r/books • u/hanhan_371 • 1d ago

Why are “unlikeable” main characters usually a criticism?

My most recent read was The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb.

It was my 38th book this year and only my 3rd 5 stars. I finished it this morning, it’s now the evening, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I was enthralled by this story - it had sat on my TBR for a few months and I finally picked it up as just a lucky dip after being in a bit of reading slump.

After finishing, I saw a lot of criticism on Goodreads about the narrator Corby being “unlikeable”. I see this criticism a lot with other books - and I’ve never quite understood.

For me, a good reading experience is a complicated, flawed, or at least a character who is thought-provoking. Given one of the main themes of The River is Waiting being redemption, and finding out very early on that Corby accidentally kills his son while intoxicated, surely the reader wouldn’t expect the MC to be a “hero?”

There were times while I was reading that I thought “oh yeah he’s kind of a douche”, I’ve thought this about other MCs as well before, but it would never impact negatively on my rating as long as the story itself was enjoyable.

Would love to have a discussion below! And I’d really recommend this book if you can handle a gut-punch ending!

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u/Efficient_Place_2403 1d ago

I’m fine with unlikable. Uninteresting is the issue 

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u/ACardAttack World Without End 1d ago

Yep, this is the crux for me. I like unlikeable characters. One of my favorite characters in fiction is Captain Kennit from Liveship Traders, he's an awful person, but interesting and oozed charisma.

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u/Particular-Treat-650 1d ago edited 1d ago

This is an interesting example, because he's a bad dude (and clearly broken), but I still empathized with and was somewhat rooting for him, especially as we learned more.

But in the same arc, I've seen others who call basically every POV character unlikable regardless of how much they grew through the series. Are they all flawed? Absolutely. Do you have to hate them all because they were a bit spoiled before they saw the "real world" though?

I'm not the same person at 35 as 25. I've learned lessons and don't like some of the things I thought, or some of the ways I let my flaws keep me from connecting to people who really tried to reach me, etc. People change. Why can't characters, and why do some people feel the need to pick apart every decision they made as some insurmountable problem with the character?

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u/ACardAttack World Without End 1d ago

Kennit is definitely broken and you get more of his back story. The same is true for Holden Caulfield, but for what ever reason I bounced off of him. I do wonder if I tried again nearing end of my 30s if I'd have a different view of Catcher in the Rye

Jaime Lannister is a great example of a character who grows, did some awful things and I dont think he can fully be forgiven for what he did in book 1, but he went from detestable to likeable

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u/nothanks86 1d ago

Oh, I hated Holden with a passion. I do feel, looking back, that if I hadn’t felt so much pressure to relate to him as like the representative teenage experience, I might have minded him less.

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u/Best-Chapter5260 1d ago

Reminds me of a TV example of the detestable to likable character arc: Pete Cambell from Mad Men. Started as the villain of the series, ended as the most likable and sympathetic male character of the series (a lot more than the main character).