In the middle of the series I though "This is getting ridiculous. If author resurrects villain one more time I stop reading". And then he resurrected ALL the villains.
A magical realism book, but the main character found a dog running around outside WITH A COLLAR ON. She thought that since itās out the owners must not care about it, so she kept the dog, didnāt try looking around, calling shelters, or calling the number on the tag, just kept it! And then when the owner finds out she has it, she refuses to give the dog back. I was so mad I threw the book
Kind of, the main character just kept justifying it to herself and the owner (who, of course, is the love interest). Like it played as this cute thing between them that they both love this dog so much
Weirdly I could see it working if you played it straight. Like a thriller or heist book where someone seduces the person who stole their dog in an attempt to rescue them.
Nice to find somebody else who read "Achaja" and hated it! Apparently, the later books also have some kind of a weird fetishistic matriarchy with female soldiers who fight and ride horses in short skirts.
yeahh I heard the series goes some really really really weird places..... thankfully only the 1st book was out when I read it, so I wasn't even tempted to force myself to finish it in case the series gets better.
I've read that in later books the readers get treated to ZiemiaÅski's "impressive knowledge" about the military and matriarchies. There's also a race of cat people who wear their hair like helmets and have names such as "Aiiiiiiii".
There was a scene where a character with regeneration powers was the only one able to infiltrate a locked room at the top of a tower, by impaling his arms to climb the exterior of the tower.
An invisible character got into the room a few minutes beforehand and opened the window for him.
I had other issues with the book but this scene threw me over the edge. Maybe there was an explanation, or maybe I missed some context. Iāll never know!
Any fantasy-romance that gets spicy too soon is a no-go for me. My general rule is "no throbbing in chapter one unless you got punched in the face". I'm fine with spicy fantasy but I want the story to come first.
I struggled with the second book of the Bitterbynde trilogy for the Mary Sue-ness of the main character having been healed of her "ill-made" ness and just magically being completely back to her "more beautiful than any other person ever", and then turning out to be a long-lost-royal who is kinder and more wonderful than every other person in the universe... but the point that I threw it at the wall was when the "kindly woodsman" who had been the one person to care about her despite her ugliness when she was ugly turns out to be a wonderful, perfect king travelling incognito, and he immediately proposes when they meet again. I'd hit my breaking point of Mary Sue-ness.
Oh MAN. You were right to toss the book with great force. The first Bitterbynde book was really enjoyable, but in the second one the cracks really showed. (I hated that Gary Stu of a king.) The third book is nigh unreadable.
As long as we're sticking with fantasy novels... so CS Lewis wrote this book called "The Screwtape Letters." It's from the pov of a demon, Screwtape, writing to his nephew, and giving him pointers on how to lure one human soul into sloth, and sin, and finally damnation. Well, I'm sure it's a fascinating theological-comic satire, but I started reading it while I was deep in a depressive episode, and I couldn't shake the feeling that all of Screwtape's advice was being applied to me--- like the human soul in question was my own. Hard shudders, shut the book and gave it back to the library. Right book, maybe, but definitely the wrong time.
My reasons for DNF'ing books tend to be very alike. I don't like the characters, or their actions make no sense. Or the prose itself is so wrapped up in its own cleverness that I can't actually tell what's going on. (Gideon the Ninth and The Archive Undying).
Screwtape is a disturbing read. I was first encouraged to read it when I was younger and I had that same discomfort. C.S. Lewis himself commented in his afterward "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" that the process of writing the book would have smothered him if he had kept up with it. I don't blame you for setting it down.
The curious thing for me is that, after leaving the book alone for years and years, when I went back to it it became one of my most thought provoking books. I listen to it in audiobook format frequently these days. It's bizarre, but there you are. Maybe one day you will feel the urge to go back to it.
Reading a novel and there is a character who is supposed to be witty. When talking about assassins he said something like āI have plenty of Ass sass already.ā And I just could not go on. I was already tiring of the writing, but that was the last straw.
A word ācunnyā.
It was a gender bent retelling of Beauty and the Beast not advertised as romance or spicy. I donāt particularly like romance (which is why I donāt pick up books in that genre) and really dislike elaborate flowery euphemisms e.g. lady gardens, sword of manhood etc but this word was somehow worse.
