“Unlikeable Female Characters” by Anna Bogutskaya is a nonfiction examination of feminine archetypes in media that inspire controversy over women behaving badly – “the women pop culture wants you to hate!” triumphs the cover art. It’s organized by archetype – ranging from “trainwreck”, to “mean girl”, to “slut”, to “psycho” – and each section goes through a brief history of each character type before delving into specific examples that have proven influential over the years.

Bogutskaya writes in a chatty, conversational style, witty and knowing in a way that reminded me of Buzzfeed-style lists but with the scholarly back up of a bunch of film and television scholarship. It’s a fun, easy book to read and understand. What Bogutskaya knows – such as “Gone Girl” in all its nuances – is well-researched and interesting. What ultimately works against this book is its surface-level examination of each trope: never once did Bogutskaya write anything more thoughtful than the average feminist Twitter reaction thread. That’s not an insult – I’ve read some great Twitter threads in my day – but the topic is, in this case, too broad for a 300 page book that examines 9 archetypes. There’s simply nothing here that surprised me or rocked my world or was particularly new or unique. You get exactly what you expect with this one, and nothing new.

The topic is too broad, and Bogutskaya’s pop culture lexicon too narrow. It is extremely obvious when Bogutskaya isn’t familiar with various areas of pop culture. While “Fleabag” and “Killing Eve” and various indie movies are often referenced (and are, rather obviously, the sort of pop culture media the author enjoys watching), the biggies that have taken over modern pop culture are oddly missing in action. Where’s the chapter on the accusations of Rey Skywalker’s “Mary Sue” tendencies? (For that matter, why isn’t “Mary Sue” one of the character archetypes discussed here? It’s exclusively leveled at female characters that are too smart, too quick on their feet, too ‘perfect’. Seems strange to have left it out entirely). Marvel’s chokehold on the film industry (and the hatred the actresses have received) wasn’t mentioned. Butch lesbians have been despised in media for ages, but they don’t get a mention. Video games and women have long been a contentious subject – see Gamer Gate, see how “The Last of Us: Part Two”’s Abby caused a hysterical fervor of fury and hatred toward a female character that nearly broke Reddit - and yet again, no mention. Bogutskaya makes a comment that Villanelle from “Killing Eve” was the first time a fandom sprung up around a psycho, while completely ignoring Hannibal, to which Killing Eve owes quite a bit. And of course while Bogutskaya acknowledges that her list of nine archetypes works differently for women of color than it does white women, I feel like a lot more might have been done to delve into the specific ways race intersects with likeability in women.

So all in all – I’d give this book to someone just starting to study media who wants a light delving into this specific topic, but it’s not a book that I learned anything new from. It’s fun, it’s readable, but it doesn’t really achieve the depth it needs.

"Unlikeable Female Characters" as the title implies, deals with women who pop culture wants us to hate. Think about the news cycle and how many pieces are floating around at a time in tabloid culture and social media tabloidism where there is constant shade thrown at people who the media has said "Okay--we do not like this woman, and we're going to need the rest of you, the public, to also not like her. Bad woman. Shameful woman!'
In this book, we're focusing on what should be familiar archetypes like The Bitch, The Mean Girl, The "Slut," the "Crazy Woman," the "Psycho," The "Weirdo," and then more about the death of likability.

The premise of the book interested me because I have been on horror convention panels and had this discussion among female horror writer peers and library worker peers about what this notion is of unlikability and villainy in women that makes so, so many people uncomfortable. And not just cishet white dudes. Cishet white women are definitely also in this camp. But then you've got the aspect of parasocial relationships which I understood as a concept for years, but didn't have the vocabulary/verbiage for it, and now I do. It's that phenomenon where fans of a celebrity or famous person like Tom Hiddleston will be like "okay we love you Tom! Just don't commit the cardinal sin of dating, marrying, or having children with someone you, the Hiddles fans, hate!" And that's exactly what happened with his most recent partner, with whom he recently had a child. She is a mixed race woman of colour with African ancestry, and she is British. And Hiddleston's fans displayed some of the most overt displays of misogynoir and hatred that I have ever seen. Vitriolic levels of it. Some of these fans feel like they have a sense of ownership and like Tom's spouse "stole" him from them and I just... I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around this dangerous, toxic, and in some cases just plain "Okay, this person just tried to break into another person's home and feels like it's okay because that person is a celebrity" and that level of psychology which is just something that gives me nightmares.

