skygiants

That's completely accurate about anti-hero shows -- and, like, I'm absolutely bored of anti-hero white men but I watch Killing Eve, I too have a good time seeing Villanelle get stabby on my television. Or, like, I love Villette, which has a truly weird and kind of awful heroine but it's so much fun to watch her be weird and awful! It's easy to feel self-satisfied and virtuous about this because unlikable men are so much more prevalent and do get so much more slack but really it's more about my personal taste than anything else ...

Though I do think the other part of the thing is that, like -- if this book had been about Andrea growing, I honestly probably would have been completely on board with her; I love books that begin with someone who's flat out miserable within and without, the petty villain of somebody else's story, and then gives them a nice long luxurious character arc in which to change. But Andrea is neither unlikable in a way that's fun, nor has the opportunity to change and become a person who's happier in and of herself, and that just makes the whole experience frustrating.