Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I just didn’t click with

Hello Friends!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature created by The Broke and the Bookish!

I know it’s some kind of miracle, but I’m actually going to participate as-is this week! The topic is: Top 10 Characters you just didn’t click with. I had a little bit of trouble with this because I kept thinking of books I just didn’t like as a whole, and I didn’t think that was quite the point. So I started thinking of books that I do like with characters I don’t, and I thought of about 5 of those. The rest are really just books I didn’t like. See if you can figure out which are which! I’m also disregarding the characters you’re not supposed to like, because I think those are pretty obvious. Although it would be fun to do characters you’re not supposed to like but you like anyway… To keep you enthralled until the very end, I’m going to order these from best of the worst to worst of the worst. In my opinion, anyway.

1. Frodo from the Lord of the Rings series

Frodo is the best of the worst because really, he didn’t choose to be the ring bearer. He’s just a little hobbit. They were like “succeed or everything you love will die”, so he couldn’t exactly say no. But still, he makes it onto the list because as a character, I feel like he’s really just the carrier of the ring. He doesn’t really have a personality. He’s no Bilbo.

2. Eleanor from Eleanor & Park

Okay, I do feel bad for Eleanor, I really do. She has a tough life. But this list is characters I didn’t click with, and we just didn’t vibe. To be fair, I didn’t particularly like Park, either.

3. Marianne from Sense and Sensibility

Marianne was annoying. I can’t handle characters who function with absolutely zero logic. Plus, she always ratted out Elinor, and I was like Girl. A little tact, maybe? Poor poor Elinor was so sensible (durh) and just had all these crazy women to deal with and I really don’t know how she didn’t slap a few of them in the face.

4. Mia from If I Stay

I’m not sure what to say. I mean, pretty much her whole family dies, she’s a little ghostie up in ghost land, and 90% of what she can think about is her freaking high school relationship. GAHHH. Her stories were just petty and I didn’t feel like there was really any cohesive point to the whole thing.. I just need to stop reading books from the perspective of a teenage girl.

5. America from The Selection series

These are books I secretly loved. Secretly. Don’t tell. But America made me craaazy. She desperately needed to make a pro-con list, learn how to communicate, and take some deep breaths. Sometimes I really liked her, but could she seriously not forsee the consequences of her actions? And she almost never had to pay for them which was also frustrating.. real life is not like that, girls. Don’t take your cues from her. Drama queen is not good.

6. Scarlet from The Lunar Chronicles

Scarlet was WAYYYY too emotional and aggressive. She needs an anger management class. Come on, she’s “fiery” because her hair is red? I’m not buyin’ that. She wasn’t as bad in Cress, but she was being manipulated the whole time.. so… what does that say about me? Womp womp.

7. Renée from The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I don’t really even know what was up with Renée. I mean, we got some explanation at the end, but she just made me crazy. You’re a concierge. No one cares if you’re smart. NO ONE CARES. Who the hell intentionally perpetuates a stereotype when it’s not who they really are? The most frustratingly non-liberated woman in the world, that’s who. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you Renée.

8. Pip from Great Expectations

OH MY GOSH the rest of this list is women. That makes me sad with myself. But fortunately, we’ve got Pip. Pip was a dreamer, I guess? He wanted to move up social classes so he could marry a horrible girl. Such admirable aspirations. He took all of the good people in his life for granted. And I know that was kind of the point, but his blatant ignorance of his own character was not okay. Just didn’t enjoy him.

9. Sansa from A Song of Ice and Fire

Oh my, I can’t stand Sansa. I don’t even really know why, to be honest. She gets smarter in the later books. Ish. But compared to her incredibly bad-ass little sister Arya, she’s just a sad little creature. But I feel a little bit bad for her cause her world gets crushed and it’s basically her fault. Boo.

10. Bella Swan from the Twilight series

There’s a special place of disdain in my heart for these books, because my hometown is Port Angeles, WA the closest “city” (totally not a city at all, but Forks is about a block long, and PA has an actual movie theater) to Forks. So we got all the fanatics and Twilight took over the town. It was ridiculous. RIDICULOUS. The insanity was even featured in my high school year book. I don’t think I need to explain my dislike of Bella as a character. You should know.

BONUS FEATURE:

The characters I was biased against because they were from books I just didn’t like:
Bella
Pip
Mia
Eleanor
Renée

Did you like these characters? What are some characters you didn’t like?

I’ll write again soon. Until then, keep reading!

J. Bookish