T5W – Favorite Friend Groups

T5W is a weekly book meme created by Lainey from Gingereadslainey and hosted by Sam from Thought On Tomes with a different bookish topic each week. You can check out the GoodReads group here.

Topic: Favorite ensemble friend groups

1. The Gentleman Bastards from The Lies of Locke Lamora

The first aspect of this book that drew me in, Locke’s snark aside, was the group dynamic between the Gentleman Bastards. Locke and Jean aside, I loved how gung-ho and snarky Galdo, Calo, Bug were with each other. I also liked how even though everyone picked on Bug, they still clearly all considered him a member. The flashback chapters of this first book are probably my favorite in the series because we get to watch these characters grow up and develop as a proper thieving squad.

2. Tain/Jovan/Kalina from City of Lies

How much more wholesome can a group get? These three are such supportive and great friends and I love how that even though there were disagreements between them, they always solved disputes by actually talking things out instead of being dramatic. The three of them are patient with each other, understanding of each other’s flaws, and all together have a great dynamic. Through the events in the book, they definitely withstood the friendship stress test.

3. Nona’s friend group from Red Sister

Okay, so to be fair, this group probably doesn’t have the healthiest group dynamic, but they were fun to read about so I’m putting them here regardless. Yes everyone hated Arabella for the first third/half of the book, yes Clera is a bit of a snake not the greatest friend, yes literally no one liked Zoe, but I loved how through everything, they still managed to stick together and work together in both school and life-threatening situations.

4. The Woe from A Practical Guide to Evil

(art by sandara)

Can we talk about how entertaining this band of villain protagonists are? Because I absolutely love how they pretty much run a country yet still spend most of their time snarking at each other and the enemy. They’re all insanely powerful, yet I feel like the most serious ones are the ones who are least able to blow up like a nuke. Seriously, Archer is probably drunk for most of her screentime, Masego is only there for magical sightseeing, and Catherine’s idea of a plan is to surrender to the enemy with an obviously forged letter. I’m pretty sure Thief is the only who actually tries sometimes.

5. The Undersiders from Worm

Last but not least, my favorite band of incredibly fucked up villains/warlords/also protagonists? I’m not going to lie, I was pretty skeptical of the group at first, especially with how underpowered they seemed to be, superpowers wise. Yet as the story goes on, you realize not every superhero has to have a blast-y power to be an effective ‘superhero’. I love that though the Undersiders maybe aren’t the most law-abiding, they do still mostly care about doing good, even it its their definition of good.