Characters from books you HATE (that you're not supposed to!)

[Shiningdew]

I have just finished The House I Grew Up In (Lisa Jewell) and I liked it but I couldn't stand Meg, the oldest daughter.

I got the feeling she'd really, really annoy me if I knew her Smug, judgemental, bossy and mumsy.

I also didn't like Jill, of the Ruby Ferguson pony books, as a kid. She was always so intolerant of anyone nervy round horses!

Who are yours? I'm sure I have more ...

Katniss Everdeen so whiny

any main character in any Tad Williams book, But especially Simon.

Any self portrait male character in a tony parsons book.

Not a character but I could not stand Eat Pray Love. Elizabeth Gilbert came across as the most self-absorbed self-indulgent mindless pain in the arse. Tedious. However, I've recently read The Signature of All Things and it is stunningly good. She is clearly an observant and intelligent person, so I guess I just disliked the voice of Eat Pray Love.

TheFallenMadonna - When I was doing O level English, I had to write an essay titled "Jane Eyre is a cloying prig. Discuss". I agreed. My teacher made me rewrite it

A kindred spirit! Let's club together and sue the arse off your teacher. I was cruelly and wrongly marked for an essay that was something to do with 'Lessons we can learn from Jane Eyre'. I misunderstood the book and picked the wrong lessons, apparently.

Also Lyra Belacqua got on my nerves a bit. But as you can probably tell, I loved Serafina Pekkala and Lee Scoresby.,,

YY to the Robin in Chalet School.

Yes, I got bored with the Robin, especially the way that she and Joey were so delicate: one sneeze and they were practically on their deathbeds. (But I daresay I need to be educated about how good modern medicine is, and maybe in the 1930s people really did die from colds...)

I agree about Lucky Jim.

And Tony Parsons, though having read Man and Boy I wouldn't want to read any of the others.

And a big LOL for "Atticus was a bit of a preachy bastard." That's heresy in some circles.

But wanderings the Robin spoke the prettiest French! How could you dislike that? And saved people's lives by singing to them. Are you jealous, do you think?

YY to the shopaholic girl, Maggie Bellever and Tess.

And Ron Weasley. What would Hermione ever see in him?

I can save you the bother, hackmum. The protagonist is exactly the same shit in all of them.

There were years between my various readings and I kept forgetting how loathsome he was.

Yy Yonic! I kept reading a new one after a period of years and forgetting how annoying he was!

Kay Scarpetta in Patricia Cornwell's crime series. She's supposed to be a strong, independent woman but, to me, she always seems to let herself be victimised and is really self-pitying.

YonicScrewdriver - ha! whenever we have one of those "what's the worst book you've ever read" threads I usually name Man and Boy. What a dreadful tosser that man is.

I hated the characters in Us too, and Eat, Pray, Love's narrator was so smug and lacking in self-awareness (but she did remind me of someone I know who is a Buddhist so perhaps I'm just so unenlightened I can't appreciate them)

As for maybe in the 1930s people really did die from colds...) this made me laugh as I remember regularly lying on the couch, playing that we were dying of consumption. It seemed prevalent in the Little Women and Anne of Green Gables books. And the only treatment seemed to be lying on a sofa covered in a pretty delicate blanket until you were consumpted off (as we used to call it).

Mary Poppins is a different character in the books - they are a bit darker than the sweeter than sweet film. Well worth a read.

Carrie Bradshaw was also originally from a book but I still think she's annoying.

Consumption is tuberculosis and as there weren't any antibiotics to treat it people really had nothing else to do except lie around being delicate and hope for the best. There are photographs of patients lying in beds outside St Thomas' hospital in the 1940s (I think) because the 'fresh' air was the best thing for it. That's why people went to places like Austria and Switzerland - for the dryer, cleaner mountain air. Having said all that, The Robin was annoying s a character. So good and patient all the time.

Also agree with Lily Dale from the Barset books - annoying and won't consider ever looking at another man because someone broke her heart (or whatever it's a while since I read them!).

Also from my chick lit days any heroine in a Jane Greene novel.

The Book Thief's narrator (the "Devil"?). Just couldn't get on with it at all, did not get very far. But loved the film version.

Bridget jones' daughter in Mad About The Boy. Irritating brat, she was meant to be school age so what was with the constant baby talk.

The girl in The Book Thief
Katniss Everdene
Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, Dumbledore, the Weasley twins and Mrs Weasley.

Lucie Manette in 'A Tale of Two Cities' - God I wanted to slap her! Just such a whiney, pathetic excuse for a woman!
Fanny Price in 'Mansfield Park' - she so needed to get a grip!

Isn't Mansfield Park a kind of pastiche and Fanny Price supposed to be an amusing "type" stemming from that? What do I know, I never managed to get through that one.

More Dickens for me, namely Little Nell and her grandfather. I was so glad when those fuckers died.

Kitty Garstin in the Painted Veil
Honestly the film redeems her, but in the book...
And actually Walter Fane, I mean he has just fallen back in love with his wife, he dodged cholera all this time then seems to go and infect himself for the greater good....
Honestly the latest film does them both more favours than the book, where I just thought he should have infected her...
I am still reeling from this one

Marianne from Sense and Sensilbilty. An attention seeking drama queen.

And while we're on the subject, all the characters from Joanna Trollopes rehash of S&S. Just get a fucking job, this isn't the 1800's anymore.

Kay Scarpetta from.the Patricia Cornwell novels. I know we're all meant to aspire to be like her. Super educated. Both fotensic pathologist and qualified lawyer. Highly successful in a male dominated field. Bags of integrity. Oh and let's not forget she's a fabulous cook. Oh and all women she works with either slavishly adore her, or they're dead jealous of her because she is so amazing. Oh and she's just do damned hot that in one of the later novels (when she's mid 50s, surely) she has some 26 years old adonis (Jay) lusting after after her.

Yeah right.

But actually she's a dour, sanctimonious prig with a sense of humour by pass. And she deludes herself that she has a very close, loving, mother-esque relationship with her niece Lucy. When she only sees her for one week a friggin year

Yeah right. Really close.

Daisy in The Great Gatsby.

Marianne was meant to be a drama queen (hence the title). Lowering the tone but has anyone said Lola from Charlie and Lola? The way she treats Charlie is shocking.