Top Ten Tuesday - Mean Girls

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

I wasn't sure how to interpret this weeks prompt. Does it just mean bitch like the film or villains? I decided to do it a little as both otherwise I don't think I would have a top ten.

1. Zania (The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood). There is nothing at all redeemable about this character. She is willing to tell the most awful lies in order to push herself into the lives of these three women (including dying of cancer). She then steals their men and rips apart their lives. She claims she is doing it for them but I get the sense she enjoys it too much.

2. Miss Havisham (Great Expecations - Charles Dickens). Hardly a 'girl' but she does fit the title. So bitter and twisted from her own disappointment she decides to manipulate everyone around her in order to get her revenge on the world.

3. Anne Boleyn (Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel). In history she can be viewed as a victim of her family. We don't really see that in this book though. What you do see is that she is powerful with the ear of the King and should not be crossed.

4. Catherine (Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte). Spoiled, selfish and manipulative. You almost feel sorry for Heathcliffe (almost).

5. Cathy Ames (East of Eden - John Steinbeck). Manipulative, mercenary and murderous. She'll stop at nothing to get what she wants, including murdering her own parents.

6. Marisa Coulter (His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman). She does redeem herself at one point by showing some kindness to her daughter. She is still cold and manipulative and was the one to put her daughter in danger in the first place.

7. Joyce Barnhardt (Stephanie Plum series - Janet Evanovich). Probably the most like the term 'mean girl' in this list. She has picked on Stephanie since school. Now she loves nothing more than humiliating her. She had an affair with her husband and sleeps with Stephanie's boss in order to get put on her cases. Also loves to go after Stephanie's current love interest.

8. Monica Morel (Morganville Vampire series - Rachel Caine). Another closer to the term 'mean girl'. Her family are powerful and she uses that to start increase her own power amongst her piers. A bit of a sociopath as she is goes beyond bullying and has even attempted murder.

9. Mrs Danvers (Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier). Manipulative and a little unstable. So besotted with her dead mistress she even tries to convince the new Mrs De Winter to kill herself. I love the fact that the Danvers character is used as an army in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. I bet any army facing them would surrender.

10. Lucrezia Borgia - Beautiful, powerful, cold and jealous. Willing to have a young girl put to death out of misplaced jealousy.

Quite a few of mine are from classics. They really knew how to do a female villain back then. I found this quite difficult for a few reasons. The first one being that these days (or because of what I mainly read) the bitch/villain usually has some redeemable quality or a change of heart. Even some of my list might be viewed as a victim of circumstance as much as anything else. Also I have a shocking memory. I keep a list of all the books I've read and flicking back through it I had difficulty in trying to remember if they contained a character who would make this last. Actually, I came across a few books I forgot I had read. Thank goodness I now keep a book journal.