Brad Meltzer was on the radio this morning promoting that book, and was absolutely funny and entertaining. I think I may have to read it because the premise sounds great, and I have to admire that vid.

the premise sounds great

If you don't think about it too much!

I'm curious, y'all, since I've just had this conversation with a fellow writer with respect to the work I just posted the bit from in GWW.

What, for you as readers, would render a character unsympathetic or unrelatable? And even if a character is unrelatable, what could keep you reading? If you have examples, feel free to share, please.

Off the top of my head, I can think of Jude Coyne, the protagonist of Heart-Shaped Box. (Which I haven't finished yet, so don't spoil me, please!)

He's an aging rock star and an incredible dick -- but he's *honest* about it. There's something about his gruff acceptance of his own bad nature that makes you feel a bit for him, and of course as the book progresses, you begin to understand why he's so jaded and bitter.

I found the protagonist in Ishmael to be a dick but I kept reading because I liked the character of Ishmael and I knew the main character would change over the course of the book.

Deena!!! In re: books for Kara, how the heck did we not talk about Roald Dahl??? I mean, really? The Witches? I can't imagine Kara not utterly loving that. Plus half of his characters are wasting away from consumptive type things. Clearly her type of characters, no?

In other terribly ridiculous only vaguely "literary" news, I was walking past Hot Topic today, and saw "Team Jacob" and "Team Edward" shirts. And went "whaaaa?" thinking of celebrities. And then realized they meant characters in the sparkly vampire universe. And rolled my eyes forever.

At this point I can't remember all the details, but the book I think of instantly is the publishing house director who's a victim in P.D. James' Original Sin. That's the book in which her habit of spending all her time in the heads of people who are not the supposed protagonists began to get really old. Through the thoughts of other people we discover that the dead person was so loathsome that the murderer could be anyone who had ever met the victim. By the time we find out, I was just glad he was dead.

What, for you as readers, would render a character unsympathetic or unrelatable? And even if a character is unrelatable, what could keep you reading? If you have examples, feel free to share, please.

I just read Galveston, which has two somewhat unsympathetic protagonists. It's not that they're bad people, but they're flawed in very real ways and they're honest with themselves about it.

In that same post, I talk about The Egyptologist, which also has unsympathetic protagonists. Unlike the ones in Galveston, however, they aren't honest about it at all, which is the fun of a book with unreliable narrators.

The Egyptologist sounds really fascinating. Talk about a hell of a reading exercise, what with the unreliable narrators.

Oh, it's great. Especially because the actual truth is all between the lines.