Who are your favorite fictional characters?
By EmmaLovesBooks
I really don’t want to lose my momentum, and I feel like I’m finally on a reading streak like I’ve never had before. I just finished my first Stephen King book, *The Shining*… and yeah, it was good and I couldn’t put it down. But I also feel like the whole thing might be kind of overdone. I hadn’t seen the movie first, so I don’t know if he was the original or what, but I didn’t really connect with the characters much. They felt kind of flat to me, and I didn’t get that real grief/empathy feeling for any of them. I guess I liked Dick Holleran best, but even he felt a little stereotypical. One thing I’ll give King credit for though: the way he describes alcoholism hit me hard, since it’s something I’ve dealt with personally. Still, it also made me want to really fall for characters the way I did with Min Jin Lee’s *Pachinko*. Her writing and the way the story goes across generations just makes you feel like you’re in their heads—even if some parts are maybe “stereotypical,” it still works because you’re actually walking around in their experience. Anyway, I’m curious—who are your favorite fictional characters and what makes them stand out to you? And do you think you can truly build real characters without the whole generational storyline thing?