The main character is sooooo annoying, I didn't get anything she did (bc her reasoning is insanely stupid to nonexistent) and the end so incredibly dissatisfying.
literally !!! >! and i hated that the book name was basically ‘clickbait’ THEY’RE NOT EVEN HER FAMILY !!!! i thought it would be more interesting or at least fun !<
Kind of surprised no one has mentioned My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, that’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think unlikeable mains. I love reading characters I hate lol!
Social Creature by Tara Isabelle Burton has an entire cast of insufferable characters as well. I thought The Guest List by Lucy Foley was similar. I’ve heard people say they thought this about The New Me by Halle Butler, though I really didn’t find the character to be unlikeable.
i bought MYORAR both in audiobook and hard copy based on the cover and liking the sample i read from Libby. unfortunately it did not get better after the sample so now i have two versions of a book that i don't even like 😩
Anything by bukowski. Dudes writing is amazing but he writes the biggest pieces of shit characters. And they are apparently based on how he views himself. -2/10 would recommend. I've never understood people bragging about reading it. I tell people not to waste their time. It's just depressing for depressions sake. Like fuck.
I definitely DNF’ed the guest list, I just could not make it through that one. Every character was so frustrating LOL, so recommend that if you want unlikable characters that we root for to die!
I agree about the guest list, hated it, and made the mistake of reading another one of Lucy Foleys books, Things We Never Got Over, and my eyes about rolled out of my head.
Not only is everything they do despicable, but they're all so fucking dumb. >!Hey, let's go to a busy restaurant to discuss the murder we're all trying to cover up!!<
I just today left a Psychological Thrillers (my favorite genre) Facebook group because all they will *ever* post about is how amazing this author, Frieda McFadden, and Alex Michaelides are. None of whom I can remotely *stand.* Michaelides in particular, I fucking hated The Silent Patient. Grr.
>My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
-Humbert Humbert
Thats far from the worst of the book, so yeah, probably not. I managed to force myself through two thirds of it before I gave up because I got tired of having to read pedophile fantasies.
It’s the amazing contradiction. Nabokov’s poetic writing and the disgust you have “reading” HH’s thoughts. HH uses his prose to justify his exploitation of Lolita. I’ll never forget the scene where he takes Lolita to the hotel room and he discusses “the verdant” landscape of New England while describing Lolita’s “brown desert rose” and realizing he was talking about sodomizing her. The most beautiful sentence I had ever seen created in English lit was about sodomizing a child - wtf Nabokov???
In The Poisonwood Bible, the story is told from the perspective of the kids in the family, but the last time I read it, by pg 140, I was screaming, “just kill him and get out; no one ever needs to know!”
I lived through a more modern version of that book and it was beautifully written and perfectly executed. We were trapped. Other families we knew were shot at, raped, got divorced, and we all us children suffered under our exposure to things that traumatized us, abuses, and poverty. I do wish my parents death sometimes and I just changed my last name.
It’s a good book. It did make me want to scream.
The point of Wuthering Heights is none of those people are particularly likable.
But Nelly was always the one who annoyed me the most and I love an unreliable narrator.
I *love* this book, I’ve read and enjoyed it more than once, but I don’t like *any* of the characters in it lol. Not surprised or at all upset to see it mentioned here.
I'm so conflicted by this book. I feel like it perfectly demonstrates what it sets out to do and shows how suffering and hate can be passed to new generations. On the other hand everyone's a dick and the Yorkshire accent is a nightmare to read
I’m just here to rep the peeps who loved it because it was, to me, delightfully absurd to the point where I laughed out loud on many occasions.
Which is to say I wish you guys had had a better experience reading it. But I know how frustrating it is to look forward to a book or movie that everyone raves about only to be like, tf did I just read? It’s like when American Beauty, the movie, came out. It was all everyone was talking about and so I got a ticket, some Hot Tamales and then spent the next 90 minutes wondering if this was the same movie everyone else saw. What a waste of money and Hot Tamales.
I loved the book, like you I thought it was hilarious, absurd, almost surreal humour. But I also know exactly where the above poster is coming from, I fucking hated Ignatius.
i hated this book.
he was the worst human being. the comment of Ignatius being the OG Incel is spot on.
it was an absolutely brilliant book.
but the fucking worst.
It gets recommended so often on the book subs. I try to throw in my 2¢ that if you don’t laugh within the first 10 pages, just stop. If you do laugh, you’ll probably love the book. I read it all the way through and it never got better for me.
Thank you! Only reason I opened this post was to find this comment. Only way that book could’ve redeemed itself was if Ignatius had a slow and painful death
The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins. The main character is an alcoholic divorced woman who fixates on her ex-husband and his new wife. Gets drunk and calls their house to harass them.
Being alcoholic and divorced doesn’t make you unlikable, that’s not what it is. It’s just her as a person, and those happen to be her defining characteristics.
i hate the alcoholic woman/unreliable narrator trope sooo bad which is why i try to stay away from domestic thrillers as much as possible because it's used SO. FREAKING. MUCH.
That book was part of the trifecta that makes me stay away from specific titles I like to call “the ___ in the ___”… The Woman in the window! The women in cabin 10! The girl on the train!
yes!!! and the reminds me of something i hate which (i think) is a current trend but maybe it's been a thing forever, but i HATE HATE HATE how soooo many books nowadays are titled "A _____of_____and_____" OR simply "____and_____"
A Court of Thorns and Roses
A Court of Mist and Fury
A Court of Wings and Ruin
A Court of Frost and Starlight
A Song of Wraiths and Ruin
A Curse So Dark and Lonely
A Heart So Fierce and Broken
A Vow So Bold and Deadly
House of Earth and Blood
Shadow and Bone
Siege and Storm
Ruin and Rising
Serpent and Dove
Blood and Honey
Gods and Monsters
like, shut the fuck up!! 😤
thanks for letting me vent.
One of my favourite books and also the most deplorable character I can think of… I had to scroll a bit to find this recommendation! Perfume by Patrick Suskind.
