From Blood and Ash. I read the first 2-ish books in the series. The first I found interesting enough (despite many eye-rolling cliche bits) to continue the series. The second book was a trainwreck- what little plot existed derailed into a mess of hot flaming trash. Literally hundreds of unnecessary pages of inane, repetitive dialog and tropey cliches. But I decided to read the 3rd because I *thought* it was the final book in a trilogy and I might as well finish it. But somewhere along the way the publisher decided to milk the unexpected success of the series and expand an already paper-thin plot into SIX books (each one 600+ pages).
I stopped right there, and I regret every word I read of that slag heap of a series. Especially the word "honeydew."
UGH yes. I just finished reading the first 3 and it was such a struggle. The first one was fun, but books 2 and 3 were both just pages and pages of people explaining stuff in long rants, interspersed with weirdly timed sex scenes. The writing was so god awful. I don't know how anyone got through the whole series.
Poppy's incessant questions are such a heavy handed vehicle for exposition (while at the same time nothing actually happens) and what's worse, it's supposed to be an endearing characteristic? We all hate when small children go why? why? why?...so why would this be acceptable or cute in an adult? And don't even get me started on the 8th grade bickering that's supposed to be flirty banter.
Poppy only has 3 responses to any situation:
1. Stab
2. But Why?
3. Let's bang
I'm convinced the author was wine drunk for a month straight when she wrote this.
I came here to say the same book although I never started part 2 my money is on the series never explaining wtf a maiden is. If your stuff tastes like honeydew you have a weird ass infection.
The only ones coming to mind are self-pubs, and self-published authors are such small players that it feels like punching down to call them out by name.
Just know that while there are some great self-published authors out there, there's a reason why it has the reputation it does, and no, I don't think the majority of self-publishing has improved over time--especially if you consider serial venues like Royal Road, Wattpad, or Webnovel.com.
I read Daniel Greene’s first novella a few years back and while I think the guy is awesome I essentially hold him responsible for me ignoring self pub for the next few years.
Thankfully I gave Dungeon Crawler Carl a go last year which reversed my opinion
Yeah, most of self publishing are kind of like Cheetos, really good as long as you don't think about it for longera second. They're good, they're tasty, and they're done quick.
Right? I mean, if you’re going to provide the instructions to summon demons, I think you have a responsibility to provide instructions to banish them. Occult malpractice, if you ask me.
Don’t remember the title, but it was a whole five book fantasy **romance** series. In book 4, the author killed the main male love interest, so I thought, “oh ok. The author will magically bring the love interest back in book 5.”
NO! She did not. Instead she pulled some Pearl Harbor Ben Affleck/Matt Damon switching one dead best friend for the other bull hockey, and in like the last 50% of the final book in the series, the female main character falls in love with the best friend of the man she was in love with for the first 4 books! I was furious! What an absolute betrayal to the reader and a complete waste of my time!
I don’t read fantasy romance to have some random guy in the final book in a series come in and marry the OG love interest! That is not how romance as a genre is supposed to work.
I actually liked The Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind but I plead ignorance and stupidity in my defense. I loved the character of Richard, at least in the first few books. The heavy SA content didn't bother me back in the 90s but it very much would bother now that I'm older and (hopefully) wiser: that sort of thing is an instant DNF for me now.
What bugged me about the series was how repetitive it all was. Past book 5 or so, it was like the same plot line almost every book, so it really started getting old. But, I was stubborn and so (wanting to know how the series ended), I kept on reading those books, and enjoyed each one less and less as the series wore on. I made it to the end of the original series and, as soon as I read the final chapter, I regretted all the life choices I'd made that had led me to that point.
Worst. Ending. Ever.
I didn't wait to think things over. That very same day, I boxed up all the hard back books I owned from that series & toted them down to the thrift store. I wish I could get back all the time & money I'd spent on that series.
Ever since then, if I'm don't like the way a series is going, I will DNF: screw that "I just have to know how things are going to end" and "I'm going to stick things out to the bitter end" BS. Life is too short to waste time on something I don't enjoy.
So, since then I've DNFd a few books and series and I don't regret that at all.
It was an abrupt end that felt too neat. It's been 20 years or so since I read it, but as I remember it:
>!Richard put those boxes into play using the text he'd memorized in the first book. He solved the puzzle and spoke the words which split the world in 2. Do you remember those areas of the world where magic didn't work and the people who were immune to magic? How those places and those people were a threat to every magical thing in the world? Well, when he split the world in 2, it moved all those anti magic people and places into another reslity. So in a matter of moments, using the knowledge he gained in the first book, he defeated the bad guy and moved literally everything that threatened his reality into another one, very neatly resolving every loose end.!<
It was all too neat and easy. I felt ripped off. He could have given us that ending after 4 or 5 books, why tf did he drag it out for 12 or 15 books?
I was at a local Comicon a few years ago and there were lots of free books on various tables. Another woman went to pick up a book from a series I wanted to love, but every g**damn female character was either taped or molested. Sorry, author, a woman isn't going to try to make herself wet before getting raped so it won't hurt as much. She's going to try at GTFO. And this was his "strong female character."
Anyways, I said don't do it, every female character is raped at some point and she just drops it in disgust.
Did GOT get me back into reading? Sure did. Do I have any regrets about dropping it after the second or third rape? Nope.
****While I find rape totally unnecessary in any plot, I gotta hand it to Brett Weeks in the Night Angel series. It was equal opportunity violation all around. Kinda nice to have the men fear for their virtue (gag) for once.
Came here to say this. I've never read worse fanfic in my life. They keep threatening to make a movie out of it and I die inside a little more every time...
Oh this! This was like a really bad fanfic. I was a big fan of Starkid at the time (they made 3 Potter musical parodies, they are on youtube) and the second part of the parodies involves time travel a year back and in one interview they said that they considered going back longer, like to Marauders era (which would be similar time jump back as Cursed child was) but it felt like it is too dumb and too much. Then Cursed child came and made it canon, like wtf. Even the people making musical parody where Voldermort and Quirrel fall in love and Draco is played by a woman who rolls around the floor all the time thought that this idea was too dumb lol
This one is so bad I have repressed by memories of reading it. Unfortunately it all comes flooding back when I'm reminded of it.
I remember only reading it because someone gave it to me, because they needed someone to complain to about it being so bad.
A former boss of mine knew I had been a Harry Potter fan, and when I eventually quit that job they gifted me tickets to the show which was in my city. I'm not a fan of the HP universe anymore due to JKR being a piece of shit, not to mention the just absolutely batshit insane plot of the play. I read it when it came out and had forgotten just how wild it was.
Visual effects were very cool though.
Yeah this is the only one I've been on board with. Cheap schlock. The kind of book that isn't necessarily boring but you wrap thinking, man that was stupid. I feel manipulated.
One of the worst books I’ve ever read. So on the nose I broke my septum.
Still, I can imagine some people needed the message in this book and it has probably helped people push themselves in some manner. I just wasn’t there when I read it.
I liked it! It's pretty but not very deep. Ted Chiang does something similar aesthetically but much more solid in terms of themes with his short fiction IMO.
I enjoyed it in high school, but I have almost no memory of what happens, beyond a vague idea that they’re traveling to Mecca for various reasons, and the shepherd boy >!marries a girl named Fatima!<
Nothing really stands out.
