Books I Loathed discussion
Characters Worth Loathing
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Raven from Pandemonium, she's always mean and doesn't care about how her decisions will really affect other people.Luce from Fallen, she's way to love-struck for a guy whom she just met and gave her the finger.
Susan from The Chronicles of Narnia, she acts way to grown up for a girl so young. (Also Edmund for being a jerk and hanging out with the White Witch)
Ferrin from Beyonders, up until the end he seemed like an okay guy until you learned that he was working for the very guy who was trying to get rid of the group and didn't feel any regret for turning in people who had saved his life.
Calilibrarian wrote: "I can't stand Anita Blake in the Laurell Hamilton series. She's so dour and sour and a nymphomaniac at the same time. Whaa?"|Agreed! Not that I have a problem with nymphomania, but I did read one of these books and the first half was just chronically who had slept with whom! I'm not a teenager anymore. I don't care!
Every character in THe Cat's Table and The Finkler Question. Grrr and yawn!!!!
Hey, y'all forgot everyone in Little Women.Personally, I'm not too keen on Anne Frank, nor on the fat narrator on a horse in wuthering heights, the crippled killjoy in Of human bondage, Sebastian and his lame teddy bear in Brideshead revisited, Jong's British lover in Fear of flying, the starlet in Tender is the night, Morrie in Tuesdays with Morrie, the dead chick in The lovely bones, and if we want to go old school both God and Job are deplorable in the book of Job. Who else? Suicide chick in Norwegian wood, anyone who is in One flew over the cuckoos nest, Murphy in particular, the secretary in American psycho, - in fact it's difficult to think of any character but Blanche Dubois that I actually like.
I forgot, the whole lot of karamazovs should be flogged.
Mod
Thank you for your input. Though I am not sure if you mean to be ironic but since I've had this discussion irl I think you may object to the characters I chose.I am very interested in gaining insight into how differently we as individuals read the same pieces of literature. I want to address in particular you're coming across as somewhat appalled by my critique of 'real people' i.e. Anne Frank and Morrie in Tuesdays with Morrie.
First I need to mention that I don't really find Tuesdays with Morrie comparable to the diary of Anne Frank mainly because Tuesdays with Morrie is a work of semi- biographical fiction that is tailor-made for upper-middle-class Americans' hopes the process of dying will and can be, a sort of humbling CV of their lives where even if dying of Lou Gehrig's disease you can have a "life" ceremony before you die where everyone gets together and tell you how great and wise you have been. Anne Frank on the other hand was a girl who had no control of her circumstances and whose Life still has had a very real and very positive impact on many young readers sense of ethics.
However, we must not forget that the diary of Anne Frank to some extent was also edited (and analogous with documentary films are thus not representative mainly of Frank's priorities but also by her father and later by the publishing house who initially edited the draft to fit a mold that was in demand for at the time of its publication.
Let me digress a little;Ezra Pound (whose work I really like) was very impressed by Italian fascism, yet one (haha, I mean "I") must allow oneself a possibility to appreciate his writings as an "entity" independent of the person that was Ezra Pound. I know it sounds dated but there is something transcendent in certain creative outpourings Independent of the author or painter that has created classic works of art. Critique of an artist's work mustn't necessarily be a critique of his life or opinions as well, I believe.
So one can (must) heartily disagree with Pound on political issues and still appreciate the strange serenity in his work. But I am aware that I am just expressing an opinion; An opinion that is based on my experience that we have so many different ways of reading and we act so differently in how much we allow ourselves to intertwine the work with the author.
Pardon me if I sound like some semantics 101 instructor from 1984 ( when postmodernism was just introduced into American academia) but I really do think that herein lies the provocation of admitting that I really did not cherish reading Anne Frank's diary, NOR
did I enjoy her bland character. My point again is that
I think it's all about how one intertwines the author with his or her literature. I tend to dissociate works of fiction from the individual who wrote them, not because I'm an avid fan of postmodernism or even of any kind of relativism but because that is simply how I read books.