We see the same dynamic with superstars like the popular songstress of the day with fans expressing to her all over social media and at in-person opportunities that they think that this celebrity would be a great dating choice for her. Or projecting other choices on that person, or getting mad when that celebrity "deviates" from this parasocial "contract" that some fans feel like that person has with them. That's more an aspect of fandom and fandom studies, but I feel like it overlaps with the subject matter of this book here, which is why I've brought it up.

One of the major cases that the author deconstructs is the case of unlikability against Hilary Clinton. For so long, so many people just kept going on and on and on in the press and in polls and in anecdotal interviews that they don't like her. There's something about her they don't like. She seems this or that, or they don't trust her. They don't think a woman should be president. And then the comments and misogny come in and it just gets even worse. I'm not going to take up time here talking about the 2016 election, but I will point out the horrendous "throw her in jail over emails" phenomenon and the rabid encouragement of violence against women in positions of power that has overtaken so many countries, but especially in the United States. This is an extremely dangerous rhetoric where a man, who was appointed the highest position of power in the country through illegal and highly questionable means, encouraged people to throw in jail and aim violence not only toward Hilary Clinton, but also we saw the aggression levelled at Dr Anthony Fauci and his wife, his adult children. We've seen that in the case of an older white man who ran for a public office position in the South in the past few years was confronted by the women he raped. He was not voted in, and justice prevailed, but then he burned down her house and attempted to kill her.

This book deals more with fictional characters, and is what the bulk of the book focuses on. Questioning why they are so-called unlikable. It starts with women who defied the conventions of their times like Marlene Deitrich and Mae West, then it goes to Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, and so on.

This book definitely falls more under the subject area of film history and women on film. It will primarily appeal to readers who want to know more about the history of female characters and archetypes on the Silver Screen.

By the time we get to the Mean Girl chapter, we get to "Carrie" and then to "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty in Pink," basically the Molly Ringwald era of the 1980s, and then we get to the 2000s film "Mean Girls" as well as the film Dangerous Expectations (I thin) in which Sarah Michelle Gellar changed her Good Girl Who Saves the World type from Buffy into Evil Bitch with a dye job for darker hair to boot. Speaking of Buffy, we also get some insights into the resident Meal Girl there, Cordelia Chase.

The author tries, in the next chapter, to break down this notion of why female displays of anger mean unlikability for them, questioning who is 'allowed' to be angry and show anger, before getting into "The Slut" chapter which deals with Sex and the City first,

Overall, the book is an interesting look into the subject matter, and for people who study in this subject area, might give them some more insights as well as newer scholarship to be able to point to in their work work. The author talks about the notions of popularity as well, and what makes some female characters more likeable than others.

One thing to keep in mind is that most of the examples used throughout the book are for films and television series that have focused on white women, like Buffy (see above), "Heathers," and more recent horror films. The book does not address the intersectionalities (at least not fully) of what makes some women more unlikable in the eyes of many, including race (and I don't mean that in an obvious way, like well, some white cishet viewers don't like this Black characters purely because they're racist) but more in the sense of someone more recently, a far more interesting example, of Dominique Fishback's recent performance in "Swarm" and the ways that she weaves in and out of unlikeability and villainy to likeability at times, to -- anyway; that's more a testament to "Swarm" and to the wonderful people involved both in front of and behind the camera. It's possible the author felt that one would need a more substantive volume to truly addresses the notions of character unlikability and race in female characters, or felt they were not the best or most appropriate person to undertake such a project, or dozens of other possibilities. Whatever the reason, the majority of examples and discussions here revolve around white women, and I think that it's important for library collection development staff to know that, and that perhaps readers expecting more deconstruction of tropes or of some deeper analysis might want to supplement their reading with further texts.

This is a fascinating subject and I commend the author for taking on the challenge of doing it justice. It was thoughtfully written with tons of relevant examples, although I felt my interest taper off at around 70% and it pains me not to finish a book once I’ve invested that much time into it. I was also a little disappointed to have been given so many spoilers when it came to shows and movies that feature unlikeable female characters. I understand the need to discuss the entire storyline to defend her point, but I hadn’t seen many of the examples she discussed and would have liked to before knowing how they end.

A TOTAL EYE-OPENER

This book was very thought provoking and eye-opening. While I am not the biggest moviebuff, Bogutskaya did a great job of picking characters with a cultural appeal that most people are likely to be familiar with. The book was well-written and the arguments were easy to follow and get into. Bogutskaya is great at making points and underlining them twice. It definitely made me more interested in movies and how women are portrayed in them.

This book was okay. I so wanted to do a deep dive into this but I’m not sure if it was just the arch copy but I found the lay out of it hard to follow at some points. I did overall like the book would just change some of the ways it was set up.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me access to this ARC!

