Books I Loathed discussion
Characters Worth Loathing
"Mildred" from Of Human Bondage. She was so horrible to Philip, and wasn't even that interesting. Also, the narrator of The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan. Not only is he creepy and unlikable, he also has hygiene problems. I hope that McEwan's account of teen boyhood is grotesquely exaggerated and not his own story (or anyone else's) in disguise.
I hated Piggy in "Lord of the Flies"He is one of those hangers-on who mean well, but never shuts up. He is always overstating the obvious and going off on useless tangents.
He has a few good ideas; such as introducing the conch as a symbol of authority. Unfortunately his mannerisims and lack of self esteem make him a subject of ridicule and no one takes him too seriously.
(its been years since I read it) But I think he is also the person who introduces the idea of "The Beastie" living somewhere on the island this idea is yet another destabilizing element to an already chaotic enviroment.
didnt shed too many tears when he dies the way he does.
Anyone from "The Ruins." My hatred for this book burns ever-strong.
I felt that way about Alice in Cell. In fact, the only person I gave a rat's ass about in that book was Clay. They were all so one-dimensional.
I hate the oldest girl in the
little women. She makes me want to vomit! Just her attitude sets me off on a rant!
Lye, are you sure that it's Meg you hate? Usually, Amy (the youngest) is the one everyone hates.
Does anyone else wonder why the main character in many epic stories is sooooooo unlikable? For instance...
Scarlet O'Hara (whiny, selfish woman)
Bilbo Baggins (so many of the other characters in Lord of the Rings are incredible but I just can't stand him)
Harry Potter (I genuinely loathed him by the 5th book and didn't really like him before that...also totally agree on the house elves)
Other than those I just vehemently dislike meddling, whiny characters that are obviously there JUST to complicate a story. Like Mrs. Bennett, if it were possible for that woman to meddle or swoon more through the course of that fabulous book I might have screamed.
1. Scarlett O'Hara. Worst character
ever
.2. Ashley Wilkes. Second worse.
3. Melanie "Melly" Wilkes.
4. Rhett Butler (half-hate, half-tolerate).
In fact, everyone in Gone With the Wind .
5. Isabella Swan. Third worse.
6. Edward Cullen. Way too bi-polar. Still, he's like Rhett. Don't really hate, just don't like much at all.
And I'm not even through with the book (Twilight). -.-
a ton of people seem to hate Bilbo, but what about his whiny little snivelly annoyingly pathetic nephew?? Yes, I am talking about Frodo. I hate that little butt. Throughout parts of the saga, I just wanted sauron to smite him down...sigh
Mod
Kate, he's just as bad all through the books.
Sandi, yes I am sure it is her! I love the youngest one. Note: not good with real names.
Charecters i hate:1) Bella Swan Annoying, whiny incosiderate, selfish, stupid, clumsy, and lacks common sense
2) Edward Cullen Stalker, overly over protective, bi-polar, to old, wants to kill you.
3) Fitzwilliam MacMurray I HAT YOU I HATE YOU FITZ!!! FITZ IF I SEE YOU IN REAL LIFE I WILL BREAK YOUR IDIOTIC LITTLE FACE.
4) Emily Gold I HATE YOUR GUTS. YOU RUINED HIS LIFE. I WOULD KILL YOU IF YOU WERENT ALREADY DEAD.
5)The mom from My sisters Keeper, YOU HAVE TWO DAUGHTERS!! TAKE CARE OF BOTH OF THEM YOU BITCH!
OK IM DONE
Mrs. Bennet, from P&P. Dear lord, I wanted to kill her.EVERYONE in Twilight.
Th eonly charecter i liked in Twilight was Alice. But thats it.
Just about every character in "War and Peace". Even Prince Andre. I liked Denisov, the rest were self-absorbed aristocrats. No wonder the Revolution happened. Aside, Tolstoy is brilliant to write the characters he did, and the epic(s) he wrote.
