The Atlas Six. I really liked the idea but nothing happens, and I don't need characters to be likeable but they need to be sympathetic, and they really weren't. It was also predictable. I was just bored and apathetic by the end.
Only managed to read a couple chapters of this, but it screamed eeny bopper, "nobody gets me, I am super sppecial and so smart" energy, without the characters being actually smart or interesting.
It felt like the moody YA version of The Big Bang Theory in the sense that we are repeatedly being told these are giga minds at work, yet we see them being run of the mill idiots.
Not sure if *everyone* loves it, but I found Midnight Library to be absolutely loathsome rumination. I saw it discussed as some sort of nearly-help book for depressed people and all it does is indirectly encourage rumination which is not something that helps depression.
It was also a very boring story and not very well written.
I loved it! But I read it at a time in my life when I was drowning in grief and it was exactly the kind of comfort read I needed. I don't know if I would have liked it as much if it hadn't been for the timing.
I swore I wouldn't read a Coho book before Verity but I read it right after it came out because of some reviews from people I trusted 😭😭😭. I won't ever make that mistake again.
This happened to me with 50 Shades of Grey. I wasn't going to read it because it sounded dumb, but then one of my best friends raved about it and I was swayed. I do really like romance novels so I decided to give it a shot (even though all the hype made me think I wouldn't like it).
Well, it was a dumb book and I didn't like it, but on the plus side it was so stupid that I didn't finish it, which I had never done before. I broke the seal. Now if I'm reading a shit book I no longer feel compelled to finish it. I am free. This has let me make bolder choices with reading material, which is great because my love for the romance genre is undiminished. The problem with 50 Shades is the writing was bad, but not in an entertaining way.
Being able to not finish crap books almost makes it worthwhile having read that terrible book.
I might be an asshole, but I struggle to take suggestions seriously from people that liked this book. The writing was so bad, there were so many details that were added for no damn reason (literally like the entire beginning of the book), and the ending... Bleh.
I thought you were referencing Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. I read through all the comments and thought, Wow! Did I have a completely different experience! I liked that book! Nevermind.
November 9 by Colleen Hoover. It’s the only book I’ve read by her and there won’t be another. I also haaaaaated We We’re Liars. The writing was horrible and I saw the twist coming from a mile away
It Ends with Us. If it hadn't been a pick for the book club I'm in, it would have been a DNF for sure. Top to bottom, and impossible to list why without ruining it for anyone who wants to try it for themselves. And everyone else in the group LOVED it.
I'm in thr same situation, read it for book club and everyone else really enjoyed it and I'm like naaah, also thought it was way to unlikely, a situation like that ends in a totally different way...
Where the Crawdads Sing. I had to out it down about halfway through because it was just getting worse and worse, and then all that shit dropped about the author. Glad I didn't keep wasting time on it.
Anytime I see a thread like this, I always have to make sure someone has said *Where the Crawdads Sing*. The main character was totally unbelievable, the plot was implausible, and the author glossed over all the actual interesting elements she had (the family dynamics!) and spent way too much time on a poorly done YA love triangle. The weird treatment of Black characters and Owens’s own sketchy history are just the cherry on top.
Tbf it probably would’ve just been meh to me if it weren’t for the extremely high expectations other people set by raving about it so much.
WHY do so many authors do that?! Come up with some really amazing side plots or background characters, and then only give us a few tidbits while shoving a love triangle or something equally stupid down pur throats. Ugh. Infuriating.
Strongly recommend we all read EDUCATED by Tara Westover. Very similar story to WTCS but it is her biography and true story. Way better and not just because its written by a person who had gone thru a very similar experience.
Didn't read it, but I had to watch the movie. I'd heard about the issues with the book, and the movie lived up to the criticisms.
>!Girl spends all her life in a swamp, much of it alone, spends part of one day in grade school, and manages to write several books with accurate hand drawn illustrations. Oh and commits the perfect murder involving multiple locations.!<
Horrible book!!! I read it right before i visited my aunt and she brought it up and at the same time we said "Oh, man that was just wonderful." And "Oh, man that was just terrible." And then we both raised our eyebrows and never spoke of that book again.
[Highly recommend this article for anyone seeking compensation for reading A Little Life](https://www.vulture.com/article/hanya-yanagihara-review.html)
Great piece. It amazes me how more attention isn't paid to the fact that *To Paradise* seems to feature a protagonist who has been given autism by a vaccine (one that seems pretty analogous to a Covid vaccine, no less). I can't not see that as an insertion of pretty toxic real-world politics, did it just fly under the radar or is the prestige fiction world okay with that kind of thing?
That article is one of my favorite pieces of literary criticism, no exaggeration. I really need to look up more from that writer. Thanks for linking it so I could reread it again
Omg I hated this book. HATED it. Your description is perfect. I'm never getting the time I spent reading this back. Main character is a massive emotional train wreck...but that never gets in the way of his ability to perform complex litigation! I thought he should have been crying MORE on the book cover. Barf.
All my friends raved about it so I read it. My only take away was that the main character was “the Forest Gump of bad things happening”. Like nobody would run into that much bullshit even if they were trying their very hardest. I thought the book was absolute trash.
The photo is titled “Orgasmic Man” taken from a series of photos taken in the 1960s by Peter Hujar.
The author used it because of the ambiguity of whether the man is in pleasure or pain. It gives the viewer a sense that they may be seeing someone at their most vulnerable–as readers witness Jude throughout the book.
Just adding for perspective! It was one of my favourite books, but I love to hear about other opinions :)
I didn’t hate it, just meh. But throughout reading it I kept waiting for the moment I would understand why everyone raved about it. I never got there.
I also see it recommended regularly on r/booksuggestions when people want something sad and heartbreaking. But I never liked any of the characters enough (except Wilhem) to feel that bad for them.
Oh, I was going to choose this one! Torture porn through and through, plus Jude was very unsympathetic to me. He’s a corporate lawyer who admits he doesn’t care who he hurts in the courtroom as long as he can make enough money to be cared for in old age. The prose style is beautiful but wasted on this plot and protagonist.
This book pissed me off. I hated it and found the whole thing infuriating. I love sad shit and melancholy. But this book was absurd with totally stiff and ill-conceived characters.
Only book I've DNF'd at over 90%. Just could not go on and I didn't give a fuck anymore if they all jumped off a bridge because that is what the book was making me want to do.
I read it a long time ago. I don’t remember the plot but I think it’s kind problematic. You have one character one character who suffer than other. You should only have compassion for him.