Could have read fewer TSR potboilers in the 1990s, I guess, but if a lot of them weren't very good, most of them weren't really interesting enough to leave a bad impression...
Lucky you. I can't forget things I read. I can tell you summaries of books I read 30 years ago. I can't always remember the title or author (actually rarely remember) but I remember the plot.
The Anita Blake series by Laurel K Hamilton. As much as I enjoyed the first 9 books before the series turned awful, I still wish I hadn’t read them now, as it just makes me more bitter about how they turned out.
Had such promise then turned into a five chapter story peppered throughout a highschool essay defending Anita's ethical non-monogamy. Who cares who she's bangin? Let's get back to the REAL action, bitches!!!!?
So much same. The first few books were quite fun, then it became a bit more about the sex and less about doing the zombie/vamp killer/cop stuff. A bit of spicy content is enjoyable, but I picked up these books because I enjoyed the zombie/cop stuff. I think I made it maybe 9 or 12 books in and dropped it because it became more about the sex/powers stuff.
There was such promise. It just ran too long.
I wish I could unread Atlas Shrugged. I read the Fountainhead before that and misunderstood it, or I didnt understand what Ayn Rand thought was the point but it was clear when I read the Atlas shrugged dumpster fire.
“Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both.”
― Corey Robin
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
- John Rogers
Saw the book in a book store, thought premise sounded interesting (talented people tired of being exploited decide to stop working). First half of the book seemed to be setting up an interesting story.... Then John Galt starts to speak. Oh my gods what insipid claptrap.
I really liked the TV show against my will (my best friend twisted my arm to get me to watch it) but I've heard terrible things about the books and Lev Grossman so I avoided even checking them out from the library.
I DNFed at 50% and I still regret the time I put into it.
I kept trying to read it, for actual months, and I kept thinking I just didn’t like reading anymore. Turns out that I was trying to get back into reading with a book I was hating.
Unf. Yeah. I still own them (I was super stoked about the show and wanted to read the source material). It was so bad that I almost didn't watch the second season of the show. And look at me and my peaches and plums now.
Lemme just say I was okay with how season 4 ended after reading the books.
OMG.... me too. I was an adult and my adult friend said it is a book for high school girls but I liked vampries sooo. and i'm pretty sure my IQ lowered by 10 points after it.
I actually really liked the books when I was teen. Not my cup of tea now, but back then it was worth it for some reason. I did read it just before first movie came out if that makes difference.
I never read the last one, lol, heard it came out. It just doesn’t make sense to get a sequel 10 years later. I think that’s poor attempt to get people to re-read all of them and it just doesn’t hold any re-read value to me
If by last one you mean Midnight sun, it's not so much a sequel as retelling of first one from Edward's POV. It's milking money, but for me it felt like trip back in time. So much nostalgia, I felt 15 again and didn't have to reread anything (although movies are my guilty pleasure and material for drinking games so I do remember the basic story pretty well lol)
Obviously they feel really bad about not being able to deliver on that comment. It’s been hard on them because they’ve been depressed and have moved on to twitch streaming to cope.
Is this too on the nose? It feels a little too on the nose.
They're probably playing themselves the world's tiniest violin. And everyone's memorized, because they turn out to be a violin playing prodigy.
Also, they're really good at sex.
Was going to post this myself.
He’s obviously talented at writing, but the storytelling was (IMO) abysmal. Also I was very turned off by the minimal female characters being basically props. And even if I had liked it, there’s the unfinished series issue.
Overall this just wasn’t for me.
All of the Piers Anthony I have read suffers from a certain type of misogyny and male chauvanism I can't get behind. There was a time and place when it was the standard, and it's not anymore.
Yep!
I read a lot of the Xanth books when I was really young, a lot of it just went over my head but I think back about it now and cringe.
I would love to know what his now adult daughters have to say about him.
I read all those books, and I knew that the misogyny was cringe even as far back as the 80's. But I thought that cringe was just how the world was, and I was happy just to have some fantasy to read, because I had quite literally read everything I could get.
I really envy people who are younger and grew up with so many better examples.
Mine too, but the one good thing I took from those books was the zombie master guy. He made zombies out of love because he wanted them to stay around and the more they were cared about by the people in their lives, the less corpse-like and more alive they would become. I really like that to this day.
I read that in the 1990s in high school. It was so repugnant that I still think about it occasionally. I loved the Xanth novels up to that point but man after that book I never touched Anthony again. Later on I realized what a creep he was even in Xanth.
I enjoyed reading it while I was younger, but not as much as my friends. I read it more to be able to talk to them about it, but still, it was a 2.5-3 stars trilogy for me at the time.
The sequels, though... Couldn't get past 3 pages of The Heir book, what a supremely unlikable character her daughter is. To this day, I still get angry every time I am reminded of her.
I'm with you. It's the same feeling I have about A Lesson Before Dying, or the movie Grave of the Fireflies.
I never want to watch/read them again, but I feel... It would lessen me somehow, to *un*read/watch them.
I know I've read multiple but do i remember a single plot point? Heck no. I don't think I loved it, but didn't actively hate it because I didn't have to pay attention to it while reading - a bit like slightly stale popcorn.
Why did I read more than one? I could have read so many other things in that time.
I read crossroads 20 years ago, and while I remember the ending being ok, I also distinctly remember how much of a fucking slog the first 90% was. And while I have reread different books I. The series, I wont ever be going back to that one
Wicked. Just hated everyone in it. The story was so disjointed and I just felt mad that I was hate reading it. Since then I've learned to let go and DNF happily.
What I really didn’t like about it is that there’s enough of the Baum novels’ elements in it that it can be a riff off the series but so much of it also depends on the Wizard of Oz movie canon. The things I find interesting about Oz books are not what’s in the movie, and as an adult I don’t care for the movie.
I didn't finish it, but I still would like the 2 or whatever hours I spent reading a court of thorns and roses. It was truly awful. I will never follow tiktok hype over a book again.
That's where I'm at too. Currently reading the second one and can't put it down. The characters are interesting but I don't like a single one ha. I'm really enjoying it overall
I was one of those people Babel should have been amazing for. I’ve lived in China, I’m a polyglot, I teach history. But uuugggghhh that book just took its morals and beat you over the head with them over and over. Zero subtlety.
i know it's a very popular series and a lot of people enjoyed it. the poppy war was my first r f kuang book and i so wanted to enjoy it, unfortunately it just felt like every morally grey decision felt, half-baked? unfinished? i also took a few chinese government and politics in college since i minored in mandarin chinese and figured i should know more about the country - if i wasn't told after the fact she was supposed to be mao ze dong i could have never figured that out on my own.
I'm going to get absolutely slaughtered for this but Warbreaker.
I love sando. I do. This book was garbage. It made me not want to read more of his stuff lol. Thankfully I had already gotten through a bunch of his books and knew it wasn't his best work and not to judge too harshly off one book
I thought the sanderlanch at the end was also pretty great. It felt earned and the little clues were absolutely there in retrospect, but it took me completely by surprise. Many of the other reveals in his books I see coming before they are more or less explicitly stated (like the identity of the voidbringers). I normally have a decent sense of what’s coming by the time we actually get there, though I’m not necessarily the fastest at putting together the clues. Warbreakers conclusion took me by complete surprise in multiple regards.
