Unloved

The book club I belong to meets this weekend and I’m looking forward to a good discussion. This time, we read Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I had read the book once before, when it was first published, but I didn’t remember much about it, which is unfortunate, because I forgot that I didn’t like it.

I don’t usually dislike books on average. It has to be a really horrible book for me to dislike it. And I guess I can say that I didn’t hate Prep, but I found it difficult to finish because I disliked the main character, Lee, so much.

Books live or die based on the main character – or else why would people keep reading? The main character doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it’s better if he or she is flawed. But there does need to be something redeeming about the character, something that draws the reader in and keeps them caring about the character’s life.

In some ways, it’s easier when the character is evil. Richard III, Voldemort, Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist – we all know these are the “bad guys” and we’re supposed to dislike them. But what about the character who isn’t evil or bad, but rather unlikable? These characters are essentially good (or at least okay) people, but their behavior marks them as annoying, frustrating or just plain unlovable.

One of the reasons Austen’s Emma is my least favorite Austen is because Emma Woodhouse is so hard to love. The same can be – and has been – said about Bella Swan, Holden Caulfield and Briony Tallis.

In Prep, Lee seems to drift through school apathetically. She pretends to be indifferent to her classmates, when she is really desperate to fit in. But instead of trying, she simply coasts. She doesn’t exert any effort and then wonders why her peers ignore her most of the time. She’s not bad, but she’s hard to like when she’s not willing to even try. She would be much more sympathetic if she did try, but was still rebuffed by her prep school classmates.

At some point, you stop caring about what happens to these characters. Unlikable characters don’t have to be perfect or even good. But they do have to stir some sense of sympathy. Otherwise, why keep reading?

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]