Top Ten Tuesday-Top Ten Characters I'd Like to Be BFFs With

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  I love this week's topic.  I get friend crushes all the time!  Sometimes real people, sometimes celebrities, sometimes TV characters, and yes, book characters!  So who would I hang out with in my fictional life?

1.  Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
I love Hermione in all of the books, but this is the book where she starts fighting for the rights of the house elves, one of the best social justice themes in the series, in my humble opinion.  She's smart, fiercely loyal, strong yet vulnerable.  And she could teach me some really good spells!

2.  Jo March, Little Women
I imagine that it had something to do with growing up in the 1970s rather than the 1870s, but when I read Little Women the only female character I really felt a connection to was Jo.  Sure, I loved Beth and cried when she died, and I understood Meg and Amy, Jo was the one who seemed like she could step out of the pages and make it in a post-sexual revolution world.  I love her selflessness and her independence and her ambition.

3.  Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh has a characteristic that most children's fiction today seems to lack-gentleness.  We seem to have entered any era where even children's literature has to be ironic and slightly cynical or sarcastic.  There are great examples of cute stories (sometimes so sweet they make my teeth ache), but few with the same kind of gentle spirit that Winnie has.  Christopher Robin is such a good friend to Pooh, and even though he goes away he always comes back, which is a great trait in a friend, I think.

4.  Lisbeth Salander, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
And now, for something completely different.  Christopher Robin might be my comforting friend, but when I have ass-kicking to do it's Lisbeth I'd want by my side.  Sure, she's damaged.  Sure, she's violent.  But she is also a genius, and she can be vulnerable.

5.  Jen Lancaster, Bitter is the New Black
OK, so Jen is a real person, living in my city even.  But her memoirs read a little like fiction, and she is quite a character.  Witty, sarcastic in my favorite sort of way, not afraid to laugh at herself-I have this recurring fantasy of getting on the El and the only seat left is next to her, and my own wit and insightful comments about the other passengers on the train cause her to instantly know we are meant to be best friends for life.  Even if she is a Republican.

6.  Temperance Brennan, Deja Dead
Important to note that while I enjoy the Dr. Brennan character on the show Bones, it is the book character I would want to be friends with.  She is much more normal than her TV counterpart, and I could definitely give her some advice about the men in her life.  Andrew Ryan loves you, Tempe-make it work!

7.  Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis, Bad Love
While I have not enojyed the last couple of Alex Delaware novels as much as the others, but as a character team goes, Alex and Milo are one of my favorites.  I'd do a ride along with them.  The way they banter back and forth, I'd never have to talk.

8.  August Boatwright, The Secret Life of Bees
August Boatwright was a was the oldest of the three sisters that took in Lily Owens after she ran away from home in Sue Monk Kidd's novel.  If I was ever in trouble, and needed to run away, I would want to run directly to August.  The fact that August was played by one of my friend crushes, Queen Latifah, in the movie version of the book, doesn't hurt my overall warm feelings for the character.

9.  Laura Ingalls, Little House on the Prairie
When I as a girl, I thought it would be so much fun to live on the farm with Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary.  While I now realize how terribly hard my soft 20th Century self would have found life on the prairie in the 1800s, it still seems idyllic to me.

10.  Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Ok, so really I'd just like to have been able to go to Narnia with them and fight the White Witch, but they seem like very nice kids, too.