We all have that one character we identify with, whose life we’d love to experience and it’s usually one from either the book we are currently reading or the last book we read. Yet ask people to choose just one and suddenly it’s like being asked for your favourite child, almost impossible.
When we asked this very question we received almost 800 replies and although there were a number of people who just could not choose, we had hundreds of different suggestions.
Here are the top 50.

Scarlett O’Hara
It seems that hardship is no dampener when it comes to loving a character. Gone with the Wind is certainly no fairy story but Scarlett seems to have entranced many of you.
Hermione Granger
Well who wouldn’t want to be this rather spectacular young lady? Smart, sassy and brave J.K. Rowling wrote the perfect role model when she imagined this muggle born heroine.


Elizabeth Bennet
Pride and Prejudice was bound to appear in our list of favourite characters. Elizabeth is such a wonderfully rounded person and of course she is fortunate enough to live happily ever after with the original Mr Darcy.
Claire Fraser
A nurse, a Doctor and a Time Traveller? What’s not to envy of this character?


Thursday Next
Living in a parallel universe with her pet Dodo, Thursday is a favourite for 15 of you.
The Thursday Next Collection US
The Thursday Next Collection UK
Jo March
The principle character of Little Women, wordsmith and bookworm Jo was bound to be included in our list of literary lives we’d love to live.


Clary Fray
Pretty, petite and kick ass, that’s The Mortal Instruments’ Clary Fray.
Anastasia Steele
Really? There are eleven of you who would like to be Anastasia?


Annabeth Chase
The daughter of Athena, Annabeth is brave, bright and beautiful, oh and a demigod; now why would we want to live our lives as demigods? I can’t imagine!
Sansa Stark
And completing our featured top ten is a surprise for me, Sansa Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire. Me I’d be Arya every day of the week.

11. Harry Potter – Harry Potter
12. Anne Shirley – Anne of Green Gables
13. Luna Lovegood – Harry Potter
14. Laura Ingalls Wilder – Little House Books
15. Tessa Gray – Infernal Devices
16. Katniss Everdeen – The Hunger Games
17. Arwen Undómiel – LOTR
18. Celia Bowen – The Night Circus
19. Arya Stark – ASoIaF
20. Lucy Pevensie – Narnia
And after the featured top 20, here we take the list to the top 50 characters:
Albus Dumbledore – Harry Potter
Fitzwilliam Darcy – P & P
Anita Blake – Anita Blake Series
Sherlock Holmes – Sherlock Holmes
Randall Flagg – The Stand
Alice – Alice in Wonderland
Bella Swann – Twilight
Cinderella – Cinderella
Eve Dallas – In Death Series
Lyra Silvertongue – Northern Lights Trilogy
Eowyn – LoTR
Pippi Longstocking – Pippi Longstocking
Aelin Ashryver Galathynius – Throne of Glass
Percy Jackson – Percy Jackson
Ayla – Clan of the Cave Bear
Belle – Beauty and the Beast
Charlie Bucket – Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
Vin – Mistborn
Jane Eyre – Jane Eyre
Atticus Finch – TKaMB
Tris Prior – Divergent
Scout Finch – TKaMB
Ron Weasley – Harry Potter
Peter Pan – Peter Pan
Daphne Greengrass – Harry Potter
Susan Pevensie – Narnia
Dan Conway – Atlas Shrugged
Severus Snape – Harry Potter
Host – The Host
Christian Gray – Fifty Shades
Well after all of that, I have come to the conclusion that none of us want an easy life, do we.

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