I really enjoyed Unlikeable Female Characters because it was incredibly thorough in its research and easily digestible to the reader. I think the aspect that stood out the most for me is how we are sometimes unaware of the stereotypes and media depictions of women (because we normalize them) and this book calls them out for what they are. The historial background provided in each chapter made the information even more poignant and the message that still stands is that there is much more to do, even though there’s been progress, we’re still not there yet! If you are interested in learning about pop culture and the space that women have held in film and television, this book is for you!

A well written observation on the evolution of the "Unlikable Female" in cinema and tv.
This was a fun look at the archetypes and tropes of how (fictional) women are "allowed" to behave, be seen, and be treated by society and the expected consequences of her actions. Bogutskaya gives plenty of examples of these unlikable female characters as well as interesting behind the scene factoids about them, the actresses, and how the roll or film was received. However, these same fun facts became a bit too redundant for me at times (mainly due to the crossover of several archetypes).
If you love film and "bitchy" woman, this is a enjoyable read overall.

As someone who's always preferred her characters unlikable, because those are usually the most interesting and complex, I found this book fascinating. Anna Bogutskaya has done an excellent job compiling her list of character tropes and then explaining and populating them with examples that appeal across generations - and across generations of film and television. I found this particularly helpful, as I don't watch a lot of popular current television or movies, and had to look up a handful of her references, although I'm delighted to report that now I am going to be looking for a number of them to watch as a result. Her writing style is conversational and engaging and offers a great mix of theory and anecdotal examples. This was a very interesting compilation.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC of this non-fiction book exploring the development of female characters in movies and television. I found this book really interesting, the author raises a lot of important issues and questions, and I think this book will be very educational and eye-opening for a lot of people.

Unlikeable Female Characters focus on women in popular culture who are often labeled as unlikeable and categorized into different archetypes. I expected more in-depth analysis after reading the introduction but found that the chapters were mostly explorations of characters that fit within each archetype. Despite this, the review is still thought-provoking and provides valuable insights into the subject matter. Additionally, the book offers a helpful watchlist at the end.

When I saw the title I had to pick up this book. I have a joke among friends that I find the most hated woman in a fandom and immediately claim her as a favorite.

I liked how this book was structured, each chapter focusing on a different flavor of unlikeable woman by stereotypes from the bitch to the slut, etc etc.

It was interesting to see the lines where these characters become nuanced and palatable to being too much and veering into unlikeability. One point that stood out was about “the bitch” being enjoyable as a character because through her we see our ambitious fantasies come to life.

The titles analyzed are not too niche, making the topic accessible. I will say this work feels like an entry point to this topic and by the end the chapters were getting repetitive with structure. There were too many examples and in depth descriptions I could’ve used a bit more analysis.

But it was solid, I enjoyed it in the way that I love to hear people talk about media they enjoy and spend hours already consuming video essays on the topic. Would recommend for my fellow film and tv lovers out there who have had to fight for their favorite women on tv!

As anyone who’s been following me for more than five seconds knows, I love an unlikable female character. So, when someone wrote a whole book about them, how could I not read it??

Bogutskaya tracks the different types of unlikeable female characters - from the bitch to the psycho, from the shrew to the trainwreck - from the silent film era through to the prestige TV of today. Unfortunately, as a fan of these types of characters and pop culture history as a whole, there wasn’t any new information for me and a lot of her points about the way media and society view women became redundant.

Still, it was a fun celebration of the women we may have been meant to hate, yet can’t help but love.

"A fresh feminist appraisal of the pop culture canon."
This felt like a undergrad thesis. The prompt was interesting enough, and had my support from the beginning. It lost me around 25% of the way through. l don't know, I'm leaving this book unsure of how to feel. The points were good, the message was clear but I got kind of lost in the woods while looking at the trees. Lost in the trees looking for the woods? Whatever that expression is.

I feel like I should preface this by saying I had such high hopes for this. I live for unlikeable female characters, they're my absolute bread and butter. I spent basically my entire academic career talking about unlikeable women! I still spend a lot of my time talking about them! That being said: this was derivative and didn't present anything new. The conversation has existed for as long as I can remember, and I was really hoping this would bring something new to the table. This was a bit of a rehashing of previous conversations, just organized differently.

Bogutskaya's text would be really great if you're newly interested in the topic, though! It's a solid round-up of the existing conversation and organizes it in a way that's super digestible.

Unlikeable Female Characters; The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate by Anna Bogutskaya was fun and extremely upsetting because of how true it all was. This book belongs on every library shelf. I felt so lucky to get a physical copy for myself! I have shared on my goodreads, bookstagram, and booktok!

