This weeks book chat question:
What character are you most like?

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This was an interesting question.  I didn't put much thought into picking it as a question...just kinda threw it out there.  But now I'm glad I did.  And here's why...

It's hard to just pick a fictional character that is like you because most novels involve a character going through something dramatic/exciting/sad/amazing/etc.  Something worth reading.  If someone wrote a novel about a 28 year old Army wife who spent her days playing with a toddler and writing a blog, I probably wouldn't read it.  So, it's hard to say, "Oh yeah, me & this girl are just alike" when that girl is living 100 years in the past or the future and there are robots or talking lions or whatever.  You get the jist.  Placing your reality in the context of a radical fiction is a hard pill to swallow.  However. Finding similarities between these characters and ourselves is half the fun.  Finding someone who reacts the same way I would when placed in extreme situations is what makes reading fiction so enjoyable.  Connecting so intimately with words on a page...it's magic. 
((I over think a bit, can ya tell??))

So...then it kinda jumped off the screen and hit me.

Clare

Clare is a hopeless romantic.
She is stubborn.
She is youthful.
She is often left behind.

Yes, I think I can understand her very well.  

“Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?” 
-Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 

My husband does not travel time, but I can certainly feel a parallel here.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I read this novel during a deployment and I cried.  Like a little baby, I cried with Clare.  I am grateful to Niffenegger for creating a fictional character who got me.  Who embodied fear and loneliness but stayed strong and maintained her self.  A girl at war with time.  A wife who must surrender to the hours and days that stretched before her with nothing to do but wait.  I didn't want to read a book about a deployment but I needed a character like Clare.  A story like theirs.  Where love prevails and a couple can overcome the brutal torture of time.  The great thing about fiction is it can heal us without us even knowing it. 

Honestly didn't intend on getting so emotional with that one. 
...
So yeah!
BTW...I chose a fictional character.  If you chose a biography/nonfiction, no problemo.
Please share.


Here's the question for next week!
For 3/15/12:
If you could live in any book (time, place, setting, people), what would it be?

Ok.  Link up below for this week's book chat.
Let's see what you have, friends!


 Don't forget to enter to win a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card!
 

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