Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.
Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.
This week’s topic was tricky for me because I’m not a huge fan of redemption arcs in most cases. Too often they’re used to brush terrible choices under the rug due to the villain having a sad or tragic backstory. I’ve known plenty of people who have similar histories but who have consciously chosen to break those patterns and live gentle, good lives.
So it irritates me a little bit when a villain is given a pass for choosing to inflict the pain they felt onto new victims. There are so many other ways to create well-rounded characters in my opinion that don’t make the assumption that experiencing X somehow makes it okay for you do it to someone else.
And yet I must stick to the topic at hand and answer Long and Short Review’s question. 😉
Therefore, I’m going to with Agatha Trunchbull from Roald Dahl’s Matilda. She was the headmistress of the school Matilda attended, and yet she truly seemed to hate her job and children in general.
Given that this book was written in 1988 but could have been set a few decades before that, I wonder if Trunchbull ended up in teaching because women weren’t welcomed in the career that would have actually fit her.
This isn’t an excuse for the way she treated her students or employees at all. She was a horrible administrator who should have been fired years earlier.
But I do wonder if her gender and severe lack of patience with children set her up for failure, especially after a couple of decades of being trapped in a job that was such an awful fit for her personality and interests.
It would have been nice to have that closure for her. Maybe she became a kinder and happier person after she was (rightfully) forced to leave Matilda’s school? What do you all think?
I’ve been abandoning books more regularly these past few months. Have any of you noticed the same thing about your reading habits
Halloween is by far my favourite holiday of the year for the following reasons:
Halloween Films Are Creative and Unsentimental. No offence to anyone who likes sentimental films, they’re simply not my cup of tea.
1. Mainstream authors would be welcome, too, but I’d put a special focus on inviting indie authors so everyone could have the chance to discuss books they might never have otherwise heard of.
The problem with the sequels to me was how repetitive they were. Types of characters, conflicts, and even certain sorts of plot twists from the Mists of Avalon were recycled so often in the later books that I lost interest.
My list is a short one this week. One of the things my parents did marvellously when I was growing up was providing their kids with a wide range of reading material. I read just about everything I could get my hands on.
Occasionally, I’ve had to step into the road for a moment to get past that wall of obliviousness because they won’t even acknowledge a polite “excuse me!” (If concerned elders of my family read this, please note I only do it as a last resort on very quiet streets).
I decided to add what genre of music I think these imaginary bands would play, too!
I chose all of these characters for one reason: they’d be fabulous dinner companions. Any one of them would be filled with interesting anecdotes about their lives.
I don’t know about you all, but I tend to gush about the same books over and over again. Â It was fun to look through the lists of books I’ve read in the past and pick out a few that I generally don’t mention.