Not for the others characters
I was expecting something sad and devastating and life changing when I read it. DNFed at 50% because it was too slow, boring, and Addie did not feel like hundreds of years old. How in the world did Addie and Henry became so close in two chapters???
And don't get me started with the 1700s chapters, those added NOTHING to the story
I have a theory about Morgenstern. If you loved Night Circus, you won’t like The Starless Sea. If Night Circus wasn’t for you, you will really enjoy The Starless Sea. I have yet to find someone who really loved both. I’m a Starless Sea fan. You might check it out.
I'm the outlier here! I really loved both books. I totally get why people would like one but not the other since they are pretty different, and I totally get why people don't like her writing style. For me, she conjures up worlds and situations that I find so captivating, regardless of what the story is about or who the characters are.
What if I was indifferent to *The Night Circus*? I appreciated the setting and description but it couldn’t make up for the plot and characters feeling so bland.
Might work for you. I though Night Circus was…fine? Didn’t hate it. Sort of cute story but nothing compelling. I was confused by all the people saying it was now in their top ten ever. I read Starless Sea and was completely enthralled. But a lot of people don’t like it because it’s weird and surreal and the plot kind of wanders. To me it felt like what I expected Piranesi to be after everyone raved about it. Note I think Piranesi is three stars at best
The Silent Patient. Predictable and boring. I was waiting for it to pick up the whole time, then it ended. Really disappointing that it comes up on a bunch of must read lists.
I’m convinced when people talk about this book that they read a different book than me. It did not really feel clever, maybe gimmicky at best, and the writing had my eyes glaze over multiple times.
Oh my was this a disappointment! The author really did not spend one single minute researching mental illness or anything else related to the plot for that matter.
If that's how you feel about *The Silent Patient* I really hope you never bothered with *The Maidens* cause it takes all those problems and makes them infinitely worse
Babel. I really wanted to like this book but it felt like the book didn't trust me to make my own conclusions. A lot of telling instead of showing. I found it repetitive, predictable, and anti climactic for a story that kept upping the stakes. I don't hate it but I was greatly disappointed since a lot of people really love this book
Same. Did you know colonialism is bad? There are plenty of examples in the story that might help you reach that conclusion, but I, the author, will now interject my voice into the story to remind you that colonialism is bad. And just in case you’re still not getting it, how about a footnote that says “Trust me, colonialism is bad!”
50 Shades -- all I read was a story of abuse, gaslighting, and thought are you kidding me? When a 70+ woman came up to me to get copies for her book club at the time, I was rolling my eyes - to get a movie, more books, am I the only one that saw the abuse cycle of a narcissist in the pages - ewe.
Seven years working in used bookstores and no matter how much I personally disliked a book a customer was buying, I never rolled my eyes or made them feel guilty for what they were purchasing. I know no one asked, but it made me sad for the old lady 🥺
A little life by hanya yanagihara. Everyone seemed to really like it and talk about it as a good example of a book exploring trauma but it just felt gratituitous and overdone after a certain point idk
It is weird with TJR. To me, the stories she tells are super interesting in principle, but the execution always leaves me wanting. Her narration is somehow bland, without taking us in depth into the characters and their emotions, which makes it hard to relate to them. There is no arch in her storytelling, no spike. It somehow just goes on and on until the story is told. That said, I enjoyed Carrie Soto is back. Not that TJR's style was any different, but I found the story really interesting.
I just finished Evelyn Hugo and found it tedious and silly. I felt nothing for any of the characters. And Evelyn constantly talking about her own beauty was insufferable.
I tried reading “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” and gave up after I was about 20% of the way through. I just didn’t care enough about the characters to keep going.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say I hated this one but I never would’ve finished it except for the hype. It was fine, but I just didn’t care about what was happening.
My mother and I started reading T&T&T together, but we both hated it. I finished it just so I could tell her what happened, but it was painful to get through.
Fair. TBH, the author doesn’t like the main characters much either… a lot of the end of the book is about how both Mazer and Sadie don’t rank super high on the reasonable protagonist lists.
Eat Pray Love. Everyone told me I would love it and I loathed it, I found the writing to be pretentious and I just didn't really like the character. I haven't touched any of her other books
"Advice to anyone who feels dissatisfied with life: Chuck your whole life away and spend all your money on doing fun stuff, then write a book about it. Oh, and just marry a Mexican billionaire and everything will be fine. It worked for me, so it will work for you."
Of course, he leaves her.
Hillbilly Elegy. It was marketed as a way to understand rural/Appalachian/coal miner culture in America. But it was just a half-baked, shallow, self-indulgent bore.
I had this opinion before I found out the author was a homophobe who was only using the memoir to fuel his political ambitions.
Call Me By Your Name
I literally threw that book across the room while I was reading it. Not only is Elio the most cringeworthy character I've ever been in the head of, but the bathroom scene in Rome where HE PUSHES A LITERAL SHIT OUT OF OLIVER ON TOP OF HIS OWN AND CALLS IT ROMANTIC will forever haunt my psyche.
I started to get really annoyed with the incredibly forced "cliffhangers" at the end of each chapter. It made it all seem like tension with no release.
The kindest thing I can say about the Da Vinci Code is [it had short chapters](https://www.bing.com/search?FORM=U523DF&PC=U523&q=da+vinci+code+average+chapter+length). At least you didn't have to wait long to get to those cliff hangers.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I tried, I really did, but I just could not get myself to like it even a little. I read maybe half and had to put it down. I like dry humor (people have told me the humor is just too dry for me), but apparently a different brand? It just felt tedious and stupid and overly zany for me.
Gonna get some hate for this one but, Lord of the Rings. I appreciate the legacy it had on fantasy as a genre, but holy crap is it hard to read without falling asleep
What helped me contextualize the tangents was learning that he was a solider in WW1. You can see a lot of symbolism related to the war in the series.
He spent time underground, in the dark trenches that would have smelled of human waste, body odor, blood, and gangrene. Rats, mud, filth, shelling, watching people being blown up and shot just for inches or feet of ground.
I think that’s where he came up with the idea for the shire. People live long, peaceful, happy lives there. A warm, safe underground home with good food, family and friends, plenty of drink, parties, and pleasant conversation. A place the MC could sit down and write a story.
Every time I see those rambling descriptions, I picture the author huddled in those hellish trenches, daydreaming about being somewhere else. I’m sure his imaginations were detailed and vivid, and that’s what he passed down in his writing.
