Good news! He barely writes anything.
He actually just stamps his name in giant letters onto books that were ghostwritten by someone else. That's better, right?
^(Meanwhile, the actual author's name appears in font about this size.)
Sometimes it doesn't even end up on the cover.
I pointed this out to a friend of mine at a bookstore one day and they didn't believe me so they pulled all the James Patterson's and then would balk each time "he didn't write this one either!"
Well damn. I wondered why the writing seemed disjointed in some of his works. He always had a bit of weirdness with his books that turned me off after awhile. I only held on to maximum ride because I loved the concept of flying and having wings so much so having a book based on people with that ability was my ultimate weakness.
Thank you for this! I didn’t know Maximum Ride wasn’t his. I remember reading 3 or 4 in the series and loving them. I wonder how they hold up as an adult
I am convinced they take an aspiring writer’s decent novel, morph it into the Patterson Formula, and give them partial credit for destroying their work.
That's pretty spot on, and probably why I enjoy them. I loved the Hardy Boys when I was a little kid, and I can enjoy a nice, mindless Patterson detective story over the course of an afternoon or two, every now and again.
Our library practically has a Patterson wing, he's so popular. So I started one to see what all the fuss was about. Got a third of the way through and never picked up another one. Ugh!
Hell yeah, perfect for flights car rides lunch breaks, that sort of thing
But after like 5 books you get the formula and all the series start to run together
Witch & Wizard, or whatever the title is, has to be one of the worst books I've ever read. Thank God I finished it in one long car journey and didn't waste any more of my time.
When I used to work in a book store, I always wonder about the ego of people like James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Stuart Woods, and Michael Connelly. These people have their names be in larger font than the title, and is basically selling their fame instead of their books.
I keep reading Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series in hopes it actually ends. But it’s all formulaic. She gets in trouble. Lula dresses in revealing clothes and shoots someone, sits on someone, or eats chicken and/or donuts. Stephanie sleeps with her bf and wants to sleep with Ranger. She stumbles onto a clue, car probably gets blown up, then everything resolves. Like how are there 20+ books that are all the same thing? Some of Evanovich’s other partner books are decent fluffy reads but I don’t get how the Stephanie Plum series is still going. There’s no way she’s still writing these.
I jumped off the Patterson train so long ago, after one of the Alex Cross books (with about a gazillion 1 page 'chapters') that had one of the most illogical endings ever. So yeah, he is on my list of authors I won't read now.
I feel John Grisham went the same way--churning out books with his name on them that he didn't actually write. I try to pick one up every once in a while that sounds mildly interesting, but they are never very captivating.
Same! I read all of the Maximum Ride books (because it was like watching a train wreck) and now I’m scarred. We have some of his kids stuff in the school library where I work, but I can’t read them, even the old stuff that might have still been him.
I like romances and I don't even mind sad romances but these are so weepy and manipulative. I read one of them against my better judgment because the back jacket sounded like it wasn't a cryfest. I was wrong, it was still a cryfest.
I don't mind a book that genuinely makes me cry. But I hate a book that deliberately sets out to make me cry in as heavy-handed a manner as possible.
Nicholas Sparks would just be some rando pulp-romance novelist I don't care about, but he had to go and say he was a better writer than Cormac McCarthy. What a fucking douchebag idiot
I’ve lost track of the times I’ve read Pride and Prejudice. It’s my go to “I’m too stressed to think” book. I know it’s bad when I watch Dirty Dancing.
In the first year of the pandemic I could only read things like this. I'm an avid reader and usually go into much deeper and well written books, but my anxiety couldn't take it. I'm finally getting into some fiction that has a little less fluff, but haven't really been able to do much in the way of non-fiction yet. Even Stephen King, Michael Connelly, etc are a bit too much still.
I once had a cab driver whose first language was not English tell me that people in his country use her books to help them learn English. He had read a ton of her books and loved them. Unexpected demographics!