Emma in Jane Austen's Emma. Just not very likeable and not at all sympathetic.
oh goody loathe , loathe, loathe...I'm in such a good mood (oxymoronic ) for loathing arghhh but what's this...poppy doesn't like my dear sweet little bilbo baggins tee hee...then you should read the old Harvard Lampoon book Bored of the Rings. And you didn't care for Scarlett who Mitchell almost named Pansy?
There's some writer out there who wrote a book The Bitch Switch who I would hope, might tell us women that Scarlett just had her Bitch Switch turned on high!!!
Oh and if you didn't like Bilbo consider this HAHAAHA!!! If I'd gotten that ring you folks would be doomed, fraid I would have sold it too the Dark Lord or whatever his name was for about 50 billion...
Ahhh but speaking of bitches..Rowlings Umbridge has to take the prize she even beats the pants off Great Expectations Miss Haversham!!
I hated Bella, from Twilight, the actual book was okay, but her... ugh, she was so stupid and annoying, sometimes a wanted to grab her shoulders shake her and just say "HOW CAN YOU BE SUCH AN IDIOT???" but other then that there aren't many books with characters i didn't like, unless they were the villain which you aren't supposed to like.
I kind of agree with you about Emma. Great idea, but she acts so malicious without even knowing it! You should see, Jane Austen book club. There is an "Emma" type character that is worth knowing about.
Bella is soo mean!!! Urgh urgh irgh!! She just like up and left Jacob!!!she makes me so mad!
Emma and her father Mr. Woodhouse in Jane Austen's Emma, how can you be that old and still be so whiny?
What did Mr. Knightley see in Emma? She's a selfish, meddlesome, snob!
Ruth from "A Widow For One Year." Selfish, cold, mean. No redeeeming qualities except great breasts. The rest of the book was great. I like to imagine that after the book ended, her love interest (he was very nice) manages to go off and find someone who was fun and sweet.
I haven't read every comment in this thread because I am filled with such a white-hot heat of hate right now that I have to post first and I will read later. Number one on my list: Lee Fiora in Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. GET OVER YOURSELF! THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU! I want to slap Lee within an inch of her life and then start all over and do it again. Where are all the role models for young women? Speaking of this leads me to the next character on my list: Cameron McDonald in Mercy by Jodi Picoult. You fall completely in love in two days after having been married for 10 years? Really? Are you 12? And his devoted wife, Allie...again, where are the role models? Third on my list: Jacob Black from the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers. You can't stand vampires but don't understand how anyone can be prejudiced against you??? Quit being such a prick. Just quit.
Erica - totally agree with you on Ruth. The worst part about Ruth is that she is written the way a man thinks a woman acts and therefore she comes off as ridiculous. Garp in The World According to Garp isn't much better, but that's because he's an unfaithful, wishy washy jackass. Also, each and every character in Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan. I was actually DISAPPOINTED when they weren't killed.
And of course each and every character in The Jane Austen Book Club. Such a group of pretentious nasty old biddies and the youngens who hang around them deserve misery and heartache. I raise grey hounds? Seriously?? Who are these people!
And finally Delores from She's Come Undone. Ugh. She puts a nasty taste in my mouth from just thinking about her. I tried to feel badly for her, but she's so disagreeable that I couldn't even care about her journey to redemption. Yucky. I have to go wash out with salt water now.
Christen - And I have to agree with you about "She's Come Undone." I think the murder of the fish in the tank was just so harsh that nothing else could redeem her in my eyes. I certainly like a main character to have flaws to struggle with, and wretchedness will sometimes justify a vicious act. But sometimes not.
However, I DID like "This Much I Know Is True." Very much.
It's a cheap shot and a low blow to say that authors can't write aboout opposite sex characters, but that's what I was thinking all the way through "Widow For One Year." I wonder how Wally Lamb feels about Dolores.
Gar Face! From The Underneath. Ooooo, he's a bad'un! But. I dunno. Does it count if you're supposed to hate them?