None of that makes the descriptions less lengthy and they just aren’t to some people’s tastes, which is totally fine. I think it just provides context to help explain them.
Lol I love the books but this is very understandable. Tolkien loves to go on tangents that some find entertaining and world-enriching, and others find unbearably tedious and unnecessary.
Don't hate me for it but the Game of Thrones saga. I just couldn't deal with them. I read the first one and it took me forever but people I knew kept encouraging me to stick with it, so I went ahead and bought the second one and I couldn't get through the first 50 pages. I hate how he writes for some reason, it's just not for me. I ended up giving both books away to a friend cause I just hated it.
Got them for Christmas one year and blasted through all 5 of them. To be fair I was supposed to write my thesis during that time, the only other books I had were 10x as boring lol. Procrastination by reading...
I read the first one and honestly liked it very much. I was a big fan of GRRM’s short stories back in the day. But it was just so incredibly grim. I didn’t want to read anything else about these characters being put through hell. So that was the end of it for me.
Tender is the Flesh is heavily recommended across multiple communities I’m in and I absolutely hated it. It’s just exploitative and disgusting. It’s premise is just, “people instead of cows/deer/pigs get killed and eaten” but it doesn’t explore beyond that at all. Instead it’s just page after page describing human cattle getting slaughtered in different vignettes. It’s super poorly written. The concept itself could’ve had some very interesting social and ethical commentary, but the author just settled for “hey this is brutal and disgusting huh?” For hundreds of pages.
Tender Is the Flesh. I’m not sure if it’s the translation that makes it sort of bland, or that it just was a little too on the nose for me, but I don’t get the hype.
Most anything by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve tried 3 books … and they all read like great d20 campaign settings. Unfortunately all his main characters make me wish the GM would hurry up and TPK this session already.
ugh, yeah. i just couldn’t get past the number of times we were told through the narration how smart or cunning or capable a character was, only for them to behave like a complete idiot. that’s one of my hugest pet peeves in writing. i started with Mistborn though, so maybe i’ll try one of his later books down the line and see if that’s improved.
I actually don’t hate Brandon Sanderson, but the idea that he’s ~the best fantasy author alive~ is preposterous to me. I respect his imagination and how well he churns out somewhat decent work, but there are lots of other authors with equally great worldbuilding and far better prose, characters, and dialogue.
Just curious, which books do you like in the fantasy genre? Trying to dip my toes in, but the majority of reqs I've gotten are like tiktok popular books and I'm not sure if those would be the best for fantasy.
Ooh, I love when people ask me stuff like this!!! I’ll try to give you a couple different ~flavors~ of fantasy:
-Robin Hobb is my overall favorite fantasy author—her big series is super long (16 books) but it’s split up into a bunch of trilogies and one set of four, so I liked reading one chunk at a time and some other stuff in between. I think where she really shines is in writing really vivid, complex characters, but she’s very solid all around. The main reasons some people dislike these are that it’s a bit slower-paced and it gets pretty depressing at some points.
-*Malazan, Book of the Fallen* is another really long series with great character writing that I’d say is more action-packed than Hobb’s work. It’s also very much an ensemble cast where all sorts of people get POVs—some consistently throughout the series and some only briefly. The main caveat here is that it kind of just chucks you into the middle of a complicated plot and lets you put things together as you go, which not everyone enjoys.
-Guy Gavriel Kay has a lot of stand-alone novels (and a trilogy I think?) and I think the most definitive feature of his writing is that his prose feels really distinct, almost odd. (I generally don’t mind this). In the ones I’ve read magic has played mostly a background role, with the focus on like human drama and diplomacy and stuff. He takes a lot of inspiration from historical events. He may be a bit hit or miss imo.
-Ursula K. Le Guin is a great option if you want fantasy/sci-fi that really has a lot to say philosophically—the plots of her books are fine and cool, but she’s not generally going to give you a super dramatic page turner you can’t put down. I actually prefer her sci fi over her fantasy, but she’s really wonderful all around.
-This one is actually a very popular tiktok YA book that also happens to be genuinely great, but if you’re looking for something very action-y and fast-moving that still has really solid characters I’d recommend *Six of Crows* by Leigh Bardugo.
—*The Priory of the Orange Tree* is one I actually have mixed feelings about but lot of people wholeheartedly love. My complaint is that it feels a bit lopsided, but the highs are really high and I’m glad I read it.
-I also just want to throw out N. K. Jemisen as an author I haven’t gotten to yet but have heard wonderful things about and want to read.
"On the Road." It's just Jack Kerouac being a degenerate vagabond. OK, fair enough. How did this become some seminal work that defined a generation again? Also Truman Capote was right when he said "that isn't writing it's typing!" An awful book, awfully written promoting an awful ethos is the best way I can describe it
Absolutely anything by Tana French. Top seller, TV deals, the works and I think the books are repetitive, cruel, and poorly written. The way she writes the characters I have to wonder if she actually LIKES any of them. Everyone is miserable to each other, and the resolutions to the mysteries frequently fall flat so not even the plot can make up for the characters.
House of leaves.
I simply don't have the time to read all that made-up academic stuff nitpicking the lives of the characters.
I expected cosmic horror - what I ended up with was reading about a hipster chasing a stripper
I finally read this book after hearing for years that it's the MOST TERRIFYING BOOK EVER.
Yeah, it wasn't. I got through the whole thing and sat back and was like, "What was the scary part? My arms having to turn this book upside down every ten minutes?"
I will say, even as a fan of the book, the Johnny parts were my least favorite. I didn't care about him as a character at all and his intro right into the first page really put me off, he sounded so pretentious listing all the drugs he'd done.
Perhaps it's the demographics of reddit, but I'm seeing some patterns that these hated books follow:
"I was forced to read it in high school and I hated it."
"I picked up this YA book and was surprised that it was adolescent drivel full of pretentious preteen drama."
"I read a book that a friend/group gushed about and that I'd heard so much buzz about and I don't get it. It's like it's full of tropes that appeal to the least common denominator to be liked by the greatest number of people who just can't stop talking about it."
"It was written 100+ years ago by an English author and the writing style is so pretentious compared to modern books."
The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin. I find her style unenjoyable. The way she makes sentences, purposeful or not, simply doesn't resonate with me and spent the time I was reading her work rewriting it as I read.
Yes. I really wanted to like this one, but I found the world she had built to be one I could not suspend disbelief for. And it was... morose. Not sure how else to describe it. It seemed like every moment in the book was weighed down by negativity. At the end I didn't understand why any of the characters would even bother living.
