Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish once a week, and this week’s list is character’s who have lost one, or both, of their parents. I know this is a morbid one, but I realised a while back that quite a few characters in books have lost at least one parent, so I decided to make a really strange game out of it. Here is a list of the first ten characters that came to my head that have lost one, or both, of their parents.
Number one: Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series
This is an obvious one, as I think everyone thought about him at first, and I don’t think needs any explanation.
Number two: Teddy Lupin from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
I thought of him straight after Harry, probably because his mirrors Harry’s as he lost both his parent’s in a wizarding war.
Number three: Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanna Collins
She only lost her father, but I still feel like this is very important in making her the girl she was.
Number four: Eddy Cohen from The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman
I probably thought of this because I read this recently, and Eddy losing his mother is a big part of his story and helps define him.
Number five: Jane Eyre from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre grew up as an orphan living with her aunt, and as this is one of my favourite books of all time I couldn’t leave it out.
Number six: Fire from Kristin Cashore’s Fire
Fire never knew her mother, but she is dead. But her father is a different story as she sort of ‘helped’ her father die, if you get what I mean.
Number seven: Theo Decker from The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
What spurs this book on is him losing his mother, and the love for his mother is the reason behind a lot of choices Theo makes.
Number eight: Alex Rider from Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series
Alex spent most of his life living with his uncle, so you can see why I thought of him.
Number nine: Cassie from The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Cassie technically lost her parents during the book, but she came to mind when I began writing the list, so I thought I could still add her.
Number ten: Harry August from The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
This was one of my favourite books of last year, so I couldn’t miss out on adding Harry August. And I feel as if he has definitely earned the right to be on this list since he has lost his parents several times (the joys of reliving the same life over and over again).
What’s the first character that springs to mind when you think of lost parents? Do you have a Top Ten Tuesday list of your own? If so leave the link to it in the comments so I can check it out.
I am loving seeing the different choices everyone has made for topics! This one is excellent. My list would include Kinsey Milhone from Sue Grafton’s ABC mystery series. And the children in The Books of the Beginning series.
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It is interesting seeing what people’s ideas have been for their lists. And I’ve heard of the The Books of the Beginning series but I’ve never really looked into them.
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I listen to audio books with my boys in the car. We picked Emerald Atlas (the first book) because it was narrated by Jim Dale. They are really good. The third (and last) book just came out.
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I’ll definitely check that out. Thank you 🙂
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Such a on point topic for books. A lot of books tend to have characters who have lost someone, especially main characters. I’m glad that you added Teddy Lupin. Poor kid 😦
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At least Teddy has a loving family to look after him and raise him *cough* unlike Harry *cough* (sorry)/
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Awesome Topic!! I also included Cassie from the Fifth Wave because she went through emotional loss. Check out my Top Ten Tuesday
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The only books I’ve read on here are those from the Harry Potter series. I hope I can read the other books soon!
Lizzie @ lizziethesarcasticblonde.blogspot.com
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Oh Teddy Lupin… Makes me sad every time I think about it!
I really want to read The First 15 Lives of Harry August and The Goldfinch, definitely on my TBR list.
Great list!
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The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is the better out of the two and I definitely recommend it. Thank you! 🙂
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This isn’t cheery at all! Funny enough, I was going to go with characters who are orphans, but it just depressed me that I found it really easy to come up with ten characters.
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You’ve got to love English sarcasm and trickery! It is sad that ten orphaned characters are easy to think of, but I wanted to know which ten would first come to mind.
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