Buttercup was a very weak character, that is true. One of the characters I despised (and I didn't realize until reading Silver's Lure) is Timias from the Through the Shadowlands series. He is such a whiny asshole and a general jerk toward anybody who jeopardizes his plans.Another character from Silver's Lure that I couldn't stand was Meeve. She was so horrible. She was selfish, wasteful, and a slut.
Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter books
Professor Umbridge - in the Harry Potter series. She is
PURE EVIL
.
Totally agree with Professor Umbridge. I know she's the kind of character we're supposed to "love to hate", but while that worked with Professor Snape, Rowling failed miserably with Umbridge. I hated having to read about her, and she utterly ruined OotP for me.
Kiwiria wrote: "Totally agree with Professor Umbridge. I know she's the kind of character we're supposed to "love to hate", but while that worked with Professor Snape, Rowling failed miserably with Umbridge..."I think the difference between Snape and Umbridge is that Snape isn't EVIL, his just a bullee who became a bully. Umbridge is a sadistic bully simple because she can be for no reason.
Isabella Swan from "Twilight. Yes, I admit I read this but at least half of the reason was just to know what all the fuss was about. These books don't have much to recommend them besides the great premise- which Meyer totally wastes- and Edward, the perfect man- who is interesting and fun for about 50 of the 300+ pages that comprise each of her books. I can't even tell you how thoroughly sick I got of Bella- she's a complete Mary Sue. She's got no character of her own, no flaws tat make us relate to her, or strengths that make us love her; she's mer4ely a pawn to act out Meyer's plot.
I just read Wuthering Heights again and I hated Heathcliff so bad it gave me a fever and the burning desire to kill! What a horrible book! Glad to see I am not alone!!
Poppy wrote: "Yay, other Wuthering Heights haters! Yes, every single character is awful. Here are others:
Bilbo Baggins
Scarlet O'Hara
Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited
Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre
Howard Roark ..."
Poppy wrote: "Yay, other Wuthering Heights haters! Yes, every single character is awful. Here are others:
Bilbo Baggins
Scarlet O'Hara
Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited
Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre
Howard Roark ..."
Everyone except the two sisters from My Sister's Keeper.Marcus from the Jessica Darling series. (He's a stupid, empty hippie who's "cool" with everything. He's SO irritating.)
I found myself despising Silvanoshei in the Dragonlance War of Souls trilogy. I thought that because I enjoyed his mother, Alhana, that he would have some of her traits, but he was weak, whiny and disloyal.
I am about halfway through A Thousand Splendid Suns and I loathe Rasheed. I loathe him more and more after every page in which he makes an appearance!
Pretty much every character except the titular character in Bless Me, Ultima sucked. I mean, what mother really pressures her son to be a priest at six?
I just scanned all the previous comments, and I can't believe I'm the first to mention Becky Sharp. She wasn't just a poor girl trying to survive by her wit and her charms; she was a selfish, heartless, sociopath (guess that's redundant). I could forgive her cold calculating ways and her desire to "getz mine" if she had loved just one person other than herself - like her son, for instance.
Cam and Mia in Jodi Picoult's "Mercy"....I hated them so much it was difficult to finish the book, but I have a thing about not finishing books I have started.I hated just about everyone in Dicken's "Great Expectations", but that might be because they forced me to read it in school all those years ago. If I read it again I might have a different opinion.
I see lots of hate for Heathcliff and Cathy here, but they had to be selfish and hateful, or the story would not have been so darkly romantic. That these two selfish twits had that kind of undying passion for each other, but still felt the need to let soial status and revenge keep them apart, well, it just shows how absolutely evil they both are. But the passages where Cathy and Heathcliff talk about their feelings for each other (i.e."Whatever we are made of, he and I are the same...") are some of the most richly passionate I can remember.