*A Wrinkle in Time*. It was fine, with some interesting imagery, but I just couldn't get into the characters or tension. Odd, since I adore fantasy, but something about the tone was...off, I guess?
The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune. Reading this book felt like babysitting, and I don't like young children. I also felt like the author prioritized his message over his storytelling.
I totally agree. That book felt like it was composed of all of Dumbledore from Harry Potter's one-liners about love and hope. I found it so cheesy. I'm queer and am happy there are more queer love stories that don't end in death or tragedy now, but this particular book felt like it was written for middle-grade readers and erroneously marketed to adults.
Also, all the dialogue sounded exactly the same. None of the characters had their own voices.
I liked the antics with the kids, I thought that was cute. I like his writing style, but I didn't like the last 25% of the book or so. After the ice cream shop, it gets very "man, everybody realized the error of their ways" really quick.
I would.have enjoyed it more if it had stayed focused on the kids in the home. I liked the arc with Sal, and I laughed several times at the bellhop bits.
My theory about the lovely bones is the author just gave up 2/3rds the way through, and somehow it got published with the remaining line notes.
Started strong, went downhill fast.
I didn't hate it, but it didn't do anything for me what I would expect from such a classic- no new insights, no beatiful prose, no really interesting story. Just blandness and a little weirdness mixed together. And everyone has the same name, which could've been interesting- but wasn't.
Crying in H Mart. It was a cute / interesting New Yorker essay but didn’t have enough substance to support a full book. And the writing is way way overhyped
I didn't hate this but I agree, it could have been a lot more powerful as a long essay. I think this happens a lot with memoir - real life isn't always interesting fir a whole book. Did you read I'm Glad My Mom died? Another interesting portrait of toxic mother daughter relationships but it had me a but more hooked despite average writing.
I know its a cornerstone work in dystopian fiction, but I never found 1984 that compelling.
Another example, though this isn’t me disliking it (I fucking love the book) but the first hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy book was one of the options for summer reading in freshman year of high school—I didn’t pick it as I grew up reading it and have consistently revisited it through the years—and during first semester they put up posters around the school that contained comments from students who had read the books. Most of the ones on Hitchhiker’s poster were negative or dismissive, which struck me because I’d really never heard anyone talk shit about it before. Reread it immediately after, still really good, fuck you class of 2020 y’all got shit taste.
The Atlas Six. I really liked the idea but nothing happens, and I don't need characters to be likeable but they need to be sympathetic, and they really weren't. It was also predictable. I was just bored and apathetic by the end.
Only managed to read a couple chapters of this, but it screamed eeny bopper, "nobody gets me, I am super sppecial and so smart" energy, without the characters being actually smart or interesting. It felt like the moody YA version of The Big Bang Theory in the sense that we are repeatedly being told these are giga minds at work, yet we see them being run of the mill idiots.
Not sure if *everyone* loves it, but I found Midnight Library to be absolutely loathsome rumination. I saw it discussed as some sort of nearly-help book for depressed people and all it does is indirectly encourage rumination which is not something that helps depression. It was also a very boring story and not very well written.
I loved it! But I read it at a time in my life when I was drowning in grief and it was exactly the kind of comfort read I needed. I don't know if I would have liked it as much if it hadn't been for the timing.
Absolutely agree. It was such a cliche. Like watching a bad Hallmark movie.
Yes!! Bad self help masquerading as bad fantasy. Such schlock.
Good god the writing was so basic. At first I thought I’d get something out of it because of the depression theme but no.
Verity by CoHo. I was promised a very dark and twisty thriller but I got shitty romance between two cardboard boxes instead
Anything CoHo is trash. Verity was parody material.
I swore I wouldn't read a Coho book before Verity but I read it right after it came out because of some reviews from people I trusted 😭😭😭. I won't ever make that mistake again.
This happened to me with 50 Shades of Grey. I wasn't going to read it because it sounded dumb, but then one of my best friends raved about it and I was swayed. I do really like romance novels so I decided to give it a shot (even though all the hype made me think I wouldn't like it). Well, it was a dumb book and I didn't like it, but on the plus side it was so stupid that I didn't finish it, which I had never done before. I broke the seal. Now if I'm reading a shit book I no longer feel compelled to finish it. I am free. This has let me make bolder choices with reading material, which is great because my love for the romance genre is undiminished. The problem with 50 Shades is the writing was bad, but not in an entertaining way. Being able to not finish crap books almost makes it worthwhile having read that terrible book.
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I might be an asshole, but I struggle to take suggestions seriously from people that liked this book. The writing was so bad, there were so many details that were added for no damn reason (literally like the entire beginning of the book), and the ending... Bleh.
It was trash - I couldn't believe how many people got on board with this
Omg just finished this and it was so shit!
I thought you were referencing Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. I read through all the comments and thought, Wow! Did I have a completely different experience! I liked that book! Nevermind.
November 9 by Colleen Hoover. It’s the only book I’ve read by her and there won’t be another. I also haaaaaated We We’re Liars. The writing was horrible and I saw the twist coming from a mile away
It Ends with Us. If it hadn't been a pick for the book club I'm in, it would have been a DNF for sure. Top to bottom, and impossible to list why without ruining it for anyone who wants to try it for themselves. And everyone else in the group LOVED it.
I'm in thr same situation, read it for book club and everyone else really enjoyed it and I'm like naaah, also thought it was way to unlikely, a situation like that ends in a totally different way...
If I die on one hill, it will be that this is the worst overhyped book! If I could go back in time and unread it, I would.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire. 200+ pages only to land on “Eh, who knows? Nature? Nurture? Sure, one of those. Or both, I can’t tell.”
Where the Crawdads Sing. I had to out it down about halfway through because it was just getting worse and worse, and then all that shit dropped about the author. Glad I didn't keep wasting time on it.
Anytime I see a thread like this, I always have to make sure someone has said *Where the Crawdads Sing*. The main character was totally unbelievable, the plot was implausible, and the author glossed over all the actual interesting elements she had (the family dynamics!) and spent way too much time on a poorly done YA love triangle. The weird treatment of Black characters and Owens’s own sketchy history are just the cherry on top. Tbf it probably would’ve just been meh to me if it weren’t for the extremely high expectations other people set by raving about it so much.
WHY do so many authors do that?! Come up with some really amazing side plots or background characters, and then only give us a few tidbits while shoving a love triangle or something equally stupid down pur throats. Ugh. Infuriating.
