Do you mean, the character is a blatant bigot, and this is unappealing enough to make you quit reading?

Or do you mean that the author has provided only cardboard, “stock” characters without bothering to give them any depth or individuality? (Bring on token middle-aged redneck divorcee…)

I’ve reached the age where I’m unwilling to waste time on anything that:

– contains gross errors of grammar (first person narrative excepted, of course!)

– is ambiguous as to plot, clearly due to sloppiness or lack of talent rather than serving as a “red herring”

– introduces the characters in the first two pages, then gives us three pages of flashback. (I drop the book when I start reading “Ten years ago” — not “earlier”, but “ago”! — they had met when…” etc.)

– contains gross factual errors, like the example mentioned above, about the M-16’s recoil, or having the hero in New York phoning his friend in Phoenix because if it’s 9 am in New York, his friend will be having lunch. You don’t have to write what you know, but you DO need to know what you write!

– does not compensate for slowness of plot with richness of characterization

– includes long stretches of dialogue of the most commonplace variety (i.e., it neither moves the plot along nor tells us anything whatever about the characters)

– does not, at least once a chapter, answer the question, “So what?”