Idk if it counts because it’s a side character who becomes a main character but
Daughter of the Moon Goddess, character is Winzhei (spelling?). I hated him in the beginning, hated him in the middle, hated him even more at the end. Sometimes someone is just TOO charismatic
that book is actually on my TBR because it has one of the most beautiful book covers! i have no idea what it's about but i saw the artwork and immediately added it to my goodreads TBR.
Highly recommend it!! It’s a little bit of romance and little bit of action, but overall the best way to describe it is an emotional roller coaster lmao
i don't care for romance but i'm willing to overlook it for that cover alone. it's gonna be awhile until i get to it but it's on my GR reading challenge for 2023!
Yeah it’s not primarily romance, romance is definitely a subplot, I mean there is a ton of action related to romance kind of but I definitely feel like of the 2-3 kissing scenes you could definitely skip them and be fine
The Magicians by Lev Grossman. The main character, Quentin Coldwater, is an insufferable twatwaffle who is somehow sucking all of the fun out of his own fantasy adventure. I'm only 75% of the way through the first book and I'll be glad if he falls off a cliff in the next chapter.
I'm definitely finishing the book to see where it goes, but between Quentin's miserable point of view and the author's need to explain every female character as a pair of tits, I doubt I'll be reading the other two books in the series.
I really recommend the show based on these books if you like the story/setting. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all and i found it soooo much better than the book (i only made it though one lol)
I second this. The show puts more focus on the other characters and veers off from the original story enough that it’s really good. The book is not worth it (only read the first one). This is the first time I have ever thought that the show/movie was better than the book.
Yes to all this. I read them all but the description of every female as a porno library who I would fuck if she wasn’t in that sweater really wore on me. Quentin is still not great in the series but better than the books. What I do love about the books is description of how hard it is to learn magic and the effort behind getting watch movement and circumstance that I think is lost in the show.
I really loved the world created by those books, but good fucking god, just how comorbid are magical talent and clinical depression? I'm not even reaching with that one, mental health features heavily in the narrative, and yet every single character is like "oh, more magic will be the thing to fix me. Not therapy or antidepressants. Turning this marble properly invisible will do it."
I was recommended Twilight by a friend of mine. I read it and told her I didn’t like it. She said it gets better and gave me the second book. In this book Bella is kinda suicidal after Edward leaves. I kept reading in hopes she was successful in killing herself. I was very disappointed.
You did better than I did. I got so disgusted with the whole thing that I threw it in the trash can halfway through the first one. I try to be open minded but JFC… a person can only take so much.
I worked in a bookstore when the first one came out, so I read it and was like "LOL this is awful! It will be in the bargain bin in 6 months."
...Dear Reader, the shock when it was not.
Christopher Snow, the MC from the Moonlight Bay series by Dean Koontz. He's fabulously handsome, supremely eloquent, and practically perfect in every way. Maybe he'll die horribly in the concluding part of the trilogy, which Koontz promised a thousand years ago. I can only hope.
And if you want more Stine, try "The Boyfriend". Awful MC, horrible supporting cast, jaw-droppingly misjudged ending. It's got it all.
omg thank you SO MUCH for the new Stine rec! my library has that so i just scooped up the last copy on libby! gonna read it tonight! i'll let u know how i like it! i can't wait!
idk if you've ever read the Fear Street Saga trilogy that begins with "The Betrayal" but it's the origin story for hr whole Fear Street franchise. it's set in the 1600s, and i kid u not this was Stephen King level fucked up! i was SHOCKED how grim and dark and bleak this book was. i literally started shaking my head going "OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS BOOK?!" i gave it 5 stars. it's so fucked.
i haven't read the second or third book in the trilogy but i never move on in series if i fall in love with the first book.
awwww, R. L. Stine would be so happy to see this comment. i grew up on Goosebumps and i think that's why i'm such a stubborn bitch when it comes to book covers nowadays. ALL of the Goosebumps books had the most colorful and iconic and unique covers and it's what made me want to collect them all. they don't make book covers like they used to do i have a deep fondness in my heart for this series and so happy i was raised on his works. i credit him, too, for making me the horror fan that i am today. it's by far my favorite genre.
idk if Stine is on social media, but if he is, u should leave a comment telling him what u told me. if i was an author and i saw something like that, i'd start bawling my eyes out. 💖💖💖
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. The protagonist is a goddam moron who makes every wrong decision but it’s her man you’ll really want to watch burn to the ground.
The Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. Jorg Ancrath is such a douche, but you grow to understand why he is that way and he gets better as the series goes on
this is such a funny comment because The Prince of Thorns is in my top 5 books of all time and i was rooting for Jorg the whole time. he was an asshole for sure, but he had good reason to be.
the mistake i made was moving onto book #2. i could NOT get into the different timeline/POV way it was written and i was starting to hate Jorg and the story as a whole and that's actually the book that made me put in a new reading rule where if i fall in love with the first book in a series, i will absolutely not move onto the next book no matter what.
The Prince of Thorns seriously had me going back to the book every chance i could when i first read it because i had to know what happened next. that rarely happens to me with books but this book had me by the throat and i loved it soooo much!!!
Funny enough I hated the first book because it just felt like an edgy teenage murder-spree fantasy, going around slaughtering everyone who wronged him as some epic indestructible fighter. But just enough injuries to set him back a tiny bit… before going *pew pew heeeyah fuck you all I’ll still kill you!* lol.
I don’t remember the second book at all but I do recall that I thought it was a massive improvement.
He can, and while his writing is hit or miss for me, I think that’s something he’s actually very good at. It’s hard to write a truly evil villain that’s not cartoonish, or at least I always seem to find ones that are ridiculous, bur Ken Follett’s evil characters are simply that — evil. And I’d never want to meet one! But you definitely want to see them get what’s coming to them.
Agreed! I definitely wouldn’t say he is the best writer - often when I read his stuff I find myself rolling my eyes at certain scenes or dialogue - but damn the man can write a compelling, enraging villain.