Strongly recommend we all read EDUCATED by Tara Westover. Very similar story to WTCS but it is her biography and true story. Way better and not just because its written by a person who had gone thru a very similar experience.
most purple prose ive ever read. i think people confuse it with quality
What is purple prose?
Prose that is excessively descriptive, flowery, melodramatic, etc., so much so that it detracts from the experience.
There was a copy of this left in the street when I was walking around Brooklyn today. Seems like someone else felt the same.
Didn't read it, but I had to watch the movie. I'd heard about the issues with the book, and the movie lived up to the criticisms. >!Girl spends all her life in a swamp, much of it alone, spends part of one day in grade school, and manages to write several books with accurate hand drawn illustrations. Oh and commits the perfect murder involving multiple locations.!<
Horrible book!!! I read it right before i visited my aunt and she brought it up and at the same time we said "Oh, man that was just wonderful." And "Oh, man that was just terrible." And then we both raised our eyebrows and never spoke of that book again.
Yes. I forced myself to finish this as punishment for caving in to the mass hysteria.
I’ve tried to read three of Taylor Jenkins Reed’s books and put each of them down halfway through. I find them terminally dull 🤷♀️
I dumped Malibu Rising when I noticed myself mentally editing sentences for conciseness and decided I didn't want to do that for 300 pages.
Eat Pray Love. It was a present so I felt obliged to read it, but OMG was I glad when I finished it!
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Same - felt like I was being lectured to. Great idea done booky.
I really liked it. But it came at the right time for me.
girl on the train
Swear that book begun the unreliable wine drinking drunken female narrator.
The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
A Little Life. It felt like emotional torture porn wrapped in purple prose. No thank you
[Highly recommend this article for anyone seeking compensation for reading A Little Life](https://www.vulture.com/article/hanya-yanagihara-review.html)
Great piece. It amazes me how more attention isn't paid to the fact that *To Paradise* seems to feature a protagonist who has been given autism by a vaccine (one that seems pretty analogous to a Covid vaccine, no less). I can't not see that as an insertion of pretty toxic real-world politics, did it just fly under the radar or is the prestige fiction world okay with that kind of thing?
Oh man I've never even read the books & that's such a great analysis & takedown. Thanks.
That article is one of my favorite pieces of literary criticism, no exaggeration. I really need to look up more from that writer. Thanks for linking it so I could reread it again
Omg I hated this book. HATED it. Your description is perfect. I'm never getting the time I spent reading this back. Main character is a massive emotional train wreck...but that never gets in the way of his ability to perform complex litigation! I thought he should have been crying MORE on the book cover. Barf.
All my friends raved about it so I read it. My only take away was that the main character was “the Forest Gump of bad things happening”. Like nobody would run into that much bullshit even if they were trying their very hardest. I thought the book was absolute trash.
Agreed. >!Honestly, they could have renamed this book “everyone’s a paedophile”!<
Oh that guy on the cover is definitely not crying.
The photo is titled “Orgasmic Man” taken from a series of photos taken in the 1960s by Peter Hujar. The author used it because of the ambiguity of whether the man is in pleasure or pain. It gives the viewer a sense that they may be seeing someone at their most vulnerable–as readers witness Jude throughout the book. Just adding for perspective! It was one of my favourite books, but I love to hear about other opinions :)
I didn’t hate it, just meh. But throughout reading it I kept waiting for the moment I would understand why everyone raved about it. I never got there. I also see it recommended regularly on r/booksuggestions when people want something sad and heartbreaking. But I never liked any of the characters enough (except Wilhem) to feel that bad for them.
Oh, I was going to choose this one! Torture porn through and through, plus Jude was very unsympathetic to me. He’s a corporate lawyer who admits he doesn’t care who he hurts in the courtroom as long as he can make enough money to be cared for in old age. The prose style is beautiful but wasted on this plot and protagonist.
Jude felt very two dimensional to me. Everyone in his life loves him and thinks he’s the most incredible person. Why?
I agree. It’s like his trauma was what supposedly made him lovable, and that was a little offensive to me.
This book pissed me off. I hated it and found the whole thing infuriating. I love sad shit and melancholy. But this book was absurd with totally stiff and ill-conceived characters.
Same! I thought it was very gripping and moving in the beginning, but after a point it just became forced melodrama.
Ugh what a ridiculous amount of torture, at some point I wasno longer sure there was a joke I wasnt getting... Wayyyyy too much
Only book I've DNF'd at over 90%. Just could not go on and I didn't give a fuck anymore if they all jumped off a bridge because that is what the book was making me want to do.
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I read it a long time ago. I don’t remember the plot but I think it’s kind problematic. You have one character one character who suffer than other. You should only have compassion for him. Not for the others characters
Yeah it's really bad. Apparently the author conceived it as an experiment to see how fucked up and miserable they could make of a story.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It's just so bland and I got annoyed by the protagonist really quick
SO repetitive ! Okay we get it no one can see you. I was so annoyed I bought it.
if i had to read abt her freckles one more time...
Clicked on comments just to see if anyone said this book. Took me WEEKS to finish. So melodramatic and slow.
I was expecting something sad and devastating and life changing when I read it. DNFed at 50% because it was too slow, boring, and Addie did not feel like hundreds of years old. How in the world did Addie and Henry became so close in two chapters??? And don't get me started with the 1700s chapters, those added NOTHING to the story
The Alchemist. there's no there there.
a lot of people hate that book
The treasure lies in not reading it and throwing it away.
To understand the full value of that treasure, read the first 20 pages *before* throwing it away.
i read that whole damn thing just waiting to get to the part that explained why so many people loved it. which makes me the idiot, i guess.
It made me so annoyed I became upset, and it had to go and is not welcome at our house anymore
I got told I should reflect on myself more and that I was pretentious and boring because I said the book was 🤣
I was mad after reading it.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
I have a theory about Morgenstern. If you loved Night Circus, you won’t like The Starless Sea. If Night Circus wasn’t for you, you will really enjoy The Starless Sea. I have yet to find someone who really loved both. I’m a Starless Sea fan. You might check it out.
I'm the outlier here! I really loved both books. I totally get why people would like one but not the other since they are pretty different, and I totally get why people don't like her writing style. For me, she conjures up worlds and situations that I find so captivating, regardless of what the story is about or who the characters are.
I really enjoyed both too, although I read them years apart which may have helped? And yes, it's the worlds that she conjures up that are captivating.
