If you think this post is a thinly veiled excuse to post more hot guy pictures, you are absolutely RIGHT. How do you know me so well?
Folks, I am a courageous blogger! I have taken it upon myself to create this post of literary deliciousness for your man candy viewing pleasure. It wasn’t always easy. I shuffled through hottie pics after hottie pics until my eyes (and my loins) were ready to burst into flames. I put myself in danger of excessive lust. All for you. All for you.
But the work of a saint (and yes, I was named after a saint. No joke, just destiny) is never done. There are too many literary hotties for me to catalog in one post, so if you think I missed your favorite man, comment away. Or you could make your own list and spread the goodness all over the internet.
The following are literary dudes that I’ve had a thing for and, like my mind, there are no trends, no logic, no order. I’ve drooled over noble Regency bucks like Mr. Darcy to sensitive high school beta males like Cameron Wolfe to chuvanistic pigs like Stanley Kowalski to evil incarnate types like Jean-Baptise Grenouille.
I’ve taken the liberty of dividing the dudes into two categories: Good Boys vs. Bad Boys.
GOOD BOYS
Nat Eaton
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.
Nat Eaton needs no introduction. He’s my first literary crush. Wiry, witty, knight-in-shining-armor-y, he’s my #1 hero boy and the reason why I can’t pass by a sailboat without staring off into the distance. Right now, Nat’s closest look-a-like is Cary Elwes via The Princess Bride.
Jamie Fraser
Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon
Do I really need to qualify why Jamie Fraser is the perfect man or, from the tally count of near fatal injuries he’s suffered throughout the Outlander series, the bionic man? Himself is like a Scottish Superman!
Gilbert Blythe
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
I coveted red hair so Gilbert could yank my pigtails and call me ‘Carrots.’ Oh and SQUEAL! Remember at the end of Anne of Green Gables when he brushed her hair oh so gently and said “I called you ‘Carrots’ because I liked you.” Then he CARESSED her hair and whispered, “Carrots.” As I’m typing this, I’m squealing like a Twilight fangirl. AHHHHHHH!!!
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Wet-puffy-shirt Colin Firth or Stroll-out-the-mist Matthew McFadyen? I opted for the latter because said Regency Buck’s slow-mo strolling out the mist gave me a lust attack the first time I saw this movie. My favorite Mr. Darcy quote: “My good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.”
Sydney Carton
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
He’s THE JACKEL, people, THE JACKEL. Were I Lucie Manette, I’d dump Charles Darnay in an insta-second for Sydney Carton. He lost his head for her! That’s love.
Cameron Wolfe
Fighting Ruben Wolfe and Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak
Cameron is the boyfriend I wished I had in high school. He’s like the caring guy in romantic comedies who loves the girl, but she loves the douche with date rape face, until bad boy breaks her heart and caring guy is there to pick up the pieces and bam! she realizes he’s the one all along. Cue musical montage.
Horatio Hornblower
Horatio Hornblower Novels by C.S. Forester
I cheated. I never read or never finished a Horatio Hornblower book, but I am lovin’ the idea of Hornblower.
This is probably an extension of my ‘boys on boats’ fetish from WOBP. He cuts a dashing figure, doesn’t he?
Okay, one day I will finish a H.H. book. Then we shall measure him next to the other men.
BAD BOYS
Steerpike
The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake
I sympathize with Steerpike despite his wickedness. He’s an antagonist more than a villain, though he did do a number of evil misdeeds: arson, poison, seduction, stabbing, tickling twins with his swordstick, killing random people with a slingshot. I am drawn to his ambition (?), the hotness of JRM in the mini-series (?), his swordsticking skills (?). I understand where he’s coming from. If only someone hugged him when he was a lowly kitchen boy, he would not have turned out maniacal and psychotic. If only someone would hug me…
Heathcliff
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Ditto the hug. Unloved child=evil head bangin’ landlord. But he LOVES Cathy, sure, they made each other miserable and he inadvertently killed her, but he said, and I quote “I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul!” Bangs head on tree. That’s …like…soul mate speak. Soul mates.
Mr. Rochester
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
He’s got a crazed wife stowed away in the attic and a French love child, what’s not to love?
Rhett Butler
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Oh, he’s a naughty one. Favorite R.B. line: “You should be kissed and often. And by someone who knows how.” Oh, I bet he knows how…
Second favorite R.B. line: “I’d like to see this girl…without her Mammy.”
Jett Rink
Giant by Edna Ferber
Haven’t read the book, but I worship the movie.
YOU. MUST. WATCH. THIS. MOVIE. And when I’ve climbed halfway up Mt. TBR, I’ll add the book to the stack.
I think I’m drawn to ambition, particularly when it’s used for evil. Jett is a Texan Heathcliff/Steerpike combo, proving once again that success is the best revenge.
Jean Baptiste Grenouille
Perfume, the Story of Murderer by Patrick Suskind
So what if JBG is evil incarnate? So what if he used his nasal superpower to slaughter 25 virginal girls to make the ultimate perfume? Okay, I can’t really explain why he’s on my list, but I am strangely drawn to both the book and movie version of this character. I um, I like his sneer.
Gentleman Rivers
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
He played those girls! Played them like a deck of cards.
Stanley Kowalski
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Animal magnetism, tight white t-shirt, and “Steeellllaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!” I wouldn’t want to be Stella and live under Stanley’s Napoleonic Code, or maybe I do. No, I don’t. Maybe I do. No, I don’t!
Brick Pollitt
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
He was so mean to his wife, so freaking mean, so freaking drunk, so many freaking clicks in his head. Brick’s on my list because Cat was my first Paul Newman movie and holyshit Paul Newman’s hot!!!
CRUSHABLE AUTHORS
Young Ernest Hemingway
I don’t like reading Hemingway, but I like looking at his WWI pictures. So clean cut, so sexy. In junior year, I use to have my literature book propped open to this picture (below) while the other girls swooned over N’Sync. The measure of a man is determined by how much shrapnel he could take in the leg.
Markus Zusak
In my mind, Markus the author is forever merged with his character Cameron Wolfe. Plus, he’s my boyfriend’s doppelganger.
John Green
I like nerds and nerdfighters! After reading Paper Towns, I dub John Green the Chuck Norris of the YA scene.