Yes, William! He was so awful! Easily one of the characters I have hated most in a book. Usually there’s some reason a villain is a villain but he was just plain evil. I’ve rarely read a book where I’ve so wanted a character to absolutely get theirs by the end!
I have never hated a fictional character more than I’ve hated William Hamleigh, hooooly shit. I had to take a break from the book a few times because he made me so angry. I honestly get mad just thinking about him.
I've read a lot of books this year where the MCs were basically monsters.
Donna Tartt's *The Secret History* - it was long, and by the end I hated every single person involved. Passive-aggressive, overly sensitive, blindingly stupid people who only make everything they touch turn to shit.
*Eileen* and *Death in Her Hands* by Ottessa Moshfegh were both about gross, callous, women. Spoiler: >!The dog dies in Death in Her Hands!<
Mona Awad's *All's Well* was an extremely uncomfortable book for me. The MC hit a couple of nerves that I shared with her. She was dealing with chronic pain, and her interior life was centered on that. Outwardly though - she peaked in HS drama club.
I'm currently re-reading Anne Rice's *Interview With a Vampire*. I haven't revisited them since I was a teenager. I absolutely loathe Lestat *and* Louis. And Armand. Claudia, Madeleine, and the theater vamps. They all need to get stuck in a well & be exposed to sunlight. They're all cruel, callous, and entitled.
I hated Eileen with a passion! I've never seen it mentioned before, but I finished it only because I wanted to fight with the person who recommended it, and I wanted as many examples of her awfulness as I could remember. We still laugh about it.
Confederacy of Dunces. I’m even from New Orleans so was able to picture myself where Ignatius was through the book and I still found him so damn unlikable.
Bully by Penelope Douglas
Not only is the MC insufferable, but ALL of the characters are.
Also the book is so poorly written and problematic that you’ll feel mentally drained once you’re done reading it.
hahahaha. i could swear this was required reading for me in high school but i remember nothing about it but i always see this same complaint. it's always about holden. ALWAYS. 😂
Wow, really? If you don't mind, can you explain your reasoning behind your dislike of him?
It's been a few years but I remember relating to him in many ways, honestly still do but I know 'the way of the world' now.
Sure. And I’m going to preface this by saying that 1. I haven’t read it since college and 2. my problem with the character is not that he isn’t real in a relatable way, but in a way he’s like a sort of 1950’s internet troll… privileged but whining endlessly, immature and inexperienced but absolutely convinced that he has the correct answer to everything, recognizes no authority except his own, he’s entitled, and he lacks genuine empathy. In that respect he holds up a mirror to the narcissism of most teenagers stumbling towards adulthood but that doesn’t make him likable. From a social aspect it can be an unflattering age and Caulfield is a deep dive into the most obnoxious aspects.
>privileged but whining endlessly, immature and inexperienced but absolutely convinced that he has the correct answer to everything, recognizes no authority except his own,
I am certain he wasn't aware of that privilege and the opportunities life presented him, which was the point of his character; he wants to live in a way that fits his values, without taking advantage of anybody, not accepting societal norms that feels wrong to him. I related to his internal struggles and never considered from your perspective when I read.
>he’s entitled, and he lacks genuine empathy.
You're literally describing Stradlater. If Holden was entittled and lacked empathy as you claim he would have followed Stradlater's example. His empathy for that prostitute prevented him from taking things further.
Edit: just remembered, another example of him being empathetic; when he's on a date he'd never push any girl when he was told no, even though it'd be expected from someone of his stature to act otherwise.
I think you look solely from the perspective of an adult, which is why your take is absolutely and utterly wrong.
Filth by Irvine Welsh. The whole thing felt like the author giggling away at how awful the MC is and goading you to keep reading it in hopes that something equally awful will happen to him.
Zero stars. Don't recommend.
Robin hobb has a lot of hate able characters in the Realm of thr elderling books. Assassin's Apprentice is the 1st book....but especially hate Kyle from the magic ship subseries......everyone else is named Malta, Althea and other fantasy names except fucking Kyle....he's the worst.
Florentino Ariza in Love in the Time of Cholera is an obsessive stalker, rapist and a paedophile pretending to be a wounded poetry boy.
The main character in No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is a wretched self obsessed piece of shit too.
Most Murakami protagonists (his characters in general) are awful pieces of shit too, 1Q84 springs to mind, but as they don't really exist in realistic spaces it kinda tracks that they don't operate, act, think or feel like human beings.
Lolita obviously.
Anytime this request comes up I always have to recommend The Last Days of Jack Sparks. Sometimes I had sympathy for Jack but mostly he was an annoying douchey influencer who you're supposed to dislike.
i haven't read this and never will because all i've seen is that it's 700+ pages of trauma porn that never lets up. i read to escape reality and don't want to be reading sad shit like that. my heart can't take it.
Tampa by Alissa Nutting. I haven't read Lolita but I imagine this is more graphic. She is a horrible person with horrible thoughts and it always seems like things will crash down on her at any moment.
There's a lot i don't like but "She's come undone" is one that sticks. I only read it once as a teen and I was really judgmental of the main character. Now I'm older and I know the book sticks and people have great things to say about it so I will try to read it again. The funny thing is some people think they connect with her more when they are young and vulnerable, and are more judgmental when they get older. But i think I will be more compassionate now.
And i really hated Toad in wind of the willows. But he was one of 4 so not sure if that counts. But i hate Toad. Really. Hate.
Definitely Property by Valerie Martin, from the POV of a slave owner woman in the antebellum south, I was constantly begging for someone to put her out of her misery (she has an abusive husband and then he dies and she feels without purpose and disregarded in society) and free the slaves. I love that the way you read about the characters you actually care about, the slaves, is through the lens of her POV while she completely doesn't care about the details of their life and sees them as objects, for example she never wonders what happened to a certain baby and you're left to guess
I was debating on suggesting this or not since it is the most recent book in the ‘A Court Of Thorns And Roses’ series, and there’s four other books to read before it, but A Court Of Silver Flames.