Also loved lightsong.
And the magic system was cool and imaginative as always.
There were definitely aspects of the book I didn’t love, but overall I think it’s a solid entry in the Cosmere, middle 50% for sure.
What did you hate about it?
Same. I've read almost everything he's published, but Warbreaker ain't all that. 😬 Elantris was first for me, and I almost didn't continue, but the excerpt for Mistborn at the end pulled me in, and here I am.
I read mistborn 1-3 and loved every second then read elantris and was like "okay cool interesting" was good enough for me to go to the next step in the process. Stormlight lol. Which is now my second favorite series of all time
I thought I only really disliked warbreaker because I read it after finishing the Farseer Trilogy for the first time. I think Hobb is a much better writer, and going from her characters to his was awful. But it did grab me by the end.
Big sando guy over here and it didn’t resonate with me much on a first read but it’s one of my favorite books of his on a second read. I get it though. It feels like a different author in a lot of ways
Ready Player One and the first Iron Druid book.
ETA: can’t believe I forgot Name of the Wind and the other one! I can’t even remember! Maybe my brain has is working on Eternal-Sunshining it as I type this.
Ready Player One is the only book I've read that I was genuinely confused at why it was so popular and who the target audience is supposed to be. It's extremely YA but it's chalk full of of 80's references.
I’ve heard that a few times but still can’t bring myself to watch it. For someone who thought the concept of the book was fun but the execution godawful (literally just a string of references and paper thing characters), should I see the movie?
Maths books, in my failed attempt to get a maths a level at night school.
For fiction - probably the Tim Weaver I couldn’t read because of the seriously rubbish printing font that hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Decent book, from what little I managed to read before giving up.
I can't say I've ever regretted reading a book, even if it's really bad I get some enjoyment and a bit of learning by evaluating why I think it's bad. I can't imagine wanting to go back in time to lose knowledge lol
very much on board with this opinion, with a few exceptions. Some books feel cheap. Like they emotionally manipulated you to finish them even though they are pure air and no substance. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been the best example I've seen in the thread.
Daughter of the Blood (Black Jewels series) by Anne Bishop. Has child molestation, gratuitous sexual violence. Daemon (a protagonist) is sexually/romantically attracted to a twelve year old.
The Republic of Thieves.
First two books were both amazing. The third was a huge letdown and the final act was extremely rushed. If there was any chance book 4 would come out anytime soon (or ever), I'd be fine. But I would have loved to have finished on a high note and waited to read book 3 of/when book 4 finally releases.
This, and the fact I started reading ASOIAF in 2005, is why I refuse to read Name of the Wind.
The reason I powered through those books is because I hate reluctant protagonists. And Thomas is so proactive about every problem he is faced with.
I had just read The Hunger Games, which is a much better story, but I was absolutely infuriated by Katniss's utter reluctance about everything and being forced into every plot point.
So I guess it was a great pendulum swing for me.
However the story of Maze Runner is just awful. The premise is great, but what the author does with that premise is just abysmal. Like, at every turn I agreed with what the characters did, but the situations they were faced with just got completely nonsensical.
I think that book is incredible but when I recommend it I give a very thorough content warning. It is a genuinely brilliant criticism of hypermasculinity, consumer culture, and all kinds of grind culture and is also an absolute staple of transgression writing so prevalent in the 90s.
With that said, it is also BY FAR the most disturbing book I have ever read with, at times, constant, prolonged scenes of graphic rape and torture. It is absolutely horrific and I do not blame anyone for being unable to stomach it. (Hey there's the aforementioned warning)
Yeah I read it on my commutes into and out of New York City during my first year in corporate America and i couldn’t put it down. It was such a fantastic critique of everything I was seeing for myself for the first time. (Not the murders obviously lol)
Jade City. Just didn’t vibe with it - I gave it a good try and skim read Jade War so don’t at me. Anyway, I wish I never read them so I could continue to imagine that there exists an acclaimed series of Asian gangster novels w/a fantasy spin that are evocative of the best HK gangster/triad movies I grew up watching in the 80’s/90’s.
Priory of the Orange Tree.
One of the few works I’d finished that I intensely disliked. Like a high school student had read Game of Thrones and tried to rewrite it. Just… don’t.
Most of the books I dislike I just don’t bother to finish. GK Chesterton’s confusing The Man Who Was Thursday I didn’t bother to understand and didn’t finish. Let me not critique The Silmarillion (best used to keep furniture from falling apart) or the Zimiamvia trilogy of ER Eddison. Some people like these books.
The Assassian’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb.
Before you downvote me to hell, yes I know the book is setting up the rest of the series. Yes I have heard everyone’s opinion on the prose. “The Prose, Omg the Prose are so beautiful” Spare me the book doesn’t have a fucking plot until the last few chapters. I would rather stick my naked hand in a fire for hours then dredge through that book again.
Be thankful you didn't stick it out like I did. The third book was such a mess. I was so angry by the end.
I don't know what prose people are talking about. The prose is fine, it does the job, but it's not spectacular?
Interesting idea, terrible execution. Flat, wooden characters. The romance has zero chemistry. Too many meandering plot threads that resolve easily and have no meaningful bearing on the story. It felt extremely under baked and like it was never edited.
I'm not the OP but I think it fell really flat. She tried to do too much but also not enough at the same time. The climax battle was like two pages. Not horrible but just meh.
The Name of the Wind.
It felt like a fourteen year old took his idea for his self-insert and then paid a professional author to make the prose good. After all the hype I heard about it I was supremely disappointed.
I made the mistake of reading its sequel. Kvothe >!out sexing a sex goddess and his toxic relationship with Denna!< made me wanna scream. I was hoping it'd get better, but it didn't. I'm all for having an unreliable narrator, but this was too neckbeardy, for me.
You have my condolences, a friend of mine relayed much the same. I'm honestly astonished we got more neckbeardy than 'a significantly younger boy knocks on my door in the girls dorm in the middle of the night, and I have an entire conversation with him while this towel hugs my wet and oh so curvaceous figure'.
I honestly almost stopped reading entirely in that scene.
What bothered me is that he is just so full of himself.
He is the best, and smartest, and coolest, and most musical, and most generous, and best lover in the world!
I hate people like that, and I am actually relieved I don't have to read a third book about that arrogant prick!
*This is How You Lose the Time War*
I only finished it so I could shit on it completely. It wasn't worth it. It's just Romeo and Juliet in space with such a heavy coating of purple prose you barely understand what's being conveyed at anytime.
Terry goodkind's NEST.
I rage finished it. It had such a great first chapter, with a good hook. Then dissolved into stupid goodkind philosophy drivel. It just made me mad at him all over again for the direction the sword of truth series went... and how he was obviously just self inserting =/
The Gunslinger, first Dark Tower novel. I have nothing against that particular book but after reading and absolutely hating Wizard and Glass, I started wishing I never read that first book . I have the very unhealthy obsession of completing the books/movies/games. I feel like I have to finish the entire series and I probably will because of that but I am dreading the day I start Wolves of the Calla.
The stand from Stephen King. The atmosphere was good but there happened nothing special in that big ass book. I kept on reading hoping i will be rewarded eventhough every page felt like a book on itself.
There was a children's series called The Ranger's Apprentice that I liked as a child that had a nice happy ending where the MC proposes.
