When writing my article for this month, I wanted to try and make it a spooky or horror-themed one, as it is October. I had been toying with the idea of writing an article just about unlikeable characters, but then I realized that perhaps it isn’t the idea of a character being unlikeable that makes some of us shy away from reading about them. It is the idea of an unlikeable female character that strikes fear into us. After all, we as a culture have no problem consuming stories that have unlikeable male characters that do awful things. Look at movies like The Godfather, There Will Be Blood, The Wolf of Wall Street – all movies with unlikeable, awful male characters that remain popular cult classics today. We gladly consume these movies because we have no problem imagining a male character being rude or brusque or unlikeable. But once a book or movie has an unlikeable female character, that’s when we become uncomfortable, or even scared. I love reading books about unlikeable women because they offer a break from the impossible expectations that female characters are supposed to adhere to all the time. Women in stories are supposed to be nice, sweet, kind, maternal, and a million other things, all while having to maintain their “likeability.” If they don’t adhere to these tropes, then they’re written off as the evil villain of the story. These stories about unlikeable women show that women are multi-faceted, and that they don’t need to be nice and sweet all the time in order to be appreciated as characters.

Amy Dunne from Gone Girl is one of the best examples I can think of to illustrate the concept of the horror of the unlikeable woman. Without spoiling the story, Amy’s actions in the novel are horrifying, and what makes Amy herself a scary character is that all of her actions can’t be justified as a result of trauma or tragedy. Amy herself explains that, “I’d never really felt like a person, because I was always a product… I remember always being baffled by other children. I would be at a birthday party and watch the other kids giggling and making faces, and I would try to do that too, but I wouldn’t understand why” (Flynn). Amy is scary to us not just because she committed crimes and has the mind of a sociopath, but because she has never had feelings of sweetness, of kindness, of maternal instinct. Amy scares us because she gives us no room to pity or pamper her.

Similarly, the movie Midsommar ends with the protagonist, Dani, smiling for the camera, crowned with flowers, as she watches a building burn. The last lines of the script describe this moment: “A SMILE finally breaks onto Dani’s face. She has surrendered to a joy known only by the insane. She has lost herself completely, and she is finally free. It is horrible and it is beautiful.” Midsommar is branded as a horror movie because of its plot involving cults, white supremacy, murder, and other disturbing elements. However, similarly to Amy Dunne, I think the true horror of the movie lies in the ending shot of Dani, smiling with joy as she watches a horrific event unfold before her very eyes, and is reveling in the fact that it is happening. It is so hard to like Dani at this moment, and that is what truly scares us.

If the topic of unlikeable female characters both intrigues and terrifies you, then here are some book recommendations! Ottessa Moshfegh always comes to mind when I think of books with unlikeable or difficult female characters. Some of her most well-known works are My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Eileen, and Homesick for Another World, all works of literary fiction which feature protagonists whose actions and words are often so blunt and out-there that sometimes you’re forced to just put the book down and walk away for a bit to process what you just read. The New Me by Halle Butler follows a young woman working at a temp agency, hoping to be accepted there full-time, only to find that her personality can strike as grating and “weird” to most other folks. Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn is another story about difficult and unlikeable female characters, this time set at a lush resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The story is about two sisters whose Jamaican village and lives are under threat from construction and expansion, and the two must make difficult, unlikeable choices in order to save themselves and their family.

If you’re more in the mood for fantasy, Nesta from the Court of Thorns and Roses series is known for being THE most difficult character in the books. Nesta is only a side character in the first three books and novella, but the fourth book, A Court of Silver Flames, focuses entirely on Nesta as the main character. Another fantasy series which also delves into the genre of sci-fi and fantasy is the Queen of the Tearling series, which takes place in medieval Europe where a young girl is told one day that she is the heir to an entire kingdom, and must take back the throne from her uncle. I loved this series because the main character, Kelsea, makes a lot of difficult decisions when it comes to taking back her kingdom and running it, and shows that she has no time for acting like a Disney princess when it comes to assuming power.

Dina Delic is the Assistant Children’s Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the November 4, 2021 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.