Top Ten Tuesday - 4/22/14 - Top Ten Characters Who X

Top Ten Characters Who Piss Me Off

When I finally sat down last week and recommitted to getting this blog off the ground, I was excited about getting to participate in more Top Ten Tuesdays. I adore lists. Lists of characters though generally leave me cold, but I'll give this a shot.

These characters didn't necessarily piss me off while I was reading the book, but in retrospect I'm pretty mad at them.



1. Jamie and Claire from Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - I know everyone just loves these books, but I don't. The whole premise is uncomfortable, and their relationship feels like a caricature to me. Plus the whole Jonathan (the equally over the top villain) looks like Frank thing creeps me out. What's that about anyway? Oh, and a pet name that sounds like Sasquatch? Not cool.

2. The camp director in The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani - I can somewhat forgive Thea because she's a teen, although seriously girl get a grip! How many lives do you need to ruin? To quote the movie Heathers, "your teen angst bullsh*t now has a body count". Congratulations! You suck!

3. The townspeople in The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes - I know that it's probably wrong to pick on people living under occupation, but guys, what are you thinking!

4. Everyone in Allegiant by Veronica Roth - The more I learned about the world portrayed in Divergent, the more pissed off I got. How did we get here? Seriously? I think sometimes less explanation is more, especially when the more sucks. The whole genetic experiment thing was a "Wait, what??" more than that other thing that happens that everyone likes to talk about.

5. The doctors in Defending Jacob by William Landay who did the genetic test because guess what, *ssholes?? An X-linked trait cannot be passed on to the son from the father. Dad gives baby a Y-chromosome and Mom supplies the X. It's eighth-grade science: Women are XX; men are XY. For a couple to have a boy baby, the mom supplies either an X or an X, and the dad supplies the Y. And Landay went to Yale, which just triples how pissed off I am because dude should be smarter.

6. The doctors in The Dinner by Herman Koch because...see above. To be fair here, Herman Koch doesn't say anything about chromosomes, but he does refer to some prenatal genetic test that supposedly can tell if your child is going to be a sociopath. Is this supposed to be science fiction then since your premise has a bullsh*t genetic test that doesn't exist? Bullsh*t is not provocative.

7. The guy in The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson because seriously what a dick (ugh, no pun intended). Congratulations on spilling vodka on yourself while driving and causing your crotch to burn up. I didn't make it past page 50 because I just really didn't want to be in that guy's head anymore.

8. The anachronistic female character in just about every historical fiction book ever. Hey, author, did you know that not every woman that lived in the past was a protofeminist, abolitionist/civil rights activist, early adopter of gay rights? Or are they the only ones worth writing about? 

9. Every character in The Dinner by Herman Koch. You're all jerks, except Faso, and maybe really we all are jerks. Kudos to Koch for really getting under the reader's skin and creating a compelling read despite the gut-turning unlikeableness of all of his characters.

10. Shane, Deane, Dee's son, Richard Burton, and probably some other people I've forgotten in Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. Really I'm just including this book because I want to complain about how everyone else loved it while I was pretty lukewarm and just get more annoyed in retrospect. And actually Dee kind of pissed me off too because she was just kind of a victim and not particularly interesting. And Claire. So basically I liked Pasquale and Donner! the musical.