You Don't Exist But I Love You Anyway

I have a bad habit of feeling too deeply for fictional characters. Probably, most avid readers do. But I'm not kidding. Not even a little bit. It's the characters that turn me off or on when it comes to a book, and if you ask me what I think about a read, chances are it'll begin with loving or hating a character.

This week's book blog hop is asking a tough question: 
Who is your favorite book character? I’ll give you a maximum of two choices, but they have to be from different genres.

Hmmph. Two characters is by no means, of course, an exhaustive list. But here are my choices:

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. Delicious. From Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. A couple of years ago I did a feature of my favourite fictional characters, and I said this:
Despite his apparent cruelty and a cold facade, there's something just so endearing about Raskolnikov. Perhaps it's his self-conviction that is so obviously flawed - I just want to give him a great big hug.

Patrick Bateman, of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho. Patrick Bateman is such an intense character, and easily one of my favourite characters in literary history. Ever. He's the epitome of everything that I hate about the world - materialism, consumerism, prejudice, greed, vanity and he's completely and utterly immoral in every way. And yet, I can't help but love him, if even just for how insanely clever he is. And, if you like, you can read more about how I love him here.

Two literary bad boys, two very different worlds.