Top Ten Tuesday #6: Top Ten Characters I Would Crush On If I Were Also A Fictional Character

 


Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish.









Top Ten Characters I Would Crush On If I Were Also A Fictional Character  


#1. Jonah Griggs from On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Reasons: Deep. Thoughtful. Intense. Honest. 

Quotes:  

“If you weren't driving, I'd kiss you senseless," I tell him.
He swerves to the side of the road and stops the car abruptly.
"Not driving any more.” 

and 

“I’m here because of you. You’re my priority. Your happiness, in some fucked way, is tuned in to mine. Get that through your thick skull. Would I like it any other way? Hell, yes, but I don’t think that will be happening in my lifetime.”

and 

"You being on that platform changed mine."

and 

“No," I say, looking up at Griggs. "It's actually because my heart belongs to someone else." And if I could bottle the look on his face, I'd keep it by my bedside for the rest of my life.”  

and

“When he wins the bet, I tell Griggs that it will take me a lifetime to save up two trillion dollars and he tells me that he's only giving me seventy years.”  

and

He shakes his head and, although it's dark, I can tell he's crying.   "What are you thinking?" I whisper after a while. "That you deserve romance," he says.

I really, really love Jonah Griggs. Real feelings for a very fictional character.

#2. Adam Wilde from If I Stay and Where She Went by Gayle Forman
Reason: Strong. Likeable. Talented. Compassionate.

Quotes:

“If you stay, I'll do whatever you want. I'll quit the band, go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. I was talking to Liz and she said maybe coming back to your old life would be too painful, that maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I'd do it. I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay.” 

and

“All I can think about is how fucked up it would be for your life to end here, now. I mean I know that your life if fucked up no matter what now, forever. And I'm not dumb enough to think that I can undo that, that anyone can. But I can't wrap my mind around the notion of you not getting old, having kids, going to Julliard, getting to play that cello in front of a huge audience, so that they can get the chills the way I do every time I see you pick up your bow, every time I see you smile at me.”

and 

“This is the you I like. You definitely dressed sexier and are, you know, blond, and that's different. But the you who are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I'll be in love with tomorrow. I love that you're fragile and tough, quiet and kick-ass. ”

#3. Akiva from Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Reasons: Complicated. A mess. Passionate. Aloof.

Quotes:  

“Your soul sings to mine. My soul is yours, and it always will be, in any world. No matter what happens. I need you to remember that I love you.”

and 

“Until a few days ago, humans had been little more than legend to him, and now here he was in their world. It was like stepping into the pages of a book -- a book alive with color and fragrance, filth and chaos -- and the blue-haired girl moved through it all like a fairy through a story, the light treating her differently than it did others, the air seemed to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place was a story about her.” 

and 

“The thing he wished for most was a thing he had never wished for at all, not until he had discovered her. And it came true that night, and many nights after. A brief and shining span of happiness, it was the pivot point around which his whole life spun.” 

#4. "French" from the India Black series by Carol K. Carr

Reasons: Funny. Smart. Mysterious. Capable with a number of weapons.

Quote: I'm in a rush and can't find the quote I want (aaarrgh!), so here's one from India herself: 

"The three of us froze, Mrs. Drinkwater wheezing faintly and all of us gaping and looking guilty as hell, rather like a bad painting by Edwin Lanseer entitled The Quarry Hears the Pursuit, or some such rot."

#5. Lucian Kiggs from Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Reasons: Honorable. Inquisitive. Fair. Hidden sense of humor.

Quote:  

“Your lies didn't stop me loving you; your truth hasn't stopped me either.”

#6. Gavriel Duval from Grave Mercy and Dark Triumph by R. L. LaFevers

Reasons: Devoted. Wily. Clever. Sharp-minded.

Quote: 

“Whenever you are ready, or if you never are, my heart is yours, until Death do us part. Whatever that may mean when consorting with one of Death’s handmaidens.”

Bonus quote from Ismae about Duval, because I love it: 

"I comfort myself with the knowledge that if Duval ever feels smothered by me, it will be because I am holding a pillow over his face and commending his soul to Mortain."

#7.  Prince Kai from Cinder and Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Reasons: Funny. Self-deprecating. Politically adept. 

Quote:  

“I know this is stupid, but part of me felt like if I could come see you today, if I could convince you to go with me tonight, then maybe I could still change things. It's dumb, I know. It's not like Levana cares if I, you know, might have actual feelings for someone.”

#8. Ed/Shadow from Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Reason: Loner. Talented. Creative. Expressive. 

Quotes:  

“For a while, for as long as you're looking at it, that painting is the world and you get to be in it.” 

and 

“There was no skin on my voice and she heard the bones in my words.” 

 and

“I spray the sky fast. Eyes ahead and behind. Looking for cops. Looking for anyone I don't want to be here. Paint sails and the things that kick in my head scream from can to brick. See this, see this. See me emptied onto a wall.”  

#9. Rowan from Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

Reason: Independent. Creative. A free spirit.

Quotes: 

“Wanderlust is like itchy feet. It’s when you can’t settle down. But Wanderlove is much deeper than that . . . it’s a compulsion. It’s the difference between lust and love. Wanderlove is about forgetting the bad things and focusing on the good. Out with the old and in with the new... The only way to escape the past is to keep moving forward.”

#10.  Vaclav from Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner

Reason: Adorable. Earnest. Grows into a strong, kind man.

Quotes:  

“Vaclav has said goodnight to Lena every night since the night she went away. Out loud. In a whisper. [...] He filled the words with all his love and care and worry for Lena and launched them out to her, and like homing pigeons, he trusted them to find her.” 

and 

"What have you been up to?" She smiles; it is so strange to ask him what he has been up to. Like meeting the president and saying, "Hey, how are you doing?"

"Same, thing," he says, meaning still magic, still trying to take care of you with my mind, still trying to control events using supernatural powers."

Honorable mentions: Mal from Shadow & Bone by Leigh Bardugo, Wolf from Scarlet by Marissa Meyer, Etienne St. Clair from Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins,  Valek from the Poison Study series by Maria V. Snyder, Marcus Flutie from the Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty, Prince Char(mont) from Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, Numair from the Wild Magic series by Tamora Pierce, Kvothe from the Kingkiller Chronicles series by Patrick Rothfuss, Zandakar from the Godspeaker series by Karen Miller, Lan al'Mandragoran, Gawyn Trakand and Mat Cauthon from The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, Robb Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin

(I have a lot more book crushes than I remembered!)