Now, I understand that it sounds quite snobbish to sneer at works with autobiographical content. However, in the case of Anne Frank my problem is not that I don't appreciate that it was a horrible situation for a young girl (and an entire ethnic group) living the way they did In a culture that hated you just because of where your parents originated from. And of course I felt very moved when I read the diary of Anne Frank because her life gave her this premature insight into the Baseness of the Hearts of fellow humans - Something that she had to come to grips with way too early. THOUGH:
a diary that depicts the daily life of a family that month after month stare at the same walls of their 30 ft.² hiding place does not (NOT!!!) make for very exciting reading. This I firmly maintain...
I am glad the book exists, since it will be Part of the legacy and tools to educate later generations on the atrocities of totalitarianism but I maintain that it is not an exciting book and Anne Frank is not a very compelling young woman in my reading of her diary and my perception of Frank based on her writing I found her dull & shallow-ish. I don't think this makes me evil, it's just that this canonical memoir is not very useful for me in grasping the concept of the Holocaust.
Here, I must also ask you if you think that if the diary of Anne Frank was a work of pure fiction, would it then be of less historical importance EVEN THOUGH her diary reflects the reality of the lives of hundreds of thousands of children during the second world war in a painfully meticulous diary of fear and dreariness. I believe that if that is how one feels this would imply that Anne Frank's life in some way was more important than all those anonymous children who succumbed to the Nazis without later discovered diaries - and I don't find that a very attractive line of reasoning. Which is why I read Anne Frank's diary as though it COULD be a work of fiction and therefore I also feel that I can critique the narrative of the story and the main character, who bored the living daylights out of me.
And now it is 3 AM in Stockholm and I can't even begin to describe how I loathe - I guess it's rather Mitch Ahlbom than Morrie btw - tuesdays etc... because of the hypocrisy his book conveys. So I'll leave it at that.
Just making sure my opinionated little soul doesn't come across as tooooo bitchy, as one is likely to suspect of oneself at 3 AM w insomnia...
Rock on!
Mod
Nanci, you need to meet Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory. You sound like you two would click!Love your command of the language...
I LOVED the book, but Cecile from Tampa by Alissa Nutting is no one's friend. She's awful.
Zoey Redbird aka, the slut-shaming slut.
i'm reading Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire right now and i want Travis to get hit by a bus.
black lamb wrote: "i'm reading Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire right now and i want Travis to get hit by a bus."Damn, is he the walking disaster? lolz
Alyssa wrote: "black lamb wrote: "i'm reading Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire right now and i want Travis to get hit by a bus."Damn, is he the walking disaster? lolz"
the entire book is the disaster, frankly. less walking and more sitting-in-my-kindle-making-me-angry disaster.
Alyssa wrote: "What's wrong with it?"the book is really virulently misogynistic and also really heavily romanticizes emotional and physical abuse and stalker/predatory behaviour. :\
That sounds really fucked up. >:( Wait..are you sure you're not reading Twilight?
Holden Caulfield from "Catcher in the Rye" is easily one of the worst characters I have ever read. From day one, I wanted to beat the snot out of this spoiled, whiny, pseudo-intellectual emo brat! Why this book, and especially this jackass of a character gets the praise it does is beyond me. The ONLY people I ever see praising the book are other whiny emo brats who have a great life and praise and deify Holden as their Patron Saint of Teenage Angst.
This is hard. Well, no it isn't, now I'm thinking...I hate Harry Potter! Well, I love Harry Potter the books, but I. Hate. Harry. Potter. He's so stuck up and such a perfect character that he's a horrible character.
Luna wrote: "This is hard. Well, no it isn't, now I'm thinking...I hate Harry Potter! Well, I love Harry Potter the books, but I. Hate. Harry. Potter. He's so stuck up and such a perfect character that he's a ..."
Calm down please, Professor Snape. Potter sort of likes you.
