 |
| Shawnee Bluff Winery Overlooking Lake of the Ozarks |
Hello! I've been scarce in the blogosphere the last few weeks. What have I been doing, you ask? Well, I...
- Vacationed at Lake of the Ozarks with friends. Our boat stalled! Adventures abound!
- Repainted the apartment
- Dug up some fascinating research while brainstorming my next WIP. No, not actual digging, but how cool would that be?!
- Saw Guardians of the Galaxy. Yes, it's as good as you've heard!
- ...And read a lot. Boy, do I need to get caught up on Goodreads.
It's that last one that raised a question for me, and I thought I'd throw it out to you guys. I noticed a trend in myself while reading a few books lately. I kept liking characters I'm pretty sure the author didn't want me to like!
This wasn't a "we love to hate them" villain scenario either, aka Loki. In both instances most recently, the characters I liked were key secondary characters--flawed to be sure, yet often friendly foils to the MC--but the MCs for various reasons didn't like them. Vocally. And repeatedly. Did not like them, denigrated and put them down.
As a reader, I feel like I was *supposed* to not like said characters. I know that's what these authors were going for, and I know they succeeded in part because several reviews and comments bear that out. BUT, for me, the MCs' attitudes made me dislike THEM instead of disliking the secondary characters I was supposed to. I think it felt especially strange because these (unrelated) books happened to fall one after the other in my reading pile, and it made me wonder if I was somehow missing the strength of the MCs or misinterpreting something.
I'm a character reader. I'll take fascinating characters over a fascinating plot or world every time. And suddenly it felt like I was cheering against the MCs in these examples. I'm sure it's just a matter of these particular books and these particular MCs not speaking to me, but it was an extra bummer that the secondary characters who were so well-written and multi-faceted were slammed so much by the MCs. It was a seriously confusing dynamic, and odd to have it happen multiple times in quick succession.
Anybody else have this experience? Have you been a fan of a character the MC disparages?
How has YOUR summer been going so far?
