I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this but the kiddies are on Spring break over here in France. TWO WEEKS of Spring break, I might add. – A very long time to be around my darlings 24/7.
So, like with every school vacation, I prepared ahead of time – did my research and found a new adult urban fantasy series to get me through the hard days ahead. I really enjoy all types of genres but there’s something about an epic series full of life-or-death scenarios and creatures-that-go-bump-in-the-night characters that make taking my kids to the grocery store, or the town pool, playing hours of uno, or watching the same movie eleven times, well, not so bad in comparison.
That’s why February vacation was all about Jeri Smith Ready’s WVMP Vampire Radio. Christmas was dedicated to Patricia Brigg’s Mercy Thompson. Last summer I got lost in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels. And now, April vacation has arrived and I am knee deep in Chloe Neil’s Chicagoland Vampires.
However, something happened last night that has never happened to me before. Oh Ms. Neil – you are truly, heart-stakingly cruel.
She did it, ladies and gentlemen.
She killed off one of the characters that has been with us throughout four whole books. One of the MAIN characters. And not just any main character – the love interest. The guy who has won our heart over and over again. Gained our respect. Earned our everlasting loyalty.
He’s DEAD! Oh my. I sat there, kindle in hand and jaw dropped, reading the line over and over again. It couldn’t be true! Not him! Not now! How am I is she going to move on!?
Oh the rest of the book was painful reading. I’m not even sure if I want to order the fifth book in the series. But pure curiosity will probably win over. Plus – the series has seriously rocked up until now.
Did you ever have a moment where a character’s death brought on real-life shock and grief?
Besides this incident, I recall getting a little weepy when Rowling killed off one of the Weasley twins and the newly married couple who’d just had a baby. *sigh*
28 comments:
I did get a little weepy in the Harry Potter series. I wish I had time to read some adult fantasy. There's just too much MG & YA books on my TBR list.
I'm reading Vampire's Trill and the main characters true love is killed but he leaves her a stone where his spirit abides. That sucks though b/c they were a good a couple. Yeah. Books make me cry.
Yes, I completely agree with those three Harry Potter deaths. It was unnecessary, I think! Also the death in book 5. I mean, how could she do that?? Harry had already lost his parents and then she practically did it to him again. Heartless!!
It's tough when books start to be too much like real life! I'm trying to visit all the A-Z Challenge Blogs this month. My alphabet is at myqualityday.blogspot.com
Kids have way too many school breaks, don't they.
I have been known to go into mourning when a book breaks my heart.
I remember the feelings I had when a character I know died. I'm not going to reveal the character, but I was devastated by it all. It came at the most inopportune time, the saddest part of the book and the most emotional peak. It tore me up for a while.
Anyway, who wants pizza? :D
The deaths in the Harry Potter series definitely got to me. The ones you mentioned did. The ones I got really weepy on were Sirius Black and Dumbledore. It's amazing how deaths of book characters can affect us so strongly, but they do.
Claws by Will Weaver. I was stunned days for days after the mc's love interest unexpectedly died so close to the end. I had no clue that was coming.
Wow. Now that takes guts as an author! I think when Henry died in the Time Traveller's Wife... I was a mess.
Oh yeah. Some of those deaths in the HP series really tore me up. Also a couple in The Hunger Games (that one in the first book was hard but necessary, but why she did that in the last book was beyond me). Oh, and little Walt's death in The World According to Garp still makes me sad when I think about it. :sniffle: Beware the Undertoad.
The fantasy series Game of Thrones kills off main characters left and right. Then they come back to life in bizarre ways that is even more annoying.
I just read Ann Pachett's Bel Canto about a terrorist takeover at a fancy dinner party in a third world country. The hostages are held for months in a mansion and get to know their captors, fall in love with some of them and then, just as you start to love the terrorists too, something very bad happens.
Read George RR Martin - you'll get over this in a hurry.
Dumbledore. I still haven't gotten over his death.
Harry Potter had a couple of those, didn't it. Hedwig and Dobby both about killed me. But the other series that did it is the Tomorrow Series by John Marsden--a group of teens in Australia who end up being guerilla warriors when their country is invaded--there is a time in one of the middle books where a character sacrifices him/herself to save all his/her friends. I was reading it out loud to my daugher (I think she was 11) and I saw it coming and got all choked up. My DAUGHTER of course, had a lot less experience with how set-ups go, so I am bursting into sobs before it happens and it upset her so bad!
I like your preparation for Spring Break CQG.
I read the YA book War Horse a few months ago and was saddened when the young girl passed away--her kindness to the animals as violence surrounded her in WWI France was inspirational.
Oh when Boromir (LOTR) died! Poor man! He did what he did to save his people cos no-one else would help him!! :-(
Take care
x
I've gotten misty-eyed when I've had to kill my characters off through old age or other methods in the prime of life. In other people's books, I was sad when some of the characters in certain Hermann Hesse novels passed away at the end. I was also really shocked and saddened by the ending of Ida Vos's Dancing on the Bridge of Avignon, her only book that doesn't end with a happy reunion of parents and children after the war. The ending was really abrupt, and the brief Epilogue left more questions than answers, but the end was still shocking.
I love it when an author has the guts to do that to one of their major characters. Now if only I did.
It takes courage to kill off a MC. Brilliant move if you get the reader to cry over them though!
I still can't forgive Rowling for the Weasley twins.
GRR Martin has gotten both flack and praise for his willingness to hack away at his characters, no matter who or what.
I've been on a downward spiral with the A Song of Ice and Fire series since Ned's dastardly death in book one. I read book two but got stuck in book three, constantly thinking of other ways Martin could have instigated many of the incidents and tragedies that followed without taking my beloved - erm - Cat's beloved Ned away. Some things worked in my head, but I'm not the author so I let it be and also had to let it go for a while. I plan to pick the third book up again, but it wont' be with the same zeal I had before Ned died.
My daughter still wished that Sirius Black never died. She loved his character. I love when characters die because I love the emotion that comes with it. I hope that doesn't sound to weird. Because in real life it's not good at all. But I like seeing the characters fight their way back to hope.
I cried at the end of the Hobbit when the dwarf died. I realize how nerdy that is. I really liked him.
I've read a few books like that. Especially over a series, it's easy to grow attached.
Spoiler - it was really difficult when I killed one of the main characters in my first book. Still the hardest scene I've ever had to write.
I hate that. I think what I hate the most is knowing I am THAT involved.
Yeah, I can cry buckets of tears when a character I'm attached to dies. Not sure how that will help when you've got the kiddies, lol!
Denise
I didn't even remember that one of the Weasley twins died, but then again it's been a while since I read one of the books. That's so sad! I read a book once where the author killed off the love interest, and like you, I didn't like the author's decision to do that either. It makes it hard to like the book when I don't like certain things that the author chooses to do.
It's not a literary death, but one of my favourite characters from TV show 'Waking the Dead' died FOR NO REASON!
Still quite bitter about it actually.
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