It's no secret that authors read reviews. The official trade and newspaper ones, certainly, as well as, more covertly, our reader ones. It might be a form of torture for some, but if hard-pressed to confess the truth, I'd bet that most, if not all, authors will admit to taking sneak peeks at their reader reviews. The cardinal rule is to never comment, though I recently and warily broke that rule and didn't find myself, at least to my knowledge, immediately enshrined in the pantheon of Authors Behaving Badly. (I've been there before, and trust me, it was no picnic).

Why do we look, despite all warnings that we shouldn't? Curiosity, I suspect. We want to see what readers think of a book that we've worked on for at least a year or more. We want to discover if readers felt reading it what we felt writing it, if we succeeded in conveying what so obsessed us. Of course, that's not always how it turns out. Often, we find to our disbelief that either we missed the mark with alleged epic myopia or offended someone in some way we never intended. Books are subjective. What is one person's cup of tea is another's poison.

I'm not immune to feeling hurt when I get a negative review. I'm human; it's my book, after all, and I want everyone to love it, even as I'm aware of how unrealistic that is. Setting aside the one-star rants, where the reviewer sets out to demonstrate how much better they would have done had they written the book (I get it. When I was unpublished, I'd read certain novels and think, "Hell. I could have done this ten times better with one hand in a sling," though fortunately I didn't have any online review sites yet to vent my frustration) I'm often bemused by those reviews where the reader says, "I just didn't like the character."

That always makes me wonder. Some of my favorite novels involve unlikable characters. Do we need to like a character to be engaged? Certainly, for me both as a reader and a writer, the answer is no. The truth is, I seek out subjects that are often not likable in the conventional sense; I'm fascinated by characters whose personalities differ from mine. I've seen reviews where a reader cites, "Clearly the author adores [insert character's name]" and I think, "Really?" Because while it is true that as a writer, we must fall in love with our character in order to live with her for the time it takes to write the book, I know we must remain forever clear-eyed about the foibles and flaws, the weaknesses as much as the strengths. I don't love my characters so much as I seek to understand them, to uncover what makes them who they are. While I often shudder at their choices, I don't want to judge them. The moment I start judging, the writing becomes about me, not them. I want to live vicariously through their eyes and when I've finished writing the book, let the character speak for herself. I don't build altars. I paint portraits. Not necessarily nice portraits at moments, but hopefully realistic ones. A reader may disagree with my interpretation, but I never take on the task of inhabiting my character lightly. Foremost in my mind is not whether the reader will like my character, which is actually quite easy to do, but whether they'll understand her. Like her or not, I want the reader to think after they're done reading my book, "I know more now about who she may have been than I did before."

So, do we need to like our characters? As a writer, we must respect them enough to let them come out of their shell and speak to us. If we discover we share affinities with them, that's always a plus - but to me, not a requirement.

As a reader, well . . . I leave that up to you.