Introverted Reader Features

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. 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.Anna Karenina. The book by Tolstoy is larger than most. The character of the same name is larger than life. There have been very few characters that I've read about that have left me as conflicted as Anna. I admired her for going after what she wanted while I looked down on her at the same time for exactly the same reasons. I think my problem was that she was actually married to an okay guy. Sure, it was an arranged marriage, but he treated her and their son well and he worked hard. I'm sure that Anna had it good compared to a lot of women in arranged marriages. But when she meets the dashing Vronsky, she decides that she wants love and passion at any cost. She throws her reputation to the wind and goes for it. And that's where my double standard came in. One part of me wondered why Anna just couldn't accept "good…

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. 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.My almost-total immersion in George R. R. Martin's world of A Song of Ice and Fire (I'm watching Game of Thrones and reading A Storm of Swords) has me thinking a lot about Tyrion Lannister. I've already written about him though, so I'll move on to another misshapen character I love. Matthew Shardlake from the series by C. J. Sansom. Matthew Shardlake is a hunchbacked lawyer who has gotten tangled up in the very, very, very edges of the Henry VIII drama. Who doesn't love reading about Tudor times, even if it's not really about the Tudors themselves? Matthew Shardlake is a great lawyer with a good heart and a strong sense of right and wrong. As is true in fiction as well as in real life, no one sees past his crooked exterior to see the man inside. He tends to be glum and introspective. He doesn't generally feel sorry for himself, but he does have his…

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. 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.I love the Anne of Green Gables series. Anne and Diana are my dear friends, but the entire series is chock full of characters I love. One of those is Leslie Moore from Anne's House of Dreams. Leslie is a beautiful, haunted woman. I believe Anne first notices her when she's first arriving at her "house of dreams" as a newlywed. Leslie is standing by the side of the road and gives her such a look of resentment that Anne feels it keenly. This is a woman she doesn't even know! Later, they become friends and Leslie explains that she had been having a bad day and Anne's obvious happiness had just rubbed her the wrong way. And then we learn her story. I can't remember what was going on with her early family life, but it was very unhappy and she eventually ends up married to a world-class jerk, pretty much against her will. I don't think…

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. 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.I keep thinking about Ivy Rowe, from Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith, and I keep deciding not to write about her. I love her too much.  The book is one of my all-time favorites because of Ivy herself.  I will never capture her in a blog post when Lee Smith gave us a whole book of a gloriously eager, flawed, human character. Ivy feels like family. But it's time for me to try. Ivy. I think her name and I see a beautiful red-headed young woman reaching out with both arms and grasping life. She grabs so much life that she leaps off the page and into my heart. She has come to embody the earlier, unknown generations of women in my family to me. Ivy is an Appalachian mountain girl. The Appalachians (which I call home) might not be a very wild or remote chain, but progress was still late coming to them. Girls growing…

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them. I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. 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.Rachel Kalama, the main character in Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, is a fighter and an optimist. In 1892, at the age of seven, she is diagnosed with Hansen's Disease, commonly known as leprosy. Hawaiians, having been such an isolated population for so long, were particularly susceptible to this disfiguring disease. To control the spread, the Board of Health established a leper's colony on the island of Moloka'i. Everyone who was diagnosed with the disease was ripped away from their family, friends, and communities and shipped off to live out whatever time remained to them on Moloka'i. So off Rachel goes. Of course she's angry and confused and hurt and feels abandoned. She's seven. She doesn't really understand what's happening to her. Heck, the older people who are sent over there feel the same way and they sort of do understand. But she's also young, adaptable, and an eternal optimist. And that's the Rachel that I adored. Even as…