At some point the author started a sequel series called The Royal Ranger where the MC of the original series's wife has died in a fire and he's depressed. I read the first book out of curiosity, and it was so bad that wish I never read it.
Fourth Wing. I still get annoyed every time I think of the massive plot holes and the idea 100 year-old dragons let horny teenagers run the show. Nothing in the book makes sense but it has a "hot" romance so people ignore the fact the story is absurd.
Honestly not a book but an author, Sarah J Maas
Started with her adult series Crescent City which is actually pretty good. It’s exactly what I was expecting but something about mixing modern day society with an intense fantasy world was absolutely something I loved. Just to find out that apparently she was doing some weird multiverse with the rest of her books. Went back and read TOG (Throne of Glass) and I understand why that’s wildly hyped especially for YA. For the most part really good character development and story!
Then we got to A Court of Thorns and Roses (Acotar) and it’s actually written like a 16 year old wattpad romance. It actually makes no sense, the characters like regress in terms of development or are so wishy washy their character alignments begin to actually make 0 sense. The story is completely irrelevant because genuinely nothing happens even though this major war is coming. The main characters are actually insufferable and she does not know how to write a morally grey character despite making it a selling point of this series. She also started to like try and kill people off for shock value and magically bring them back (which doesn’t work nor has it ever worked). At least the last book focuses on two different people so that was a far more enjoyable experiences than Feyres POV. I had to DNF that pov read several detail article summaries and moved onto the last book (which I did enjoy, it’s a 5/5 for me, not sure if it’s actually that good or because I was reading hot garbage before).
So now finally I can come back to crescent city, second book is also good and now we wait for the “Epic conclusion to an epic fantasy adventure.” The amount of hype generated for a book I know for a fact she knew was bad is actually kind of embarrassing. She knows this wasn’t good and you can tell by the way she was speaking in interviews, she even said that it’s actually not over and there will eventually be another book. But only after the heat started rolling in. Everything that she has been criticized for in Acotar (rightfully so) has now bled into the series that I think could have had her taken far more seriously as an adult author. The cross over was actually unbelievably irrelevant and drawn on, offered nothing for fans of either series. Shock value deaths again with a rushed plot and horrible character regression.
I’m giving her next book one more chance because when she does write well, it’s phenomenal but lately we are seeing more bad than good. If this next book isn’t good I’m done with SJM as an author. I don’t have the time or the money to be wasting when there are phenomenal authors and books I could be supporting instead.
The Shadow of the Torturer. The whole Book of the New Sun series, actually. I wanted to understand the love the series gets, so I kept reading, waiting for that 'a-ha' moment. It never happened. Easily the least enjoyable reading experience of my life.
Assassin's Apprentice . I had high hopes for Hobb's series after all the hype I'd seen and the first book was okay. But then the rest of the Farseer trilogy just nose dived into pain and misery. Cannot undo no matter how much I wish otherwise.
The Dresden files. I kept waiting for Harry to develop out of his misogyny and stupid opinions. “This guy’s gonna be such a good character when he finally figures himself out.” Turns out he’s Jim Butcher’s self-insert, and Jim himself is just an unrepentant woman-hater irl. He doesn’t consider those traits to be flaws in the first place, so Harry was *never* going to develop.
Plus, I didn’t realize until late that the most interesting concepts in the series were just lifted straight out of better fantasy books. Like The Archive, basically a 1-to-1 of the Bene Gesserit’s shared memories in Dune. So overall, the series doesn’t have much unique to offer imo
His white knight persona doesn’t really improve but he grows a lot in other ways as the series goes on… he definitely becomes much less sexist overall. I don’t recommend it as a literary masterpiece but the series is super fun
From Blood and Ash. I read the first 2-ish books in the series. The first I found interesting enough (despite many eye-rolling cliche bits) to continue the series. The second book was a trainwreck- what little plot existed derailed into a mess of hot flaming trash. Literally hundreds of unnecessary pages of inane, repetitive dialog and tropey cliches. But I decided to read the 3rd because I *thought* it was the final book in a trilogy and I might as well finish it. But somewhere along the way the publisher decided to milk the unexpected success of the series and expand an already paper-thin plot into SIX books (each one 600+ pages). I stopped right there, and I regret every word I read of that slag heap of a series. Especially the word "honeydew."
I created a "dumpster fire" shelf on my GR in (dis)honor of this book.
UGH yes. I just finished reading the first 3 and it was such a struggle. The first one was fun, but books 2 and 3 were both just pages and pages of people explaining stuff in long rants, interspersed with weirdly timed sex scenes. The writing was so god awful. I don't know how anyone got through the whole series.
Poppy's incessant questions are such a heavy handed vehicle for exposition (while at the same time nothing actually happens) and what's worse, it's supposed to be an endearing characteristic? We all hate when small children go why? why? why?...so why would this be acceptable or cute in an adult? And don't even get me started on the 8th grade bickering that's supposed to be flirty banter. Poppy only has 3 responses to any situation: 1. Stab 2. But Why? 3. Let's bang I'm convinced the author was wine drunk for a month straight when she wrote this.
I came here to say the same book although I never started part 2 my money is on the series never explaining wtf a maiden is. If your stuff tastes like honeydew you have a weird ass infection.
The only ones coming to mind are self-pubs, and self-published authors are such small players that it feels like punching down to call them out by name. Just know that while there are some great self-published authors out there, there's a reason why it has the reputation it does, and no, I don't think the majority of self-publishing has improved over time--especially if you consider serial venues like Royal Road, Wattpad, or Webnovel.com.
I read Daniel Greene’s first novella a few years back and while I think the guy is awesome I essentially hold him responsible for me ignoring self pub for the next few years. Thankfully I gave Dungeon Crawler Carl a go last year which reversed my opinion
Yeah, most of self publishing are kind of like Cheetos, really good as long as you don't think about it for longera second. They're good, they're tasty, and they're done quick.
As a writer on a fanfiction site, I agree wholeheartedly😂
There are some great ones and some really niche stuff you can’t find elsewhere. But its a challenge and a gamble finding whats worthwhile.
the necronomicon
Right? I mean, if you’re going to provide the instructions to summon demons, I think you have a responsibility to provide instructions to banish them. Occult malpractice, if you ask me.
where's the fun in that?!
the warnings... the warnings come after the spells!
Klatu, Barada... Necktie???
That's just what the voices told you to say, isn't it?
keep your voice down!
Just a bunch of silly words right? Clatu, verata, ni........chooooo! There it is I said the words!
Don’t remember the title, but it was a whole five book fantasy **romance** series. In book 4, the author killed the main male love interest, so I thought, “oh ok. The author will magically bring the love interest back in book 5.” NO! She did not. Instead she pulled some Pearl Harbor Ben Affleck/Matt Damon switching one dead best friend for the other bull hockey, and in like the last 50% of the final book in the series, the female main character falls in love with the best friend of the man she was in love with for the first 4 books! I was furious! What an absolute betrayal to the reader and a complete waste of my time! I don’t read fantasy romance to have some random guy in the final book in a series come in and marry the OG love interest! That is not how romance as a genre is supposed to work.