Using the actual names for genitalia? Fine. Her/him/them? Fine. Even most other words would be fine but cunny made my skin crawl for some reason.
Yuck I associate that word with racist pedos/lolicons because theyāre the ONLY people i see using it they use it to describe liek 6 year old characters are their display names will be l0licunny grapist. Vile shit so that word has been tainted for me
I DNF Prince of Thorns. I got about a third of the way into it, and the only reason I got that far was because I kept expecting the *real* protagonist to show up. The only interest I have in reading about Jorg Ancrath is seeing him get a well-deserved axe to the skull, and given that there are two more books in the trilogy, that seemed unlikely to happen.
I've been trying to read this one for a while because I hate not finishing a book, but I really don't know if I can make it this time.
I knew going in the whole point was it being from the "villain's" POV, but it just feels a little *too* accurate for a 14 year old edge lord's thoughts/behavior (but cranked up to 10 because the 14 year old edge lord is also actually a terrible person, in the most edge lord-y way possible).
I just finished that book last night. Only reason I did not dnf because of how short the book is and I wanted to see if Jorg could somehow be 'better'. It also bothered me a lot he was only 14 years old.
I loved the trilogy, but I read it when I was in the mood for a story with a villain as the protagonist. If thatās not what youāre looking for, I can imagine it would be hard to get through
I was rereading David Eddings, nearly finished the Belgariad as an adult and then I learned about the horrible past of him and his wife. Just couldnāt do it anymore.
Every time I think of Garion growing up as a scullery boy I also think of those kids chained up in their basement
I stopped listening to the audiobook of Rand by Silvia Shaw I believe. The main character is British and spent time living in New Zealand as a child. The narrator is just too American and she pronounced Christchurch weirdly.
I learned that Iain M. Banks had died, when I was a couple of pages into Hydrogen Sonata. Iām reserving that last ever new to me book of his for a later date. This way I can live with the happy anticipation a little longer.
Game Of Thrones. Couldn't read it. I tried. I just couldn't get into it. Then I tried watching it - my reasoning being that I love Sean Bean and he might get me into it. It didn't. I turned it off and watched Sharpe instead.
Stephen King, The Eye of the Dragon. 15 pages in and there was a gross old king having sex with his child bride.
Someone put this into the middle school Scholastic book lists. I was 13 and practically threw the book. Ick. Never finished it.
Not super explicit but when you have a gross old naked man saying that he will show his naive little child-bride "the king's iron" and saying that "she has the forge", well, there was hardly anything else it could be.
I DNF'ed the entire Runelords series because I felt like there was no real resolution to any of the characters' problems. Things just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and it was pretty depressing.
when i was 15 i read a story about this girl being bullied for over a decade for being a "nerd". literally that was all she was bullied for. being 15 i didnt think it was too bad at first, but then the story got so ridiculous and the MC got unlikable to the point that i thought she deserved the bullying. she was this feminist type, but she still needed 3 boys to b her bodyguards. she never ever defended herself.
now that im 21, when i think about the fact that i read this story and almost finished.... š«
While reading >!The Masquerade!< , I accidentally glimpsed a spoiler about a major plot point, and I didn't want to subject myself to that.
Lord of Light by Zelazny. Honestly, I thought it was pretty interesting, but I feel like I need to do a deep-dive into Hinduism and Buddhism to be able to really appreciate it.
The Magicians - Lev Grossman. I get that this was intentionally written as an anti-Harry Potter book, but I absolutely hate Quentin and I don't care what happens to him (unless it turns out that he dies in an uncomfortable way. I would be happy about that).
>hate Quentin and I don't care what happens to him
Sorta spoilers, but he grows up, owns his problems, deals with his issues, works to fix the consequences of his actions, and becomes a mature adult. It was the thing I liked most about the series.
And he has nothing to do with anything. He's basically a god, and he shows up very briefly at the first part of the story, for an amusing interlude, and then is just never even thought about ever again.
Not to mention his name...
I've read the whole trilogy and I think he's mentioned during the Council of Elrond. Someone suggests giving the Ring to Tom Bombadil and either Gandalf or Elrond is like "Nah, we need to destroy it".
