Top Ten Characters I’d Like to Check In With

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. Every week, they post a new Top Ten topic and other bloggers respond with their own lists. I take part in this meme when I have something to say for the topic and I remember what day it is.

I love this prompt a lot. We all have those series that we just can’t believe ended, and epilogues are never enough of a (hopefully happy) ending. Here are some of the characters that I want to check in on and see how they’re doing in their lives once their stories ended. Admittedly, most of these are couples who I want to see have good, peaceful times together (rather than life and death and trauma). And for most of these, I want entire novels, not just a quick “check in.”

1. Viola and Todd from Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy

The ending of these books KILLED ME! There is no way to describe how much I NEED TO KNOW what happens next.

2. Everyone from Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

This book actually had a great epilogue that gave the reader a window into each of the characters’ later lives, but I want more! I need another book–another series! I love these girls so much.

3. Puck and Sean (and Corr) from Scorpio Races by Maggie Steifvater

There is a great line which foreshadows the ending of this book, said by the American visitor to the island, that goes something like (forgive my awful memory), “Next year, you’ll have a barn of your own and Puck in your bed and I’ll buy from you instead of Malvern”–and I need this to be true. I need to see it happen. They are the cutest couple ever, but you don’t see a lot of them actually being together, especially in the aftermath of the climax of the book.

4. Anna, Lola, and Isla (and their BFs) from the Anna and the French Kiss series by Stephanie Perkins

(Side note: can we decide on a title for this series? I have no idea what to call it…) I fell in love with these characters and loved the glimpses of each of them you caught in the others’ books, but, of course, I want more stories of all of them reuniting and being amazing together.

5. Gemma in the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray

Gemma is one of my favorite protagonists, and the ending of A Sweet Far Thing was traumatic and hopeful at the same time, and I’d love to see where Gemma ends up.

6. Del and Livia from Going Underground by Susan Vaught

This couple is so perfectly sweet, I think checking in on them would just make me smile.

7. Harry, Ron, and Hermione from Harry Potter by JK Rowling

This goes without saying. More HP books would only improve the universe, and I would love to spend more time with this amazing trio.

8. The characters in Every Day by David Levithan

The ending of this book was strange but sweet, impossibly perfect actually, and I think it would be fascinating to see how their relationship progressed past the last pages. (I know that this one is vague, but the ending is very specific and I don’t want to spoil anything…)

9. Persis and Justen from Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund

This book is based entirely on the dramatic irony of Persis’s secret identity as the Wild Poppy. The reveal only happens at the very end of the book, and I’m dying to see the full repercussions of her secret being exposed. (Basically, I just need all the people who underestimated her to have to eat their words…)

10. Everyone in Peace, Love and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle

This book is emotionally tense, with the relationships between most of the characters deteriorating before the climax. Hopefully, checking in on these characters would show some of them growing back into the closeness that they had the beginning of the story, and gaining confidence that they lacked throughout the book.