The Hamilton Book Tag

Okay, so this tag might be over a year old. But our love for Hamilton never dies, amiright, gang? So, I’ve just got to do this tag.

Harry Potter is an obvious answer, but who wouldn’t want to live in the Wizarding World? Westeros is too dangerous, and Middle Earth doesn’t have indoor plumbing. shakes head Living in the world of Harry Potter might be dicey under the reign of Voldemort, but otherwise, it’s a blast. You can go to Hogwarts, shop at Diagon Alley and Hogsmede, work for the Ministry, or Gringotts, or wrangle dragons in Romania like Charlie Weasley … I’d definitely like to live in a world where I could use a Summoning spell whenever I don’t want to get up and reach.

Even though His Dark Materials is widely loved, it still doesn’t have enough fans for my liking — I never run into people who adore these books as much as I do (though maybe Pullman writing a sequel trilogy will help more people discover the utter loveliness of the original!), so I’m choosing Lyra Belacqua as my underrated female character.

Those of us who know about her obviously adore the little brat, but she’s so often forgotten when we talk about great female characters. Lyra is tough, stubborn, a bit of a bully, and makes some grievous mistakes that lead to horrible consequences; but she cares deeply for her friends and selflessly puts her life at risk to stop what she knows is wrong.

Blue van Meer from Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Blue is out to piece together the mysterious circumstances of her late teacher’s sudden (and suspicious) suicide, and she really doesn’t care what intricate web of lies she has to uncover to get there. This has some pretty serious consequences, and kind of rips her life apart, but she doesn’t care how painful the secret might be — she has to know.

Oof, this would have to be His Dark Materials once again. If you’ve read The Amber Spyglass, you know exactly what I mean:

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“I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again…”

“I’ll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one’ll ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you…We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pin trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams…And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight…”

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Like I said. Oof.

I can’t actually think of a sassy villain? Most villains that come to mind are repugnant or violent, not … sassy. (The only person I can think of is Hades from Disney’s Hercules, for whatever reason.)

I’ve been blindsided by so many books. I’m not a person who theorizes on what’s going to happen–I never try to solve the mystery myself, for example; I always just plow through the book as fast as humanly possible, like it’s an ice cream sundae under a hot lamp I’m trying to scarf down before it melts. So, book twists usually shock the hell out of me, because I never stop and squint to see them coming.

More Happy Than Not I went into this book completely blind, at the tail end of a 24 hour Readathon — and my brain was EXPLODED. There are so many twists in this book, it’s a regularly twisty straw of pain and feelings.

Rebecca I love this book so much. I was reading it late one night, almost 2 in the morning, and when that moment happens, and you learn the truth about Rebecca, and that chapter ends with “Will you look me in my eyes and tell me that you love me now?” … I YELLED, closed the book, went to the kitchen, made myself a sandwich, and went straight back to my chair to finish the novel. I knew I was staying up until dawn.

As Meat Loves Salt Another book with a twist that, in retrospect, I was so angry at myself for not seeing coming. When people tell you who they are, listen.

The Great Gatsby. What was most shocking about the ending of the Great Gatsby to me is that, after ninety some years of this book existing as a ~classic book that everyone reads~ no one had ever mentioned the ending to me. And I honestly don’t know if that’s because there’s some unsaid agreement amongst Gatsby readers not to spoil the ending, or if some of the people who say they read it … haven’t. Because you’d think [Spoiler:Gatsby ] dying would’ve been common knowledge, a hundred years later.

1984. Another classic book with an Act 3 twist I (probably stupidly) didn’t see coming. I really liked the character who ultimately betrays Winston, and was hoping they were going to be involved in some counterinsurgency rebellion against the government, so I felt like an idiot when the twist came.

Percy Jackson. I came about a decade late to the Percy Jackson novels, but once I started reading them, I devoured all five in the initial series in a matter of days. I haven’t gone on to the later novels, though I really should.

I’ll Give You The Sun is an absolutely beautiful book that joggles between a sister and her younger brother, one in the present, the other in the past, as they deal with the events leading up to and following their mother’s death. The language in this book is utterly gorgeous, and the way the story weaves between the two viewpoints (and two time periods) is ridiculously well done.

A Song of Ice and Fire. Even though some of the POVs are more strenuous to slog through than others (halfway through Clash of Kings, I just stopped reading Theon’s chapters, I’m sorry), I do really appreciate the breadth of scope the multiple narrators give the story, allowing to see far-flung parts of Westeros through so many different eyes. As a reader, you have to figure out what a character might not be seeing, might not understand, might be concealing, to best understand what’s really going on.

Harry Potter, definitely, 100%. It shaped an entire generation.

Um. I would resurrect such a huge graveyard of Harry Potter characters, I would turn the Wizarding World into the Walking Dead.

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I tag … everyone reading this post! If you do this tag, link me in the comments so I can see your answers. Or, tell me some of your answers in the comments — What was the biggest plot twist you’ve ever read? A book series you marathoned in a single settle? And, the ultimate question: if you could resurrect a single fictional character, who would you bring back to life?? Leave a comment below, let’s talk!