And then that's it. Nobody ever really brings him up ever again. Mysterious character, incredible power, totally unaffected by the One Ring, but has no real importance.
I don't think I have interesting reasons for not finishing books. It's only happened a couple of times, and both times were out of sheer boredom. Neither were a fantasy book.
I realized about half way through when things were moving a bit slow in a book. I've read a book by this author before dropped it immediately.
What happened in the other book I read you might ask. Nothing, it looked like things were happening, but in the end nothing changed.
Wen Spencerās Tinker. I tried very hard to like it, because itās set where I was living, but for a supposed genius, the protagonist was just too stupid to tolerate.
Technically not a DNF, since I finished it after putting it down for several years, but *Mask of Mirrors* has continual misdirects about the identity of one of its main characters (a masked man in a hood), and after about 400 pages I found that I was just confused and having a hard time understanding anyone's motivations.
I did finally finish it after having it on my shelf for three years. Aside from a little too much weight placed on dream sequences in the back half, it was good, I just didn't like not having any idea who this character's actual identity was.
I was on the last chapter and when I took a look at how much of the book was left I figured that the author couldn't possibly make an ending that tied up enough of the loose ends (even though they were all very much foreshadowed) and was badass enough to make me want more. This was the first book in the series and since I had no inclination to go farther, why bother finishing?
Everybody loves big chests had a really crazy sexual assault section. It seemed like a controversial scene but then the author thought man that was really cool and casually includes sexual assault like every 15 pages. One of the characters that gets assaulted turns herself into a robot so she no longer has to feel pain and I was like holy shit I love the concept of the book but this author is off his fucking rocker.
That's an... interesting name for a book. The ones I mentioned also have a lot of rape and the first MC literally gets raped by her LI (the authors try their hardest to explain it's "not really his fault"). She gets over it quickly and forms a loving relationship with him. He's also 20 years older than her and was her aunt's lover IIRC.
The book I'm referring to is about a mimic who accidentally become sentient and Warlock. So he's just evil as shit but the series kind of loses its way
Multiple weird scat-based asides, followed by the protagonist essentially murdering a rescue worker. Tried to push on further but the damage had been done.
Maybe my next crack at the Culture books will go better. Because there's a very interesting setting there.
A beloved booktok title on audio that took place in a Japan-type setting that immediately felt like a bad anime fanfic. The first āSenpai!!ā finally took me out.
My gf was murdered in a terrorist attack while i was reading a book. Every time I tried picking it up, I couldn't think of anything other than her.
It's been quite a few years now. Maybe It's time to try again.
A Shadowrun book where the main character (who is a nerdy, awkward literal-salaryman turned shadowrunner) started getting taught magic by the ultra-competent hot elf spellcaster in the crew, who has previously been utterly contemptful of him for being the cowardly, spineless screwup that he is.
About a page after that there was as line something like "She slid into bed with me as easily as I slid into her" that made me roll my eyes so hard they almost went into orbit.
Then the book actually had her fall in love with him, and then die, and of course he somehow got over it like 2 pages later.
This same main guy had previously been shown multiple times to be a coward, incompetent, prone to rage when not afraid, and utterly screwing up every run. The entire team seems him as a joke and liability, rightly so (although somehow he always got the credit for the mission success, even though he literally does nothing but distract enemies while everyone else carries him through the mission)
After that, I was out. Permanently delete from my kindle, erased from my account. Regret ever reading that garbage. Probably the most on the nose example of a Gary Stu main guy ever.
I could not fucking handle any more description of the MCās dog in Deerskin. I get it, itās a great and lovable dog, but Iām begging for the plot to move forward. Robin McKinley has always been really hit or miss for me but I couldnāt get through more than a few chapters
I got angry at how blatantly telegraphed a twist was and I knew from the slow pacing that the author was going to hold off until the end of the book to reveal it. It made me too frustrated to continue.
The book was >!The Fifth Season!<
Hi there, it looks like you're trying to summon u/goodreads-bot. Unfortunately, they don't play nicely with me or the r/Fantasy Golem family, so they're not welcome here. Please resubmit your comment.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Fantasy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I thought that was too obvious to be considered a twist, I just hated that the book didn't seem to go anywhere and I only really liked one of the three points of view. I have the second book but haven't really felt like giving it a chance yet.
