8 Books That Feature Complicated, Unlikable Women

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Unlikable female characters have graced the fictional worlds of countless books since the beginning. But what does unlikable mean to you? A character complex enough not to be one-dimensional? Or does she dabble in serial killer territory? Or perhaps the distance between those two extremes is exactly the point. A well-written unlikable female character (UFC from here on out) will be at least understandable, if not entirely sympathetic. But really, anyone can fit this definition — anyone from a messy suburban mom who refuses to play into the local PTA politics one time too many to a full-on assassin for hire could be a UFC.

The UFC label has been applied to the work of contemporary literary giants like Ottessa Moshfegh, Lauren Groff, Elena Ferrante, and Mona Awad, even though their characters have little in common. Perhaps the most common marker of a UFC is simply that she’s not defined by her need to be liked. Or just that she gets to make decisions that might be quite selfish, just like plenty of men in literature do. But to some degree, most characters complex enough to warrant affection will be a little bit unlikable. We’ve rounded up books that capture the UFC in all her glory.

Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate

The rest of the books on this list are fiction, but I want to start off with something a little different. Anna Bogutskaya, who works in film, offers an in-depth look at how we love to hate certain women in certain ways. Bogutskaya walks us through several different kinds of UFC archetypes in the media, from “the Mean Girl” to “the Slut” to “the Shrew,” and analyzes their representation in film. It’s fascinating to dig into the different flavors of unlikable. Do we hate the mean girl because we’re jealous? Because we knew one too many girls like her in high school? How do we deal with a narrative that builds sympathy for an archetype we hate? What about a story that refuses to treat a UFC with any sympathy or nuance? Bogutskaya will have you thinking about all of the above and more the next time you confront a UFC in the wild.

While no one can capture every single complex or unlikable woman in media, Unlikeable Female Characters is a delightfully in-depth tour of whom we’ve loved to hate and whom we’ve been told to hate in the last hundred or so years of film, complete with “An Unlikeable Watch List” at the end so you can see for yourself.

Sula

When I finished reading Toni Morrison’s Sula for the first time a few years ago, I read and reread the final line until it was burned into my mind. Sula is about so many things, but one of the main themes is how hating a woman can unify a community through hypocritical self-righteousness. Main characters Sula and Nel are inseparable as children, even though Nel is from a household that clings to convention, and Sula’s home is chaotic at best.

Their childhood and friendship end with a tragic accident, for which Nel blames Sula. Nel settles down to a life of married decency like her mother, and Sula shocks no one by spending the next 10 years traveling and presumably getting up to no good. When Sula does come back, she’s gorgeous and fascinating, but she’s also cruel and selfish enough that the townspeople come together to hate her. They feel justified and righteous in the way they despise her, and Nel delights in this hatred too until she can’t lie to herself any longer. Sula is a chilling examination of the way hating someone can be an impenetrable shield from investigating our own sins.

The Hearing Trumpet

It is a truth universally acknowledged that very old ladies get to say whatever they want, but we often don’t listen. For her novel The Hearing Trumpet, surrealist artist and writer Leonora Carrington leaned into that tension with 92-year-old Marian Leatherby, a crotchety narrator whose ears are failing and whose grasp on reality is coming undone. When Carmella, Marian’s best friend and another old lady given to fantastic imaginings, gifts Marian a hearing trumpet, Marian learns her family is intending to send her away. Marian starts planning her escape, which involves machine guns and rappelling off a 10-story building with Carmella.

Marian’s family believe she’s senile, but Carrington makes every single one of Marian’s oddities completely understandable. Marian’s curiosity and her idiosyncratic way of looking at the world are hilarious and incisive, helping her survive the old ladies’ home ruled by a sketchy doctor. I went from laughing at Marian to adoring her long before Carrington spins the story off into a surreal eco-apocalypse. Marian is a wonderful reminder to observe the way other people see the world.

The Guest

Alex, the protagonist of Emma Cline’s latest novel, The Guest, is sometimes a sex worker who is also a scammer of sorts. Burned after she stole from a client, Alex knows it’s time to flee New York City and try her luck somewhere else. She lands in a beautiful beach house on Long Island with an indulgent new lover named Simon, whom she really couldn’t care less about. When she makes a wrong move or two, Alex is left to provide for herself with only her wits.

