Welcome to From the Front porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South.

When I didn't die, however, and then didn't die some more, I came one day to understand. I wasn't dying. I was grieving. I wasn't dying, not yet.

Margaret Rinkle, Late Migrations, a natural history of love and loss.

I'm Annie Jones, owner of the Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia.

And today, I'm tackling your literary conundrums and quandaries in an episode of Literary Therapy.

First up is a literary problem brought to us from a local listener.

Hey Annie, this is Angela from Thomasville. My question is, how do you process a beloved character being universally hated?

Up until this most recent iteration of Little Women, Amy has been pretty universally hated, but she was always who I related to the most out of the Little Women.

I would type myself as Amy with a hint of Meg.

Greta Gerwig and Florence Pugh gave her the depth. I've always read in her character, and I feel like she's been somewhat redeemed.

But it's still a bit painful when you relate to someone, like literally putting a clothespin on my nose, and they are despised by pretty much everyone.

So thanks so much.

Angela and I have talked a little bit about this in our real life outside the Bookshelf.

And I love this question so much because I am someone who I think relatively notoriously hates Amy.

I've always hated that character.

And hearing Angela talk about Amy and coming across a couple of other people, both through the podcast and through Instagram and through people I know in real life, I have come across a couple of other people who love Amy and who find themselves in Amy.

And so talking to Angela is a reminder that sometimes the very characters we hate someone else loves and someone else sees themselves in the closest I think I can come to this personally is regarding Beverly Cleary.

So Beverly Cleary passed away a couple of months ago and her legacy was talked about on all corners of the internet and so many people piped up and said how meaningful Ramona was to them and how much Ramona meant to them.

And as a pretty goody two shoes responsible kid, I saw myself at least partially in Beesys.

And so I found a little left out of the conversation, the grieving conversation regarding Beverly Cleary because I thought one thing I love about Beverly Cleary is how she saw and gave stories to the Ramona's of the world, but also the Beesys of the world.

And so the good news Angela for you is that Luis Amalcott treats all of those sisters with tenderness and nuance and grace.

It's readers, right? It's readers who are constantly looking for a good guy or a bad guy, a villain, a villainess.

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