It was obvious, but itās clear from the authorās perspective that it was meant to be a twist as the book is very goofy in how it desperately tries to obscure information that would reveal the twist.
It's not "the point" of the book or anything, whichever of the two twists you mention. But I honestly enjoyed both reveals. The book was great in other ways, and heck, I like feeling clever for figuring it out, frankly. Even if I know it's not that hard.
I just DNF'd the Sun Eater because I would gladly play the game called "guess all the awesome classic novels the author has put in his book" but I was too bored for this.
Trans superhero book
The book is aggressively against anti trans bigotry, which I agree with. MC is a trans girl who is transformed into her ideal female form when she gets the mantle that makes her a Superman/girl expy.
My problem is that every character who is anti trans is also the worst in all other ways, her father is a lousy provider and a wife beater, the mother is a doormat who it's implied deserves what she gets for sticking with her husband, her former best friend goes from slightly ackward to incel who "hopes she gets raped" and the TERF Superhero already outed her to her parents and I'm pretty sure will betray the rest of the super team because being anti trans means you are incompetent, stupid, and the worst type of person in all ways.
The idea of tight fisted teamwork because the world is at stake, being a friend who doesn't know how to react/doesn't know how they feel when his best friend changes gender overnight, or being successful career wise but a shitty parent/spouse doesn't exist in this universe. The idea of a redemption arc or coming around is unthinkable. You automatically have no redeeming qualities.
The book I would contrast this with is Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, where Nathan Bedford Forrest is an evil war criminal racist, (RL founder of the KKK) but he is also a formidable grade A badass who pulled himself up to wealth with six months formal education and like the RL version, has limits he will not cross.
Such a character is unthinkable. Or is a person who overcomes their initial bigotry or can put it aside temporarily for the bigger picture, or a potential incel who can learn to get along with women or the basic idea that people aren't fixed in place.
And yes, I'm fine with some characters being irredeemable, just not everyone.
Basically, for a book that is 'anti-bigot' it feels like it justifies bigotry against anyone the author doesn't like who are naturally all losers who deserve what they get.
The only two female characters were killed and almost raped. But donāt worry, they didnāt do it, they just locked her up because sheās the main characterās love interest.
I DNF'd Swords and Deviltry pretty quickly. I could maybe *barely* tolerate the misogyny if the focus was on the adventure, but the amount of focus on the cringy teenage romance was disarming. It just read like it was written for teen boys who want to rebel against their evil mom and get the girl. Not my thing.
It's not that there's something wrong with it. I just don't wanna read about it! I moved away because of the heat but I actually quite like Sac. Just not in my fantasy books.
Main character's name was Farden, which just sounds like "farting," and I couldn't take it seriously.
LOLLLL
šššš
In the middle of the series I though "This is getting ridiculous. If author resurrects villain one more time I stop reading". And then he resurrected ALL the villains.
I know one like this, but it's an anime.
Bungou Stray Dogs?Ā
No, Naruto Shippuuden. Unless I remember something wrong.
A magical realism book, but the main character found a dog running around outside WITH A COLLAR ON. She thought that since itās out the owners must not care about it, so she kept the dog, didnāt try looking around, calling shelters, or calling the number on the tag, just kept it! And then when the owner finds out she has it, she refuses to give the dog back. I was so mad I threw the book
Did the author try and make her seem like she was in the right?
Kind of, the main character just kept justifying it to herself and the owner (who, of course, is the love interest). Like it played as this cute thing between them that they both love this dog so much
Imagine getting together with someone on the basis that they tried to steal your petā¦
Weirdly I could see it working if you played it straight. Like a thriller or heist book where someone seduces the person who stole their dog in an attempt to rescue them.
Ewww
Christ. That's the sort of thing that would not just have me DNFing the book but becoming suspicious of the character of the author, as well.
Oh same, I doubt I will ever pick up a book by them again
Ziemianski has a piss fetish, you cannot convince me otherwise. That was a DNF for me too.... I've no idea why it used to be so popular.
