April's Challenge

[Anita]

April is here and this month's challenge is our namesake challenge! Read a book with a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. There are a couple of difficulties with this challenge in particular, so I wanted to give you a little opener and perhaps a couple of lists and links.

First things first: What is a Mary Sue character?
The definition has evolved and changed, but the general consensus is that the Mary Sue was born in a Star Trek episode in which a young girl is a prodigy. She's too good to be true, she's a genius, she's attractive, she ends up with it all and with the one guy that is perfect and has it all. Variations have taken her through rags-to-riches storylines, and the love triangle.

She can also be a He and this variation is most readily applied to James Bond. Or Batman. As in super masculine, super tough, gets all the ladies (who invariable die so he can not be physically tied down but shows us that he would settle down if he could because he's capable of love), has the tech, has the money, has the cajones.

There is a pretty decent overview of the definition and variations at the beginning of my following list of Mary Sues.

A relatively large conflict within the definition is wish fulfillment or insertion of the author into the story. I'd really like everyone to recognize that the character tends to get it all, and this can lead to a lot of haters gunna hate drama. I personally don't get caught up in this hating and focus more on the author insertion. Two of the most obvious examples (IMO): Bella Swan from Twilight (and let's be honest Edward is total Gary Stu potential if the book had been written from his PoV) and Wade Watts from Ready Player One. I don't hate either of these characters (as some may), but I can easily recognize the authors inserting pieces of themselves into their stories and then making everything magically fall into place as they helicopter parent their self-babies.

Which leads to the next problem: How can you tell if your book has a Mary Sue or Gary Stu if you haven't read it yet?!
No worries, we're all friends here. And this is a book club. So here is a GoodReads listopia list of The Mary-Sues of Literature and The Gary-Stus of Literature. Although, the Gary Stu list is more of a compilation of both. Both of these lists have a summary to help you decide what may constitute a Mary Sue and Gary Stu character.

Check out the lists, see what you see. I think this is a great month to cross recommend to each other since it is hard to tell without reading the book. What Mary Sues and Gary Stus have you read that are worth reading? Maybe you'll find a new one from someone else, or help someone find their new Mary Sue!

Happy Reading!

[Radclyffe U-Haul]

I probably won't have time to read it this month but I think Cocaine Blues would qualify-- I've only seen a couple episodes of the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries TV show but as far as I can tell she's basically lady James Bond (except as a detective). (I don't mean that in a negative way, it's actually refreshing!).

[Anita]

Pigeonsquid wrote: "I probably won't have time to read it this month but I think Cocaine Blues would qualify-- I've only seen a couple episodes of the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries TV show but as far as ..."

Lady James Bond?! Sold. I added Cocaine Blues to my to-read list :) Thanks! And a great take on the Mary Sue character.

After looking through the lists, I'm sensing a general theme of the hated Mary Sue that has maybe one thing she's alright at and is "mysteriously" attractive to the opposite sex. Why do people love to hate so much? I'd love to see some recommendations that fall outside of this Mary Sue canon and pop genre. A couple that I've seen from fantasy:
Wizard's First Rule
The Name of the Wind

As a lover of fantasy, I'd have to say that most of it could probably safely be viewed as author insertion and wish fulfillment. For example, the Dragonlance Chronicles literally sprung from the authors' D&D games. It doesn't really get more self-baby than that. I'm definitely not hating, just stating!

So feel free to look outside of the general popular reads, and recommendations will really help out this month.

[Radclyffe U-Haul]

I guess I understand why some people prefer characters to be Complicated and Interesting but honestly I mostly just want to read about (/watch) people having fun and adventures and shit. I feel like the "Mary Sue" tag tends to be applied to any female character who isn't super grimdark and "realistic". And honestly, are all fictional characters fundamentally "self-insert"?

[Anita]

There's definitely controversy over the Mary Sue character and even the application of the label itself. I've noticed that It's an especially difficult subject with writers, as I was looking at articles and discussions on it for this month's challenge.
I suppose it could be argued that fiction characters are fundamentally self-insert, but I think there's a distinct difference between allowing yourself to influence your writing (you know the old argument of whether anyone can be truly objective) and inserting yourself into a character. This month's challenge is a good opportunity for the group to discuss and recommend their unique takes on the definition of this type of character too.