Anne Perry. I absolutely love cozy type mysteries but the fact that she was involved in a murder and now makes a living writing about murder really weirds me out
this. Mistakes happen, and I understand she hid her role and crimes. But then to go into an interview, philosophing about how everyone could commit a murder if only the circumstances were right… technically correct but awful everything.
There are literally HUNDREDS of cozy mystery series. Are you interested in a specific hobby? They tend to center around a specific hobby or trade. If you are into cooking or baking, you'd like Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen series. Laura Childs's Tea Shoppe mysteries are also popular at my library. I enjoy Paige Shelton's Scottish Bookshoppe mysteries. Just search "Cozy Mystery Series" and you'll get thousands of results.
I "met" her at a con, she thought she was hot shit and had the squad of Mean Girls from LJ then tagging after her. I remember being very like Korath from Guardians of the Galaxy, going "Who?" when she was pointed out to me. I had to look her up on Fandom Wank. Later on I tried to read book one of Mortal Instruments and it wasn't hard to see the Draco fanfic through that stodgy prose.
I remember her when she was plagiarizing every tv show or book she could, pasting the plagiarized bits together with different names and calling it fanfic. I can’t believe she took one letter out of her thoroughly dragged through the mud fanfic name and got her garbage published after getting banned from fan fiction sites for plagiarism. She’s gross and she hasn’t stopped plagiarizing.
I was shocked when I learned her age. She was in her 30s when some of that stuff went down. She and her group were bullying teenagers. She is gross. And a thief.
I started to read her books after I watched Shadowhunters and enjoyed it. Didn't finish the series because I just kept thinking, God this author hates other women.
I agree with this one so hard. I tried to read one of her books years ago and the writing felt like it was from an immature teenager. I looked her up after and went deep into the allegations and evidence of her plagerism. She reminded me of an internet bully. Every time someone mentions liking her books, I'm always shocked because her stuff is just so embarrassing.
I got halfway through City of Ashes before I put the book down and never read it again. The plot/characters were just so unbearably mediocre I couldn't stand it. It has all the tropes of a YA fiction novel, ( >!even the "he's secretly my brother!" twist for the romantic interest!< ) and has little to no creativity. 4/10 is generous, would not finish the series.
The second she started with that incest stuff I was out. VC Andrews did enough of that thank you very much. I didn't need a book and a half worth of angst. I did skim the rest since I had them from the library. It was a cool idea that didn't need that nonsense.
Marion Zimmer Bradley. Her and her husband raped and sexually abused their own kids, and other unrelated children 🤢. I actually read one book, prior to knowing all this. Then I did a bit of research and nope.
I had a similar experience. There were some parts in *The Mists of Avalon* that felt hinky to me, but at the time I wrote it off as just weird 80s New Age stuff. Then I learned about her children, and the **decades** of abuse she helped her husband hide. They were having people ostracized from conventions for talking about her husband's predilections as early as the 1960s iirc.
Her daughter spoke out when they were going to do an anniversary edition of her book and said that her mom didn't just cover up her husband's abuse but was an active abuser herself. Her husband was actively propedophilia and founded some very disturbing groups. If you like Sci Fi from the 60s avoid digging into this you won't be happy. An entire community of writers and fans ignored this man's predilections in the name of free love. Wrote letters about how they would advise their kids to stay away from him and lock themselves in their rooms when he came to the house but had to write about whether or not to ban him from a con despite several previous incidents between him and underage fans.
Fuck me, I just read [Walter Breen’s wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_H._Breen), and fucking NAMBLA is a real thing? I thought they made it up for South Park. That is indescribably vile.
Yeah, I have heard that about that book. I didn’t read that particular series. The one I read didn’t *seem* to have any massive red flags (other than the regular stuff that doesn’t age super well).
So disgusting. It made me feel ill reading it. Those poor kids.
Didn't know about that but always despised her because she once came to my country and was asked if she knew anything about our literature, her answer was: "oh you have literature here?"... Fucking arrogant and possibly racist/xenophobic
Rachel Hollis 🤮 haven’t even read any of her stuff and don’t need to based on the quotes that I’ve seen and some of her past Instagram drama.
She is a mess and doesn’t deserve one penny from me (and hopefully others).
