Characters I Couldn’t Relate To & Others May Disagree
Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review.
I’m kind of changing this topic a little bit because I really can’t think of many characters that fall under this umbrella of “everyone loves but I didn’t” or “I love but everyone else doesn’t.” I decided to take a less intense version of this and talk about the characters I couldn’t relate to, but others may have liked more than I did. I mostly enjoyed these books but the characters made me cringe or annoyed me or just didn’t resonate with me at all.
Cath from Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell /// I know, I know. Put down your pitchforks. I really can appreciate and understand how SO many of you love and relate to Cath. I just didn’t. She really bugged me (maybe it was partly due to the audio narrator?) and I just couldn’t get by it.
Kate from Things I Can’t Forget by Miranda Kenneally /// Nearly everyone I’ve talked to about this actually DOES agree with me about Kate, but I know there are most likely some people who related to her. Her fierce religiousness and sense of right and wrong just totally didn’t work for me. I’m not good with books centered around religion, and that showed here for sure.
Lily from Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan /// This is another one where I think people agree with me overall? But regardless, I thought Dash and Lily were both kind of annoying characters. Lily just seemed very immature for her age and it bugged me a lot.
Everyone from Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke /// This book confused the shit out of me. I wasn’t able to understand anyone’s motives or relate to Wink, Poppy, or Midnight. They were all baffling characters. However, I can see how some people may like this style? Just didn’t work for me at all, really.
Clem from Call Me, Maybe by Ellie Cahill /// I adored the premise of this book, but Clem infuriated me in the second half of the book. She became a jealous monster who had no right to accuse Justin of ANYTHING. I’ve noticed other people having this issue with her too, but it really dampened my enjoyment of the whole story.
Karma from Arrows by Melissa Gorzelanczyk /// I know she was hit by a love arrow for her stupid boyfriend and that’s why she was so annoying about him… but that didn’t stop me from wanting to punch her most of the time. I didn’t like most of the characters in this book and Karma was at the top of the list. Another cute premise with a main character that ruined things for me!
Taylor from Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta /// Here is where I black sheep it up again. Every person I know loved this book and I’m one of very few who didn’t like it at all. It was hard to read and once I figured out what was going on, I was unimpressed in general. I couldn’t relate to Taylor and still don’t remember anything about her as a character/person. Ugh.
Ally from Behind the Scenes by Dahlia Adler /// I love Dahlia Adler’s books VERY much, but Ally was not a favorite character for me. I loved reading the other POV in this book and seriously loved every character except Ally. She brought some drama to the story that I didn’t enjoy.
Everyone from I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson /// BAAAAA. Yeah, I didn’t like this book either. I’m sorry everyone. The two main characters were weird in a way that didn’t seem realistic to me. The writing style associated with Noah’s characterization doesn’t work for me in general.
I am with you on Cath. lol she annoyed me too and the book was just OKAY
Glad I’m not a total black sheep 😉
I agree with you about Cath! She’s just so immature, passive, afraid, clingy and just ugh in general. I also find it hard to relates to Noah and Jude from I’ll Give You the Sun, because the writing style is too poetic and I just feel detached from them.
YES exactly!!!
I’m SO with you on Lily!!! She made my list too. She annoyed me to NO END. So naive and just dumb at times. I was also NOT feeling Jellicoe Road. It’s a shame because I wanted to like it, but I just could not get invested at all. I do LOVE Noah and Cath though… 2 of my fav characters forever ever, but definitely not for everybody!!
YESSS, same about Jellicoe! It was hard because my expectations were soooo high.
I loved Cath but I know if I had listened to an audio book I probably wouldn’t have. I can’t connect with characters as easily in that format sadly. I wish I could because my job is 90% in the car driving so it would mean I got to read more.
I don’t have a lot of issues with connecting with audiobooks luckily ,but it totally depends on the narrator’s voice!
I haven’t read any of these, though you have confirmed my fears about Wink Poppy Midnight! I think I will definitely be staying away from that one!
I’ve seen a lot of positive reviews, but if you’re leaning away from it already – don’t bother!
That’s a great list! I’ve been meaning to read Fangirl and I’ll Give You the Sun, so now I’m really curious to see how much I’ll like these characters 🙂
Thank you! Good luck 😉 I appear to be the black sheep on them so hopefully you love them!
I totally agree with you about Kate from Things I can’t forget. I am not good with books centered around religion either. Kate was so judgmental and black and white about everything. I also despised how she treated her friend about a choice that the friend made. Kate acted as if the friend had done something to her. So annoying.
Exactly!!! It was not easy to read about her, although I appreciated her character growth overall. I like to read about people who are different than me, but it’s hard when the person fits in with negative stereotypes you DON’T want to read about.
CATH, LAUREN? CATH? HOW COULD YOU? HOW CAN I EVER FORGIVE THIS?
AND ALL THE I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN CHARACTERS?
You know what I’ll just pretend I never saw this post.
I KNOW 🙁
Is it sad that I haven’t read a single book on this list? *hides in shame* A lot of people are using the characters from I’ll Give You the Sun in this week’s meme so I don’t think you’re alone in this one. Great list… I’ll just have to read the books to see whether I agree/disagree!
Haha thank you!
HAHA I totally LOL’d at you wanting to punch Karma. I had to keep reminding myself that she was hit with Cupid’s arrow because she definitely annoyed me quite a bit! >.<
LOL it was so hard to keep that in mind! She annoyed me so much hahaha
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