College Students! discussion

Who are some of the most likable/hateable/emjoyable etc. characters in books you have read? Or maybe characters that remind you of yourself or somebody you know?


Of course, one of the most enjoyable/likable characters for me right now is Oskar..i just love him to pieces. When I was younger i loved Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye even though everyone else thought he was annoying and whiny. I liked him because i felt like him sometimes. I need to reread to see if i still find him that enjoyable but we will see. i didn't particularly care for Bella in Twilight..for some reason she got under my skin..but i didn't hate her by any means.

ughh i hate that girl in twilight..i forget her name..she is bella's annoying friend. she irritated me to no end. haha and then i just remind myself its only a book

Hahaha are you thinking of Jessica? Cause she reminded me of someone I would have a life long hatred for. Since all of my recreational time was focused on Twilight for a while I'm going to have to say I like Bella. She reminds me of myself; stubborn, clumsy, goofy with lack of sleep, and ordinary. Oh, and likes old Chevy pick ups.

I definitely love Oskar too. Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books of all time, so I did love Holden too. I felt like I could definitely relate to him. I loved Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower. And this is really random, but I also love Anne from Anne of Green Gables. I love that she's so stubborn like me.
I absolutely hated Umbridge from Harry Potter. I also (obviously if you've read it) hated the grandmother from Flowers in the Attic.

They said that Umbridge was one of the greatest villans ever written/portrayed in movie. I totally agree with that because she's awful!!

I would have to say Umbridge is my most hatable character.

Right now, Marianne in The Gargoyle and Oskar in ELIC would be tied for my most Likable Character.

one of my new favorite characters is Liesel from The Book Thief..I really also liked Papa.

One of my most hateable characters lately was Humbert Humbert from Lolita. Ick. What a despicable man.


What are some of your favorite/least favorite characters in literature?

One of my recent favorite characters is Cassandra from I Capture the Castle. This is an interesting thread though...I'll have to give this some thought because I'm sure I could come up with quite a list!

ew Jamie..I agree I hated Humbert! Yuck!

I didn't like Humbert, but I also didn't like Lolita or her mother. In all, the book wasn't as horendous as I was expecting, and I can see why all the negative feelings, but I guess since it wasn't a "true story" I wasn't as bothered by it as everyone else.

I'm glad you agree!

After just having read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society..I have so many new favorite characters..I can't just pick one out of them..they were all great! I'm sure those who have read will know what I'm talking about! I loved the whole main "cast" of them!

My new favorite likable character is Rosie in Water for Elephants. But there are a bunch of likable characters in that one too. :)

Sweet! I'm excited to start reading that one soon!

I can only think of most hated characters right now haha. Victor Frankenstein is number one, he is the most idiotic and selfish character I've ever come across ever. I also hate Bella and Edward from Twilight. But you all know my stance on Twilight ;)

Hmm, love? I love Meg from A Wrinkle in Time, and Sal from Walk Two Moons. I'm sure I'll think of more later.

Ashley from Gone With the Wind really annoyed me. He was such a wimp!

I loved Hal, Haji, Deuce, and Pandora from Idlewild/Edenborn. I loved Pi from The Life of Pi. I also loved Bartimeaus from the Bartimeaus Trilogy. He made me smile.

I hated Penny from Edenborn. I hated her with all of my being. I still do. She messed up everything. She ruined everyone's lives, or rather the ones she didn't end.
And of course there is still the matter of Edward and Bella. I won't say I hate them. They aren't strong enough characters for me to hate. I'll just say that I pity them and find them utterly pathetic, and in that way they deserve each other.

I realized how much I loved Jo from Little Women. Definitely a likable character in my mind.

Off the top of my head, the most hatable character in a book I've read of a long time is Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love.

Fictional characters I hated...Professser Umbridge in the Harry Potter books, Bella, Edward, Jacob..in fact, the whole lot of the characters in the Twilight series, oooooooh and Mrs. Coulter in the His Dark Materials series. That woman is EVIL!

Characters I love...Lyra Silvertongue and Will Parry in His Dark Materials, Snape and Sirius in the Harry Potter series..oooooooh and I LOVE Stargirl in Stargirl!

Ooh Stargirl..I will second that one!

I liked Rosie in Water for Elephants, Alice from The Magicians, and Margo Roth Spiegleman from Paper Towns.

I didn't care much for Oscar or the albino guy from The Secret of Lost Things.

I found Humbert Humbert to be kind of funny, if a little creepy, in Lolita and actually hated Delores/Lola/Lolita.

I really liked Ella from Ella Enchanted and Howard Roarke from The Fountainhead. I kind of had a crush on Roarke when I read the book in high school--red hair, muscular body, brilliant mind-sigh :)

I hated Stella from Great Expectations and I hated that waitress from Of Human Bondage (I forgot her name). But I know that waitress reminded me of Stella, so I took an instant dislike to her, and I didn't even finish the book b/c I hated that character so much.

I didn't like any of the characters in the fountainhead!

I LOVED Liesel from the Book Thief! and Oskar from ELIC... also Hassan from The Kite Runner.


Couldn't stand anyone one else from The Kite Runner, I hated Briony from Atonement, and Gomez from the Time Traveler's wife.


Also, I hated Emma in the beginning of "Emma," but somewhere in the middle or end I started to like her and ended up on her side. Has that ever happened to anyone else?

There are really way too many characters I like to sit here and name them all... Peter Pan though is a big love of mine.