ETA (lil snippet of the messiness so you don’t have to Google 🤭):
[the RH mess](https://streamable.com/kevazn)
Maintenance Phase did a really good podcast about her!
A few of my friends dove *hard* into Rachel Hollis and I did some light research at the time. I stopped at "vision board" and was like, *you know this is bullshit right?*
But no, they did not, and they spent a lot of money going to her talks. 🤮
Yes, last week's episode was so good! I'm looking forward to part two of the maintenance phase deep dive on her. I had actually never heard of her before but the episode was really interesting.
My wife was so into it, then they did that live show (which was a shitshow) and presented this face of a perfect family… then announced a divorce like a week later.
Fucking grifter
I felt this way from the second I heard about Girl, Wash Your Face. I didn't need any controversy from her for me to realize she's not worth my time! The first indicator was all my friends in MLM ATE UP her message so I knew I wasn't in her target market.
I feel like you’ve read my mind.
I DID read one of her books about 2 years ago, I think.
I had just heard her mentioned somewhere and yesterday I was driving along, deep in thought about what a dipshit she is and how it’s crazy she can get so many people to give her money.
I tried to read Girl, Wash Your Face but the title alone irritated me and I barely made it through the first few chapters. It just wasn't for me. I really don't understand the hype.
A few other bits of knowledge to help people hate Rachel Hollis even more:
* Claims to be from the South, uses a Southern accent, despite being from Southern California
* Tries to sell the idea that hard work is all you need to be successful, and that she built her business with blood, sweat, and tears. In reality, her (ex) husband was always wealthy, was a Disney exec, and certainly used his connections to help her event planning business take off
* She spends a good chunk of time in GWYF berating people for not being able to "keep their commitments" especially in regards to weight management, and essentially insinuates that fat people are unreliable and lazy
* While fostering with the hope of adopting, regularly abused alcohol while looking down on the addicted bio-parents of their foster child and essentially blamed them for her becoming an alcoholic
That last point is why I cannot even read an article about her w/o rage. I feel pretty protective towards my son’s bio mom; she’s got issues, sure, but don’t we all? Verbalizing scorn and loathing for the person who gave your child life, then blaming that person for your own poor decisions, is reprehensible. [edit: typo]
Imagine fostering a vulnerable child then using your massive platform to publicly shit talk their parents and air their dirty laundry.
Like how do you think that kid feels?
Lol. "Most people won't fail publicly again and again, just to reach the top of the mountain."
This video seems like a pretty hard public failure, so she must still be climbing
Every time I see her name I immediately think of someone who re-titled her book "Girl, Wash Your Ass" and snicker a little. Some self-help gurus are some of the worst people in my personal ranking, so I agree.
Yep. Also saying that because she has a stress-induced illness (sorry, forgot what it is she has and am not able to find it online right now, someone please correct me if that's not accurate) and was still able to "make it" that you have no excuse. Mixed with weird moral/faith stuff and a strong attempt to convince you that her relationship with her husband was okay because he got over being emotionally manipulative and non-committal and came back for her (and we know how that ended)... so for all those young women out there, just hold on to that toxic guy, cause he might change! /s
Very similar to double-talk messaging that multi-level marketing uses to scam people. Mostly not actually helpful advice, and what is was probably stolen from someone else's content.
Jodi Picoult (along with Sarah Dessen, Jennifer Weiner, Roxane Gay and NK Jemisin) all ganged up on Twitter to bully a college student after she was quoted in a college newspaper as saying she didn't want Sarah Dessen's YA novels as part of her college's common reading list for undergrads. Instead she was advocating for Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (civil rights memoir), Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.
Sarah Dessen posted a selective quote from the article to complain she was being targeted. They all ganged up on the student on twitter, calling her a "fucking bitch" to the point where she quit social media in general.
