TGIF at GReads!

Participating in all kinds of follow memes today, hoping to get back in the game.

First up: TGIF at GReads!

This week's questions:

If you could be one character from a book, who would you choose & why?

I'm going to borrow this idea from the original post and also break this up into categories:

Historical
If you've been on my blog before, you're probably tired of hearing me talk about my favorite book, Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley. But here we go again, because I would most likely want to be her, despite going through the Civil War, various husbands, and let's not forget - corsets. She also gets to travel a lot of the country/world, ends up living in Ireland, has a head for business, is absolutely loaded, and ends up with Rhett Butler. Overall, I think pros outweigh the cons.

Contemporary
Just about any Nora Roberts character from the last 10 years. I love her strong women, overcoming the odds with a sense of humor, business savvy (can you tell I want to open my own business someday?), love of dogs, straight-talking honesty, and eventual partnership.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy
This category is a tie and I'm going to cheat just a little. Lt. Eve Dallas from the ...In Death series by J.D.Robb (a.k.a. Nora Roberts) may live in NY, but it's not like the NYC we know. Set in the future, with all kinds of advancements like flying cars, interplanetary travel, and legalized prostitution, and despite the trauma of her early childhood, who wouldn't love her former bad-guy turned bad-ass husband, ex-thief turned rock n' roll star best friend, and the satisfaction of being NYC's top murder cop? But, in terms of an actual fantasy world, Jacqueline Carey's Phèdre nó Delaunay (Kushiel series) has the most true grit, determination, beauty, sexual adventures, and smarts of any character I've ever read.

Children's
Last but certainly not least, in the children's book category, let's break this down by age-appropriate book type:
Picture book: Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. Obviously I'd like to be Miss Rumphius, and hope I still can be someday. I just need to figure out what I can do to make the world more beautiful. I've got an idea. Stay tuned.
Middle Grade: Clementine (series) by Sara Pennypacker/illustrated by Marla Frazee. Precocious and intelligent, warm-hearted and artistic, she's not the easiest of children but her family and friends still love her.
YA: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. Aside from being the heroine of my favorite YA, Taylor Markham has a gender-neutral name (which I love), a plucky attitude, a sense of fairness, and simultaneous emotional strength and vulnerability. She also has a secret past to figure out, a present adventure involving secret tunnels and school wars, and a future with people who care about her.

TGIF - Book Tears

Fridays seem to be a popular day for memes. Two of my favorites are:

Literary Blog Hop by The Blue Bookcase and
Book Blogger Hop by Crazy-for-Books

Unfortunately neither of these blogs are hosting their weekly memes (as of this writing, maybe they will later in the day), so I went looking for a new thoughtful Friday question.

Luckily, I happened upon GReads! with the TGIF question:

Book Tears: Do you get emotional when you read? Which books had you in tears?

I am roughly 10 times more likely to cry at books and movies than in real life. In fact, if I know I need a certain type of emotional release, I've been known to pop in a vid or pick up a book that is guaranteed to make me start shedding those tears that would otherwise never see the light of day (or the bedside lamp at 2 a.m.).

The first book I remember making me cry was Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery. I won't give away any spoilers, but as we all know, when there's a war going on (like there is in Rilla), some go away to fight and some never come back. It was such a pivotal moment in my life when I realized I was absolutely heartbroken, just like Rilla, and I had the ability to release those emotions like that.

Since then, I relish a good crying book, to the point where there are some I'll read at least once a year just to reassure myself that connection is still there. I may win an award for how many times I can mention the same book throughout one blog, but Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta makes me literally sob - not that pretty, just one or two tears running down your cheeks, movie sort of crying, but the going through an entire box of tissues, can't read for the fountain of tears pouring from your eyes, having your roommate knock on the door to ask if you're okay type of crying. Every. Single. Time.

Truth & Beauty by Anne Patchett also had me in tears, in a big part because this is a work of non-fiction, and the love and friendship and grief and reckoning described throughout the book is made so much more powerful by the fact that it is a true story.

I honestly can't remember the last book that made me cry. Maybe it's just Friday morning-almost-the-weekend brain, because I'm pretty sure I cried at one fairly recently, and they were happy tears, too, though admittedly I'm more likely to sad-cry than happy-cry. Maybe it will come to me. If it does, I promise to report back to you.

I'm curious - are you more likely to sad-cry or happy-cry?