When a writer creates a fictional universe, they produce characters of all different types. Whether the character is our main protagonist or the anti-hero, we indulge in their world with the help of the writer. There are plenty of characters many readers have found memorable, most often they are the ones who deviate from social norms and our expectations. Readers notice recognition, personality, humanity, enrichment, and pain in these characters giving them a more relatable quality than others.
The characters we meet along our reading journeys stick with us for months and years to come, perhaps even for the rest of our lives. We all have different reasons for gravitating towards particular characters. What attracts one reader might repel another. We highlighted a few of our most memorable characters, the ones who have made the biggest impact on our minds and reading journey:
- Christopher Boone from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Disclaimer: He is not a representation for everyone who has been diagnosed with some form of autism, he is simply Christopher Boone.This fifteen year old exposes readers to autism through a first-person narrative. Interestingly, he has characteristics that one would find contradictory such as being brilliant yet clueless, sweet and then sour, sensitive but insensitive. Christopher Boone has set himself on a journey, not only to find the killer of Wellington the dog, but also to discover truths about himself and the world around him and how to cope with them. - Severus Snape from Harry Potter Series Considering the most recent celebration of Harry Potter’s twenty year anniversary, we needed to pick one of our favorite characters from the series. From the first novel, we only saw Snape to be the bad professor at Hogwarts. Later on in the series, we start to see him as a misunderstood figure we learn to love. He always seemed to be more intelligent, observant, and competent about the students and their problems far more than any other professor.
- Yunior de la Casas from Drown &This Is How You Lose Her Junot Diaz’s recurring character, Yunior, never ceases to amaze us. He invites non-Latinos to see the stereotypes of the Latino culture. Yunior will always embody more than a simple plot in the stories he tells, whether you are reading Drown or This Is How You Lose Her. Diaz uses the first-person narrative with Yunior to make the story-telling more intimate for readers. He creates an attitude for Yunior that gets readers thinking, “Geez, I hate him. But I love him.”
- Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby Of course this man would make our list. We’ve all known Jay for quite a while! After 92 years, why is Jay Gatsby still in our thoughts and in our hearts? This man is rich, he’s made sketchy deals, he has a questionable background, but he looks beyond all of that and cares about love. Fitzgerald intended for Gatsby to be surrounded by a cloud of mystery even to this day, Gatsby is still utterly dreamy.
- Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen stands amongst the four other men on our list as one of the most memorable female characters in the fiction world. She becomes a young woman right before our eyes, taking on plenty of roles during her time in Suzanne Collins’ world. We’ll always remember the struggle of love between her, Peeta, and Gale. We can never forget her as the fearless warrior in the games either. Katniss stands as a provider, survivor, celebrity, girl on fire, and love object…how could we forget her?