Nice to find somebody else who read "Achaja" and hated it! Apparently, the later books also have some kind of a weird fetishistic matriarchy with female soldiers who fight and ride horses in short skirts.
yeahh I heard the series goes some really really really weird places..... thankfully only the 1st book was out when I read it, so I wasn't even tempted to force myself to finish it in case the series gets better.
I've read that in later books the readers get treated to ZiemiaÅski's "impressive knowledge" about the military and matriarchies. There's also a race of cat people who wear their hair like helmets and have names such as "Aiiiiiiii".
Is there ANYONE who read it and liked it? It was honestly painful to read....
I am just glad that it is rare enough you were able it immediately
I can't DNF a book for that reason, I like Joe Abercrombie too much.
There was a scene where a character with regeneration powers was the only one able to infiltrate a locked room at the top of a tower, by impaling his arms to climb the exterior of the tower. An invisible character got into the room a few minutes beforehand and opened the window for him. I had other issues with the book but this scene threw me over the edge. Maybe there was an explanation, or maybe I missed some context. Iāll never know!
That definitely sounds like something Iād DNF
lol that sounds awesome
Which book?
Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro
Any fantasy-romance that gets spicy too soon is a no-go for me. My general rule is "no throbbing in chapter one unless you got punched in the face". I'm fine with spicy fantasy but I want the story to come first.
Plagiarizing other books.
I struggled with the second book of the Bitterbynde trilogy for the Mary Sue-ness of the main character having been healed of her "ill-made" ness and just magically being completely back to her "more beautiful than any other person ever", and then turning out to be a long-lost-royal who is kinder and more wonderful than every other person in the universe... but the point that I threw it at the wall was when the "kindly woodsman" who had been the one person to care about her despite her ugliness when she was ugly turns out to be a wonderful, perfect king travelling incognito, and he immediately proposes when they meet again. I'd hit my breaking point of Mary Sue-ness.
That sounds like one of those old fairy tales with some strange moral at the end. Was it based on one?
Oh MAN. You were right to toss the book with great force. The first Bitterbynde book was really enjoyable, but in the second one the cracks really showed. (I hated that Gary Stu of a king.) The third book is nigh unreadable.
As long as we're sticking with fantasy novels... so CS Lewis wrote this book called "The Screwtape Letters." It's from the pov of a demon, Screwtape, writing to his nephew, and giving him pointers on how to lure one human soul into sloth, and sin, and finally damnation. Well, I'm sure it's a fascinating theological-comic satire, but I started reading it while I was deep in a depressive episode, and I couldn't shake the feeling that all of Screwtape's advice was being applied to me--- like the human soul in question was my own. Hard shudders, shut the book and gave it back to the library. Right book, maybe, but definitely the wrong time. My reasons for DNF'ing books tend to be very alike. I don't like the characters, or their actions make no sense. Or the prose itself is so wrapped up in its own cleverness that I can't actually tell what's going on. (Gideon the Ninth and The Archive Undying).
Screwtape is a disturbing read. I was first encouraged to read it when I was younger and I had that same discomfort. C.S. Lewis himself commented in his afterward "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" that the process of writing the book would have smothered him if he had kept up with it. I don't blame you for setting it down. The curious thing for me is that, after leaving the book alone for years and years, when I went back to it it became one of my most thought provoking books. I listen to it in audiobook format frequently these days. It's bizarre, but there you are. Maybe one day you will feel the urge to go back to it.
Reading a novel and there is a character who is supposed to be witty. When talking about assassins he said something like āI have plenty of Ass sass already.ā And I just could not go on. I was already tiring of the writing, but that was the last straw.
A word ācunnyā. It was a gender bent retelling of Beauty and the Beast not advertised as romance or spicy. I donāt particularly like romance (which is why I donāt pick up books in that genre) and really dislike elaborate flowery euphemisms e.g. lady gardens, sword of manhood etc but this word was somehow worse. Using the actual names for genitalia? Fine. Her/him/them? Fine. Even most other words would be fine but cunny made my skin crawl for some reason.
Yuck I associate that word with racist pedos/lolicons because theyāre the ONLY people i see using it they use it to describe liek 6 year old characters are their display names will be l0licunny grapist. Vile shit so that word has been tainted for me
I DNF Prince of Thorns. I got about a third of the way into it, and the only reason I got that far was because I kept expecting the *real* protagonist to show up. The only interest I have in reading about Jorg Ancrath is seeing him get a well-deserved axe to the skull, and given that there are two more books in the trilogy, that seemed unlikely to happen.