Sorry if I've already posted. But even though I LOVE Harry Potter (I am the biggest Potterhead in my school, probably), I hate Harry Potter. He annoys the crap out of me. He's such a perfect little boy.
Angel Clare from Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Enough said.
For me, three main characters stand out on the 'characters that aren't good for my blood pressure' list:Mr Darcy from P&P
Holden Brat-face from Catcher In The Rye
Robinson Crusoe
They all irritate me for different reasons, of course.
Anastasia freaking steele! could stomach her in the first book but I sooooo wanted her to get shot in "fifty shades darker". I CANNOT be the only one who feels this way, aargh!!!
Does anyone else loath Serena VD Woodsen in Gossip Girl?She's very ditzzzy and is always going 'oh Blair hates me, I wonder why?'.
I on the other hand love Blair and Vanessa.
I really hate Daisy and Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. While I love the novel, I really hate the couple. They are so annoying and stupid. Daisy is selfish and Gatsby only wants to live in the past. I hate it. Just move on!
Can we just talk about what a total bitch Katniss is in the Hunger Games series? So she starts out pretty negative- what with having no father and living in a dictatorship that makes kids kill each other, but by the MockingJay I was just so sick and tired of her crap. I know, I know. She was in two hunger games and was forced to become the symbol for a much-needed rebellion, but getting addicted to morphine and making out with someone you have decided wasn't for you is just... GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!!
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 ..."
Awww... Why Bilbo? Okay, actually, I see it. Is it because he is so clueless and whiney?
Has anyone mentioned Becky Bloomwood from the Shopaholic series? Confessions of a Shopaholic She is a pathological liar who is incapable of learning from her mistakes. Makes me want to punch her in the throat.
I totally agree with india. i HATE. Katniss. I also hated the hunger games in general, but the fact that I hated Katniss really made me not like her. Katniss just really, really annoyed me. I also hate Octavien :)
I love the hunger games right. And I actually love Katniss, but the thing is I hate her too. Like all throughout the books i kept wanting to shake her but in the end I think its because i liked her so much, if that makes any sense. I guess I hated her in the way you could hate your sister. You love them, but half the time you can't stand them.
Vanessa wrote: "The main character from "Daughter of Fortune (don't even remember her name). She didn't seem strong and enterpirsing (I think Isabel Allende was hoping that is how she came across) - just impulsive..."That character from "Daughter of Fortune" didn't impress me, just made constant awful decisions. Because she was foolish, or because the author couldn't otherwise figure out how to keep the plot moving.
I'm surprised no one mentioned Humbert Humbert aka the pedo
Rodney from Virginia Woolf's "Night and Day" annoyed me so very much that because of him, I even put the novel on hold and had to restart it all over again when I picked it up. Every single time he opens his mouth is either to be an absolute pedant, which is bad, or to utter tripe about how women are not fulfilled in marriage which is way, way worse. That and his many hissy fits. Utterly awful character. I hated him so much I actually took note of some of his "best lines":
'Certainly I should [recommend you to marry]. Not for you only, but for all women. Why, you're nothing at all without it; you're only half alive; using only half of your faculties; you must feel that for yourself. (...)'
'What do you women want with learning, when you have so much else- everything, I should say- everything.'"
"'Seriously, you know I think a woman's opinion of one's poetry is always worth having. Don't ask them for their reasons. Just ask them for their feelings.'"
Several times I wanted to reach into the text and kick him in the bloody shins.
Nocturnalux wrote: "Rodney from Virginia Woolf's "Night and Day" annoyed me so very much that because of him, I even put the novel on hold and had to restart it all over again when I picked it up. Every single time he..."He sounds like a potential domestic abuser and misogynistic
Books I Loathed
Books mentioned in this topic
Bias (other topics)The Cave Dwellers (other topics)
How to Mars (other topics)
Reset (other topics)
Confessions of a Shopaholic (other topics)
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I also hated all the characters from the book "Slice of Cherry"