Top Ten Tuesday: Thou Art a Villain

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is about amazing book villains. While there is no shortage of memorable villainish characters out there, I wanted to go a little bit of a different direction with my post and focus on stories that repaint a well-known villain or villain archetype as the story’s protagonist. So here we go.

Elphaba in Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

I feel like this list kind of had to include Elphaba, even though it’s not really a YA book (which is what I normally read and review). It’s a pretty dark book, but I was really fascinated with how Maguire incorporated the plot of the original Wizard of Oz story into this book and twisted things around to make a completely different story.

Raven Queen (daughter of the Evil Queen) in Ever After High books

This series was really fun and fast to read. My daughter and I read them together when she was in maybe third grade, and it was a blast.

Agnes in the School for Good and Evil series

School for Good and Evil is a little more serious (classical?) in its fairytale-ish-ness than Ever After High, which really just made me love it even more.

Kara in the In the Thickety books

I guess it’s not new for a witch to be the hero of the story, but I love the writing in this book and the creepy forest. Also, plot twists! I seriously need to finish reading this series.

Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos in The Descendants

Carlos DeVille pretty much stole the show for me in this book. I didn’t expect to be such a huge fan of a fairytale mash-up type cast, but now that I’m looking at my list, there are a bunch of those types of stories on here. And I really enjoyed them all. I could probably just do a top ten list of those.

Levana in Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Fairest was not my favorite book in the Lunar Chronicles, but it was cool to see a Levana origin story, and Marissa Meyer always does cool Easter egg type elements to her stories, so I enjoyed that aspect of it for sure.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Heartless is still on my to-be-read list. The Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland is one of those characters I can’t imagine being actually sympathetic, so I’m super interested to see what Meyer did with this one.

Xifeng in Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie Dao

Somehow I didn’t realize this was an evil queen origin story when I picked it up, so I was super confused by how dark it was. I kept wanting Xifeng to resist or thwart her dark destiny, and kept being disappointed when she didn’t. Then about halfway through the book I read somewhere that it was supposed to be a retelling of how Snow White’s stepmother came to be who she was, and I was like, ohhhhhhh. Suddenly it all made sense. After that, I got into the story a lot more.

Evie in Sea Witch by Sarah Henning

This one is still on my to-be-read list. I love the idea, though – an outcast witch girl who’s trying desperately to help someone only she ends up creating a big mess.

Vanessa in Rise of the Sea Witch by Stacey Rourke

Another from my to-be-read list. In this one, the Sea Witch and Triton are brother and sister, and it’s his treachery which provokes her to witch-y-ness. Yeah, I really have to read this.

Who are your favorite novel villains?

Leave me a comment with your top favorites or a link to your list!