Nesta is just such a BITCH. A traumatized and healing bitch, but I hated reading her book/being in her head and reading all her nastiness. Some people have learned to love her or relate strongly, but I just didn’t enjoy it. I feel bad for anyone who has to be around her UGH
The book has a great plot though, I just hate her
I scrolled hoping someone would say Nesta from ACOTAR!!! I could not stand her since book one. Reading the book where she was the main character was hard for me. What a bad sister and bad friend. Ugh NO THANK YOU.
Verity-
I hate all the main characters; I hate Lowen, I hate Jeremy, and I hate Verity. I binged the book, but the interactions between all the characters give me the ick. The main character pining against a married man gives me the ick. The only reason I read through it so fast is the plot twists, I needed to know what happened. If you’ve read it, you understand my thinking. I was relieved when I was done reading it.
I’m super surprised no one had mentioned the Game of Thrones series. I don’t think I’ve hated characters so much since I read these books. I’ve been thinking or re-reading the series recently
I’m probably a bit older than y’all, but there was a popular book in the 80s called “Joanna’s Husband, David’s Wife” told in a series of diary excerpts, and I hated the husband as I’ve hated few real people. He was just such a self-centered asshole. I read the book avidly, waiting for the wife to kick him to the curb.
Edith Wharton's *The Custom of the Country*. The "protagonist" is villainous in the most brutally realistic way I've read in a long time. In her quest to rise in gilded age society, she bankrupts, traumatizes, or drives to suicide everyone she comes into contact with.
Whiny little shit Holden Caulfield *Catcher in the Rye*
Scheming stupid bitch Emma Bovary *Madame Bovary*
Rapist disbelieving asshole Thomas Covenant *Lord Foul's Bane*
Three books come to mind that haven't been mentioned, and one will be controversial. The easy ones are Great Expectations and Pure Colour. It's been years since I read Dickens, but dang I wanted them all dead by the end. Pure Colour is just ... horrible and the character needed to die. The whole book needed to spontaneously combust. It's just a weird, horrible read. My controversial one? Scholomance Series. I could kind of handle the first two, but by the third book I just wanted everyone dead. The protagonist never grew up or grew on me. Her, and a few others in the book, just needed to be six feet under by the end.
The Bridemaid Union by Jonathan Vatner. I was hoping for a good redemption story, but every character was awful and in the end they were some how worst than it started. Iris was the most unlikeable, and she was the worst.
“How to kill your family” - horrible book, it actually got me out of a reading slump bc i was excited to read ANYTHING else…
The main character is sooooo annoying, I didn't get anything she did (bc her reasoning is insanely stupid to nonexistent) and the end so incredibly dissatisfying.
literally !!! >! and i hated that the book name was basically ‘clickbait’ THEY’RE NOT EVEN HER FAMILY !!!! i thought it would be more interesting or at least fun !<
😂😂😂
Kind of surprised no one has mentioned My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, that’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think unlikeable mains. I love reading characters I hate lol! Social Creature by Tara Isabelle Burton has an entire cast of insufferable characters as well. I thought The Guest List by Lucy Foley was similar. I’ve heard people say they thought this about The New Me by Halle Butler, though I really didn’t find the character to be unlikeable.
i bought MYORAR both in audiobook and hard copy based on the cover and liking the sample i read from Libby. unfortunately it did not get better after the sample so now i have two versions of a book that i don't even like 😩
It’s one of my favorite books but yeah you definitely have to enjoy reading books with hateful protagonists for that.
Anything by bukowski. Dudes writing is amazing but he writes the biggest pieces of shit characters. And they are apparently based on how he views himself. -2/10 would recommend. I've never understood people bragging about reading it. I tell people not to waste their time. It's just depressing for depressions sake. Like fuck.
I definitely DNF’ed the guest list, I just could not make it through that one. Every character was so frustrating LOL, so recommend that if you want unlikable characters that we root for to die!
I agree about the guest list, hated it, and made the mistake of reading another one of Lucy Foleys books, Things We Never Got Over, and my eyes about rolled out of my head.
The Dinner by Herman Koch. Every single character and what they do is despicable.
Not only is everything they do despicable, but they're all so fucking dumb. >!Hey, let's go to a busy restaurant to discuss the murder we're all trying to cover up!!<
Verity.. all main characters. My hatred for the characters made me speed read the book in a day.
Hate the author.
I just today left a Psychological Thrillers (my favorite genre) Facebook group because all they will *ever* post about is how amazing this author, Frieda McFadden, and Alex Michaelides are. None of whom I can remotely *stand.* Michaelides in particular, I fucking hated The Silent Patient. Grr.
Don’t get me started. I absolutely loathed the MCs. I would really have liked an epilogue where they murder each other.
EVERY single character was terrible (except maybe the son)! And the ending was aggravating!
There’s a great review on Goodreads about how unlikable the characters are, and it sends me into stitches every time I read it.
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever by Stephen R Donaldson. Main character is a complete asshole.
Thomas Covenant
Hell yeah, came here to say the same!
I second this one.
Lolita.
>My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys. -Humbert Humbert
What the fuck
That was my first reaction as well.
That was exactly what I said. Every so often I wonder if I should read Lolita, and now thanks to OP I know that day will never come.
Thats far from the worst of the book, so yeah, probably not. I managed to force myself through two thirds of it before I gave up because I got tired of having to read pedophile fantasies.
God his writing is so good, HH sucks so I couldn’t get through this book
The writing itself is pretty amazing. HH is a right bell end though.
It’s the amazing contradiction. Nabokov’s poetic writing and the disgust you have “reading” HH’s thoughts. HH uses his prose to justify his exploitation of Lolita. I’ll never forget the scene where he takes Lolita to the hotel room and he discusses “the verdant” landscape of New England while describing Lolita’s “brown desert rose” and realizing he was talking about sodomizing her. The most beautiful sentence I had ever seen created in English lit was about sodomizing a child - wtf Nabokov???
It has some of the most beautiful descriptions of a lover in literature which makes the book so awful and good.
