Last night was another record setter for votes, with many of you coming out to speak for your favorite lady heroines. I’m not sure there will be any surprises in the results, but I’d like the Pratchett fans to go ahead and sit down or get a bowl of comfort pudding or the like.
To begin, here are your winners from last night.
In the YA Fantasy/Sci-fi/Dystopia division, one Ms. Lyra Belaqua beats the underdog Tiffany Aching, but the latter didn’t go down without a fight.
In the YA Fiction division, Ramona Quimby wiped the floor with Frankie Landau Banks, but I’m pretty sure Ramona would have been a tough contender against any of the YA fiction badasses. Ramona is one tough cookie.
In the Adult Fantasy/Sci-fi/Dystopia division, Vivianne ends up victorious over Esmerelda Weatherwax in spite of her early lead.
Finally, in Adult Fiction, Kate pulls off the first major upset, knocking out #4 seat Hester Prynne. (WHAT?)
I think we all need a dixie cup of the good box wine from behind the server after that.
Here’s your new bracket, RIP to the ladies who we’ve said goodbye to tonight. *insert cheesy empowering pop song montage here*
Click to access Middlemarchmadnessbracket6.pdf
And here is tonight’s poll, introducing overall favorites Katniss Everdeen and Lisbeth Salander.
14 replies on “Middlemarch Madness Voting Day 6: Threes v. Fourteens”
How could Kate have beaten Hester? I demand a recount!
I think I have to sit out this round of voting – I only know two of the characters. Lucy v. Katniss is a hard one because although I love their books, I didn’t really like either of them. To be honest, I actively dislike Katniss…so I guess I’d vote Lucy? Eh.
Apparently I need to read this Discworld business – its characters keep popping up and I’ve no clue who they are!
Portia? Really?
—My exact words because once again, of all the Shakespearean heroines…ugh.
Anyway, here’s the deal with Remy/why I read This Lullaby in one sitting at age 15 and have loved it ever since: Remy isn’t like many YA girls/women, in that she is more at the center of her social circle than on the outside. She’s presented as more confident, more popular, more like the girls others want to be. I remember reading a quote from Sarah Dessen about how this was actually her starting point: she wanted to write about a character unlike those at the center of pretty much all her other books (which are all wonderful, by the way).
Anyway, her central flaw is that after watching her romance novelist mother get married and divorced something like 6 (or more?) times, she distrusts the possibility of lasting, committed relationships, and acts accordingly, enjoying boys, but moving on before it gets particularly serious.
Long story short, that mostly changes when she meets the “right” guy (Dexter, aka my favorite Dessen boy), but that’s not the point — she holds her own, and moves through her growth at her own pace. A large portion of the book takes place when she is not with Dexter, but also not moping around, feeling sorry for herself, like so many characters do when they’re not with THE ONE. And even in the end, when she comes around, she still leaves home for Stanford and gets on with her life. She doesn’t change everything for someone else.
She’s also got solid, realistic relationships with her girl friends. They have their rituals and their shared experiences, but not in a cheesy makes you want to bang your head against something hard kind of way. Most of all, she’s not perfect and occasionally kind of bitchy, and manages to straddle the reality of not always nice, but not Queen Wench, either.
…Now I want to re-read This Lullaby. (I read it in one sitting after I bought it at age 15. I cut my summer Spanish class and spent all day on the couch at my local library.)
Comments like this remind me every day why we started Persephone. : )
In short, REMY FTW! :)
Did Esmerelda Weatherwax get voted on yesterday? She’s listed in the contenders for today and the results. I don’t read the series though so perhaps there’s two people of this name.
Oh crap, nope, editor error. By Esmerelda Weatherwax I meant Adora Belle Dearheart.
I don’t know anything about Remy, does one of her fans want to tell us a little about her or This Lullaby?
Emily Emily Emily.
every. single. time.
apparently Lucy Maud loved Emily even more than Anne… I’m not sure I do but she comes very close.
when I first read the books as a young’n I was so intent on learning how to smile like Emily – that smile that just grew until it filled her whole face. I looked pretty ridiculous.
Ugh, Lisbeth Salander… such an awful series.
I am so glad that I am not the only person in the world who thinks that. Portia would kick Lisbeth’s ass six ways to Sunday while reciting an epic poem.
To be honest, I’m really glad to know that as well. I very often feel like the lone dissenter as well.
Totally agreed re: Portia.
Portia would kick her ass and then give her an eloquent lecture on what ethical purpose it served.
Then she’d go drink some tea and get that dirt off her shoulder.
I’m a HUGE Portia fan, but I love Lisbeth as well. I definitely could see why other people wouldn’t like, though.
It wasn’t even Lisbeth so much as the fact that the entire series was a poorly written self-insert fantasy… feminist, not so much.