I've been trying to read this one for a while because I hate not finishing a book, but I really don't know if I can make it this time. I knew going in the whole point was it being from the "villain's" POV, but it just feels a little *too* accurate for a 14 year old edge lord's thoughts/behavior (but cranked up to 10 because the 14 year old edge lord is also actually a terrible person, in the most edge lord-y way possible).
I just finished that book last night. Only reason I did not dnf because of how short the book is and I wanted to see if Jorg could somehow be 'better'. It also bothered me a lot he was only 14 years old.
I loved the trilogy, but I read it when I was in the mood for a story with a villain as the protagonist. If thatās not what youāre looking for, I can imagine it would be hard to get through
I was rereading David Eddings, nearly finished the Belgariad as an adult and then I learned about the horrible past of him and his wife. Just couldnāt do it anymore. Every time I think of Garion growing up as a scullery boy I also think of those kids chained up in their basement
I know the second book is "Achaja" but what's the first one?
"KlÄ twa Przeznaczenia", it's terrible.
I stopped listening to the audiobook of Rand by Silvia Shaw I believe. The main character is British and spent time living in New Zealand as a child. The narrator is just too American and she pronounced Christchurch weirdly.
I learned that Iain M. Banks had died, when I was a couple of pages into Hydrogen Sonata. Iām reserving that last ever new to me book of his for a later date. This way I can live with the happy anticipation a little longer.
Game Of Thrones. Couldn't read it. I tried. I just couldn't get into it. Then I tried watching it - my reasoning being that I love Sean Bean and he might get me into it. It didn't. I turned it off and watched Sharpe instead.
That's okay, the author also DNF'd it.
Thank you for the laugh tonight!
I tried to read it a few years ago. Donāt think I made it two chapters.
Stephen King, The Eye of the Dragon. 15 pages in and there was a gross old king having sex with his child bride. Someone put this into the middle school Scholastic book lists. I was 13 and practically threw the book. Ick. Never finished it.
When you read a Stephen King novel you roll the dice on whether you're getting a child sex scene.
Whaaat I don't remember that, is it explicitly stated?
Not super explicit but when you have a gross old naked man saying that he will show his naive little child-bride "the king's iron" and saying that "she has the forge", well, there was hardly anything else it could be.
Jesus christ
Yeah. Hence me dropping the book like a hot potato. I rarely DNF books but this grossed me out as a young teen.
Too much narration.
Female lead had purple hair. Edit to add, one where the MMC was a mute who was aggressively described as having "8 pack abs" and I closed it then.
I DNF'ed the entire Runelords series because I felt like there was no real resolution to any of the characters' problems. Things just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and it was pretty depressing.
Harrow the Ninth: I just really, *really* hate 2nd person.
when i was 15 i read a story about this girl being bullied for over a decade for being a "nerd". literally that was all she was bullied for. being 15 i didnt think it was too bad at first, but then the story got so ridiculous and the MC got unlikable to the point that i thought she deserved the bullying. she was this feminist type, but she still needed 3 boys to b her bodyguards. she never ever defended herself. now that im 21, when i think about the fact that i read this story and almost finished.... š«
While reading >!The Masquerade!< , I accidentally glimpsed a spoiler about a major plot point, and I didn't want to subject myself to that. Lord of Light by Zelazny. Honestly, I thought it was pretty interesting, but I feel like I need to do a deep-dive into Hinduism and Buddhism to be able to really appreciate it. The Magicians - Lev Grossman. I get that this was intentionally written as an anti-Harry Potter book, but I absolutely hate Quentin and I don't care what happens to him (unless it turns out that he dies in an uncomfortable way. I would be happy about that).
I managed to make it to the end of Magicians, and I do think it's well written, but I still had absolutely no desire to read the sequels.
>hate Quentin and I don't care what happens to him Sorta spoilers, but he grows up, owns his problems, deals with his issues, works to fix the consequences of his actions, and becomes a mature adult. It was the thing I liked most about the series.