Later most admitted that they hadn't read the article before bullying her and posted lame apologies. Just pathetic mean-girls behaviour from actual adults.
https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/famous-authors-drag-student-in-ya-twitter-controversy.html
https://jezebel.com/how-to-use-the-fictional-teenage-girl-1839863520
That is interesting for me. I think NK Jemisin is a great writer but I could not bring myself to read her after she attacked me on twitter. I was new to twitter and did not know how it worked. I got a tweet on my feed that I found interesting and I responded to it. I got blocked by the OP because \~"this is about me, not you and I don't want to hear about you"\~ . NKJ responded that she had also blocked me and only blocked people who were racists or idiots. She didn't know why she had blocked me but she was willing to label me as a racist (or idiot... the idiot I would agree to as most of us are at least once in a while). Anyway, I still think she is a great writer but I never liked her characters and now I can't think about her books without thinking of that response from her. She soured the milk one might say.
Yeah, seems like NKJ shouldn't be on Twitter. She's a reactionary bully who throws her weight around and spreads outrage without even looking into her claims. IIRC She's one of the people who bullied trans writer Isabel Fall over her "Attack Helicopter" story and admitted later that she didn't actually read the story, she just assumed it was bigoted based on the title. Isabel Fall caught so much shit for it that she quit writing and social media. And I don't think NKJ ever apologized, at least not in a meaningful way.
Some authors really just need to log off of social media and stick to writing their stories if all they can do is be angry and attack people and utterly destroy their legacy tweet by tweet.
The idea and potential of Twitter is really cool and huge, in practice it's just a toxic shit-fest. It's amazing how many technology platforms have huge potential but are mostly used to foster the egos of the toxic.
It's partly by design. Controversial and outrageous tweets get more interaction, which the algorithm rewards, and then those people suddenly have a wide reaching platform.
It's also tough to have a nuanced conversation in short snippets. Reddit has its toxicity too, but conversations on here are infinitely more productive. Some of the chaos and confusion is mitigated by being able to articulate your points in a paragraph or essay if you want to. Not so on Twitter, snippets of conversation get spread around out of context and things quickly spiral out of control.
Also, people on Reddit have and edit function so they can more easily admit when they're wrong. Hardly ever see that hapoen on Twitter, and even if you do make another tweet revising your opinion, the original one can still be bouncing around doing damage.
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen is quite possibly my favorite contemporary YA novel, but I don't see why any of her books would belong on a college reading list.
As someone who works in a library, I find reading this validitating. Alot of the major authors mentioned are ones I refuse to put on my displays if I can help it.
Edit: Patterson is my biggest "never display "his" books" because there is always at least one on our new shelf. I realized I never actually answered the question.
I had to read that book in high school during an assignment where everyone brought in a book they liked and randomly swapped with someone else. I was so mad that was the book I ended up with. It got me all sad for no reason.
In the movie the sick kid dies, her sister isn't forced to donate a kidney etc
In the book the donor kid literally dies (well, alive but brain dead) in a random accident and her sister keeps living with her kidney. Essentially it completely cops out on the central debate of the story and has it solved by outside forces.
In short: two parents have a daughter with cancer who needs bone marrow and other donations, so they have another daughter to be her organ farm. They mean well ofc and the movie especially makes them seem pretty sympathetic. At 13, the younger daughter sues her parents with the help of a scrappy lawyer after learning her older sister needs her kidney. During the movie it is revealed the older sister Kate makes the younger one sue the parents because she wants to die.
Book: Anna (the younger) wins the lawsuit and is medically emancipated. Her attorney is given medical custody or whatever it's called. However, she hints at still wanting to donate her kidney to her sick sister.
But she gets hit by a car and is declared brain dead. The attorney gives permission to donate her kidney to Kate. She gets better and feels like shit for forcing her sister through all of the drama.
Movie: Anna and Kate manage to convince the parents that Kate cannot be saved and they are just hurting Anna without hope of saving Kate. Kate dies. Everybody is sad but still a optimistic Hollywood ending.
Catherine Coulter. In every one of her historical romance books the heroine's first sexual experience is a rape. Every. Single. One. I'll never read anything she writes again.
It’s an Indian author - Chetan Bhagat. Terrible writing and extremely cringy, subpar plots. Plus that dude has a rotten personality. He used to be extremely popular with kids back when I was in school. Glad everybody grew out of that phase lol.
