In universe I mean, not by the reader. I remember the few times I saw stories like that were fairly… cringe; the MC was usually a loner and the people didn’t have a good reason to hate him, if any at all!
But when there is a reason, whether it would be something they did in the past or being bad in the present? I love the drama and conflict potential. Does anyone know a book like this?
Speaker For the Dead is kind of like this. The MC is hated for actions taken in a previous book (Ender’s Game). That said, the main character travels under his real name as opposed to the pseudonym he was known under when he did the things that made people hate him now. Also, due to time dilation from traveling at near light speed, his actions were ~3000 years in the past. As a result, he is basically a mythical evil figure in the general consciousness, but is not hated in his day to day life because people don’t know who he is.
Not sure if this is close enough, but it is the only thing I could think of.
Time dilation is useful to dilute the impact of the prior novel, as the MC wasn’t originally to be Ender.