Ever hated the MC but loved the story?

If there is a secondary character I adore who gets enough airtime, I will continue reading for them. But there MUST be a character I can cling to. I needs at least one.

I, too, need to really sympathize or identify with at least ONE Of the characters, even not the MC, to really enjoy a story.

I'm currently finishing up the "Bartimaeus" trilogy. I'm sorry but I just don't care for the protagonists or most of the other characters for that matter; they're all so greedy and ambitious and, well, sellouts. Everybody's out for themselves only and I just don't care for them. I think they change by the end of the series but by then it's been three books spent with unlikeable (sic?) characters and...ugh. Tedious.

I'm mainly reading because I believe in finishing what I start. Now, by the third book, I've FINALLY found a sympathetic character, but it isn't the MC, and it doesn't make up for the totally unlikeable (sic??) slew of other characters.

Oh well.

This is why I try really hard to make even my bad guys sympathetic or understandable in a way. I don't want to make a reader sit through an entire story without at least one likeable (sic?) character somewhere!

Sorry for all the "sic"s but I have too many Windows open to open up my dictionary right now...

Yes, for example in Pamuk's Call me red I loathed the MC, a whingey woman who treated the guy who loved her like sh*t, while I thoroughly enjoyed the way the book was multi-narrated, and found the background so interesting that I went on to read more about mediaeval manuscript illustration in Turkey.

I hated most of the characters in Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone, but I thought the story itself was great. I wanted to know if the MC could manage to find a little happiness at the end.

If I can't identify with a main character, then the story fails for me. I won't read much past a few pages in if I don't like the characters. It's just not worth my time.

And by like I don't necessarily mean "like as a friend" but like as find something sympathetic about them enough for me to CARE what happens to them.

I like unlikeable characters. I always want the baddie to win.

But I still have to CARE about them.

I've read several stories (mostly of the romance genre) where I get frustrated with the MC's ineptness or inability to see what's right in front of her. Sometimes I want to scream at the MC. But I kept reading. I don't know why. I used to pride myself on the fact that I'd read a book to the end no matter what. I gave up on that a few years ago. Now I set the book aside.

No, if I don't like the MC I can't read the book. Case in point, I was reading a book a while back that started out decently, but then the main character used the word "sillybird" three times and the word "silly" five times in the span of about the book's first seven pages, and finally I hated her enough that I didn't care what her story was.

tomothecat said:

No, if I don't like the MC I can't read the book. Case in point, I was reading a book a while back that started out decently, but then the main character used the word "sillybird" three times and the word "silly" five times in the span of about the book's first seven pages, and finally I hated her enough that I didn't care what her story was.

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This is funny to me, because I did the exact same thing with a book (can't remember the title), except the abused words were things like "dagnabbit" and "tarnation." Stuff like that coming out of the mouth of a twenty-something romantic heroine was just a little too ridiculous for me. And irritating.

Annoying MCs interfere with the story, so I can't finish stories where I hate the MC and wish her dead.

Bubastes said:

I hated most of the characters in Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone, but I thought the story itself was great. I wanted to know if the MC could manage to find a little happiness at the end.

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Yes, exactly what I was going to say. I disliked almost everyone, but couldn't put it down.

If the MC is a bad guy and I hate them it keeps my attention more than if it's good guy I love. Then again I'm really strange.

I know it is time to put the book down and move on when I want the killer to slaughter every last one of the characters and then get captured. When I want them all to die . . . because they have annoyed and/or bored me. I don't have to like the characters, but I have to find what they are doing interesting and engaging.