12 books about ordinary characters chosen for extraordinary tasks
Sometimes, the world doesn’t choose warriors or wizards. It chooses the quiet librarian. The nervous student. The farmer, the clerk, the overlooked and uncelebrated. These are the characters who live in the background — until fate tilts its gaze and thrusts them into the center of something vast, terrifying, and utterly transformative.
They didn’t ask to be chosen. They didn’t expect greatness. But it finds them anyway.
Here are 12 unforgettable books about ordinary people chosen for extraordinary tasks — tales where everyday lives are upended, and reluctant hands end up holding the weight of entire worlds.
1. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Hero: Bilbo Baggins — a homebody with a reluctant heart for adventure
Bilbo’s idea of excitement is a second breakfast. But when a company of dwarves — and one very insistent wizard — arrive at his door, he’s swept into a quest filled with trolls, dragons, and a strange, cursed ring. Bilbo may be small and unassuming, but his courage, cleverness, and quiet loyalty mark him as the most unlikely of heroes.
2. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Hero: Richard Mayhew — an ordinary man who falls through the cracks of London
Richard is a typical office worker with a dull life — until he stops to help a bleeding girl on the street. That one act rips him from reality and plunges him into “London Below,” a hidden world of angels, monsters, and forgotten magic. He didn’t choose this path, but it chose him — and Richard must rise to survive it.
3. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Hero: Mare Barrow — a thief with red blood and a lightning soul
In a kingdom where power is dictated by the color of one’s blood, Mare is a lowly Red — until a twist of fate reveals she possesses a deadly ability that should only belong to the elite Silvers. Now a pawn in a brutal game of court politics, rebellion, and revolution, Mare learns that being chosen is both a gift and a curse.
4. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Hero: Percy Jackson — a troubled kid who discovers he’s a demigod
Percy is just trying to get through school without getting expelled — again. But when myth becomes reality and he discovers he’s the son of a Greek god, Percy is thrust into a world of monsters, prophecies, and Olympian politics. A sarcastic, reluctant hero born of sea and storm.
5. The Power by Naomi Alderman
Hero: Roxy, Tunde, and others — ordinary people with a new, deadly gift
One day, women across the world discover they can produce electric energy from their bodies — and the world changes overnight. Each character begins as an average person: a girl from London’s underworld, a Nigerian journalist, a foster child. But with great power comes seismic shifts — and the responsibility to decide what kind of world they’ll shape.
6. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Hero: Cassie Sullivan — a teenager with a teddy bear and a rifle
Cassie was just a girl with a crush and a backpack. Then the aliens came. Now, she’s one of the last survivors of a planet-wide invasion, tasked with protecting her younger brother and surviving wave after deadly wave of destruction. She’s terrified, alone — and unstoppable.
7. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Hero: Adam Young — an ordinary boy who just happens to be the Antichrist
Adam is a seemingly normal eleven-year-old growing up in the English countryside — until it’s revealed he’s the child meant to bring about the apocalypse. But Adam has other plans. Surrounded by friends, dogs, and a lot of confusion, he becomes the most unexpected savior the world never saw coming.
8. The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Hero: Ceony Twill — a student assigned to the least glamorous form of magic
Ceony dreams of casting fire or controlling metal — but she’s stuck with paper. Folding spells? Origami enchantments? It sounds useless… until her mentor’s heart is literally stolen. Now Ceony must journey through the chambers of the heart — physically and metaphorically — to save a life and discover her own hidden strength.
9. The Martian by Andy Weir
Hero: Mark Watney — a botanist stranded on Mars
Mark is not a space cowboy. He’s a scientist. A smartass. A guy with duct tape, disco music, and a very big problem: he’s been left alone on Mars. What follows is an epic tale of survival, science, and sarcasm — as one very normal man fights to do the impossible: live.
10. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Hero: Quentin Coldwater — a high school senior who still believes in fairy tales
Quentin is brilliant, depressed, and obsessed with a fantasy series he read as a kid. When he discovers that magic is real and gains entrance to Brakebills, a school for magicians, he thinks his life is finally beginning. But the path from fantasy to responsibility is paved with monsters — some of them his own.
11. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Hero: Karou — an art student with blue hair and a secret past
Karou lives in Prague, juggling sketchbooks and strange errands for her monstrous guardian. But when black handprints begin to appear on doorways around the world, and a fiery-eyed stranger haunts her path, Karou is swept into an ancient war — one where her soul holds a key she never knew existed.
12. Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Hero: Agnieszka — a messy village girl with a wild kind of magic
She’s clumsy, disheveled, and the last person anyone expects to be chosen by the Dragon — the wizard who protects their valley from the corrupting Wood. But once chosen, Agnieszka proves her magic is untamed, powerful, and entirely her own. She wasn’t born to be polished. She was born to break rules and save the world.
Because Greatness Doesn’t Ask for Permission
What these stories teach us is that heroism rarely arrives in shining armor. It walks in through the back door, knocks on the wrong house, and hands the fate of the world to the person who least expected — or wanted — it.
These are tales of transformation. Of refusal. Of rise.
Because sometimes, the most extraordinary quests begin in the hands of the most ordinary people.
And once they’ve been chosen — they’re never the same again.