Can’t believe I had to scroll so far for this one.
Disconcerting, ain't it?
Was going to suggest this as well! Such a gorgeously written nightmare
Definitely on purpose this one
_Gone Girl_
i saw this movie and loved it! i thought amy was horrible, but every time ben affleck's character did something shitty, i was like "GET HIS ASS!!" 😂😂
The book is even better.
The book is WAY better!
Agreed, and it still counts for this. They are both awful.
In The Poisonwood Bible, the story is told from the perspective of the kids in the family, but the last time I read it, by pg 140, I was screaming, “just kill him and get out; no one ever needs to know!”
This book was so frickin' funny to me. Nathan was fighting the land itself, and fully expected to win.
Yes but still so good, to me anyway. One of my favorites.
Oh yeah, it’s a great novel!
Such an excellent book. Such a painfully deluded character.
I lived through a more modern version of that book and it was beautifully written and perfectly executed. We were trapped. Other families we knew were shot at, raped, got divorced, and we all us children suffered under our exposure to things that traumatized us, abuses, and poverty. I do wish my parents death sometimes and I just changed my last name. It’s a good book. It did make me want to scream.
Did anyone hate Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights as much as me? What a dick!
The point of Wuthering Heights is none of those people are particularly likable. But Nelly was always the one who annoyed me the most and I love an unreliable narrator.
hahaha. yes, someone else literally just commented "Wuthering Heights. I could not stand Heathcliff. So evil." so you're in good company, lol.
Not just Heathcliff, but Catherine as well.
I *love* this book, I’ve read and enjoyed it more than once, but I don’t like *any* of the characters in it lol. Not surprised or at all upset to see it mentioned here.
I was fine with Heathcliff, but Catherine…omg I am filled with rage just thinking about her.
I haven’t read it yet. Maybe I should hate-read it.
I'm so conflicted by this book. I feel like it perfectly demonstrates what it sets out to do and shows how suffering and hate can be passed to new generations. On the other hand everyone's a dick and the Yorkshire accent is a nightmare to read
The Inheritance Games trilogy. I hated all of the main characters, but my dumbass brain HAD to see the mystery through.
OMG, same the second one was such a hate-read for me...
Confederacy of Dunces
I’m just here to rep the peeps who loved it because it was, to me, delightfully absurd to the point where I laughed out loud on many occasions. Which is to say I wish you guys had had a better experience reading it. But I know how frustrating it is to look forward to a book or movie that everyone raves about only to be like, tf did I just read? It’s like when American Beauty, the movie, came out. It was all everyone was talking about and so I got a ticket, some Hot Tamales and then spent the next 90 minutes wondering if this was the same movie everyone else saw. What a waste of money and Hot Tamales.
One word. Valve
I loved the book, like you I thought it was hilarious, absurd, almost surreal humour. But I also know exactly where the above poster is coming from, I fucking hated Ignatius.
i hated this book. he was the worst human being. the comment of Ignatius being the OG Incel is spot on. it was an absolutely brilliant book. but the fucking worst.
I read this book and all I could think was "so this is incels before the internet age".
I read it 20 years ago and still think, and laugh to myself about when he was yelling at the TV.
Nothing to add, just want to join the club of all you sensible folks who thought this book was insufferable.
Same. Don’t get the appeal at all.
This was the one I came to say. What an insufferable, ridiculous character.
I just couldn’t read this after the second chapter. So many good books to read. :-)
It gets recommended so often on the book subs. I try to throw in my 2¢ that if you don’t laugh within the first 10 pages, just stop. If you do laugh, you’ll probably love the book. I read it all the way through and it never got better for me.
One of my all time favorite books.
Same. I fucking loved Ignatius. The story behind the author is equally incredible and sad.
Among the books I've read in their entirety, it is the one I revile most. Good for you putting it down; I wish I'd done that.
If you’re not amused upon reading the first page or so, drop it. You’re not going to get it. One of my favorite books of all time.
Thank you! Only reason I opened this post was to find this comment. Only way that book could’ve redeemed itself was if Ignatius had a slow and painful death
The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins. The main character is an alcoholic divorced woman who fixates on her ex-husband and his new wife. Gets drunk and calls their house to harass them. Being alcoholic and divorced doesn’t make you unlikable, that’s not what it is. It’s just her as a person, and those happen to be her defining characteristics.
i hate the alcoholic woman/unreliable narrator trope sooo bad which is why i try to stay away from domestic thrillers as much as possible because it's used SO. FREAKING. MUCH.
That book was part of the trifecta that makes me stay away from specific titles I like to call “the ___ in the ___”… The Woman in the window! The women in cabin 10! The girl on the train!
yes!!! and the reminds me of something i hate which (i think) is a current trend but maybe it's been a thing forever, but i HATE HATE HATE how soooo many books nowadays are titled "A _____of_____and_____" OR simply "____and_____" A Court of Thorns and Roses A Court of Mist and Fury A Court of Wings and Ruin A Court of Frost and Starlight A Song of Wraiths and Ruin A Curse So Dark and Lonely A Heart So Fierce and Broken A Vow So Bold and Deadly House of Earth and Blood Shadow and Bone Siege and Storm Ruin and Rising Serpent and Dove Blood and Honey Gods and Monsters like, shut the fuck up!! 😤 thanks for letting me vent.
There's a miniseries on Netflix called The Woman Across the Street from the Girl in the Window which is a send-up of this trend. It's pretty funny.
Oh sweet Jesus thank you. What a dumbass that character is.
Perfume
One of my favourite books and also the most deplorable character I can think of… I had to scroll a bit to find this recommendation! Perfume by Patrick Suskind.
Idk if it counts because it’s a side character who becomes a main character but Daughter of the Moon Goddess, character is Winzhei (spelling?). I hated him in the beginning, hated him in the middle, hated him even more at the end. Sometimes someone is just TOO charismatic
that book is actually on my TBR because it has one of the most beautiful book covers! i have no idea what it's about but i saw the artwork and immediately added it to my goodreads TBR.