Thank your for the opportunity to read and review this book .

I found this to be an interesting way to look at how women are represented in media . It felt a little rushed but over all an interesting and thought provoking read .

In this book by Anna Bogutskaya we find out about unlikeable female characters in movies such as hedy from Single White Female and Alex from Fatal Attraction but the author also covers those we love to hate from TV like Olivia Pope from Scandal and many more. She also talks about the different reasons we come to dislike certain female characters in some or just because they don’t act according to what people think is normal or they just have a very independent spirit different eras cause different reasons for us to dislike these characters I thought she did a great job covering some I even forgot about like Eartha Kitt playing Catwoman she also talks about the people who’s online persona bled to real life such as the female lead in men in Black who Tommy Lee Jones refuse to act with in the next MIB movie. This book is full of interesting stories about female characters we love to hate and I highly recommend it. I liked this book way more than I thought I would and I really thought this was a great idea for a book and greatly executed and it’s one I highly recommend. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Let me start off by saying, I live for unlikeable female characters. I thought this book was well written however, it felt extremely derivative and honestly a thesis that isn't new. It was basically Bitch by the late Elizabeth Wurtzel. So if you haven't read that and you like media critique and pop-feminism, give this a go.

Thank you to the publisher for the arc.

Was this book written for me? It’s as though the author has seen my previously watched list. Anna Bogutskaya’s “Unlikeable Female Characters” breaks down the negative tropes pop culture places on women tv/movie characters. She breaks down why viewers root for the unlikeable male character and places this double standard into a magnifying glass throughout the book. Back in the 30s/40s the production code wouldn’t allow an unlikeable female to succeed; she had to be punished for her actions. Once the code ended, the unlikeable female evolved into having to have a “reason” for their behavior. It’s only recently that these characters can just be unlikeable. Society is starting to triumph watching these characters. The author makes a great point that we’re not drawn to these characters because we see ourselves in them but instead we can live out the fantasy of them.

This book is smart, fast paced and the introduction is incredible! I found myself nodding throughout and realizing I’m not alone in gravitating towards enjoying these villainous women characters; maybe that’s why I enjoy Real Housewives so much! As a fan of classic movies, I was thrilled to see the author include a history of the code era and the constraints placed on female characters.

Some chapters were more focused on one movie or show than others; I found those chapters to be longer and more repetitive. I was disappointed not to see a discussion of the female characters from The Handmaids Tale especially in the “Anger” chapter. There were also a few factual errors. It has not been “almost 20 years” since Gone Girl was published…it’s only been 10 years. I think some of the chapters/stereotypes are one and the same, because of this, some of the chapters seem repetitive. I also felt the focus was lost in the last chapter where the author describes the “weirdo” but never introduces characters that are considered unlikeable. Despite those criticisms, I loved that she pulled examples from a multitude of decades and didn’t pigeonhole herself with what’s current in pop culture. The recommended watch list at the end is also a great addition. Overall, if you don’t find something new to watch, the book may help you realize why you like a particularly unlikeable character and at the very least open up the conversation about the double standards surrounding unlikeable men and female characters.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was written as though the author speaks for all women, which I found alienating rather than comforting. Whenever I couldn't relate to a sentiment the text posited as universal, I couldn't help but wonder if I, according to this book, was doing this whole womanhood thing incorrectly. This book, paradoxically, seemed to achieve the opposite of what it set out to do: to construct a supposedly one size fits all mold for women and ostracize those who do not fit.
I felt further alienated reading about "feminine uncanny," a caricatured version of girly aesthetics that was mentioned multiple times in the book without much dissection or added commentary. I couldn't help but wonder, as a woman who enjoys stereotypically feminine things, "must we be cartoon versions of ourselves to be noteworthy?" It is, safe to say, an uncomfortable thought to have, and don't think this is the line of questioning the author intended to invoke.
The problem with sweeping generalizations continues in some of the examples used in this book. One that particularly rubbed me the wrong way was the argument that Lena Dunham was disliked because she wrote unlikable female characters, with no mention in the text whatsoever of the actually horrible things Dunham has done. Additionally, the author acted as though Joker was a universally lauded exploration of male anger, completely ignoring the discourse on its damaging and inaccurate portrayal of mental illness. Such writing comes off as reductionist at best and disingenuous at worst.
It's a shame there were so many off-putting elements to this book because it does make several interesting and valid points. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of Gone Girl. Many of the arguments I would have otherwise agreed with were undermined by the type of generalization I mentioned above. The book was engaging enough, but I think I would have been more entertained if I went and read some of the articles and essays cited in it instead.