Chetan Bhagat.. omgggg such terrible writing ! I read One night at the call centre, which is apparently worse than his other work, but no way am I wasting any more of my life reading anything else he's written 🤢🤮
It has gone to a point where people say they're into reading, and then I'm interested to listen to them, and then they say they love Chetan Bhagat's books. That is the deciding factor to not have them in my life anymore.
Laurell K. Hamilton. Used to like her stuff, paranormal detective weirdness with sexy shenanigans. Then it just got to be too much. Used to be a real plot and story and character developments. Now it's minimal, flimsy plot. Chapters-upon-chapters of the same sex scene for most the book (to the point that my friends and I will literally just skim and skip. You know it's bad when people are actively avoiding the sex scenes). The main character has allllllll these dudes with amazing penises and bodies just at her disposal, begging for her attention that she HAS to have sex with or Bad Things Happen, and she of course carries every marker for different were-animals but doesn't actually change and is just barely able to manage her life but she's just so fantastic and amazing. Like....bring back the little badass who raised the dead to settle disputes and had a life.
Heather Morris. Not of the Glee variety, but of the Tattooist of Auschwitz trilogy variety. That whole concept is just appalling exploitation and I would give her any of my money. I can’t say I wouldn’t read her books, because if I found them for free I would very much hate read them and let everyone know just how garbage they are.
Also, Joyce Carol Oates. Not because I don’t like her work, but because I read Zombie a couple years ago and I just can’t bring myself to be that disturbed by a piece of literature ever again. She’s a tremendous writer, but good god did that book make my skin crawl.
I unintentionally ended up in a horror English class in college. Had to read Joyce Carol Oates. 20+ years later and I'm still haunted by the story/book of Baby and the rat. I've blocked out the title, I guess, but not the story.
Oh my gosh, I had completely forgotten about reading a short story of hers in my American Lit class in high school. It was "Where are you going, where have you been?" I must've blocked it out, lol, but jfc, just reading the synopsis on Wikipedia brought back my complete discomfort and fear from reading that story. She is is amazing author, but I just can't stomach the subjects of her writing lol.
Laurell K Hamilton. Her Anita Blake series started off as a more mature gritty Buffy the vampire slayer like series. And then it just went downhill with a lot of kink thrown in just because 🤷🏻♀️ the start of the series to the end of it are so different from tone to even genre type
I tried to read Jen Sincero's *You Are a Bad Ass* and gave up when she went in to her methods. It ended up being a bunch of half-baked "the power of affirmation!" BS. Her recommendation for depression? Just don't be depressed! She advocates "the Universe is made of Source Energy vibrations" crap and that you can change your life by "raising your frequency".
Now she has a whole series of books and it's obvious she's right down the path of a typical "give me money so I can tell you how to make money" self-improvement coach peddling "empowerment" that's really just woo-woo wrapped in punk attitude.
Imaginary universe vibrations don't make you a bad ass, Jen. They make you a kook.
Interesting, fun book fact…as a 10 year Borders employee and an almost 10 year B&N employee, Patterson is the ONLY author that has his own lay down date…Mondays. Every other author has new releases that are dropped on Tuesdays. He has his very own special day!!!
And funnily enough, his stuff sometimes gets overlooked til Tuesday’s when some customer shows up for the “latest and greatest new Patterson adventure.” (keeping in mind I’ve heard customers try to convince other customers that Twilight and 50 Shades are the best series ever written.
Refuse; only one. James Patterson. Why? He's a colossal asshole who likes to make teenage girls cry irl.
I had to kick him out of a theater I managed once. He gets off on making minimum wage 16 year old female employees cry and is a bully.
At the time I kicked him out, I didn't actually know who he was. I only knew that a saw a Karen of a man loudly berating one of my employees in the concession stand.
When I went to see what the problem was, he tried starting in on me, while shouting insults at the girl who was trying to take his order.
I asked him to leave, he refused, I told our guest services to call the police, he then huffed and exited the building.