[Alisha]

I was planning on reading The Selection. It was recommended by my co-workers. I know very little about it but noticed it was on the list for Mary-Sue characters.

[Brittany]

I think I'm just gonna keep this theme on the back burner, if I read something with a Mary Sue I'll definitely post about it but I don't think I'm gonna go looking for one.

[Jennifer]

Mine was The Awakening of Sunshine Girl. She didn't so much strike me as a Mary in the first book, but towards the middle of book 2 she definitely qualified as a Mary Sue.

I like a good Mary Sue sometimes, when the writer knows how to develop the character. I think that a lot of people are down on Marys and Garys because they're thinking of books where there's not a lot of real character development and the character is just "perfect" to begin with and never changes. I've been discussing Mary Sue characters on a facebook thread recently where a guy absolutely hates the idea of them despite never actually picked up a book with a good Mary or Gary.

[Anita]

Jennifer wrote: "I like a good Mary Sue sometimes, when the writer knows how to develop the character. I think that a lot of people are down on Marys and Garys because they're thinking of books where there's not a lot of real character development and the character is just "perfect" to begin with and never changes. I've been discussing Mary Sue characters on a facebook thread recently where a guy absolutely hates the idea of them despite never actually picked up a book with a good Mary or Gary..."

I've seen a lot of people get hung up on the character as a bad thing and kind of immediately reject it as soon as they hear the phrase, "Mary Sue character." I don't know where, when, or why that is (like the second you say feminist some people just lose their shit?). I just thought it was a type of character. I don't even see it as a bad thing. I had nothing against Wade Wyatt from Ready Player One, and I really liked that book.

So, like I said, I think it'll be interesting to read everyone's different takes on the character and the different variations of the character people read for this month's challenge.

I'm reading Speak this month and was surprised to see it on the list of Mary Sue books, so two birds with one stone as they say.

[Alisha]

I gave up on reading The Selection. I didn't really find America Singer to be a Mary Sue unless you count the fact that she sings well? Or that people seem to like her easily? Anyone else read this book or series and think she was a Mary Sue?

[Jennifer]

Alisha wrote: "I gave up on reading The Selection. I didn't really find America Singer to be a Mary Sue unless you count the fact that she sings well? Or that people seem to like her easily? Anyon..."

I read the book and I really liked it but I honestly don't really think about characters being a Mary (or Gary). It's a pretty fluid idea to me because a Mary Sue to me is generally the girl who starts out a book defining herself as the clumsy, no date having uggo (because she is never actually ugly) and then may a quarter of the way through finds she's the only hope for the human race/magical/gifted etc and without any formal training becomes amazing.

Other people might have a more lax idea.

Like I said, I love a good Mary Sue, but I try not to focus on whether the character is or isn't unless it hits me in the face repeatedly like my book choice did.

[Anita]

Okay, so I'm currently reading Speak, but I'm not going to use this as a Mary Sue read. I don't know how this title found its way onto the list, but I'm just not feeling it as a Mary Sue character at all.

Moving on. I just finished Glass Sword (which is book 2 in the Red Queen series), and in hindsight, Mare Barrow is definitely a Mary Sue type character. She is introduced to us as a poor, living in the slums, barely getting enough to eat, stealing to survive type of girl in Red Queen). "Girl" is one of her most used descriptive points. She turns out to be the first person that has this unique talent, which is unheard of because of her blood. Rises up to palace life, pampered, groomed, all that good stuff. Then, politics politics war, she's the face of a revolution... you get it. It was a fine book with a great story.

By book two, she is completely emotionally "hardened" (read: ruined?) and there is much love angles going on. I had a hard time reading the second book but mostly because of the writing. The story is still good to me, I love political/revolutionary worlds. Any fan of The Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight and probably the Cress series (I dunno, I haven't read those) would probably love this series.