Does whether or not you like the characters in a book affect your overall enjoyment of the book?
Julie:
I really think it is! If I don’t care about the protagonist at all, I just don’t care about what happens to him/her and so the plot of the book is no longer interesting to me. I really do need to connect with the people the book is about, otherwise, what is the point, right? Now i don’t have to like each and every character, if it is a book about many characters at once. I might hate a few and love a few and that is OK. But I do have to make some sort of connection.
Rose:
For the most part I think it is absolutely imperative that a reader like the characters in the book he/she is reading. If I do not like the main character in the book, am I going to bother to finish the book? (Well, in my case, yes, I probably still would but that is only because I have his strange obsessive compulsive thing with finishing books I started. If I do not finish reading the book, it is like the book won or something, and honestly, who wants to get beaten by a bad book. No thanks!) Now, is it important to like ALL of the characters? No. It is not. I think so long as you like the main character, you are good. And if its a romance, you gotta like the love interest of course! However, I know a lot of people who do not care for all of the characters in George r.r. Martin’s Game of Thrones, but they still read the book. I do find it a little daunting to read a chapter titled after the name of a character that I do not really care to hear about. I think if an author is going to write from several characters POVs than that author has a responsibility to make each and everyone of those characters very very interesting. So what about everyone else? Ever read a book in which you hated the characters? Did you still like the book or did you DNF?
There has to be at least a little something likeable or at the very least redeemable about the characters for me to make it past the first few chapters in a book. I don’t spend time with people I don’t like. Why would I spend time with fictional characters I don’t like? 🙂
Thanks so much for being a part of Booknificent Thursday this week!
Tina
Tina at Mommynificent recently posted…Congratulations to our Winners! and Booknificent Thursday Link Up Party #55
“I don’t spend time with people I don’t like. Why would I spend time with fictional characters I don’t like?” <-- THIS! YES! Sums it all up nicely.
well said
[…] Rose and Julie talk about whether the likeability of characters impact their enjoyment of a book. […]
Absolutely! If I’m not connecting with the MC, the book isn’t enjoyable at all. If I don’t care about the characters, why would I care about the plot? I don’t have to like all the characters – it’s pretty imperative that I like the main ones.
Bookworm Brandee recently posted…**Teaser Tuesday ~ #27**
Yes exactly! If you don’t care about the characters, what is there to really care about? Thanks Brandee 🙂
Yeah, if I don’t like the characters, the rest doesn’t matter. Characters are really the only non-negotiable point for me. I may like a book more or less depending on world-building or various book peeve, but if I can’t connect with or relate to the characters . . . pfft.
Jessica @ Rabid Reads recently posted…Review: Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
I’m definitely with you. Characters have to matter to be enjoyable. I agree that a lack of connection with them just doesn’t work.
I don’t necessarily have to like the characters, but I would love to at least NOT be frustrated by the characters a lot…
Bonus points if the characters worm its way into my heart! 😀
Sophia @ Bookwyrming Thoughts recently posted…DNF Review: Welcome to the Darkness by L.M. Justus – RANT ALERT
I agree. If the characters are just frustrating, the book isn’t all that enjoyable to read. Thanks for sharing your thoughts 🙂
I may not have to like the character, but I have to like reading about them. I have to have something to invest in.
Charleen recently posted…Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts – #28
I agree. The character has to be interesting enough to care about. I like how you said you need something to invest in. That’s very important. If I don’t feel invested in a book, why bother, right?
Exactly. And even if the main character is unlikeable, there are other ways I can feel engaged, through secondary characters or elements of the plot or even the writing itself… but I will agree that if I don’t care about the character, it’s a lot harder (though not impossible) for those other things to step up and fill that void.
Charleen recently posted…Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts – #28
Well said, Charleen. I have had a few books that I did not like the characters very much (can’t think of any off of the top of my head right this minute)but because i decided to finish the book, I ended up liking the book because the author’s writing style was so good.
I disagree too. While I don’t think that it’s imperative that you LIKE a character, I do think it’s important that you’re INTERESTED in a character. Does that make sense? Herman Koch novels are full of unlikable characters, but they’re all so weird that you can’t help but wonder where the stories go.
April @ The Steadfast Reader recently posted…Spread the Love 2.0: Week Twenty-Three
I think being interested in the character is part of liking them, in a way. If you’re not interested at all and don’t care about the character in any way, then it is hard to enjoy the book.