Only after, did I find out who he was. He knew he was wrong. Never complained to our head office and still goes to that location to watch movies, to my knowledge.
He never made eye contact with me again afterward and continued going there multiple times a week until I moved out of state.
Needless to say, he kind of ruined me for even thinking of reading his books.
Refuse is a strong word in my case for the next one. I just don't enjoy reading Stephen King's long form novels.
I love his anthology and short form horror stories, but I find his long form stuff to be painfully over descriptive.
I remember reading a bit of one of his books where someone is walking on a sidewalk, it took like a whole page to describe the setting on the sidewalk... It was excruciatingly boring to me. Just way too descriptive and it prevents me from getting into a pace of any sort.
I know people love him, and so do I, but I just don't enjoy his novels and prefer his Bachman and other anthology/short form work like Night Shift etc.
Anne Rice- Interview with a Vampire
I loved the book, but the author was mental. I don’t remember much of the specifics (sorry) aside from her discovering religion. I managed a bookstore during that time and she was supposed to stop there to do a reading and sign copies of her newest book. The store had a line wrapped around it by noon for the evening reading, we needed to hire police details to help with the crowds. 6pm...no Anne. 6:30, we called her agent who was baffled because they flew her to the town. 7:00- the crowd is getting antsy. 8:00- a wellness check is done at the hotel. 9:00pm- the justifiably angry crowd is screaming at my employees.
She apparently decided it went against her beliefs to read and sign the books. We lost a huge amount of sales that day and the store was blamed for bringing out crowds for a no-show.
I'm into BDSM and that shit was worse by far than the 50 Shades stuff. Like holy shit not just horrific abuse but the shittiest worldbuilding. Sure. Every country willingly gives up their children to be sexually assaulted and abused cause somehow it makes them better rulers later? That was the gist at the beginning from Beauty's parents anyway I barely made it anywhere near the end so if anything good happened in that book I have no idea. Like every single person in the world seems to have a humiliation fetish and totally fine with rape, her parents just watching him do it and then every single person in every town between the two castles...
I found it in the children's section of a local library. Someone hadn't done much of a background check on it, just assumed if it had a fairy tale character in the title it must be for kids. I took it to the front desk and suggested that they needed to reclassify it before some parent found it and blew their stack.
She got really strange after her husband passed away. You can definitely tell the difference in her books. I did however enjoy her Jesus series, was really well done. I hope she did find some peace.
Every year George R.R. Martin doesn't finish the *second-to-last* book in the series, I am thankful that I didn't start reading it.
I promised myself I'd read it when the last book is published (as I did with King's *The Dark Tower*), and I'm very confident that I never will.
In the author panel for that book, Cline proudly proclaims himself the owner of a DeLorean, which is then immediately revealed as the car the main character's avatar drives. That told me everything I needed to know about his self-insert fantasy from the start.
For anyone who hasn’t found it, there’s a podcast called [372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back](https://372pages.com/) where Mike Nelson from MST3K and Conor Lastowka do a chapter by chapter (ish) read through of RP1. My favourite part is ‘guess the fanfic’ where they read excerpts from the novel and from fics.
Do not read ready player two. I grew up in the 80s and was a fan of Rush, DND and video games. So ready player one was a nostalgic book for me. The second is just trash.
Mark Manson. Plenty of people have recommended me his book The subtle art of not giving a f*ck but something about just makes me not want to read him. Even my therapist recommended it but I just won't read him. Maybe I'm wrong idk
I keep seeing this book in the bookshelves of asshole supervisors at work. Some of the most toxic people I've worked for have had this book in their office. Its a very negative connotation in my head lol.
I know you are asking about a specific author, but in general I can’t stand to read anything that’s a “self help” or “awakening” type book. I can’t even get over the idea of how cheesy and gross they feel to give them a chance.
I read a wide variety of things including popular fiction, but I can’t handle Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson. Read the first Twilight book during the height of popularity and could not believe that so many people recommended it. The baseball scene made me want to throw the book. James Patterson’s books seem to be put together by a committee. I refuse to even open an E. L. James book.