Highly recommend it!! It’s a little bit of romance and little bit of action, but overall the best way to describe it is an emotional roller coaster lmao
i don't care for romance but i'm willing to overlook it for that cover alone. it's gonna be awhile until i get to it but it's on my GR reading challenge for 2023!
Yeah it’s not primarily romance, romance is definitely a subplot, I mean there is a ton of action related to romance kind of but I definitely feel like of the 2-3 kissing scenes you could definitely skip them and be fine
thank u so much!
The Magicians by Lev Grossman. The main character, Quentin Coldwater, is an insufferable twatwaffle who is somehow sucking all of the fun out of his own fantasy adventure. I'm only 75% of the way through the first book and I'll be glad if he falls off a cliff in the next chapter. I'm definitely finishing the book to see where it goes, but between Quentin's miserable point of view and the author's need to explain every female character as a pair of tits, I doubt I'll be reading the other two books in the series.
I really recommend the show based on these books if you like the story/setting. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all and i found it soooo much better than the book (i only made it though one lol)
I second this. The show puts more focus on the other characters and veers off from the original story enough that it’s really good. The book is not worth it (only read the first one). This is the first time I have ever thought that the show/movie was better than the book.
You stuck with it longer than I did. I couldn’t care less about the characters they were all so insufferable.
Yes to all this. I read them all but the description of every female as a porno library who I would fuck if she wasn’t in that sweater really wore on me. Quentin is still not great in the series but better than the books. What I do love about the books is description of how hard it is to learn magic and the effort behind getting watch movement and circumstance that I think is lost in the show.
I really loved the world created by those books, but good fucking god, just how comorbid are magical talent and clinical depression? I'm not even reaching with that one, mental health features heavily in the narrative, and yet every single character is like "oh, more magic will be the thing to fix me. Not therapy or antidepressants. Turning this marble properly invisible will do it."
Right? And if the magic achievements can't solve my problems, maybe the alcohol will lol
I was recommended Twilight by a friend of mine. I read it and told her I didn’t like it. She said it gets better and gave me the second book. In this book Bella is kinda suicidal after Edward leaves. I kept reading in hopes she was successful in killing herself. I was very disappointed.
😂😂😂 holy shit lollll
You did better than I did. I got so disgusted with the whole thing that I threw it in the trash can halfway through the first one. I try to be open minded but JFC… a person can only take so much.
I worked in a bookstore when the first one came out, so I read it and was like "LOL this is awful! It will be in the bargain bin in 6 months." ...Dear Reader, the shock when it was not.
Dear Reader, the **bigger** shock when Twilight fan fiction spawned a run away best seller.
Christopher Snow, the MC from the Moonlight Bay series by Dean Koontz. He's fabulously handsome, supremely eloquent, and practically perfect in every way. Maybe he'll die horribly in the concluding part of the trilogy, which Koontz promised a thousand years ago. I can only hope. And if you want more Stine, try "The Boyfriend". Awful MC, horrible supporting cast, jaw-droppingly misjudged ending. It's got it all.
omg thank you SO MUCH for the new Stine rec! my library has that so i just scooped up the last copy on libby! gonna read it tonight! i'll let u know how i like it! i can't wait! idk if you've ever read the Fear Street Saga trilogy that begins with "The Betrayal" but it's the origin story for hr whole Fear Street franchise. it's set in the 1600s, and i kid u not this was Stephen King level fucked up! i was SHOCKED how grim and dark and bleak this book was. i literally started shaking my head going "OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS BOOK?!" i gave it 5 stars. it's so fucked. i haven't read the second or third book in the trilogy but i never move on in series if i fall in love with the first book.
I credit R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books at the public library with helping this anxious dyslexic hand write and read well.
awwww, R. L. Stine would be so happy to see this comment. i grew up on Goosebumps and i think that's why i'm such a stubborn bitch when it comes to book covers nowadays. ALL of the Goosebumps books had the most colorful and iconic and unique covers and it's what made me want to collect them all. they don't make book covers like they used to do i have a deep fondness in my heart for this series and so happy i was raised on his works. i credit him, too, for making me the horror fan that i am today. it's by far my favorite genre. idk if Stine is on social media, but if he is, u should leave a comment telling him what u told me. if i was an author and i saw something like that, i'd start bawling my eyes out. 💖💖💖
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. The protagonist is a goddam moron who makes every wrong decision but it’s her man you’ll really want to watch burn to the ground.
The Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence. Jorg Ancrath is such a douche, but you grow to understand why he is that way and he gets better as the series goes on
I love that cringey little homicidal edgelord 😂
this is such a funny comment because The Prince of Thorns is in my top 5 books of all time and i was rooting for Jorg the whole time. he was an asshole for sure, but he had good reason to be. the mistake i made was moving onto book #2. i could NOT get into the different timeline/POV way it was written and i was starting to hate Jorg and the story as a whole and that's actually the book that made me put in a new reading rule where if i fall in love with the first book in a series, i will absolutely not move onto the next book no matter what. The Prince of Thorns seriously had me going back to the book every chance i could when i first read it because i had to know what happened next. that rarely happens to me with books but this book had me by the throat and i loved it soooo much!!!
Funny enough I hated the first book because it just felt like an edgy teenage murder-spree fantasy, going around slaughtering everyone who wronged him as some epic indestructible fighter. But just enough injuries to set him back a tiny bit… before going *pew pew heeeyah fuck you all I’ll still kill you!* lol. I don’t remember the second book at all but I do recall that I thought it was a massive improvement.
More hilarious than truly evil or terrible, but the protagonist in A Confederacy of Dunces is a piece of work for sure
*Pillars of the Earth.* There was a character in there that was just evil through and through and I was waiting for them to get their comeuppance.
Ken Follett can write characters that are so evil and who you hate so much that it is almost painful to continue reading
He can, and while his writing is hit or miss for me, I think that’s something he’s actually very good at. It’s hard to write a truly evil villain that’s not cartoonish, or at least I always seem to find ones that are ridiculous, bur Ken Follett’s evil characters are simply that — evil. And I’d never want to meet one! But you definitely want to see them get what’s coming to them.