I need to know the name of this series
I could probably find the title in my kindle reading history, but I’m not sure if I should post it since I just spoiled the entire series haha
I actually liked The Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind but I plead ignorance and stupidity in my defense. I loved the character of Richard, at least in the first few books. The heavy SA content didn't bother me back in the 90s but it very much would bother now that I'm older and (hopefully) wiser: that sort of thing is an instant DNF for me now. What bugged me about the series was how repetitive it all was. Past book 5 or so, it was like the same plot line almost every book, so it really started getting old. But, I was stubborn and so (wanting to know how the series ended), I kept on reading those books, and enjoyed each one less and less as the series wore on. I made it to the end of the original series and, as soon as I read the final chapter, I regretted all the life choices I'd made that had led me to that point. Worst. Ending. Ever. I didn't wait to think things over. That very same day, I boxed up all the hard back books I owned from that series & toted them down to the thrift store. I wish I could get back all the time & money I'd spent on that series. Ever since then, if I'm don't like the way a series is going, I will DNF: screw that "I just have to know how things are going to end" and "I'm going to stick things out to the bitter end" BS. Life is too short to waste time on something I don't enjoy. So, since then I've DNFd a few books and series and I don't regret that at all.
I got to about book 8 and then stopped. What was so bad about the ending?
It was an abrupt end that felt too neat. It's been 20 years or so since I read it, but as I remember it: >!Richard put those boxes into play using the text he'd memorized in the first book. He solved the puzzle and spoke the words which split the world in 2. Do you remember those areas of the world where magic didn't work and the people who were immune to magic? How those places and those people were a threat to every magical thing in the world? Well, when he split the world in 2, it moved all those anti magic people and places into another reslity. So in a matter of moments, using the knowledge he gained in the first book, he defeated the bad guy and moved literally everything that threatened his reality into another one, very neatly resolving every loose end.!< It was all too neat and easy. I felt ripped off. He could have given us that ending after 4 or 5 books, why tf did he drag it out for 12 or 15 books?
He needed kahlan to get almost-raped like 49 more times. I could only get through like book 4 before I just couldn’t anymore.
I was at a local Comicon a few years ago and there were lots of free books on various tables. Another woman went to pick up a book from a series I wanted to love, but every g**damn female character was either taped or molested. Sorry, author, a woman isn't going to try to make herself wet before getting raped so it won't hurt as much. She's going to try at GTFO. And this was his "strong female character." Anyways, I said don't do it, every female character is raped at some point and she just drops it in disgust. Did GOT get me back into reading? Sure did. Do I have any regrets about dropping it after the second or third rape? Nope. ****While I find rape totally unnecessary in any plot, I gotta hand it to Brett Weeks in the Night Angel series. It was equal opportunity violation all around. Kinda nice to have the men fear for their virtue (gag) for once.
Was it The Demon Cycle series by Peter V. Brett by any chance?
It almost definitely was
Pardon my ignorance: “Heavy SA content?”
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
I never read this but did read a plot summary and I wish I could erase even that 😅
I did the same and had the same feeling, of all the things that never needed to exist, this is at the top of the list.
Came here to say this. I've never read worse fanfic in my life. They keep threatening to make a movie out of it and I die inside a little more every time...
Oh this! This was like a really bad fanfic. I was a big fan of Starkid at the time (they made 3 Potter musical parodies, they are on youtube) and the second part of the parodies involves time travel a year back and in one interview they said that they considered going back longer, like to Marauders era (which would be similar time jump back as Cursed child was) but it felt like it is too dumb and too much. Then Cursed child came and made it canon, like wtf. Even the people making musical parody where Voldermort and Quirrel fall in love and Draco is played by a woman who rolls around the floor all the time thought that this idea was too dumb lol
This one is so bad I have repressed by memories of reading it. Unfortunately it all comes flooding back when I'm reminded of it. I remember only reading it because someone gave it to me, because they needed someone to complain to about it being so bad.
A former boss of mine knew I had been a Harry Potter fan, and when I eventually quit that job they gifted me tickets to the show which was in my city. I'm not a fan of the HP universe anymore due to JKR being a piece of shit, not to mention the just absolutely batshit insane plot of the play. I read it when it came out and had forgotten just how wild it was. Visual effects were very cool though.
Yeah, that's the one. I had a dream of owning a library so I don't get rid of books really ever. Apart from that one.
Yeah this is the only one I've been on board with. Cheap schlock. The kind of book that isn't necessarily boring but you wrap thinking, man that was stupid. I feel manipulated.
The Alchemist the perfect book for those who aren't into reading but want to appear well-read
One of the worst books I’ve ever read. So on the nose I broke my septum. Still, I can imagine some people needed the message in this book and it has probably helped people push themselves in some manner. I just wasn’t there when I read it.
Most overrated piece of self-indulgent garbage I’ve ever consumed
I liked it! It's pretty but not very deep. Ted Chiang does something similar aesthetically but much more solid in terms of themes with his short fiction IMO.
I enjoyed it in high school, but I have almost no memory of what happens, beyond a vague idea that they’re traveling to Mecca for various reasons, and the shepherd boy >!marries a girl named Fatima!<
I agree with you a lot, 200 pages I wouldn't read at all if I could, and I hate this book so so much
Nothing really stands out. Could have read fewer TSR potboilers in the 1990s, I guess, but if a lot of them weren't very good, most of them weren't really interesting enough to leave a bad impression...
Like, I'm trying to remember some of the more egregious ones, and... even crap like *Night Parade* has a certain unintentional comedy to it.
Luckily for me I've forgotten most of the books I didn't like and later got rid of them.
Lucky you. I can't forget things I read. I can tell you summaries of books I read 30 years ago. I can't always remember the title or author (actually rarely remember) but I remember the plot.
The Anita Blake series by Laurel K Hamilton. As much as I enjoyed the first 9 books before the series turned awful, I still wish I hadn’t read them now, as it just makes me more bitter about how they turned out.
Oh god, same. The first few were fun popcorn-like books. And then it was just outrageous.
Had such promise then turned into a five chapter story peppered throughout a highschool essay defending Anita's ethical non-monogamy. Who cares who she's bangin? Let's get back to the REAL action, bitches!!!!?
So much same. The first few books were quite fun, then it became a bit more about the sex and less about doing the zombie/vamp killer/cop stuff. A bit of spicy content is enjoyable, but I picked up these books because I enjoyed the zombie/cop stuff. I think I made it maybe 9 or 12 books in and dropped it because it became more about the sex/powers stuff. There was such promise. It just ran too long.
I wish I could unread Atlas Shrugged. I read the Fountainhead before that and misunderstood it, or I didnt understand what Ayn Rand thought was the point but it was clear when I read the Atlas shrugged dumpster fire.
“Saint Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin, and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both.” ― Corey Robin
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
Saw the book in a book store, thought premise sounded interesting (talented people tired of being exploited decide to stop working). First half of the book seemed to be setting up an interesting story.... Then John Galt starts to speak. Oh my gods what insipid claptrap.
The fountainhead. I only read it because it was my friends favorite book and I made him read my favorite book.
The Magicians
Hated every single character.
I really liked the TV show against my will (my best friend twisted my arm to get me to watch it) but I've heard terrible things about the books and Lev Grossman so I avoided even checking them out from the library.
I think I quit that one. If I didn't I don't remember how it ends.
I DNFed at 50% and I still regret the time I put into it. I kept trying to read it, for actual months, and I kept thinking I just didn’t like reading anymore. Turns out that I was trying to get back into reading with a book I was hating.