Didn't like the character from Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. probably because I really didn't like that book.

hate Bella for being a terrible role model to pre-teen girls everywhere.

I really liked Dominique from The Fountainhead. Atticus and Scout and Dill and Boo from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Levin from Anna Karenina just really gets on my nerves.

I absolutely love Ari and Janco from the Study Series.

Like: Samwise Gamgee, Hassan, Hermione, Scout

Dislike/hate: Umbridge, Snape, Voldemort, Bella/Edward, Nurse Ratchet

Lori wrote: "I really liked Dominique from The Fountainhead. Atticus and Scout and Dill and Boo from To Kill a Mockingbird.

Levin from Anna Karenina just really gets on my nerves."

Levin really got on my nerves too!! I felt a little bad for disliking him because he was supposed to be one of the nicer characters. He was just so stifling. If I were Kitty, I would have gone insane!

I know what you mean Kayla! I think my problem is that he's too much like a fussy old maid. I like my men strong.

I forgot! I love Yossarian from Catch-22. He's fantastic! "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?"

I really loved the wife in Blindness as well as the girl with the dark glasses.

Loved: Atticus Finch, Lord John Gray from Outlander series, Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter, Elizabeth Bennett

Hated: Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter, probably more than anyone. J.K. really wrote her to be hated, lol. There is no one else coming to mind, although I'm sure they exist....

Characters that I hated:

I'm going to have to agree with everyone else on this one: I really hated Umbridge.

I also really hated Hal, Charles and Mercedes from The Call of the Wild because of their ignorance.

Characters that I loved:

Severus Snape is by far my all-time favorite character. I love his complexity and the way Rowling portrays him as a hero in such an unique way.

I loved Anne Elliot because I could really relate to her. Her story is so tragic until the very end, when she finally gets her happy ending.

I've always had a special place in my heart for Zinny from Chasing Redbird because this book was a favorite of mine when I was younger. My young self was very much like her.

Finally, someone already mentioned him, but Samwise Gamgee is also a favorite of mine. I love his loyalty and devotion, and the fact that he never loses sight of what is truly important in life.

Atticus Finch is a good one! I love him too, though maybe because he was played by Gregory Peck in the film. Irene Beltran from Of Love and Shadows is really awesome, and I would say Lady Macbeth is pretty badass.

I relate a lot to Mick from The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. But reading over these, I'm realizing how many great characters there are that I've forgotten about! I loved all the lovable characters in To Kill a Mockingbird (I really want Atticus to be my dad)and The Golden Compass. I've also secretly always wanted to be Hermione.

Levin never really annoyed me, I thought he was just a bit silly. I think he's probably the character that reflects most directly on Tolstoy?

Mrs. Coulter was a hateable character, but I could never hate Umbridge. I feel like she was too one dimensional (she was pure evil without any real motives or any human compassions) to get me emotionally involved. I felt the injustice, but it didn't really effect me too badly.

Professor Umbridge is the only character I couldn't stand. Every time I attempted to re-read the 5th Harry Potter book, I just couldn't cause when I got to her I just dropped the book in disgust.

Anika wrote: "Characters that I hated:

I'm going to have to agree with everyone else on this one: I really hated Umbridge.

I also really hated Hal, Charles and Mercedes from The Call of the Wild because of..."

I absolutely agree about Snape! Such a tragic hero. LOVED IT!

I cried when Snape died. The 7th book in general is just a tear-jerker. But a damn good one :D.

Richard wrote: "I cried when Snape died. The 7th book in general is just a tear-jerker. But a damn good one :D."

Yes, it is... I need to reread it soon. It's the only one that I've only read once, actually...

I need to reread the whole series. I don't think I've read any of them more than once. I made it halfway through the fifth one but Umbridge made me to angry to finish it haha. So I've read the fifth one 1.5 times and the rest 1 time.

Richard, I love that Umbridge made you so angry that you couldn't finish the book! She is such an evil person!

DH was such an emotional book for me too! The first time I read it I think I was crying the majority of the time either from sadness or happiness. I've only read it twice so I'm planning to read it again in a few months.

Harry Potter! The re-read is scheduled for sometime in October! I have always read all the books again before the new movie comes out. This is one of the reasons I am pretty glad that the movies are usually quite different from the books. It is almost like another story sometimes.

Tami, I do the same thing! I reread the whole series before each of the movies, just so I can compare them. I figure I'll start SS in October. Do you mean that there is a group read scheduled in October? If so, I'll have to plan it out so I'm reading at the same time.

Not a group read, just me. But it sounds like it will actually be a lot of us.

Ohhh I'll join the group read that isn't a group read but is in a group!!

Wouldn't it be fun if we reread them as a group?!

AND I can join in as a newbie! Yep, that's right. I've never read HP. Well, I read the first one WAYYY back in the day when it first came out!

Maybe we can do a re-read (or in Jamies case read) of them for September and October and November like the Thick Book Challenge for the summer, as an extra group read. Since there are 7 books and it is the start of school and the majority of Fall semester for most of us, it would be best to do it over the 3 months. I know we already have a discussion thread titled Harry Potter, but we could do one each book specific.

And, Jamie! You must read them!

Jamie!! You haven't read them??? Then you must read them along with us!

Tami- I like your ideas.

I definitely plan on rereading the whole series before the movie comes out...it's a must. Speaking of a must..Jamie, you must read them!!!!