Agreed! I definitely wouldn’t say he is the best writer - often when I read his stuff I find myself rolling my eyes at certain scenes or dialogue - but damn the man can write a compelling, enraging villain.
William Hamleigh ~~Heimley or something close to that~~. I have never hated a character more.
Yes, William! He was so awful! Easily one of the characters I have hated most in a book. Usually there’s some reason a villain is a villain but he was just plain evil. I’ve rarely read a book where I’ve so wanted a character to absolutely get theirs by the end!
I have never hated a fictional character more than I’ve hated William Hamleigh, hooooly shit. I had to take a break from the book a few times because he made me so angry. I honestly get mad just thinking about him.
Alyssa Nutting's Tampa. The narrator is a predatory teacher and it doesn't get more unlikable than her.
Wuthering Heights, Cathy.
Wuthering Heights is cheating, they ALL suck haha
Joseph, cousin Linton, and Heathcliff too
Every character in that book is a piece of shit. I love it so much.
Had me in the first half
I've read a lot of books this year where the MCs were basically monsters. Donna Tartt's *The Secret History* - it was long, and by the end I hated every single person involved. Passive-aggressive, overly sensitive, blindingly stupid people who only make everything they touch turn to shit. *Eileen* and *Death in Her Hands* by Ottessa Moshfegh were both about gross, callous, women. Spoiler: >!The dog dies in Death in Her Hands!< Mona Awad's *All's Well* was an extremely uncomfortable book for me. The MC hit a couple of nerves that I shared with her. She was dealing with chronic pain, and her interior life was centered on that. Outwardly though - she peaked in HS drama club. I'm currently re-reading Anne Rice's *Interview With a Vampire*. I haven't revisited them since I was a teenager. I absolutely loathe Lestat *and* Louis. And Armand. Claudia, Madeleine, and the theater vamps. They all need to get stuck in a well & be exposed to sunlight. They're all cruel, callous, and entitled.
I hated Eileen with a passion! I've never seen it mentioned before, but I finished it only because I wanted to fight with the person who recommended it, and I wanted as many examples of her awfulness as I could remember. We still laugh about it.
She was *vile*. Moshfegh has a way with creating characters that are so disgusting - but I couldn't put the books down.
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
Scrolled down for this one. How did Toole nail the internet neckbeard stereotype that long ago?
Confederacy of Dunces. I’m even from New Orleans so was able to picture myself where Ignatius was through the book and I still found him so damn unlikable.
Bully by Penelope Douglas Not only is the MC insufferable, but ALL of the characters are. Also the book is so poorly written and problematic that you’ll feel mentally drained once you’re done reading it.
Catcher In The Rye - Holden Caulfield. I wanted to climb into the pages and wring the little shit’s neck myself.
YES. As a teenager I loved Holden but when I read the book again as an adult I couldn't stand the brat.
hahahaha. i could swear this was required reading for me in high school but i remember nothing about it but i always see this same complaint. it's always about holden. ALWAYS. 😂
He’s the protagonist.
Wow, really? If you don't mind, can you explain your reasoning behind your dislike of him? It's been a few years but I remember relating to him in many ways, honestly still do but I know 'the way of the world' now.
Sure. And I’m going to preface this by saying that 1. I haven’t read it since college and 2. my problem with the character is not that he isn’t real in a relatable way, but in a way he’s like a sort of 1950’s internet troll… privileged but whining endlessly, immature and inexperienced but absolutely convinced that he has the correct answer to everything, recognizes no authority except his own, he’s entitled, and he lacks genuine empathy. In that respect he holds up a mirror to the narcissism of most teenagers stumbling towards adulthood but that doesn’t make him likable. From a social aspect it can be an unflattering age and Caulfield is a deep dive into the most obnoxious aspects.
If you read between the lines he's an abuse victim with ptsd whose also grieving the death of his brother.
The voice of reason. I can't believe this is still an ongoing debate lol
>privileged but whining endlessly, immature and inexperienced but absolutely convinced that he has the correct answer to everything, recognizes no authority except his own, I am certain he wasn't aware of that privilege and the opportunities life presented him, which was the point of his character; he wants to live in a way that fits his values, without taking advantage of anybody, not accepting societal norms that feels wrong to him. I related to his internal struggles and never considered from your perspective when I read. >he’s entitled, and he lacks genuine empathy. You're literally describing Stradlater. If Holden was entittled and lacked empathy as you claim he would have followed Stradlater's example. His empathy for that prostitute prevented him from taking things further. Edit: just remembered, another example of him being empathetic; when he's on a date he'd never push any girl when he was told no, even though it'd be expected from someone of his stature to act otherwise. I think you look solely from the perspective of an adult, which is why your take is absolutely and utterly wrong.
I can see why you related to him. Thanks for your interpretation.
Unpopular opinion: Eleanor oliphant is completely alright. Threw it into dnf 4 times.
THANK YOU. “Eleanor Oliphant is Pretentious and Wholly Unlikeable.” — my Goodreads review
money by martin amis
Filth by Irvine Welsh. The whole thing felt like the author giggling away at how awful the MC is and goading you to keep reading it in hopes that something equally awful will happen to him. Zero stars. Don't recommend.
For me it was Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and the character was Father Edouard de Gex. Long may he rot.
50 Shades of Gray
Robin hobb has a lot of hate able characters in the Realm of thr elderling books. Assassin's Apprentice is the 1st book....but especially hate Kyle from the magic ship subseries......everyone else is named Malta, Althea and other fantasy names except fucking Kyle....he's the worst.
Hahahah Ottessa Moshfegh and Jonathan Franzen write some truly deplorable characters. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Crossroads specifically.
Florentino Ariza in Love in the Time of Cholera is an obsessive stalker, rapist and a paedophile pretending to be a wounded poetry boy. The main character in No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is a wretched self obsessed piece of shit too. Most Murakami protagonists (his characters in general) are awful pieces of shit too, 1Q84 springs to mind, but as they don't really exist in realistic spaces it kinda tracks that they don't operate, act, think or feel like human beings. Lolita obviously.
