Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Top Ten Character Driven Books

Top 10 Tuesday is a post hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week's topic is Top Ten Books for Character-Driven Readers.

When I got to thinking about what it means to be a “character-driven story,” I kind of hard a hard time picking the books that I think applied. Obviously…these should be stories that are driven by the characters and not driven by the story itself. So I started going through my books, and what I was noticing were books that popped off the shelf at me as having exceptional characters, but I had to stop and ask myself “Did these exceptional characters drive this story? Or did the story drive the story?” And that wasn’t always an easy question to answer, because a lot of times what I found was that I answered “both.” So I feel like maybe some people will disagree with my choices, but who cares? Not I! These are stories with exceptional characters that moved the story along whether solely driven by the characters…or well not.

  1. The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave, # 1) by Rick Yancey
  2. I Hunt Killers (Jasper Dent, # 1) by Barry Lyga
  3. Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin, # 1) by RL LaFevers
  4. Push (Push, # 1) by Claire Wallis
  5. Cinder (Lunar Chronicles, # 1) by Marissa Meyer
  6. A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, # 1) by George R R Martin
  7. Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky, # 1) by Veronica Rossi
  8. Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, # 1) by Katie McGarry
  9. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, # 1) by Jenny Han
  10. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

That’s it. I’m forcing myself to stop here instead of going over ten. Do you guys even know how hard that is for me? Some of these stories mentioned, have GREAT story lines that also drive them, but if not for the awesome characters found within the pages, these books wouldn’t be as successful as they are. Have you read any of these? What did you think? Do you have any character driven book recommendations for me? Let me know!

18 comments:

  1. Jasper Dent! I'm in the middle of the series now - and it totally wouldn't be as good without him!

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  2. I know, right? The whole series is really good, but all of the characters just make the story. Jasper and his fear of becoming his dad. Billy himself. Howie and Connie. Howie's humor is really needed to break up the seriousness of the book. Thanks for stopping by Kat.

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  3. Excellent list, lots of my TBR books are on here, and I'm really looking forward to getting to the Under the Never Sky series!

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  4. Oh...loved Under the Never Sky. Wasn't blow away by the last book in the series, but it was still a really good series all around. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  5. I kept finding books that I should have added to my list while I was visiting other blogs today too. A Song of Ice and Fire might be THE character driven series. :) Thanks for stopping by and commenting Benni!

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  6. Alex @ The Book BannerOctober 7, 2014 at 7:19 PM

    Oh Cinder is a really good choice and several of these other books are on my list to read!
    Thanks for stopping by my TTT.
    Alex @ The Book Banner

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  7. Seeing so many people picking Eleanor & Park -- quite right, too! Good list.

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  8. I've only read Cinder and Game of Thrones on this list, but a couple of the other ones are on my TBR!

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  9. Cinder and Pushing the Limits are great choices, I totally agree.

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  10. Grave Mercy! That is *such* a character driven series. I love it!
    Also even if most of them end up dead, ASoIaF is definitely a character driven series as well haha
    Great picks!
    - Kritika @ Snowflakes & Spider silk

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  11. Oh, Cinder is a great pick! (Also the only one of these I've read. But I want to read Grave Mercy - I even have a copy, on Kindle.)

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  12. Thanks Alex! Hope you get to read some of these others soon. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

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  13. I couldn't agree more. Thanks for stopping by Nikki!

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  14. I think the His Fair Assassin series has been moved up to my 2nd favorite YA series. So many good things about it. Oh yes...haha...the characters might get killed off, but it's still all about them! Thanks for stopping by and commenting Kritika!

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  15. Grave Mercy is awesome. The whole series really. There's so many good things about it. I promise everything you could possibly want in a book series is found in the His Fair Assassin series. Hope you get to read it soon! Thanks for stopping by and commenting Lark!

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  16. I love Game of Thrones, though somehow I've left it off my list. Every character--POV or not--has his or her own motivations. Nice list!

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