Relatable Book Characters ~ Mental and Physical Health
{This is a repost of an article I wrote last year but was published on my old blogger site and as it’s an article I really like, I wanted to transfer it over to here. This article contains Affiliate links.}
**Please Note There Will Likely Be Some Spoilers For The Books I'm Going To Talk About**
Hello friends,
Like many people, I generally use reading as a form of escape from real life, but it is always comforting to come across characters who may be struggling with something similar to yourself. So I thought I'd share a few of my favourite characters with you; some you may not be familiar with, some you may never have made the connection to having Mental or Physical health issues and some you may know well.
Hazel Grace Lancaster ~ The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
I thought I'd start off with Hazel Grace as she's probably the one many people are familiar with. Hazel Grace is 16 years old and has Cancer. While I don't have Cancer, I do find Hazel quite relatable in the way that she's accepted her life with the illness and the fact that it in many ways defines who she is and what she's able to do.
For many people living with chronic illness, our lives are determined by the limits of our body and we can't simply choose to ignore it and carry on as normal or not let it define us in some way. No one in the book ever tells Hazel to stop focusing on her illness and this is a nice reminder that being defined by your condition and having a life centred around your health is completely okay.
I think a stand out quote and one I think many who have read the book or even seen the film adaptation will be familiar with is "Pain demands to be felt" and if you live with chronic pain, you know this to be absolutely true!
Beth March ~ Little Women and Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott
Usually when you think of Little Women, Jo March will come to mind. However, during a re-read of the book last year, I felt Beth was the one that I found more relatable, in the past it had been Jo. In Little Women, Beth becomes sick with Scarlet Fever and her health is never the same and this leads to her eventual death in Good Wives. In certain conversations she has with Jo, Beth speaks about not making plans about what she'd do when she grew up like her sisters. But I think the most relatable thing Beth says in the books is "When I saw you all so well, and strong, and full of happy plans, it was hard to feel that I could never be like you, - and then I was miserable..."
Chronic illness can turn your life around and everything you had planned comes crashing down. It can be incredibly hard watching friends and family do all the things you hoped you'd do with your life but because of your health, you can't anymore. Beth creates for herself a life at home, helping out around the house and is happy at her daily chores. Although the quote above shows she, at times, felt sad about her situation, for the most part, I feel Beth accepted how her life was and found contentment. Something many in the chronic illness community are doing as well.
Cyra Noavek ~ Carve The Mark / The Fates Divide by Veronica Roth
From all the characters I'm telling you about, Cyra is my favourite. I won't go into the ins and outs of the universe in the books but basically everyone has something called a "Currentgift" and Cyra's causes her to be in constant pain and she can also cause pain to others by touching them. Chronic pain is something Veronica Roth is familiar with and you can tell she's used her own experience when writing about Cyra.
Being in constant pain makes you very aware of every part of your body and in reading Cyra's chapters and dialogue in these two books, you see that reflected. Cyra has found that the best way to deal with her pain is to move her body, so she trains in combat most days. But she also shows how debilitating and exhausting being in constant pain is, relying on pain killers which can make her feel sick. A pay off many will understand in order to find some relief.
While she has moments where she just lets herself break, showing that there is strength in doing so, she also has this "keep going" attitude, which is what I love about her! She tells Akos {the other main character} to just find a reason to keep going during difficult times, the reason doesn't have to be noble, it just has to be a reason. Cyra's is simply the desire to live. That is something many of us dealing with chronic pain can relate to. I know personally, it's that desire to live that keeps me going along with the hope of something better that comes from my faith.
Another quote from Cyra that I feel really hit it home for me, is the way she talks about moments of her pain easing. She says: "To one who is in pain all the time, even minor differences can be miracles, of a sort." The relief that comes from a lower pain day, is definitely a miracle of sorts.
Aza Holmes ~ Turtles All The Way Down by John Green
{I have a full review of this book which will be reposted later this year.}
Aza lives with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder {OCD} and the anxiety that stems from that. Throughout the book, we follow Aza as she struggles to control her condition and the impulses that go with it. For me, having OCD and Anxiety, Aza is a very relatable character, even down to a couple of habits she has due her to mental health condition.
By the way Aza is written, you can really tell that John Green is drawing on his own experiences with OCD, something he has spoken about on his Youtube channel, The VlogBrothers. This book gives a lot of insight into a condition that many may think is all about cleaning and organising. While for me, that is part of it, there is so much to it. The intrusive thoughts and thought spirals that Aza experiences are something that I, along with many other people who have OCD have to deal with daily.
Some of my favourite scenes in this book were the ones with Aza and her therapist. Including these shows that just as it's okay to go to a doctor for our physical health, it's totally okay if you feel you need to go to a therapist for your mental health or to take medication to help it as well. That is a message that needs to be spread more and I love that John Green brings it to the fore within this book.
