What Types of Books Each C4 Character Would Read
Most of these are based purely on vibes, my limited knowledge of each genre, and my TBR. Don’t take this too seriously.
Occtis Tachonis — Feels like a classics and gothic anything person. His book choices belong to the protaganist of a dark academia novel with an open ending. He’s probably got a super fancy copy of Frankenstein that he’s been too scared to touch for fear of ruining it. He’s recently been reading a lot of memoirs about grief and death, but they haven’t been very helpful (on account of him being the one dead).
Bolaire Lothalia — Classics or death. He will not lay his eyes on anything that was published in this century. If he reads the Odyssey, he’s reading the original Ancient Greek—no translations for him. Lowkey a toxic reader. He will judge you for not reading 5 books in 3 weeks, and his reviews are longer than the books themselves.
Halandil Fang — A much chiller version of Bolaire. He prefers classics over other genres, but he’s not allergic to fresh ink. He has the reading speed of a literary major, but he doesn’t flaunt it. He’s just excited that you finally read his favorite play, even if it took over a year. That said, he will talk your ear off for hours about the subtle nuances in a minor side-character’s description (he and Bolaire are perfect for each other).
Murray Mag’Nesson — Murray probably genre hops a lot, and because of that doesn’t have any specific favorites. She’s very vocal about the literature crisis, and like Hal, is just glad that people are reading. She’s got a TBR list a mile long, and is the person to go to if you want feminist literature recs or good smut.
Thimble — Adventure fantasy all the way. She wants to taste the danger, the thrill, the dramatic reveals. She will defend Lord of the Rings to her grave (and beyond), even if it took a while to get to the exciting stuff. When Occtis tried to get her to read Pride and Prejudice, she read the zombie version instead.
Thaisha Lloy — The weirder the synopsis, the better. She doesn’t read a ton because of limited time, but what she does read will send you reeling for weeks. She loves never-before-scene concepts and niche indie books. Right now, she’d probably be particularly attracted to themes of environmentalism and AI.
Julien Davinos — He definitely does not read much, but he probably has a soft spot for a series he loved as a kid (something like The Hunger Games?). He will absolutely dunk on LotR just to piss Thimble off, when his copy literally fell apart because of how much he was rereading it.
Tyranny — Colleen Hoover, Fourth Wing, ACoTaR—anything overblown on BookTok. She’s the one you go to for bad smut.
Wicander Halovar — The Bible, classics, and no-spice romance. He once came across a fade-to-black and since then has had Tyranny vett everything. He doesn’t mean to shame people, but he can come across as judgy (“Wait, you haven’t read the complete works of Shakespeare by the age of 25?”). He needs a happy ending, or else will be sobbing for weeks (Tyranny ran out of tissues after Wuthering Heights)—but he still reads stuff that he knows will decimate him. Tyranny recently gave him a book called So You Were in a Cult.
Vaelus — She’d probably read a lot of sad books that make you think (Remember You Will Die, This is How You Lose the Time War, etc.). Wick would start crying just seeing the titles.
Kattigan Vale — A lot of self-help books that he regurgitates to his friends rather than applying to himself. Also dogs. He’s got 10 books with varying titles of How Dogs Think, each one covered in annotations.
Azune Nayar — Stuff like How to Be Productive 101. He takes the surface-level advice way too literally, but shoves aside anything potentially useful.
Teor Pridesire — He’d unironically love the stuff that you give to men who haven’t read in over a decade. He loves sci-fi, but keeps getting trapped in series, and because of that can’t explore as much as he wants to. He’ll also refuse to DNF a book.
