This week’s Tuesday Top 10, courtesy of Lauren and Julia at The Broke and the Bookish  provide ample opportunities to vent. All those times a character made you abandon a book you otherwise enjoyed; all those everyone-loves-me fictional people, who bored you to death; all those heroines you wanted to squeeze the last breath out of in a painful, not-so-fictional way  – they shine here. Time for the name-calling to commence!

I decided to split this in two parts – characters I hated from my favorite books, and characters I did not connect with from books I did not care much for (no matter if it was because of the character or something else).

*1 to 5, where 1 means ‘clicked with the least’

Part 1: In Favorite Books

4. Bathsheeba (Far From The Madding Crowd) – I liked the idea of her, but it was Gabriel who had my entire sympathy.

3. Anna Karenina (Anna Karenina) – I only read it half-way, because my mum was kind enough to spoil the ending, just when I was getting hooked on the story. Anyway, I forced myself to like and care about Anna, but it was never meant to be between us.

2. Ygritte (A Song of Ice and Fire) – I know people love her, but I honestly don’t understand why. She comes off as the most cliched character (if there was any) in ASOIAF. Probably promiscuous know-it-all redheads fit a certain infatuation of modern literature with the strong and willful feminist heroine. Still – I don’t find Claire badass-Beachamp to be trite, independent and feisty as she is. But Ygritte.. oh, well, kissed by boredom if you ask me.

1. Tom Bombadil (The Lord of the Rings) – Die-hard Tolkien fans love Tom Bombadil and his exclusion from the movies has been a contentious issue. Me? I hated the guy. The entire ‘earthen gods of nature’ just does not sit well with me. I feel the same way about the children of the forest in A Song of Ice and Fire. Too close to folklore and kids tales. I am more of ‘epic mythology’ kind of gal.

Part 2: In Books I Did Not Care About

4. Jacob (Water for Elephants) – You did not remember his name? Yeah, me neither, had to check it. This guy was so meh I don’t have words to describe it.

3. Cleopatra Selene (Cleopatra’s Moon) – I already mentioned I did not connect with this book, mainly because this character was unbelievable.

2. Daisy (The Great Gatsby) – Yes, this is not one of my favorite books. I did not hate it, I did not like it. Felt more like research on the literary context of the times than fiction. But it wasn’t bad. What was bad (also annoyingly indecisive, spoilt rotten, egotistical and fickle as hell) was Daisy.

1. Bella (Breaking Dawn) – I actually enjoyed Bella in the first books, but she quickly spiraled down hill. By the last installment in the series (Yes, I did read them all. Shame (clink). Shame (clink)) I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes for a period long enough to read with adequate pace. She was such a pain in the ass going on and on and on with advocating for the no-one-cares-about-it monster baby. We were still getting over Edward thrashing a room in what was, given Bella’s doubtful powers of seduction, an embarrassingly passionate lovemaking, and she was already getting all supermom over a creepy…undead baby? In summary – I wasn’t sold on her mother instinct kicking in.

(unfinished – still working on the last two)

What characters did you have hard time connecting with? Comment below (or just drop a line with your top 10 post).