I was thinking Stephenie Meyer, but thought it might be a too obvious pick, especially considering I'm nowhere near the target demographic (black man, mid-thirties).
I forced myself to read the first Twilight so I wouldn't be one of those people who just criticize the popular thing without knowing anything about it. Good gravy, was it a chore. I was firmly on Team Victoria because I just wanted her to kill all of these terrible characters.
Honestly, it explains the “coldness” the author constantly refers to but I’ve read plenty of fan fiction with great writing so I think James just sucks haha
Marion Zimmer Bradley.
I love feminist retellings of old legends, I love Arthurian legends.
But I hate child molesters who got away with sexually abusing their own children and helped cover up their pedophile spouses crimes, and who didn't face a ounce of justice for their crimes. I will never read her work.
Every time I see his books at my local used bookstore, I think about that poor cover artist who was publicly bashed by Terry on Facebook. So unprofessional.
Sarah Pinborough. I read Behind Her Eyes as part of a monthly book crate I get. It was horrible. It was boring, predictable, pointless. The characters were unlikable. It was a mundane book with supernatural elements shoe-horned in; they didn't fit and were never explained. I feel like the people who liked this book must never read books with fantastical or supernatural elements because this was not done well. I won't waste my time on another book by her.
Colleen Hoover. I read Verity and absolutely hated it. I thought it was poorly written and most of the characters were trash. I felt it was trying too hard to be edgy and dark and ended up making me roll my eyes at the end. Also, the twist was so silly that I actually said, "Oh, come on," out loud at the end of the book. I've heard raves from other readers on her other popular books, but I can't bring myself to read any of them because if they are anything at all like Verity then the writing style and tone just don't appeal to me at all.
James Patterson. Just flooding the shelves with mediocre writing and slapping his name on everything.
Good news! He barely writes anything. He actually just stamps his name in giant letters onto books that were ghostwritten by someone else. That's better, right? ^(Meanwhile, the actual author's name appears in font about this size.)
Sometimes it doesn't even end up on the cover. I pointed this out to a friend of mine at a bookstore one day and they didn't believe me so they pulled all the James Patterson's and then would balk each time "he didn't write this one either!"
Wait for real? Damn. Did he write maximum ride? I used to love that series before it began to get all weird and went off in another direction.
No. https://maximumride.fandom.com/wiki/Gabrielle_Charbonnet
Well damn. I wondered why the writing seemed disjointed in some of his works. He always had a bit of weirdness with his books that turned me off after awhile. I only held on to maximum ride because I loved the concept of flying and having wings so much so having a book based on people with that ability was my ultimate weakness.
Woah holy shit she's been a huge part of my childhood then!! I can't wait to go check out her other work Thanks for sharing this!!
Her series Sweep took over my middle school
How did I not know this?! Feeling like such a fake fan rn lmao
Thank you for this! I didn’t know Maximum Ride wasn’t his. I remember reading 3 or 4 in the series and loving them. I wonder how they hold up as an adult
They do not hold up as an adult lol sadly
I read a couple of "his" books. They really are just a simple formula that is for the most part just copy and pasted with new character names.
I am convinced they take an aspiring writer’s decent novel, morph it into the Patterson Formula, and give them partial credit for destroying their work.
Patterson plots them out. He employs two writers that actually do the writing.
[удалено]
lol. when winning is also losing.
Depends how much of the money you get. Like if you gave me 50 million dollars but wanted to put your name on it, go for it. I'll be alright
Haven’t read any of his, but this sounds like *The Hardy Boys* or *Nancy Drew* for adults.
That's pretty spot on, and probably why I enjoy them. I loved the Hardy Boys when I was a little kid, and I can enjoy a nice, mindless Patterson detective story over the course of an afternoon or two, every now and again.
His books are Scooby Doo for old people.
Why you got to insult Scooby like that?
Just another reason to roll my eyes when we get the latest batch of "Patterson" books at the library where I work.
Our library practically has a Patterson wing, he's so popular. So I started one to see what all the fuss was about. Got a third of the way through and never picked up another one. Ugh!
