Books about people I despise

[ailbhe]

I've just finished reading Queen Lucia by somebodyorother, and it took until over 3/4 of the way through before I found myself going from despising everyone in it to finding on or two characters bearable. Quite a lot of it would have been funny if there had been a likable character.

Easy to read, though, which was useful while I was ill.

Comments

[gloriap.livejournal.com]

I discovered the Lucia character about 20 years ago and have a one volume trilogy compilation.

Although I found her rude and arrogant and unbearable, I liked some of the other characters and the story lines, where she usually got her comeuppance.

[dorianegray.livejournal.com]

"Queen Lucia" is okay, but the best books in the series are "Lucia in London" and, even better, "Mapp and Lucia".

There's also a late sequel by Tom Holt, written after E. F. Benson died, "Lucia in Wartime", which is rather good too.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Oh, books like that are such hard work.

I gave up on _The Reality Dysfunction_ by Peter F Hamilton when I realised I didn't like one _single_ character in it, and really didn't CARE what happened to any of them.

It's also why I never "got" Seinfeld -- I couldn't see what was funny about a group of awful people being mean to each other.

[feetnotes.livejournal.com]

but have you tried the tale of photinus, the greek?

- completely self-centered, totally amoral, ever-prepared to demonstrate to a suck^W naive and well-intentioned that there are no gods to punish those who cynically exploit the credulous in his quest to make as large a profit as possible out of any and all circumstances, and leaving a trail of inevitable chaos and destruction in his wake, he ought to be utterly unsympathetic...

- and yet he ends up fascinating, and sometimes suspecting he may've achieved more of the gods' will, than he realises - no, perish the thought! - there are no gods!