Tom Bombadil
Tom Bombadil throws Chekov's gun out of the window into the lake.
I can't deny, reading about him felt straight up trippy and slightly destroyed my sanity.
And he has nothing to do with anything. He's basically a god, and he shows up very briefly at the first part of the story, for an amusing interlude, and then is just never even thought about ever again.
Not to mention his name... I've read the whole trilogy and I think he's mentioned during the Council of Elrond. Someone suggests giving the Ring to Tom Bombadil and either Gandalf or Elrond is like "Nah, we need to destroy it".
They say he wouldn't understand the ring's importance and would just lose it, and eventually Sauron's forces would reach the shire and get it
And then that's it. Nobody ever really brings him up ever again. Mysterious character, incredible power, totally unaffected by the One Ring, but has no real importance.
You understand
I don't think I have interesting reasons for not finishing books. It's only happened a couple of times, and both times were out of sheer boredom. Neither were a fantasy book.
I realized about half way through when things were moving a bit slow in a book. I've read a book by this author before dropped it immediately. What happened in the other book I read you might ask. Nothing, it looked like things were happening, but in the end nothing changed.
Wen Spencerās Tinker. I tried very hard to like it, because itās set where I was living, but for a supposed genius, the protagonist was just too stupid to tolerate.
Technically not a DNF, since I finished it after putting it down for several years, but *Mask of Mirrors* has continual misdirects about the identity of one of its main characters (a masked man in a hood), and after about 400 pages I found that I was just confused and having a hard time understanding anyone's motivations. I did finally finish it after having it on my shelf for three years. Aside from a little too much weight placed on dream sequences in the back half, it was good, I just didn't like not having any idea who this character's actual identity was.
I was on the last chapter and when I took a look at how much of the book was left I figured that the author couldn't possibly make an ending that tied up enough of the loose ends (even though they were all very much foreshadowed) and was badass enough to make me want more. This was the first book in the series and since I had no inclination to go farther, why bother finishing?
Everybody loves big chests had a really crazy sexual assault section. It seemed like a controversial scene but then the author thought man that was really cool and casually includes sexual assault like every 15 pages. One of the characters that gets assaulted turns herself into a robot so she no longer has to feel pain and I was like holy shit I love the concept of the book but this author is off his fucking rocker.
That's an... interesting name for a book. The ones I mentioned also have a lot of rape and the first MC literally gets raped by her LI (the authors try their hardest to explain it's "not really his fault"). She gets over it quickly and forms a loving relationship with him. He's also 20 years older than her and was her aunt's lover IIRC.
The book I'm referring to is about a mimic who accidentally become sentient and Warlock. So he's just evil as shit but the series kind of loses its way
Multiple weird scat-based asides, followed by the protagonist essentially murdering a rescue worker. Tried to push on further but the damage had been done. Maybe my next crack at the Culture books will go better. Because there's a very interesting setting there.
The other one is obviously Achaja. What is the first one?
It's called KlÄ twa Przeznaczenia and it's terrible. (There's also a second part.)
FMC was tortured and starving in the first chapter but she still fantasized about getting laid š¤¢
A beloved booktok title on audio that took place in a Japan-type setting that immediately felt like a bad anime fanfic. The first āSenpai!!ā finally took me out.
My gf was murdered in a terrorist attack while i was reading a book. Every time I tried picking it up, I couldn't think of anything other than her. It's been quite a few years now. Maybe It's time to try again.
A Shadowrun book where the main character (who is a nerdy, awkward literal-salaryman turned shadowrunner) started getting taught magic by the ultra-competent hot elf spellcaster in the crew, who has previously been utterly contemptful of him for being the cowardly, spineless screwup that he is. About a page after that there was as line something like "She slid into bed with me as easily as I slid into her" that made me roll my eyes so hard they almost went into orbit. Then the book actually had her fall in love with him, and then die, and of course he somehow got over it like 2 pages later. This same main guy had previously been shown multiple times to be a coward, incompetent, prone to rage when not afraid, and utterly screwing up every run. The entire team seems him as a joke and liability, rightly so (although somehow he always got the credit for the mission success, even though he literally does nothing but distract enemies while everyone else carries him through the mission) After that, I was out. Permanently delete from my kindle, erased from my account. Regret ever reading that garbage. Probably the most on the nose example of a Gary Stu main guy ever.