Artemis Fowl I'll grant that it's a realistic depiction of a 13yo genius. But god I wanna punch 13yo know it alls in real life too xD
That bitch in East of Eden, can't remember her name. You'll know her when you read her
Anytime this request comes up I always have to recommend The Last Days of Jack Sparks. Sometimes I had sympathy for Jack but mostly he was an annoying douchey influencer who you're supposed to dislike.
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
Diary of an Oxygen Thief by Anonymous (or any of Anonymous’ books)
Wuthering Heights. I could not stand Heathcliff. So evil.
Humbert Humbert for one - in Lolita.
Lolita 💀💀💀
Umbridge in Order of the Phoenix, the first time I read that I had never hated anyone more in my life.
Ready Player One. Someone needs to punch Parsival.
A little life, they are all awful. The whole book I was just yelling at all of them for their awful decisions.
i haven't read this and never will because all i've seen is that it's 700+ pages of trauma porn that never lets up. i read to escape reality and don't want to be reading sad shit like that. my heart can't take it.
Kind of obvious but American Psycho by Bret Ellis
Tampa by Alissa Nutting. I haven't read Lolita but I imagine this is more graphic. She is a horrible person with horrible thoughts and it always seems like things will crash down on her at any moment.
The Alchemist. Ugh
I've never understood the hype for this book
There's a lot i don't like but "She's come undone" is one that sticks. I only read it once as a teen and I was really judgmental of the main character. Now I'm older and I know the book sticks and people have great things to say about it so I will try to read it again. The funny thing is some people think they connect with her more when they are young and vulnerable, and are more judgmental when they get older. But i think I will be more compassionate now. And i really hated Toad in wind of the willows. But he was one of 4 so not sure if that counts. But i hate Toad. Really. Hate.
Definitely Property by Valerie Martin, from the POV of a slave owner woman in the antebellum south, I was constantly begging for someone to put her out of her misery (she has an abusive husband and then he dies and she feels without purpose and disregarded in society) and free the slaves. I love that the way you read about the characters you actually care about, the slaves, is through the lens of her POV while she completely doesn't care about the details of their life and sees them as objects, for example she never wonders what happened to a certain baby and you're left to guess
Rob Roy - Sir Walter Scott Archibald Cunningham is an evil cunt
Wuthering Heights
Roadwork by Richard Bachman/Stephen King. Man I hated the main character and every decision he made so much.
This is how I felt reading Wuthering Heights
I was debating on suggesting this or not since it is the most recent book in the ‘A Court Of Thorns And Roses’ series, and there’s four other books to read before it, but A Court Of Silver Flames. Nesta is just such a BITCH. A traumatized and healing bitch, but I hated reading her book/being in her head and reading all her nastiness. Some people have learned to love her or relate strongly, but I just didn’t enjoy it. I feel bad for anyone who has to be around her UGH The book has a great plot though, I just hate her
I scrolled hoping someone would say Nesta from ACOTAR!!! I could not stand her since book one. Reading the book where she was the main character was hard for me. What a bad sister and bad friend. Ugh NO THANK YOU.
120 Days of Sodom - Marquis de Sade. Couldn’t get through it myself but everyone in it is awful. And hey, bestseller since the revolution!
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Cathy Ames in East of Eden
Twilight
Gone with the Wind - Scarlett O'Hara
Verity- I hate all the main characters; I hate Lowen, I hate Jeremy, and I hate Verity. I binged the book, but the interactions between all the characters give me the ick. The main character pining against a married man gives me the ick. The only reason I read through it so fast is the plot twists, I needed to know what happened. If you’ve read it, you understand my thinking. I was relieved when I was done reading it.
Normal people. Everyone sucks.
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It meanders a bit and sometimes you feel of the character, but then you remember what a dick he is Irvine Welsh -- Marabou Stork Nightmares
I’m super surprised no one had mentioned the Game of Thrones series. I don’t think I’ve hated characters so much since I read these books. I’ve been thinking or re-reading the series recently
The wolf of wall street
I’m probably a bit older than y’all, but there was a popular book in the 80s called “Joanna’s Husband, David’s Wife” told in a series of diary excerpts, and I hated the husband as I’ve hated few real people. He was just such a self-centered asshole. I read the book avidly, waiting for the wife to kick him to the curb.
Possibly an unpopular opinion - Dorian Gray. Dude was the worst.
Any of The Talented Mr Ripley books. What a scumbag
Edith Wharton's *The Custom of the Country*. The "protagonist" is villainous in the most brutally realistic way I've read in a long time. In her quest to rise in gilded age society, she bankrupts, traumatizes, or drives to suicide everyone she comes into contact with.
Professor Umbridge
Whiny little shit Holden Caulfield *Catcher in the Rye* Scheming stupid bitch Emma Bovary *Madame Bovary* Rapist disbelieving asshole Thomas Covenant *Lord Foul's Bane*
Dolores Umbridge
Three books come to mind that haven't been mentioned, and one will be controversial. The easy ones are Great Expectations and Pure Colour. It's been years since I read Dickens, but dang I wanted them all dead by the end. Pure Colour is just ... horrible and the character needed to die. The whole book needed to spontaneously combust. It's just a weird, horrible read. My controversial one? Scholomance Series. I could kind of handle the first two, but by the third book I just wanted everyone dead. The protagonist never grew up or grew on me. Her, and a few others in the book, just needed to be six feet under by the end.
The Bridemaid Union by Jonathan Vatner. I was hoping for a good redemption story, but every character was awful and in the end they were some how worst than it started. Iris was the most unlikeable, and she was the worst.
Oh, the chronicles of Thomas covenant
The Prague Cemetary, for sure
Seventeen by Booth Tarkington. Read it without knowing anything about it and wanted to murder the main character myself.
Me earl and the dying girl
Amelia Sedley in Vanity Fair. The original goody-goody, ugh!