There was this book we read a while ago in Literature called Siddhartha, which is just about the Buddha if he didn’t become the Buddha. My teacher said it’s one of his favorite books of all time but… eh. My main issue was that I simply could not stand the protagonist. He’s such a cynical, selfish, sanctimonious douchebag, but not to the point where it’s funny or interesting. Instead I just want to punch him (although it does result in the best scene in the book, which can be summed up as his girlfriend saying “I love you, do you love me?” and he says “maybe”

). There’s way too many scenes focused on him (w)angsting about how much the world sucks or how stupid humans are and how much he hates himself and it’s just miserable. The reason he’s so cynical is because he was born at the top of the caste system, and is realizing how unfair the system is, but it doesn’t make it any more bearable. I mean, realistically, if he was so upset, why wouldn’t he do something about it instead of just *****ing about it the entire book?
Not helping things is that most of the side characters aren’t any better, since they’re almost always either barely existent or have no personality. His partner is one of the few good ones, as well as this one ferryman who becomes important close to the end of the book, but then his dad has like… 4, maybe 5 lines of dialogue, his best friend does nothing but praise him continuously until he realizes that the guy he’s always thought was amazing is actually just a prick (which is actually kind of sad, to be honest), and his son is just a spoiled brat, but then again, he can’t really be blamed that much since not only did his deadbeat dad that’s the star of this book left him before he was even born, but
he also literally just witnessed his mom die. There’s also this one rich merchant but I don’t really care. I can’t think of any other actually important side characters. The book isn’t bad, and I’d probably give it a 6/10. At least it wasn’t boring like everything else in that class. It’s just those issues kept me from enjoying it more.