April, I agree. Like Julie said, I think that finding a character interesting is liking them. I know I did not exactly say that though, but you make a good point and I am now including “finding the characters interesting” as part of “liking” them. 🙂
I kind of disagree. I don’t need to like a character in order to enjoy a book. And I really enjoy characters in a book that you love to hate, like horrible villains that have redeeming qualities but you still hate them. (tv example: Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl). I like reading from a villain’s perspective every now and then because it’s fun to see what makes them act so horribly. That’s why I’m super pumped for Fairest by Marissa Meyer. I can’t wait to get inside Queen Levana’s head!
Jordin @ A Bottomless Book Bag recently posted…TTT (10): Top Ten Blogging Confessions
Ooh I didn’t even think to talk about villains. Thanks for making that point. YES I love great villains. But, even if I hate them for being evil, I still like them as a villain, if that makes sense. My favorite villain is from The Lost Symbol. Darkest character I’ve read in a while.
I usually am the opposite. I do not like reading what motivates the villains. I usually get bored with reading from a villains POV. I like my villains bad, but I also like thinking that they are crazy and capable of anything. I have a hard time relating to villains, so I do not usually like the story telling from the villain’s POV. Does that make sense?
For me characters make or break a novel. If I don’t like the main character, there’s going to be a problem. That doesn’t mean the character has to be nice or likeable. If an author is telling me to like a character but she comes across as a selfish *&$#@# then that’s a problem.
I also don’t like it when the male lead is completely unlikeable. Bad boys can have a soft side, they have to or I’ll question the female lead’s sanity. Have the guy rescue a kitten or something to show his soft side.
Villains on the other hand… bring on the bad. I really love hating them.
Kimber Leigh Wheaton recently posted…Book Blast: Becoming Lady Lockwood by Jennifer Moore – Excerpt & Giveaway
Agree! Characters do not have to be nice or likeable exactly, but they do have to be interesting and worth investing in. And yes to awesome villains.
I agree 100% with what you said, Kimber. I like a female lead to be relate-able and the male lead to be like-able. As for the villains, the badder the better.
“I think if an author is going to write from several characters POVs than that author has a responsibility to make each and everyone of those characters very very interesting.”
I think this is VERY difficult for authors to do. Martin, IMO, has a rare talent in which each character he creates does have a unique voice and unique motivation for their actions. Other others, Veronica Roth, comes to mind as a recent read of mine, who, I feel, wasn’t able to pull that off effectively in Allegiant. As a result, I disliked the final book.
My question back to you ladies is this…how does hating/disliking a character drive you to read a book? There are some really intriguing villains or unlikeable characters out there. Gillian Flynn might be the queen of unlikeable characters right now. Heck, I suppose you could throw Joffery from GoT in that bucket! Do the bad character’s actions and motivations drive you to push forward in a book? Do you keep reading hoping the justice is served?
Terri M. LeBlanc recently posted…Feature and Follow #209-26: Happy Father’s Day
Yes! 100% about Allegiant. The two POV characters sounded exactly the same to me. Combine that with the fact that the first two books only had the one narrator, I really kept forgetting that I was supposed to be in the head of someone else, until he’d mention the original character, and then I’d have that “wait, what?” moment before I remembered where I was, so to speak, and continued on. Very disrupting.
Charleen recently posted…Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts – #28
Yes, yes, yes! I can’t even begin to count the number of times I had to flip back and see WHO was telling their side of the story. Some times the chapter header was the only clue if there were not enough pronouns to tip you of earlier. It made reading the book very, very difficult.
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Charleen,
I had this issue, too. I think it is so important for authors to make a clear distinction in POVs. This was the issue I had with Beautiful Creatures. I could never believe Ethan’s voice was that of a teen-aged boy.
Good point Terri 🙂 If I hate the characters completely, it drives me away from the book. like Flynn’s Gone Girl. I didn’t give a rat’s behind about anyone. I just wanted that train wreck to end. But, I kind of had to keep reading to know what happens, even though I hated the ending, and so I wouldn’t miss out on a book club discussion. There’s a difference to me in hating someone for being the bad guy but loving them as a bad character, and just hating them all together because they are so despicable that there is nothing interesting about them but their hatred. Villains have to be interesting too.
Sorry to be joining the discussion a little late, but I really wanted to reply…I know I actually said, “Like” the characters, but I would like to rephrase that to “I have to find the characters interesting.” That is what I mean by “like” the characters. So, yeah, even a character I hate, that I am MEANT to hate, like a big bad villain, I will still like reading the book. Also, I do agree with you Terri, that is is hard for authors to get readers interested in several POVs. I think, though, that if a reader is getting bored or confused from the different POVs then that author did not do a very good job. Perhaps that story could have been told from only one POV, instead of 10 or 2 or whatever. I think POV is a very important choice and if a character is given a direct narrative, then that character MUST be interesting or the book suffers.