Alex is hard to root for, but she’s strangely compelling nonetheless. Like the protagonist of Cline’s earlier novel, The Girls, Alex is certainly not a victim, but she hasn’t had an easy life either. She’s a contemporary trickster character who’s only looking out for herself, but then again, with no family or friends to speak of in the book, who else would be looking out for her?

Yellowface

The narrator of Yellowface is June Hayward, a white woman and writer who steals a manuscript from her friend Athena Liu, an Asian American writer who has been vastly more successful in her writing career. June watches her friend die in a tragic accident and makes off with the manuscript. And that’s just the beginning of the novel. For the rest of the book, June does her best to justify her actions, editing the novel and obscuring her background (like changing her name to Juniper Song) with the help of her deeply complicit editors.

You’re not really supposed to love June or delight in her misbehavior. Yellowface is about a dramatic theft and exploitation that isn’t justifiable. It’s not supposed to be. In this case, the UFC is an outright villain as we watch her succumb to the circular thoughts it takes to justify this kind of exploitation. But women are allowed to be villains too! And they don’t have to be redeemable!

NW

Leah is lying to her husband, and Natalie is also lying to her own husband. The women grew up together on the same council estate in London, but their lives have taken dramatically different paths since then. Leah is roughly part of the same economic class in which she was raised, she loves her husband, and she’s content with their lives the way they are. The only problem is that he wants a baby, and she doesn’t. Natalie has left her humble beginnings far behind. She went to a prestigious university, married into money, and balances her work as a barrister with raising her two children. But she’s overwhelmed by her duties to her husband, children, high-powered career, parents, and siblings. So, Leah takes birth control, even though she’s promised her husband she won’t, and Natalie scours swinging sites for short-term affairs.

Their discontent is honestly quite sympathetic, and the pressures they each face — to have children, to make good on the opportunities their parents gave them, to keep up with everything they’ve tied themselves to — are smothering. It’s hard to approve of how they each handle the stress by breaking the trust of their partners and prioritizing their own gratification, but it’s easy to understand. Zadie Smith is a master at creating complex characters, and the way she sparks her characters off one another’s selfishness is always a delight.

Velvet Was the Night

Silvia Moreno-Garcia loves a morally gray character, especially when she can pair that morally gray character with a dreamer of some sort. In Velvet Was the Night, protagonist Maite is a little bit of both. She’s a secretary who resents the joy of other people and steals little mementos whenever she gets the chance. Maite imagines all kinds of adventures and great loves for herself, but she only starts doing anything about those dreams when she’s forced to. Up until then, she just comes off as whiny and a bit entitled.

But once Maite finds herself accidentally involved with deadly, CIA-backed political skirmishes in 1970s Mexico City, we do get to see her take the chances that actually lead to the life she’s always wanted. It’s good to see a UFC experience some growth, even if she isn’t perfectly pleasant and selfless by the end.

Biography of X

Ever thought you knew someone deeply, only to find you were wildly mistaken? In Biography of X, Charlotte Marie Lucca (mostly called CM in the novel) is devastated by the loss of her wife, a provocative artist and writer known as X. X was famous and had a circle of famous friends, but she was also deeply mysterious to everyone around her, including her own wife. CM doesn’t even know where X was born. When another author publishes a biography of the late artist, CM is furious, claiming that he’s lying about certain parts of X’s life. So, she takes on the task herself, investigating her late wife’s complicated past, and her reporting culminates in a shocking discovery. The book is set in an alternate United States where the country broke apart right after WWII and the Southern states became a theocracy called the Southern Territory, adding a poignant political element to CM’s investigations.

CM must grapple with the fact that she’s been manipulated for years by a charismatic liar she was undeniably in love with. CM asks herself and the reader, “Was X real or a character? Calculating or brilliant?” Biography of X is a fascinating look at learning to deal with both the rot and the beauty in an inherently one-sided relationship.

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Shelbi Polk is a Durham, North Carolina, based writer who just might read too much. Find her online at @shelbipolk on Twitter.

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