat of the moment, she acted with all her humanity.


Who are your book significant others?

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Comments on this post

This was an incredibly amusing post, cause I kept imagining all those ships you talked about 😀 for the record, absolutely yes for Anne! I did ship her and Gilbert though. She was such an idiot about him for a book or two xD cute.

Oh, and I’m one of those people! Like Katniss 😀 I’ve actively been thinking about how to get around my family terribly judging me for something like that, but my partner agrees, so it might happen sometime later in my life. I hope.

Nice post 🙂

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Ha. I don’t struggle to find people who don’t want kids, but rather people who do want kids, but who want to adopt instead. It’s not as difficult with men, mostly because they think they can change my mind, but…I’m not into men.

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They think they can change your mind -.- (I CAN’T EVEN.) I guess I’ve been lucky. No mind changing intentions in my relationship, thankfully. Oh, and I didn’t know that about you. But.. if it’s a woman who’s into women, and bear with my silly question here, but doesn’t it imply that it would, err, be harder to have biological children, for loads of reasons? Wouldn’t they want to adopt instead? Or at least, I’m thinking that they are more likely to have considered it, due to the same reasons. Eh, maybe I’m just thinking about this through my own point of view. But I totally think that there’s no reason to bring more people into this world when there are so many who can be helped by just giving them a family. It should be a more common thing on our society. Be a better society that way too… Did you read Island by Aldous Huxley? Always makes me think of that.. I think you might enjoy that book (I loved it.)

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For two-woman couples, it’s actually probably easier to find a sperm donor, because they just need a guy to sign a contract stating that he understands. If the guy’s a close friend or family member, they usually don’t even have to pay him. Like, it’s really understandable. Adopting is harder, because of prejudice and the price and whatever else goes with it for that state. Then, if neither partner wants to carry the child, surrogacy is possible—though it also comes with a hefty fee. And that’s if the couple isn’t desperate, and try to pull a Bette and Tina by tricking a guy into having a threesome with them so Tina can get preggers. 🤣

I haven’t read that. I read, but I haven’t read more than what I had to in school, a Sonya Sones novel, and Lois Duncan mysteries for everything before I started sharing about books on this blog. I’ll consider checking it out, though.

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This is super fun! Haha I wasn’t sure it was a positive post or not at first because you seemed to talk yourself out of being with each character… But I started to get it… I love you included Jacob on the list… I totally would go for Katniss… I feel like she’d only ever be with someone who she’s shared hardship with… Anne is a product of her time and would never see Diana that way but she sure was empowering at the same time which I admire and love. <3

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Haha, I don’t know that Anne x Diana are that far-fetched! 😉 There are many a posts on the topic—from Autostraddle, from ROYGBIV Jezebel, from Swoon Reads, from Book Riot. XD

And yeah…I have a tendency to do that. I have a hard time wanting to date fictional characters?? It’s weird to me! I’ll have crushes on them and all that jazz, but…I don’t want a fictional character to date. 😅 Except…well…Shane McCutcheon. 👌😳

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This is a very hard question! I am usually very critical of characters so it’s rare when I’m extremely enamored by one. I did write a post a couple years ago about a possible “boyfriend” character. Looking back on it now I disagree with myself haha.

I’ve only read “Anne of Green Gables” so I couldn’t fathom thinking of her in a romantic way but even then she is absolutely charming.

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