Taylor Dunkin: The Character Readers Start Out Angry With—and End Up Rooting For Hardest

One of the most consistent things I hear from readers is that Taylor Dunkin becomes their favorite character.

That reaction almost never starts in Book 1.

The Early Reaction: Anger

In the beginning of the series, many readers are simply angry at him.

They see a guy supplying drugs to younger kids in Montgomery. They watch the damage spread through the high school, and their first instinct is frustration or dislike. At that point they don’t yet know the full story, and the surface-level view is ugly. Taylor looks like the problem. A lot of readers feel protective of the younger characters and transfer that protectiveness into real irritation toward him.

That initial reaction is completely understandable. The books open with the consequences of his involvement before they open the door to his history.

The Shift Begins

Everything starts to change once readers reach the flashbacks in Book 2 and begin to understand the injury.

They learn about the career-ending knee injury, the surgeries, the painkillers, and the rapid slide that followed. Suddenly the star athlete they only heard about becomes a real person who lost the future he had worked for. Pity enters the picture. Readers start to feel the weight of what was taken from him.

Then they see the present-day Taylor: sober, trying to stay on track, and yet still trapped inside the Bilotti drug ring. The reason he remains involved becomes clearer—he is protecting his family. The realization that he is not dealing because he wants to, but because he is afraid of what will happen to the people he loves if he tries to walk away, lands hard for a lot of readers. The anger softens into something more complicated: frustration mixed with genuine concern. People begin rooting for him to find a way out.

Seeing Who He Used to Be

As the series continues and more of Taylor’s past comes into view, readers get to meet the version of him that existed before the injury and the addiction.

They see the good kid. The one who cared deeply about his family. The one who had a real shot. They learn that addiction runs in his family, and the genetic piece of the struggle becomes harder to dismiss. Many readers also feel a fresh wave of sympathy when they discover he lost his chance with Notre Dame over something he didn’t even do. That particular injustice tends to hit people in the gut. It reframes everything that came after.

By this point the emotional shift is usually complete. The guy they were angry at in Book 1 has become someone they are actively hoping makes it.

The Later Books: Full Investment

In the later books, most readers are fully on Taylor’s side.

They respect how hard he is fighting to maintain his sobriety. They understand that he never wanted to be involved in dealing drugs in the first place—he was forced into it out of fear for his own life and the lives of the people he cares about. The moral complexity is no longer theoretical. It is personal. Readers can see both the bad choices he made while under the influence and the impossible position he was later placed in.

By Books 5 and 6, the dominant feeling is hope mixed with tension. Readers want him to get free. They want him to help the FBI and the police take the crime ring down. They are invested in his survival and in the possibility of a real second chance. The early dislike has usually been replaced by fierce rooting.

Why This Arc Matters

Taylor’s story works the way it does because the books refuse to give readers the full picture all at once.

They let the anger exist first. Then they slowly hand over the context—the injury, the family pressure, the genetics of addiction, the coercion, the lost opportunities, and the quiet determination to stay sober even while trapped. The result is a character whose journey feels earned. Readers don’t just decide to like him. They arrive there after walking through the same process of judgment, revelation, and reevaluation that the story itself models.

That progression is one of the reasons so many readers eventually call Taylor their favorite. He is not easy to love at the start. The story makes you work for the understanding. And once you have it, the investment runs deep.

If you’ve followed Taylor from the early irritation all the way to the later books, I’d love to know where the turning point was for you—the moment the anger started giving way to something else. Those shifts are some of the most meaningful parts of reading (and writing) this series.