Replace Your Family With Your Favorite Characters This Thanksgiving!

Sneak Peeks

Thanksgiving is almost here! That means your favorite (and not-so-favorite) cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, neighbors, grandparents, step-siblings, pets, mailmen, and more are going to be up in your business for at least 3 hours or more *shudders*. And while Thanksgiving is all about being grateful, you can still be grateful for your family while also being really okay with replacing one or two seats at the table with characters from your favorite books. Personally, we’d love to just hang out with these characters any day of the year but Thanksgiving is even better, RIGHT!? Check out some great contenders to consider for your Thanksgiving invite list and happy turkey day, y’all!

Real talk, it’s Thanksgiving and times are crazy—you need someone who is going to get your sarcasm, roll their eyes with you, and eat everything in sight. Meet, Scarlett Epstein of Scarlett Epstein Hates it Here. She is snarky, judgmental, hilarious, witty, and ready to banter. She’ll have a lot of stories about that one time she wrote fanfic about everyone at school and they all found out just what she thought about them. She’ll keep you entertained and sane enough to really enjoy that third helping of pie. Leftovers are for quitters.

Once you’ve got Scarlett, you’ll also need Emika Chen for the ultimate Girl Gang around your Thanksgiving table. Emika of Marie Lu’s Warcross brilliance, is teenage hacker in a world where Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. If it were up to us, Emika would hack into all of our relative’s phones and make their lock screens animal memes. BUT THAT’S JUST AN IDEA. We’d also finally get to ask her how it felt to get wrapped up in not only the international Warcross Championships, but also millionaire game developer Hideo Tanaka’s heart. Oh my gourd…

We lied! There’s one more lady for the Thanksgiving Girl Gang, and this one is magical. Like, she literally has magical powers. Sunny, of Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch, is albino and was born in America, but moves back to Nigeria with her family. As she settles in to her new life, she discovers something pretty amazing—she’s a “free agent” with latent magical power. So not only do we imagine she’d be thrilled to have Thanksgiving again, she has magical powers! Yes, please help me make infinite amounts of stuffing! Feast your eyes on that Uncle Bob.

While you’re probably the life of the party, it’s always good to have a wingman. That’s why we think you need to invite Ambrose from Sarah Dessen’s Once and for All. He knows how to have a good time, put a smile on everyone’s face, and isn’t afraid to make a fool of himself. These are all necessary qualities for any guest at Thanksgiving—or at least they should be. Just be sure to provide a pink boa, boy loves to rock a pink boa at parties.

This next one, well, he’s kind of gourdgeous. You may know Jin from Alwyn Hamilton’s Rebel of the Sands series, or you may know him from your dreams. He’s mysterious, handsome, earnest, and also has magical powers. Pour some gravy on me! Too much? It’s the holidays!

Last but certainly not least, Tua, THE TUATARA from John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down. Why you ask? Because we’ve never seen a Tuatara IRL and the time is now.