Recently I read “Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang and I’m part way through “Caging Skies” by Christine Leunens. Obviously in these books the characters are meant to be unlikable since they are racist/anti-Semitic and it would be problematic if they were written in a better light. So is it wrong to give the book a lower rating if you didn’t like a protagonist who was supposed to be unlikable?
A deliberately annoying character is still annoying. It takes skill and finesse to include them without dragging down the narrative as a whole. Otherwise you get a Jar-Jar.
If you didn’t enjoy a book, you didn’t enjoy it.