Odd Thomas: Character Connection

We all have characters we love. Let’s spotlight these fantastic creations! Whether you want to be friends with them or you have a full-blown crush on them, you know you love them and want everyone else to love them too!

Most of you will probably post about how much you love each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write a love letter to Captain Wentworth. Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Draw a picture of yourself in Jamie’s arms. The possibilities are endless.

Be sure to post the book’s title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters.

Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday.

Odd Thomas, from the book of the same name by Dean Koontz is wonderful. I don’t exactly have a book crush on him, but if he were available I totally would. How crazy is that to say about a fictional character?

The best thing about Odd is how devoted he is to his girlfriend, Stormy Llewellyn. Oh, they adore each other. In a very Big moment, they visit a fortune teller machine together at a carnival and receive the fortune, “YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER.” Odd keeps this fortune with him, to remind him to be the best person he can in order to be worthy of Stormy’s love.

The most striking thing about Odd is that he can see dead people. Yep, Haley Joel Osment style. Except that he can only see them, not hear them. Elvis is a frequent visitor. Sometimes he’s hamming it up and at other times he sobs inconsolably. Odd tries to talk to him and help him move on, but Elvis just isn’t ready yet.

Odd also sees beings he calls bodachs that scare me to death. They gave me nightmares in the first book. They’re these black–spirits, for lack of a better word–that start to cluster around a site where Something Bad is about to go down. It’s like they feed off human misery and destruction. Odd tries not to let them know that he can see them because he has a feeling that Something Bad would happen to him if he does. But when he sees them he starts investigating, trying his best to prevent Bad Things from happening.

Aside from that, Odd is just an ordinary guy. He’s very funny, very humble, and very loyal. His life is so complicated with the whole dead people thing that he keeps everything else simple. He is the best short order fry cook in literature. He doesn’t buy or want much. He comes up with some pretty ingenious solutions to problems. Let me just say that the PolterFrank in the most recent book, Odd Hours had me laughing till I cried. It was partly the word and it was partly just the story behind it. Hilarious! Anyway.  Seeing so many Bad Things would leave most people very cynical and cause them to lose their faith. Odd keeps his faith in the basic goodness of humanity and in some sort of afterlife. He doesn’t claim to know what will happen, he just firmly believes that we should do our best for each other in this life so we can move on to something better in the next one.

A quick troll through GoodReads turned up these quotes.

“Of all the spirits I have seen, only Elvis [is] able to manifest in the garments of [his] choice. Others haunt me always in whatever they were wearing when they died.
This is one reason I will never attend a costume party dressed as the traditional symbol of the New Year, in nothing but a diaper and a top hat. Welcomed into either Hell or Heaven, I do not want to cross the threshold to the sound of demonic or angelic laughter.”

“We are not strangers to ourselves, we only try to be.”

“From time to time, I do consider that I might be mad. Like any self-respecting lunatic, however, I am always quick to dismiss any doubts about my sanity.”

“The broom wasn’t as comforting as a flamethrower would have been, but it was better than a mop and certainly more threatening than a feather duster.”

“Life had not taught me to distrust ministers, but it had taught me to trust no one more than dogs.”