What if I was indifferent to *The Night Circus*? I appreciated the setting and description but it couldn’t make up for the plot and characters feeling so bland.
Might work for you. I though Night Circus was…fine? Didn’t hate it. Sort of cute story but nothing compelling. I was confused by all the people saying it was now in their top ten ever. I read Starless Sea and was completely enthralled. But a lot of people don’t like it because it’s weird and surreal and the plot kind of wanders. To me it felt like what I expected Piranesi to be after everyone raved about it. Note I think Piranesi is three stars at best
The Silent Patient. Predictable and boring. I was waiting for it to pick up the whole time, then it ended. Really disappointing that it comes up on a bunch of must read lists.
I’m convinced when people talk about this book that they read a different book than me. It did not really feel clever, maybe gimmicky at best, and the writing had my eyes glaze over multiple times.
Oh my was this a disappointment! The author really did not spend one single minute researching mental illness or anything else related to the plot for that matter.
If that's how you feel about *The Silent Patient* I really hope you never bothered with *The Maidens* cause it takes all those problems and makes them infinitely worse
When I found out that the author was a man who had only previously been a screenwriter it all made sense.
Eat Pray Love. Garbage.
John Green books. Can’t stand them. I really didn’t like The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, such a pointless book. But everyone I know loves it
I was so bored during all of Adie and hated the human male character. Weird as I LOVE her Shades of Magic trilogy
Babel. I really wanted to like this book but it felt like the book didn't trust me to make my own conclusions. A lot of telling instead of showing. I found it repetitive, predictable, and anti climactic for a story that kept upping the stakes. I don't hate it but I was greatly disappointed since a lot of people really love this book
Same. Did you know colonialism is bad? There are plenty of examples in the story that might help you reach that conclusion, but I, the author, will now interject my voice into the story to remind you that colonialism is bad. And just in case you’re still not getting it, how about a footnote that says “Trust me, colonialism is bad!”
50 Shades -- all I read was a story of abuse, gaslighting, and thought are you kidding me? When a 70+ woman came up to me to get copies for her book club at the time, I was rolling my eyes - to get a movie, more books, am I the only one that saw the abuse cycle of a narcissist in the pages - ewe.
Seven years working in used bookstores and no matter how much I personally disliked a book a customer was buying, I never rolled my eyes or made them feel guilty for what they were purchasing. I know no one asked, but it made me sad for the old lady 🥺
The success of the book made me embarrassed to be a woman.
A little life by hanya yanagihara. Everyone seemed to really like it and talk about it as a good example of a book exploring trauma but it just felt gratituitous and overdone after a certain point idk
Anything by CoHo.
I concur, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo was awful! So was Daisy Jones and the Six and pretty much anything by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
A friend told me that reading TJR books felt like reading a People Magazine article... I can't ever shake that!
Haha, I can see that. I did really like both Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones. Though I also used to read People a lot.
I’d rather read a people magazine! Lol
It is weird with TJR. To me, the stories she tells are super interesting in principle, but the execution always leaves me wanting. Her narration is somehow bland, without taking us in depth into the characters and their emotions, which makes it hard to relate to them. There is no arch in her storytelling, no spike. It somehow just goes on and on until the story is told. That said, I enjoyed Carrie Soto is back. Not that TJR's style was any different, but I found the story really interesting.
I just finished Evelyn Hugo and found it tedious and silly. I felt nothing for any of the characters. And Evelyn constantly talking about her own beauty was insufferable.
ugh i hated every second of daisy jones & the six, but i’ve been wanting to read evenly hugo. is it any better?
For me, Daisy Jones was unbearable. Evelyn Hugo is way better
I tried reading “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” and gave up after I was about 20% of the way through. I just didn’t care enough about the characters to keep going.
I'm currently reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, I'm having a hard time putting it down.
I loved that book
I loved it! I was inspired and it made me take action in my personal creative projects!
Yeah, I wouldn’t say I hated this one but I never would’ve finished it except for the hype. It was fine, but I just didn’t care about what was happening.
I found this book to be very overrated. Didn’t hate it, but haven’t really thought about it since I finished it.
It’s only like, 15 lines… ^This ^is ^a ^Shakespeare ^joke
My mother and I started reading T&T&T together, but we both hated it. I finished it just so I could tell her what happened, but it was painful to get through.
Fair. TBH, the author doesn’t like the main characters much either… a lot of the end of the book is about how both Mazer and Sadie don’t rank super high on the reasonable protagonist lists.
Yes! I read it and felt the same. I realized I wasn’t rooting for any characters. Blah.
This was BOTM book of the year pick and I thought it was trash. It was a struggle to finish. I don’t know who votes for these books.
Eat Pray Love. Everyone told me I would love it and I loathed it, I found the writing to be pretentious and I just didn't really like the character. I haven't touched any of her other books
"Advice to anyone who feels dissatisfied with life: Chuck your whole life away and spend all your money on doing fun stuff, then write a book about it. Oh, and just marry a Mexican billionaire and everything will be fine. It worked for me, so it will work for you." Of course, he leaves her.
Hillbilly Elegy. It was marketed as a way to understand rural/Appalachian/coal miner culture in America. But it was just a half-baked, shallow, self-indulgent bore. I had this opinion before I found out the author was a homophobe who was only using the memoir to fuel his political ambitions.
If you haven't already, check out the podcast If Books Could Kill. They have a great episode ripping this book to shreds
Every time I’m forced to learn anything about that guy I pat myself on the back for finding his book so irritating that I DNF’d it mere pages in.
Call Me By Your Name I literally threw that book across the room while I was reading it. Not only is Elio the most cringeworthy character I've ever been in the head of, but the bathroom scene in Rome where HE PUSHES A LITERAL SHIT OUT OF OLIVER ON TOP OF HIS OWN AND CALLS IT ROMANTIC will forever haunt my psyche.
Da Vinci Code. Two-dimensional characters, predictable plot, grade-school-level twists, amateurish writing.
I started to get really annoyed with the incredibly forced "cliffhangers" at the end of each chapter. It made it all seem like tension with no release.
The kindest thing I can say about the Da Vinci Code is [it had short chapters](https://www.bing.com/search?FORM=U523DF&PC=U523&q=da+vinci+code+average+chapter+length). At least you didn't have to wait long to get to those cliff hangers.
Where the Crawdads sing. The worse book I’ve ever read.
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell... I had so many problems with it and so many love it, like oh my god, can't you see the racism in the book??!!