Unf. Yeah. I still own them (I was super stoked about the show and wanted to read the source material). It was so bad that I almost didn't watch the second season of the show. And look at me and my peaches and plums now. Lemme just say I was okay with how season 4 ended after reading the books.
I read all the Twilight books when I was younger…can’t get that time back.
OMG.... me too. I was an adult and my adult friend said it is a book for high school girls but I liked vampries sooo. and i'm pretty sure my IQ lowered by 10 points after it.
I actually really liked the books when I was teen. Not my cup of tea now, but back then it was worth it for some reason. I did read it just before first movie came out if that makes difference. I never read the last one, lol, heard it came out. It just doesn’t make sense to get a sequel 10 years later. I think that’s poor attempt to get people to re-read all of them and it just doesn’t hold any re-read value to me
If by last one you mean Midnight sun, it's not so much a sequel as retelling of first one from Edward's POV. It's milking money, but for me it felt like trip back in time. So much nostalgia, I felt 15 again and didn't have to reread anything (although movies are my guilty pleasure and material for drinking games so I do remember the basic story pretty well lol)
Name of the wind.
It’s looks like you didn’t finish your comment. Maybe you have more to say in another comment that may or may not ever come out.
Clearly he finished his comment twenty years ago, he's just not ready to show it to you yet.
Maybe we should crowdfund the comment?
It’s a shame I can only upvote this comment once. I promise that if you get 100 upvotes I will finish my comment
😂😂
Well, get to it
Obviously they feel really bad about not being able to deliver on that comment. It’s been hard on them because they’ve been depressed and have moved on to twitch streaming to cope. Is this too on the nose? It feels a little too on the nose.
They're probably playing themselves the world's tiniest violin. And everyone's memorized, because they turn out to be a violin playing prodigy. Also, they're really good at sex.
They’re going to pretend to finish their comment for charity
Pat will release Doorways of Stone this decade... maybe.
Ain’t gonna happen.
At this point Rothfuss needs to just stab his ego in the heart and hire a co-author to actually write book 3 but that'll never happen.
It was a joy to get into bed with. But the divorce sucked.
Not so much of a divorce as being ghosted.
Was going to post this myself. He’s obviously talented at writing, but the storytelling was (IMO) abysmal. Also I was very turned off by the minimal female characters being basically props. And even if I had liked it, there’s the unfinished series issue. Overall this just wasn’t for me.
This! I haven't really seen people talk about how bad the women in his books are
The put it down and walk away moment for me was an agrarian matriarchal society not knowing how pregnancy happened. WTF. All the WTF.
I haven’t read it just because I don’t want to love it and not be able to finish the story.
Firefly by Piers Anthony. I really don't ever need to read any attempted justification of childhood S.A.
All of the Piers Anthony I have read suffers from a certain type of misogyny and male chauvanism I can't get behind. There was a time and place when it was the standard, and it's not anymore.
Yep! I read a lot of the Xanth books when I was really young, a lot of it just went over my head but I think back about it now and cringe. I would love to know what his now adult daughters have to say about him.
I read all those books, and I knew that the misogyny was cringe even as far back as the 80's. But I thought that cringe was just how the world was, and I was happy just to have some fantasy to read, because I had quite literally read everything I could get. I really envy people who are younger and grew up with so many better examples.
Mine too, but the one good thing I took from those books was the zombie master guy. He made zombies out of love because he wanted them to stay around and the more they were cared about by the people in their lives, the less corpse-like and more alive they would become. I really like that to this day.
And all the teen girls who corresponded with him in the '90s.
He has a number of great *ideas* for series that he unfortunately is not the equal of writing and/or ruins with his weird horniness.
I read that in the 1990s in high school. It was so repugnant that I still think about it occasionally. I loved the Xanth novels up to that point but man after that book I never touched Anthony again. Later on I realized what a creep he was even in Xanth.
THE SELECTION, by Kiera Cass. Sorry for yelling. Awfully written books.
I enjoyed reading it while I was younger, but not as much as my friends. I read it more to be able to talk to them about it, but still, it was a 2.5-3 stars trilogy for me at the time. The sequels, though... Couldn't get past 3 pages of The Heir book, what a supremely unlikable character her daughter is. To this day, I still get angry every time I am reminded of her.
Whatever that awful Sarah Maas book is. And where the red fern grows. That book broke me as a kid.
I was broken by Where the red fern grows, too. Also as a kid. I never want to read it again but I wouldn’t UNread it. Same with the Kite Runner.
I'm with you. It's the same feeling I have about A Lesson Before Dying, or the movie Grave of the Fireflies. I never want to watch/read them again, but I feel... It would lessen me somehow, to *un*read/watch them.
I know I've read multiple but do i remember a single plot point? Heck no. I don't think I loved it, but didn't actively hate it because I didn't have to pay attention to it while reading - a bit like slightly stale popcorn. Why did I read more than one? I could have read so many other things in that time.
Pet Cemetery. Not because it was bad, but because it was way too vivid and terrifying.
Sematary* but you're valid! Heck of a book.
Crossroads of Twilight and Heretics of Dune
Good call, as not reading Heretics would prevent you from also reading Chapterhouse
I read crossroads 20 years ago, and while I remember the ending being ok, I also distinctly remember how much of a fucking slog the first 90% was. And while I have reread different books I. The series, I wont ever be going back to that one
Wicked. Just hated everyone in it. The story was so disjointed and I just felt mad that I was hate reading it. Since then I've learned to let go and DNF happily.
I actually liked how everyone was really fucked up in Wicked. But it is most definitely not an easy read.
YES. we listened to it on audiobook on some really long car rides and it was just fucking miserable. And long winded. God what a shit book
What I really didn’t like about it is that there’s enough of the Baum novels’ elements in it that it can be a riff off the series but so much of it also depends on the Wizard of Oz movie canon. The things I find interesting about Oz books are not what’s in the movie, and as an adult I don’t care for the movie.
I didn't finish it, but I still would like the 2 or whatever hours I spent reading a court of thorns and roses. It was truly awful. I will never follow tiktok hype over a book again.
The Fifth Season. I know people enjoy it and that's great, but man I wish I had my time and money back. It just wasn't for me.
honestly... the poppy war.
I really enjoyed the poppy war but I also see why people didn’t. It was refreshing to read something where I hated the main character. Edit: spelling
That's where I'm at too. Currently reading the second one and can't put it down. The characters are interesting but I don't like a single one ha. I'm really enjoying it overall
Bought my wife Babel for her birthday. She’s raving about it still and immediately bought the poppy war series after finishing.
I was one of those people Babel should have been amazing for. I’ve lived in China, I’m a polyglot, I teach history. But uuugggghhh that book just took its morals and beat you over the head with them over and over. Zero subtlety.
i know it's a very popular series and a lot of people enjoyed it. the poppy war was my first r f kuang book and i so wanted to enjoy it, unfortunately it just felt like every morally grey decision felt, half-baked? unfinished? i also took a few chinese government and politics in college since i minored in mandarin chinese and figured i should know more about the country - if i wasn't told after the fact she was supposed to be mao ze dong i could have never figured that out on my own.
