People talk about how their favorite books reflect their personalities all the time, but I never think they do it correctly. With that, I'm going to try and add to the conversation of generalizing a person by their favorite literary work.
1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
This person is undoubtedly a romantic, you just wouldn’t know it by looking at them. Maybe they don’t know how to express their feelings, or maybe they don’t like having feelings at all. Also there is about a 99% chance that this person is a woman, and like Elizabeth Bennet’s character, the person who says this is their favorite book vehemently disapproves of the rules of society, but follows them anyway.
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
If this person isn’t a whiny individual outwardly, but they have something burdening them on the inside. Holden Caulfield (to me) is just a whiny young man who doesn’t feel understood. If this is your favorite book, that’s probably you.
3. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
If this is your favorite book you either really read between the lines to get some sort of philosophical inference from the story, or you decided that literature fit for a 10th grader was also perfect for a full grown adult. Nothing wrong with that.
4. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
There are two options for the kind of person that lists this book as their favorite. They either grew up with John Green (as I did) and listed this book because they genuinely love it. If that’s the case, this person is a pretty average person. Not average in a good or bad way, but in an average way. It’s a good, generic book that teenagers read. But the other kind of person that reads this book probably saw that it was becoming a movie and wanted to be able to say to their friends the book was so much better.
5. Anything John Steinbeck
This person is smart and probably really boring. They’ll argue for the beauty of whatever novel it is they like by him: East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men. But these books are dense, not particularly complex, and have terrible depictions of women. So, if a man tells you that any of those are his favorite books, he might just hate women.
6. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
This person is a wanderer. They live in a world where they are restricted to doing what they are told. The thoughts in this person’s head are probably fantastical. They are probably a dreamer. If someone tells you that this is their favorite book, and they are a lawyer or a doctor, just know that they most likely hate their lives.
7. 1984 by George Orwell
The description of the person that loves this book entirely depends on how they saw the end. If they believe that Winston was truly brainwashed by Big Brother, they are practical people who understand how the system works. This person probably doesn’t overstep their boundaries very often for the fear of the rules. However if the person who claims this as their favorite novel believes that Winston was not truly brainwashed, they are a dreamer; they believe in the human capacity to combat total control. They also probably hate the government.
8. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
I have never in my life heard someone say that this was their favorite anything, except for in like 9th grade. So if this is your favorite book/play, you are probably in 9th grade, at least mentally... Sorry.
9. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
If this is your favorite book you have a sad and beautiful mind, most likely. This book depicts a kind of hopelessness and the beauty in it. This person also probably hates the society that we live in. And depending on their favorite character, they either don’t believe in love or they would die for it.
10. The Stranger by Albert Camus
This person is stuck in their own head. People are puzzles to them. Love is probably a curious institution for the person who chooses to claim this book as their favorite, and if they are anything like the main character, they will fail at it every time.
11. Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
If this is you favorite book, you are a complex person to describe. This person understands what it's like to hide a part of themselves away and thats why they respect Humbert Humbert. The main character of the book is in real life, the villain, however the book forces you to sympathize with him. The person who claims this book wonders at the thoughts of everyday regular people.
12. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
This person is normal––whatever that means––but they are hiding a little streak of crazy. For example, if this was their favorite book in high school, they completely changed who they were in college, or something to that effect.
13. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway
It’s hard to generalize the kind of person who claims this book as their favorite because so many people love Hemmingway. So many people love that the themes that were relevant when he was around still are 100% relevant. The kind of person that loves this book wants to be an individual. They want their lives to exist outside of the norms.
14. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
The person who chooses this as a favorite book probably has a practical life. They live in a monotonous cycle doing mundane things, and to escape from that world they chose this book. The adult equivalent of Harry Potter.