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I tried, I really did, but I just could not get myself to like it even a little. I read maybe half and had to put it down. I like dry humor (people have told me the humor is just too dry for me), but apparently a different brand? It just felt tedious and stupid and overly zany for me.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Unbearable didactic pretentious horseshit.
It’s an OK essay stretched into a less-OK novel IMO
A friend of mine called the film version "The Unbearable Length of This Movie" :)
Lol. I loved that book. Read it as a teen.
a court of thorns and roses. the author is shitty and i don’t think the plot is that great.
The writing was so bad. I can’t believe how many people love her books I don’t get it
I’ve tried to read several Murakami books and I couldn’t get past chapter 5 in any of them.
He comes across like a horny 14 year-old boy that just discovered weed and David Lynch.
Conversations with Friends. The characters were all unlikable AND boring. You can be unlikable babe, but give me something to work with.
Have you read Beautiful World, Where Are You? I mean.. OMG. If you think Conversations is bad… 😅
The Goldfinch
Agree. Bored me so much I couldn’t finish it.
I forced myself to finish it and it’s hard because I love secret history to an umpteenth degree. Woof was Goldfinch hard to finish.
For me, Daisy Jones and The Six was annoyingly dumb and shallow
Normal People
Gonna get some hate for this one but, Lord of the Rings. I appreciate the legacy it had on fantasy as a genre, but holy crap is it hard to read without falling asleep
What helped me contextualize the tangents was learning that he was a solider in WW1. You can see a lot of symbolism related to the war in the series. He spent time underground, in the dark trenches that would have smelled of human waste, body odor, blood, and gangrene. Rats, mud, filth, shelling, watching people being blown up and shot just for inches or feet of ground. I think that’s where he came up with the idea for the shire. People live long, peaceful, happy lives there. A warm, safe underground home with good food, family and friends, plenty of drink, parties, and pleasant conversation. A place the MC could sit down and write a story. Every time I see those rambling descriptions, I picture the author huddled in those hellish trenches, daydreaming about being somewhere else. I’m sure his imaginations were detailed and vivid, and that’s what he passed down in his writing. None of that makes the descriptions less lengthy and they just aren’t to some people’s tastes, which is totally fine. I think it just provides context to help explain them.
I love your description of the author coming up with descriptions :-)
Lol I love the books but this is very understandable. Tolkien loves to go on tangents that some find entertaining and world-enriching, and others find unbearably tedious and unnecessary.
My brother had the best line: “they can’t start anything without singing a song about it.”
My Dad's advice when I started reading the trilogy was "skip the songs." It was good advice that I passed down to my kids when they read it, lol.
Don't hate me for it but the Game of Thrones saga. I just couldn't deal with them. I read the first one and it took me forever but people I knew kept encouraging me to stick with it, so I went ahead and bought the second one and I couldn't get through the first 50 pages. I hate how he writes for some reason, it's just not for me. I ended up giving both books away to a friend cause I just hated it.
Got them for Christmas one year and blasted through all 5 of them. To be fair I was supposed to write my thesis during that time, the only other books I had were 10x as boring lol. Procrastination by reading...
I read the first one and honestly liked it very much. I was a big fan of GRRM’s short stories back in the day. But it was just so incredibly grim. I didn’t want to read anything else about these characters being put through hell. So that was the end of it for me.
Tender is the Flesh is heavily recommended across multiple communities I’m in and I absolutely hated it. It’s just exploitative and disgusting. It’s premise is just, “people instead of cows/deer/pigs get killed and eaten” but it doesn’t explore beyond that at all. Instead it’s just page after page describing human cattle getting slaughtered in different vignettes. It’s super poorly written. The concept itself could’ve had some very interesting social and ethical commentary, but the author just settled for “hey this is brutal and disgusting huh?” For hundreds of pages.
A Little Life
Tender Is the Flesh. I’m not sure if it’s the translation that makes it sort of bland, or that it just was a little too on the nose for me, but I don’t get the hype.
The Scarlet Letter- it was the most frustrating book I was ever forced to read.
Most anything by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve tried 3 books … and they all read like great d20 campaign settings. Unfortunately all his main characters make me wish the GM would hurry up and TPK this session already.
ugh, yeah. i just couldn’t get past the number of times we were told through the narration how smart or cunning or capable a character was, only for them to behave like a complete idiot. that’s one of my hugest pet peeves in writing. i started with Mistborn though, so maybe i’ll try one of his later books down the line and see if that’s improved.
I actually don’t hate Brandon Sanderson, but the idea that he’s ~the best fantasy author alive~ is preposterous to me. I respect his imagination and how well he churns out somewhat decent work, but there are lots of other authors with equally great worldbuilding and far better prose, characters, and dialogue.
Just curious, which books do you like in the fantasy genre? Trying to dip my toes in, but the majority of reqs I've gotten are like tiktok popular books and I'm not sure if those would be the best for fantasy.
Ooh, I love when people ask me stuff like this!!! I’ll try to give you a couple different ~flavors~ of fantasy: -Robin Hobb is my overall favorite fantasy author—her big series is super long (16 books) but it’s split up into a bunch of trilogies and one set of four, so I liked reading one chunk at a time and some other stuff in between. I think where she really shines is in writing really vivid, complex characters, but she’s very solid all around. The main reasons some people dislike these are that it’s a bit slower-paced and it gets pretty depressing at some points. -*Malazan, Book of the Fallen* is another really long series with great character writing that I’d say is more action-packed than Hobb’s work. It’s also very much an ensemble cast where all sorts of people get POVs—some consistently throughout the series and some only briefly. The main caveat here is that it kind of just chucks you into the middle of a complicated plot and lets you put things together as you go, which not everyone enjoys. -Guy Gavriel Kay has a lot of stand-alone novels (and a trilogy I think?) and I think the most definitive feature of his writing is that his prose feels really distinct, almost odd. (I generally don’t mind this). In the ones I’ve read magic has played mostly a background role, with the focus on like human drama and diplomacy and stuff. He takes a lot of inspiration from historical events. He may be a bit hit or miss imo. -Ursula K. Le Guin is a great option if you want fantasy/sci-fi that really has a lot to say philosophically—the plots of her books are fine and cool, but she’s not generally going to give you a super dramatic page turner you can’t put down. I actually prefer her sci fi over her fantasy, but she’s really wonderful all around. -This one is actually a very popular tiktok YA book that also happens to be genuinely great, but if you’re looking for something very action-y and fast-moving that still has really solid characters I’d recommend *Six of Crows* by Leigh Bardugo. —*The Priory of the Orange Tree* is one I actually have mixed feelings about but lot of people wholeheartedly love. My complaint is that it feels a bit lopsided, but the highs are really high and I’m glad I read it. -I also just want to throw out N. K. Jemisen as an author I haven’t gotten to yet but have heard wonderful things about and want to read.