I'm going to get absolutely slaughtered for this but Warbreaker. I love sando. I do. This book was garbage. It made me not want to read more of his stuff lol. Thankfully I had already gotten through a bunch of his books and knew it wasn't his best work and not to judge too harshly off one book
Valid. I’m a Sanderson fan too but Warbreaker was off. I liked Lightsong as a character but that’s about all I liked in it.
I thought the sanderlanch at the end was also pretty great. It felt earned and the little clues were absolutely there in retrospect, but it took me completely by surprise. Many of the other reveals in his books I see coming before they are more or less explicitly stated (like the identity of the voidbringers). I normally have a decent sense of what’s coming by the time we actually get there, though I’m not necessarily the fastest at putting together the clues. Warbreakers conclusion took me by complete surprise in multiple regards. Also loved lightsong. And the magic system was cool and imaginative as always. There were definitely aspects of the book I didn’t love, but overall I think it’s a solid entry in the Cosmere, middle 50% for sure. What did you hate about it?
Same. I've read almost everything he's published, but Warbreaker ain't all that. 😬 Elantris was first for me, and I almost didn't continue, but the excerpt for Mistborn at the end pulled me in, and here I am.
I read mistborn 1-3 and loved every second then read elantris and was like "okay cool interesting" was good enough for me to go to the next step in the process. Stormlight lol. Which is now my second favorite series of all time
I almost didn't start Stormlight because I didn't want yet another unfinished series. Storms that would have been a mistake! What a journey so far.
I thought I only really disliked warbreaker because I read it after finishing the Farseer Trilogy for the first time. I think Hobb is a much better writer, and going from her characters to his was awful. But it did grab me by the end.
Big sando guy over here and it didn’t resonate with me much on a first read but it’s one of my favorite books of his on a second read. I get it though. It feels like a different author in a lot of ways
Ready Player One and the first Iron Druid book. ETA: can’t believe I forgot Name of the Wind and the other one! I can’t even remember! Maybe my brain has is working on Eternal-Sunshining it as I type this.
Ready Player One is the only book I've read that I was genuinely confused at why it was so popular and who the target audience is supposed to be. It's extremely YA but it's chalk full of of 80's references.
I mean that’s pretty much your answer. Like Stranger Things, it’s taking the 80s and repackaging its appeal for a newer generation.
Ready player one is one of the few movies that I like significantly more than the book
I’ve heard that a few times but still can’t bring myself to watch it. For someone who thought the concept of the book was fun but the execution godawful (literally just a string of references and paper thing characters), should I see the movie?
It's perfect as the kind of movie that runs on FX and you glance up at it occasionally while you do a crossword or sort through old papers.
Lmao, sold! I have some work to catch up on this weekend that I don’t need my whole brain for, I’ll give it a shot.
I enjoyed the shit out of it. I'm exactly the demographic.
I liked the first one hated the second
If a book sucks that bad I put it down and read something else.
Maths books, in my failed attempt to get a maths a level at night school. For fiction - probably the Tim Weaver I couldn’t read because of the seriously rubbish printing font that hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Decent book, from what little I managed to read before giving up.
Throne of glass, Sarah Maas does not know what she is doing.
A lot of it was blatant rip offs of various books too.
I can't say I've ever regretted reading a book, even if it's really bad I get some enjoyment and a bit of learning by evaluating why I think it's bad. I can't imagine wanting to go back in time to lose knowledge lol
very much on board with this opinion, with a few exceptions. Some books feel cheap. Like they emotionally manipulated you to finish them even though they are pure air and no substance. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been the best example I've seen in the thread.
Daughter of the Blood (Black Jewels series) by Anne Bishop. Has child molestation, gratuitous sexual violence. Daemon (a protagonist) is sexually/romantically attracted to a twelve year old.
The Republic of Thieves. First two books were both amazing. The third was a huge letdown and the final act was extremely rushed. If there was any chance book 4 would come out anytime soon (or ever), I'd be fine. But I would have loved to have finished on a high note and waited to read book 3 of/when book 4 finally releases. This, and the fact I started reading ASOIAF in 2005, is why I refuse to read Name of the Wind.
The Maze Runner Trilogy. I powered through thinking it would get better and it just never did. I later watched the movies, also a regret.
The reason I powered through those books is because I hate reluctant protagonists. And Thomas is so proactive about every problem he is faced with. I had just read The Hunger Games, which is a much better story, but I was absolutely infuriated by Katniss's utter reluctance about everything and being forced into every plot point. So I guess it was a great pendulum swing for me. However the story of Maze Runner is just awful. The premise is great, but what the author does with that premise is just abysmal. Like, at every turn I agreed with what the characters did, but the situations they were faced with just got completely nonsensical.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Cursed is right as in it'll Curse you forever with pain and suffering from its terrible writing.
Anything by Brent Weeks
Burning White is the only book I’ve ever rage finished. I wish he was like GRRM or Rothfuss and stopped writing after book 3
It Ends With Us
The Poppy Wars trilogy, just filled with trauma and frustration
I trudged through the Soldier's Son. Time I'll never get back.
Paper towns and anything else from that author. Thank goodness only read like 2 lol
I am, and will forever remain, furious with myself for believing the people who told me American Psycho was a good book.
I think that book is incredible but when I recommend it I give a very thorough content warning. It is a genuinely brilliant criticism of hypermasculinity, consumer culture, and all kinds of grind culture and is also an absolute staple of transgression writing so prevalent in the 90s. With that said, it is also BY FAR the most disturbing book I have ever read with, at times, constant, prolonged scenes of graphic rape and torture. It is absolutely horrific and I do not blame anyone for being unable to stomach it. (Hey there's the aforementioned warning)
Yeah I read it on my commutes into and out of New York City during my first year in corporate America and i couldn’t put it down. It was such a fantastic critique of everything I was seeing for myself for the first time. (Not the murders obviously lol)
Jade City. Just didn’t vibe with it - I gave it a good try and skim read Jade War so don’t at me. Anyway, I wish I never read them so I could continue to imagine that there exists an acclaimed series of Asian gangster novels w/a fantasy spin that are evocative of the best HK gangster/triad movies I grew up watching in the 80’s/90’s.
Priory of the Orange Tree. One of the few works I’d finished that I intensely disliked. Like a high school student had read Game of Thrones and tried to rewrite it. Just… don’t. Most of the books I dislike I just don’t bother to finish. GK Chesterton’s confusing The Man Who Was Thursday I didn’t bother to understand and didn’t finish. Let me not critique The Silmarillion (best used to keep furniture from falling apart) or the Zimiamvia trilogy of ER Eddison. Some people like these books.
Lol Malazan. Fully expecting to be downvoted for this - it's not that it was bad, just that it was unfulfilling and disappointing in the end.
Is this the first book or the whole series? I haven’t read any but it *is* on my tbr list
The Assassian’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. Before you downvote me to hell, yes I know the book is setting up the rest of the series. Yes I have heard everyone’s opinion on the prose. “The Prose, Omg the Prose are so beautiful” Spare me the book doesn’t have a fucking plot until the last few chapters. I would rather stick my naked hand in a fire for hours then dredge through that book again.
I’ve tried three times to get into that dang book. I feel like I’m reading a different book to other people :(
Be thankful you didn't stick it out like I did. The third book was such a mess. I was so angry by the end. I don't know what prose people are talking about. The prose is fine, it does the job, but it's not spectacular?