Tris Prior ~ Divergent Series by Veronica Roth
Tris may not be a character that instantly springs to mind when looking for relatable mental health characters, especially if you've only watched the Divergent series films, as Tris' struggles aren't really shown too much. However, in the books {mainly the second and third ones} Tris is actually dealing with PTSD from the fact that she had to kill her friend, Will, towards the end of the first book.
After this she begins to have nightmares about him and her parents {because she feels responsible for their deaths too} and she also finds herself struggling to hold a gun to defend herself. She puts her life in danger multiple times, giving the impression that she no longer wants to live. Tris risks her life so often that Four actually voices his concerns to her about it.
Toward the end of the second book, Insurgent, Tris' struggles do ease a little and she finds her will to live again. Then during the third book, she begins to feel okay about carrying a gun again. So while she's still dealing with PTSD from everything she's going through, she's learning to live with it and in some ways control the affect it is having on her.
I really like that Veronica Roth shows Tris struggling with this because when you read what she's been through in the space of a couple of days/months, it's bound to have an affect on her mental health. While I don't have PTSD, I found it was interesting to read about someone dealing with it and how, for Tris, certain objects or places triggered a mental response and caused her to panic.
Katniss Everdeen ~ The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins
Katniss is another character you might not think of straight away as having mental health struggles. If you've only seen The Hunger Games series films, Katniss's struggles are seen a bit in the second, third and fourth films, she's mainly shown waking from nightmares and talks about living in constant fear. But I feel you definitely learn more about her struggles in the books, especially in Mockingjay.
Katniss, like Tris, basically has a form of PTSD, which again is hardly surprising when you read what she is going through and dealing with. In fact all of the Victors from the Hunger Games are dealing with some sort of mental health condition, some, like Haymitch Abernathy, choose to self medicate in the form of alcohol.
Katniss's mental struggles begin in the second book, Catching Fire and start to escalate when she is forced back into the arena for her second Games within a year. Then we see the impact of that and the pressure of being the "Mockingjay" in the third book. Multiple times, Katniss runs off to find hiding places to escape everything and after her sister's death, she becomes mute for quite a while.
Then in the Epilogue of the third book, Mockingjay, an adult Katniss, who is now a mother, speaks of still struggling with dreams from her experiences, even though President Snow and the Hunger Games are no longer around. This shows the lasting affect trauma can have on a person's mind and just because Katniss' life is now a peaceful one, it doesn't mean what she lived through has all been forgotten and she's perfectly okay.
Living through the Hunger Games and the rebellion where a massive trauma for Katniss and the others in the book and I feel Suzanne Collins did an excellent job with the mental health aspects in the books, not just with Katniss, but with a number of the other characters ~ Haymitch and Joanne especially.
Honourable Mentions:
Though I won't go into too much detail on these next two books, I knew I had to add them, as not doing so would leave this article feeling a bit incomplete in my opinion.
Laura Fjellstad ~ Please Read This Leaflet Carefully by Karen Havelin
Laura has been diagnosed with Endometriosis and when we meet her, is trying her best to lead a normal, independent life in New York. As the book flows backward in time from 2016 to 1995, you meet younger, healthier, versions of Laura. We read her experiences as a Mother, a Daughter, a Figure Skater and finally as a teenager.
Through Laura, Karen Havelin highlights what Endometriosis is like, how many in the medical world treat the condition and women in general who have pain conditions and also how the media perceives people who are ill.
This book is definitely worth a read, especially if you have Endometriosis yourself and want a book with a relatable character.
Anita, Karla and Mike ~ Hidden Stories by Root Experience
{I wrote a full review of this book for the Chronic Illness Bloggers Website. If you’d like to read it, you can do so by clicking here.}
Anita, Karla and Mike all have invisible conditions ~ mental or physical. Through these characters, Root Experience has done an excellent job of highlighting the daily struggles that come with those conditions. I found the characters all extremely relatable from the first image!
This is another one well worth picking up, especially if you live with an invisible condition. If you click on the link for my review above, in the post you'll find links and information on how to get hold of the book if you want to read it.
So there we go, that's a few of my favourite relatable book characters. I find it's always a comfort when you are able to connect in some way to a character that you're reading about it.
Hopefully within this list are some characters that you've never heard about before that you might be interested in reading about, or maybe there's characters that you're very familiar with but haven't read about in a long time. You may also have some favourites that I haven't mentioned or don't know about. If that's the case, please do leave me a comment telling me about them, as I'm always on the hunt for new books to read!
{If you're looking for books to read at the moment, please check out my BookShop.org Shop. There you’ll find my 2021 TBR plus other lists of books that may interest you.}
Stay Safe. Read a Book.
L x
