Meet 5 Addictive Books Where You Absolutely Hate the Main Character—and Keep Turning Pages
Unlikable characters, compelling stories
Some fictional protagonists win readers over immediately; others keep them reading through terrible choices and irritating behavior. Their appeal can lie in the tension between disliking a character and wanting to know what happens next.
The novels are framed as stories in which questionable decisions make the central characters hard to ignore. The descriptions available here cover two books in detail and begin a third entry without completing it.
A year spent escaping life
In Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, an unnamed young woman in Manhattan decides to sleep through a year. A recent art history graduate with money and an enviable apartment, she relies on prescription drugs and movies as she tries to withdraw from the world.
Her grief follows the deaths of both parents, but her contemptuous view of others makes her difficult to sympathize with. She judges her friend Reva and dismisses those around her, while the novel’s dark humor gradually gives way to a portrait of isolation.
Marriage and competing versions
Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl opens with Nick Dunne returning home on his fifth wedding anniversary to find his wife, Amy, missing. Signs of a struggle and Nick’s behavior draw suspicion, while his narration is set against Amy’s diary entries.
Both characters are hard to defend: Nick is selfish and unfaithful, while Amy is fixated on appearances and punishing those who disappoint her. Their accounts keep readers reassessing what they believe as the failing marriage and its betrayals come into view.
A third entry begins
R. F. Kuang’s name appears as the introduction to another book in the selection. The text ends before giving the title or explaining its protagonist, so no further details about that entry are available.
Key points
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation follows a woman trying to sleep through a year after her parents’ deaths.
- The protagonist’s privilege and harsh judgments make her difficult to sympathize with.
- Gone Girl pairs Nick Dunne’s narration with Amy’s diary entries as suspicion surrounds her disappearance.
- The R. F. Kuang entry begins but provides no book title or further description.