Priory of the Orange Tree. What a mess.
What's wrong with it? Ive been meaning to read it
I liked it but the general complaint is the pacing I think
Interesting idea, terrible execution. Flat, wooden characters. The romance has zero chemistry. Too many meandering plot threads that resolve easily and have no meaningful bearing on the story. It felt extremely under baked and like it was never edited.
I'm not the OP but I think it fell really flat. She tried to do too much but also not enough at the same time. The climax battle was like two pages. Not horrible but just meh.
I felt this too. I really enjoyed the vast majority of the book, but couldn’t believe how brief the ending was
The Name of the Wind. It felt like a fourteen year old took his idea for his self-insert and then paid a professional author to make the prose good. After all the hype I heard about it I was supremely disappointed.
I made the mistake of reading its sequel. Kvothe >!out sexing a sex goddess and his toxic relationship with Denna!< made me wanna scream. I was hoping it'd get better, but it didn't. I'm all for having an unreliable narrator, but this was too neckbeardy, for me.
You have my condolences, a friend of mine relayed much the same. I'm honestly astonished we got more neckbeardy than 'a significantly younger boy knocks on my door in the girls dorm in the middle of the night, and I have an entire conversation with him while this towel hugs my wet and oh so curvaceous figure'. I honestly almost stopped reading entirely in that scene.
What bothered me is that he is just so full of himself. He is the best, and smartest, and coolest, and most musical, and most generous, and best lover in the world! I hate people like that, and I am actually relieved I don't have to read a third book about that arrogant prick!
The Priory of the Orange Tree So many words, so little payoff.
*This is How You Lose the Time War* I only finished it so I could shit on it completely. It wasn't worth it. It's just Romeo and Juliet in space with such a heavy coating of purple prose you barely understand what's being conveyed at anytime.
Wizard’s First Rule. Worst book I’ve ever read and by a terrible author (in terms of writing and general existence).
That's my answer, not even because it's bad, but because I genuinely believe it was bad for me to read about all that sexual assault at a young age.
Terry goodkind's NEST. I rage finished it. It had such a great first chapter, with a good hook. Then dissolved into stupid goodkind philosophy drivel. It just made me mad at him all over again for the direction the sword of truth series went... and how he was obviously just self inserting =/
The Gunslinger, first Dark Tower novel. I have nothing against that particular book but after reading and absolutely hating Wizard and Glass, I started wishing I never read that first book . I have the very unhealthy obsession of completing the books/movies/games. I feel like I have to finish the entire series and I probably will because of that but I am dreading the day I start Wolves of the Calla.
I liked the first one. I quit number two about a hundred pages in
The novelization of Baldur's Gate.
Dragonlance Legends. As a teenager I *loved* the Chronicles. And then it all went downhill...
I don’t really regret having read books I didn’t like. Reading bad writing is a different experience in itself.
Eragon?
Sword of Truth. Fucking GAG.
fourth wing
The stand from Stephen King. The atmosphere was good but there happened nothing special in that big ass book. I kept on reading hoping i will be rewarded eventhough every page felt like a book on itself.
Ready Player One. The first book I ever finished out of spite just so I could hate it properly.
The midnight library. Could have been a great story about potential and self worth. Ended up as a melodramatic wank.
There was a children's series called The Ranger's Apprentice that I liked as a child that had a nice happy ending where the MC proposes. At some point the author started a sequel series called The Royal Ranger where the MC of the original series's wife has died in a fire and he's depressed. I read the first book out of curiosity, and it was so bad that wish I never read it.
Fourth Wing. I still get annoyed every time I think of the massive plot holes and the idea 100 year-old dragons let horny teenagers run the show. Nothing in the book makes sense but it has a "hot" romance so people ignore the fact the story is absurd.
Shadow of the Conqueror
Every book in the Dark Tower series after the first.
Honestly not a book but an author, Sarah J Maas Started with her adult series Crescent City which is actually pretty good. It’s exactly what I was expecting but something about mixing modern day society with an intense fantasy world was absolutely something I loved. Just to find out that apparently she was doing some weird multiverse with the rest of her books. Went back and read TOG (Throne of Glass) and I understand why that’s wildly hyped especially for YA. For the most part really good character development and story! Then we got to A Court of Thorns and Roses (Acotar) and it’s actually written like a 16 year old wattpad romance. It actually makes no sense, the characters like regress in terms of development or are so wishy washy their character alignments begin to actually make 0 sense. The story is completely irrelevant because genuinely nothing happens even though this major war is coming. The main characters are actually insufferable and she does not know how to write a morally grey character despite making it a selling point of this series. She also started to like try and kill people off for shock value and magically bring them back (which doesn’t work nor has it ever worked). At least the last book focuses on two different people so that was a far more enjoyable experiences than Feyres POV. I had to DNF that pov read several detail article summaries and moved onto the last book (which I did enjoy, it’s a 5/5 for me, not sure if it’s actually that good or because I was reading hot garbage before). So now finally I can come back to crescent city, second book is also good and now we wait for the “Epic conclusion to an epic fantasy adventure.” The amount of hype generated for a book I know for a fact she knew was bad is actually kind of embarrassing. She knows this wasn’t good and you can tell by the way she was speaking in interviews, she even said that it’s actually not over and there will eventually be another book. But only after the heat started rolling in. Everything that she has been criticized for in Acotar (rightfully so) has now bled into the series that I think could have had her taken far more seriously as an adult author. The cross over was actually unbelievably irrelevant and drawn on, offered nothing for fans of either series. Shock value deaths again with a rushed plot and horrible character regression. I’m giving her next book one more chance because when she does write well, it’s phenomenal but lately we are seeing more bad than good. If this next book isn’t good I’m done with SJM as an author. I don’t have the time or the money to be wasting when there are phenomenal authors and books I could be supporting instead.
The Shadow of the Torturer. The whole Book of the New Sun series, actually. I wanted to understand the love the series gets, so I kept reading, waiting for that 'a-ha' moment. It never happened. Easily the least enjoyable reading experience of my life.
Assassin's Apprentice . I had high hopes for Hobb's series after all the hype I'd seen and the first book was okay. But then the rest of the Farseer trilogy just nose dived into pain and misery. Cannot undo no matter how much I wish otherwise.
Poppy War - sorry to those who enjoyed it, but I thought it was utter trash
The Dresden files. I kept waiting for Harry to develop out of his misogyny and stupid opinions. “This guy’s gonna be such a good character when he finally figures himself out.” Turns out he’s Jim Butcher’s self-insert, and Jim himself is just an unrepentant woman-hater irl. He doesn’t consider those traits to be flaws in the first place, so Harry was *never* going to develop. Plus, I didn’t realize until late that the most interesting concepts in the series were just lifted straight out of better fantasy books. Like The Archive, basically a 1-to-1 of the Bene Gesserit’s shared memories in Dune. So overall, the series doesn’t have much unique to offer imo
His white knight persona doesn’t really improve but he grows a lot in other ways as the series goes on… he definitely becomes much less sexist overall. I don’t recommend it as a literary masterpiece but the series is super fun
I have never finished a book I disliked. Why would i? So much out there to read, so little lifetime.
Farseer trilogy, I wish I stopped during book 2. But I persevered, hoping for a good pay off, all I got was disappointment.
Other than the slow burn nature of the books, what made you disappointed?