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

 

 TTT is hosted by the lovely ladies over at The Broke and the Bookish.

 

Today's a rewind!  I'd half-written this post two weeks ago and never got chance to finish it, so it seemed like a good opportunity to catch up...  I actually really like this prompt - it's a slightly different slant on the 'hot fictional character' thing, when you think about it.  Some characters are sexy for the reader, but might not be if you were living the novel alongside them.  For example, Heathcliff has a certain "passionate bad boy who could be tamed by the right woman" thing going on - but you wouldn't want to be Isabella.  Noah Calhoun is perfect - but he's already hopelessly in love with another woman.  Mr Darcy is one fine specimen of gentlemanhood - but you might not think so if he was poncing around your local dance hall sneering at your friends...  See my point?  With these things firmly in mind, here are my ten, in no particular order:

 

Dorian Gray

From:  The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

I'd fancy him if:  I was alive

Dorian always seems to be top of my hot-lists!  He's young, beautiful, and devilishly sexy - and if you were a not-so-prim young lady (or man!) or a bawdy bargirl, you wouldn't KNOW that he'd made a pact with the devil and was actually getting older and more vile all the time, would you?  He's irresistable and uninhibited, which makes him eminently crushable for me...  ;)

 

 

Eric Northman
From:  The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris
I'd fancy him if:  I was alive OR dead
Well, come on, look at him!  He may be a fast, mean drinkin' machine, but he's also a six-foot-something hunk of Viking muscle with 2000 years of lusty experience and no intention of toning it down anytime soon.  Works for me...  (Note: leggings optional)

 

 

Grigg Harris
From:  The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
I'd fancy him if:  He recommended one of his favourite authors

I have the softest of soft spots for Grigg - the fact that he's played so adorably by Hugh Dancy in the movie definitely helps...  Grigg is a sci-fi-loving IT nerd with a thirst for books, a hearty respect for women, and a heart of gold.  How could I not love him, really?
 

 

Nan King

 From: Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
I'd fancy her if: She threw a rose at me
I love Nan.  Her journey from oyster girl to happy member of the London queer community was such a riveting read, and her strength, earthy wit and resourcefulness shone out of every page.  If I was in the audience at her shows with Kitty and she tossed that coveted rose my way, or if she threw a saucy glance in my direction as I walked past on the street, I'd definitely look twice!
 

Roux
From: Chocolat by Joanne Harris
I'd fancy him if: He played gypsy guitar for me
There's something about the dark, slightly wild stranger blowing in on the breeze...  For me, Roux is kinda what Heathcliff could have been if he hadn't gone crazy over Cathy, only with a boat and a guitar and a lilting Irish accent.  He also likes chocolate, and in my head, will forever be a very sexy Johnny Depp.  Politics be damned, if he arrived on a riverbank near me I'd be head over heels!

 

 

 

Aragorn

From:  The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

 I'd fancy him if:  I possessed ovaries (human or elf variety)
Dishevelled ranger turned wise king, proficient with a big sword and a nice guy to boot?  Well, duh.
 

 

Miyuki Woodward

From:  Gold by Dan Rhodes
I'd fancy her if:  She made me spaghetti hoops on toast in her clifftop hut
This book's come up a few times in recent TTT posts!  I'll be rereading it soon as well, so a full review is on the way...  Anyway, Miyuki is probably my perfect woman - artistic, laid-back, low-maintenance, but with a healthy appreciation of the magic in the world.  We'd spend lots of time wandering in the sea air, reading and eating odd mixtures of student food in a deliciously carefree fashion.  :)
 

 

Charlie
From:  The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
I'd fancy him if:  He made me a mix tape with Asleep on it... twice
Oh come on, Charlie's a sweetheart.  He's smart, he's cute, he thinks about life in a unique way, he loves to read and discover new things, he becomes more and more of a whole person as the book goes on, and he's tremendously loyal and generous to the people he loves most.  With Patrick hot but unavailable, Charlie would definitely be top of my list on the Island of Misfit Toys.

 

 

Dickon Sowerby
From:  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
I'd fancy him if:  He brought his animals and taught me how to grow things
When I was a little girl I was a bit in love with Dickon.  A grown-up version would definitely still work for me...  He was servant Martha's little brother, the one who wandered the moor with his tame animals and helped Mary bring the rose garden back to life and became her best-friend-with-a-side-helping-of-youthful-chemistry.  Gentle, intuitive, earthy and a good laugh - what's not to like?!

 

 

Percy Jackson
From:  Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series
I'd fancy him if:  He did something cool with water
Yeah, so, Percy Jackson is also technically rather on the young side... but come on, ladies.  SON OF POSEIDON.  He can control water and loves being anywhere near it and is also really smart and brave and good looking.  And did I mention... SON OF POSEIDON!  DEMI-GOD.  Oh yes.  I'd share an oceanside house with him any day.

 

 Alrighty!  I think that's quite enough swooning for one week - tell me, if you were between the pages of a book, which characters would you be eyeing up?  And if you're a fellow TTT-er, feel free to leave a link to your own post in the comments so I can return the visit!

 

REVIEW: Snuff, by Chuck Palahniuk (3*)

(Vintage, 2009)

This is a novel about a record-breaking gang-bang featuring one legendary porn queen and six hundred obliging men.  Except... it's not.  Because Palahniuk's never as simple as that.  Told from alternating and often conflicting viewpoints - Numbers 72 (a young man), 137 (a shamed TV star) and 600 (a porn veteran), and the 'talent wrangler', Sheila - this is actually a novel about the seediness of the adult entertainment industry, the vacuity of Hollywood and the deceptive nature of screen beauty.  At the opening of the book, everyone looks good and has a reputation to uphold; by the end their secrets have been revealed and the layers of makeup and ego and personal history have been peeled away to reveal something uglier, smaller and deeply sad.  It didn't rock my world like Rant, which I still occasionally find myself mulling over nearly a year on - but if you're not easily offended it was a relatively quick read and still pulled me on at breakneck pace towards the inevitable bizarre finale...

Favourite part:  Palahniuk's trademark devotion to throwing in loads of pithy little facts about his subject, the more offbeat the better - I stopped every few pages to Google something, only to find it was actually true and not just part of his fiction.  Some of my favourite examples from this particular novel:

• During the making of Singin' in the Rain, Gene Kelly had to film the title song for several days in a row while running a temperature of 103° and dancing in 'rain' made by mixing water with milk.
• Marilyn Monroe used to cut down the heel of one of her shoes to make one leg shorter than the other, giving her a real wiggle when she walked.
• Tallulah Bankhead used to grind eggshells into a glass of water and drink down the mixture, scratching her throat and giving her a deeper, more sultry voice.
• During the Cold War, American spies had cyanide cast into their glasses.  If they were caught, they were meant to casually chew the curved earpieces, killing them almost immediately.
• Roy Fitzgerald was a giggly, clumsy actor with a high-pitched voice.  He was deliberately exposed to someone with strep throat, then advised to exert his vocal chords until they were damaged enough that when he got better, his voice was lower.  Then he changed his name to Rock Hudson.

If nothing else, this novel has been an excellent source of genuinely interesting trivia to throw at people over the last few days!  :)

Source:  I borrowed this book from Chesterfield Library.