Good points, Lizzie, because Catherine's and Heathclife's selfishness, their self-absorbtion, their non-conformist way of ignoring and rebelling against some pretty suffocating social mores of the 18th century English landed gentry - when every one but white male land owners - were just chattel, including the women - is really why their love transcends even life and they can be reunited as ghosts. Bronte was writing about the suffocating nature of 18th century England and she chose a gothic romance where this couple were only free out on the moors away from the refined society of the drawing room. Heathcliffe breaks the conventions, so does Catherine because the conventions are deadly.
I see a lot of people disliked Holden Claufield, and that makes me a bit sad, because I adored him. I found him so deep, honest and interesting. I do however, understand why people might not like him.I also saw that someone said they disliked Piggy from Lord of the Flys. That made me honestly laugh out loud. I never imagined that someone would loathe Piggy. I myself have a charachter that I hate from Lord of the Flys, Jack, Ralph's main antagonist. There is absolutely nothing to like about him, he ruined the island!
I also have to agree with all the Mr.Darcy and Mr.Rochester haters. Those men are pompous, arrogant jerks! It was difficult for me to get through those books with charachters like them.
I've seen a lot of people complaining about charachters in Wuthering Heights. I was planning on reading that sometime soon, I am suddenly less excited for that.
The only character I've hated in the more than 1,000 books I've read is Perly Dunsmore, the auctioneer in Joan Samson's The Auctioneer, a book I started but couldn't finish, not because it was bad but because it was so terrifying. It's not supernatural or "horror" it's just freak you out spooky. Stephen King sings the praises of this book, which should tell you something. Now this guy Perly is someone you can really hate.
Jessie wrote: "I see a lot of people disliked Holden Claufield, and that makes me a bit sad, because I adored him. I found him so deep, honest and interesting. I do however, understand why people might not like h..."Don't let the comments dissuade you from reading "Wuthering Heights"...it's still an excellent book...most readers can get past their feelings about Heathcliff and Cathy, because it is a gripping story...I've read it several times, at different stages in my life, and loved it more every time.
Lizzie wrote: "Jessie wrote: "I see a lot of people disliked Holden Claufield, and that makes me a bit sad, because I adored him. I found him so deep, honest and interesting. I do however, understand why people m..."Yes, definitely, decide for yourself. I read it in 9th grade and loved it.
Thanks Lizzie and Tom, you've restored my excitement for opening Wuthering Heights! Your both absolutely right, I should decide for myself.
this thread is great for me 'cause i'm quite severe with the characters in the books! :D
Ashley Wilkes for one, HATED him. Scarlet was worth loathing too, but i just dismiss her because i don't think Mitchel did want her to be likeable. but Ashley... ARGH! he was so unnecessarily sickening!
EVERY character in EVERY Sidney Sheldon book.
i hated Elizabeth in P&P. sorry, but she seemed so disgustingly cock-sure and i-could-get-a-prince-if-i-wanted.
i read Wuthering Heights, it made me so angry and sick that to this day i remember it as a nightmare. so this doesn't go with this thread!
Ashley Wilkes for one, HATED him. Scarlet was worth loathing too, but i just dismiss her because i don't think Mitchel did want her to be likeable. but Ashley... ARGH! he was so unnecessarily sickening!
EVERY character in EVERY Sidney Sheldon book.
i hated Elizabeth in P&P. sorry, but she seemed so disgustingly cock-sure and i-could-get-a-prince-if-i-wanted.
i read Wuthering Heights, it made me so angry and sick that to this day i remember it as a nightmare. so this doesn't go with this thread!
If for no other reason, read Wuthering Heights because it is the great-grandmother of every gothic/romance novel ever written. This is the FIRST. I don't know if sister Charlotte put quill to paper first with Jane Eyre in penning the FIRST gothic/romance novel, so let's just say sisters Bronte created a genre that have made a lot of women writers very rich, gave many other women writers a rewarding livelihood, and kept millions of readers entertained on many a lonely night and long airplane ride for 200 years.
Books I Loathed
Books mentioned in this topic
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I found him so annoying and needy.
I was actually happy when he finally dies.
Not too crazy about Gene either.