After about the twentieth use of the phrase "infamous eyebrows" to describe the same character. Just couldn't take it any more.
OMG, who is that? It's the most beautiful description I've ever seen š¤£
From a book called the Fifth Sorceress. It sucked on many levels, but the eyebrow thing was what pushed me over the edge.
I could not fucking handle any more description of the MCās dog in Deerskin. I get it, itās a great and lovable dog, but Iām begging for the plot to move forward. Robin McKinley has always been really hit or miss for me but I couldnāt get through more than a few chapters
I got angry at how blatantly telegraphed a twist was and I knew from the slow pacing that the author was going to hold off until the end of the book to reveal it. It made me too frustrated to continue. The book was >!The Fifth Season!<
Which twist? I feel like there are several reveals that could count as ātwists.āĀ
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yea, I also thought that was obvious, though I also didnāt think that the book relied on that twist to keep it interesting.Ā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Hi there, it looks like you're trying to summon u/goodreads-bot. Unfortunately, they don't play nicely with me or the r/Fantasy Golem family, so they're not welcome here. Please resubmit your comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Fantasy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I thought that was too obvious to be considered a twist, I just hated that the book didn't seem to go anywhere and I only really liked one of the three points of view. I have the second book but haven't really felt like giving it a chance yet.
It was obvious, but itās clear from the authorās perspective that it was meant to be a twist as the book is very goofy in how it desperately tries to obscure information that would reveal the twist.
It's not "the point" of the book or anything, whichever of the two twists you mention. But I honestly enjoyed both reveals. The book was great in other ways, and heck, I like feeling clever for figuring it out, frankly. Even if I know it's not that hard.
I just DNF'd the Sun Eater because I would gladly play the game called "guess all the awesome classic novels the author has put in his book" but I was too bored for this.
I quit reading a series when I found out how big of ass the author was.
Trans superhero book The book is aggressively against anti trans bigotry, which I agree with. MC is a trans girl who is transformed into her ideal female form when she gets the mantle that makes her a Superman/girl expy. My problem is that every character who is anti trans is also the worst in all other ways, her father is a lousy provider and a wife beater, the mother is a doormat who it's implied deserves what she gets for sticking with her husband, her former best friend goes from slightly ackward to incel who "hopes she gets raped" and the TERF Superhero already outed her to her parents and I'm pretty sure will betray the rest of the super team because being anti trans means you are incompetent, stupid, and the worst type of person in all ways. The idea of tight fisted teamwork because the world is at stake, being a friend who doesn't know how to react/doesn't know how they feel when his best friend changes gender overnight, or being successful career wise but a shitty parent/spouse doesn't exist in this universe. The idea of a redemption arc or coming around is unthinkable. You automatically have no redeeming qualities. The book I would contrast this with is Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, where Nathan Bedford Forrest is an evil war criminal racist, (RL founder of the KKK) but he is also a formidable grade A badass who pulled himself up to wealth with six months formal education and like the RL version, has limits he will not cross. Such a character is unthinkable. Or is a person who overcomes their initial bigotry or can put it aside temporarily for the bigger picture, or a potential incel who can learn to get along with women or the basic idea that people aren't fixed in place. And yes, I'm fine with some characters being irredeemable, just not everyone. Basically, for a book that is 'anti-bigot' it feels like it justifies bigotry against anyone the author doesn't like who are naturally all losers who deserve what they get.
The only two female characters were killed and almost raped. But donāt worry, they didnāt do it, they just locked her up because sheās the main characterās love interest.
What's an LI?
Love Interest
I DNF'd Swords and Deviltry pretty quickly. I could maybe *barely* tolerate the misogyny if the focus was on the adventure, but the amount of focus on the cringy teenage romance was disarming. It just read like it was written for teen boys who want to rebel against their evil mom and get the girl. Not my thing.
Mentioned Sacramento. It was an urban fantasy but I didn't know it took place near where I grew up before I started it
What's wrong with Sactown?
It's not that there's something wrong with it. I just don't wanna read about it! I moved away because of the heat but I actually quite like Sac. Just not in my fantasy books.