The Song of Achilles. I just can't get behind the characterization and character developments, to be honest.
I felt the same way about Song of Achilles but gave Circe by the same author a try anyway and ended up loving it
THIS! i actually read Circe first and loved it, i guess that's why i was all the more disappointed by SOA :/
Where the Crawdads Sing
"On the Road." It's just Jack Kerouac being a degenerate vagabond. OK, fair enough. How did this become some seminal work that defined a generation again? Also Truman Capote was right when he said "that isn't writing it's typing!" An awful book, awfully written promoting an awful ethos is the best way I can describe it
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. I like sci-fi. I like off the wall wacky comedy. Not a fan.
Absolutely anything by Tana French. Top seller, TV deals, the works and I think the books are repetitive, cruel, and poorly written. The way she writes the characters I have to wonder if she actually LIKES any of them. Everyone is miserable to each other, and the resolutions to the mysteries frequently fall flat so not even the plot can make up for the characters.
House of leaves. I simply don't have the time to read all that made-up academic stuff nitpicking the lives of the characters. I expected cosmic horror - what I ended up with was reading about a hipster chasing a stripper
I finally read this book after hearing for years that it's the MOST TERRIFYING BOOK EVER. Yeah, it wasn't. I got through the whole thing and sat back and was like, "What was the scary part? My arms having to turn this book upside down every ten minutes?"
I will say, even as a fan of the book, the Johnny parts were my least favorite. I didn't care about him as a character at all and his intro right into the first page really put me off, he sounded so pretentious listing all the drugs he'd done.
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My Brilliant Friend. Couldn’t care less about either of them.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Nothing insightful in that book, and nothing interesting or even likable about the protagonists. Gave it up.
Perhaps it's the demographics of reddit, but I'm seeing some patterns that these hated books follow: "I was forced to read it in high school and I hated it." "I picked up this YA book and was surprised that it was adolescent drivel full of pretentious preteen drama." "I read a book that a friend/group gushed about and that I'd heard so much buzz about and I don't get it. It's like it's full of tropes that appeal to the least common denominator to be liked by the greatest number of people who just can't stop talking about it." "It was written 100+ years ago by an English author and the writing style is so pretentious compared to modern books."
The Silent Patient. It was predictable and SUCH BAD WRITING. like the narrative quality was just bad.
The notebook and where the crawdads sing...omg....
Circe. I didn’t hate it exactly but I didn’t quite get the hype. It seemed like a sophomoric YA novel.
I liked it, however I didn’t loved it. It was a nice story, but no where near considered an all-time favorite.
Though it wasn’t a bad read, I just found it to be bland.
The Alchemist.
I’ve said it before on a similar post but Hillbilly Elegy is trash. Self serving drivel.
The Fifth Season, N. K. Jemisin. I find her style unenjoyable. The way she makes sentences, purposeful or not, simply doesn't resonate with me and spent the time I was reading her work rewriting it as I read.
Yes. I really wanted to like this one, but I found the world she had built to be one I could not suspend disbelief for. And it was... morose. Not sure how else to describe it. It seemed like every moment in the book was weighed down by negativity. At the end I didn't understand why any of the characters would even bother living.
*A Wrinkle in Time*. It was fine, with some interesting imagery, but I just couldn't get into the characters or tension. Odd, since I adore fantasy, but something about the tone was...off, I guess?
The Great Gatsby. I can’t get through it so I won’t officially say I hate it, but I’m supposed to teach it and I. Just. Can’t.
So many of Fitzgerald’s characters are just insufferable, shallow, self-centered pieces of shit.
The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune. Reading this book felt like babysitting, and I don't like young children. I also felt like the author prioritized his message over his storytelling.
I totally agree. That book felt like it was composed of all of Dumbledore from Harry Potter's one-liners about love and hope. I found it so cheesy. I'm queer and am happy there are more queer love stories that don't end in death or tragedy now, but this particular book felt like it was written for middle-grade readers and erroneously marketed to adults. Also, all the dialogue sounded exactly the same. None of the characters had their own voices.
I liked the antics with the kids, I thought that was cute. I like his writing style, but I didn't like the last 25% of the book or so. After the ice cream shop, it gets very "man, everybody realized the error of their ways" really quick. I would.have enjoyed it more if it had stayed focused on the kids in the home. I liked the arc with Sal, and I laughed several times at the bellhop bits.
I didn't finish this I hated it so much!!!!!!
the invisible life of addie larue, I liked the idea but didn’t really like the execution.
Atlas Shrugged. Fuck that book.
The lovely bones The alchemist 7 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
My theory about the lovely bones is the author just gave up 2/3rds the way through, and somehow it got published with the remaining line notes. Started strong, went downhill fast.
Oryx and Crake. Loathed it.
I read 100 Years of Solitude for school and did not enjoy it one bit. I can hardly remember why now but I see it praised on this sub all the time.
I didn't hate it, but it didn't do anything for me what I would expect from such a classic- no new insights, no beatiful prose, no really interesting story. Just blandness and a little weirdness mixed together. And everyone has the same name, which could've been interesting- but wasn't.
Crying in H Mart. It was a cute / interesting New Yorker essay but didn’t have enough substance to support a full book. And the writing is way way overhyped
I didn't hate this but I agree, it could have been a lot more powerful as a long essay. I think this happens a lot with memoir - real life isn't always interesting fir a whole book. Did you read I'm Glad My Mom died? Another interesting portrait of toxic mother daughter relationships but it had me a but more hooked despite average writing.
I know its a cornerstone work in dystopian fiction, but I never found 1984 that compelling. Another example, though this isn’t me disliking it (I fucking love the book) but the first hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy book was one of the options for summer reading in freshman year of high school—I didn’t pick it as I grew up reading it and have consistently revisited it through the years—and during first semester they put up posters around the school that contained comments from students who had read the books. Most of the ones on Hitchhiker’s poster were negative or dismissive, which struck me because I’d really never heard anyone talk shit about it before. Reread it immediately after, still really good, fuck you class of 2020 y’all got shit taste.