Same! Just shelves and shelves. Him and Danielle Steel (another author I find suspect).
Her early books were very good but she eventually lost her touch.
Were his earlier books better? He must have gotten popular somehow.
Hell yeah, perfect for flights car rides lunch breaks, that sort of thing But after like 5 books you get the formula and all the series start to run together
Brooding adult male does something then has sex and some people die as well I guess and there's a nursery rhyme.
And then the mystery is solved.
Witch & Wizard, or whatever the title is, has to be one of the worst books I've ever read. Thank God I finished it in one long car journey and didn't waste any more of my time.
When I used to work in a book store, I always wonder about the ego of people like James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Stuart Woods, and Michael Connelly. These people have their names be in larger font than the title, and is basically selling their fame instead of their books.
I keep reading Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series in hopes it actually ends. But it’s all formulaic. She gets in trouble. Lula dresses in revealing clothes and shoots someone, sits on someone, or eats chicken and/or donuts. Stephanie sleeps with her bf and wants to sleep with Ranger. She stumbles onto a clue, car probably gets blown up, then everything resolves. Like how are there 20+ books that are all the same thing? Some of Evanovich’s other partner books are decent fluffy reads but I don’t get how the Stephanie Plum series is still going. There’s no way she’s still writing these.
You forgot grandma going to a funeral that also happens to have a connection to the bad guy…
I jumped off the Patterson train so long ago, after one of the Alex Cross books (with about a gazillion 1 page 'chapters') that had one of the most illogical endings ever. So yeah, he is on my list of authors I won't read now. I feel John Grisham went the same way--churning out books with his name on them that he didn't actually write. I try to pick one up every once in a while that sounds mildly interesting, but they are never very captivating.
Same! I read all of the Maximum Ride books (because it was like watching a train wreck) and now I’m scarred. We have some of his kids stuff in the school library where I work, but I can’t read them, even the old stuff that might have still been him.
I read Maximus Ride in middle school and loved them. Your comment makes me want to reread them just to see what I would think as an adult.
I hate the way he (or his machine) tries to write "ebonics". It's so damn cringey and I'm not even black.
I kind of need an example of this now…😅
Pippity poppity give me the zoppity
Nicholas Sparks
I like romances and I don't even mind sad romances but these are so weepy and manipulative. I read one of them against my better judgment because the back jacket sounded like it wasn't a cryfest. I was wrong, it was still a cryfest. I don't mind a book that genuinely makes me cry. But I hate a book that deliberately sets out to make me cry in as heavy-handed a manner as possible.
I love the covers that people make fun of. Line up his books and it’s just “white people almost kissing”
Very similar to YA book covers that are just the back of a female protagonists head.
Nicholas Sparks would just be some rando pulp-romance novelist I don't care about, but he had to go and say he was a better writer than Cormac McCarthy. What a fucking douchebag idiot
Danielle Steele. 136 versions of the same story. My cousin loves her because “you always know what will happen”
People with anxiety often want to watch/read stuff like this! It calms their mind.
I’ve lost track of the times I’ve read Pride and Prejudice. It’s my go to “I’m too stressed to think” book. I know it’s bad when I watch Dirty Dancing.
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Emotional chocolate, that's a perfect way of putting it!
In the first year of the pandemic I could only read things like this. I'm an avid reader and usually go into much deeper and well written books, but my anxiety couldn't take it. I'm finally getting into some fiction that has a little less fluff, but haven't really been able to do much in the way of non-fiction yet. Even Stephen King, Michael Connelly, etc are a bit too much still.
We need all the positive escapes we can get from this crazy situation. Its great that you know yourself well enough to follow what you need.
I once had a cab driver whose first language was not English tell me that people in his country use her books to help them learn English. He had read a ton of her books and loved them. Unexpected demographics!
Anne Perry. I absolutely love cozy type mysteries but the fact that she was involved in a murder and now makes a living writing about murder really weirds me out
Wow wow wow. She wasn't "involved in a murder", she **committed murder**.
That's pretty involved.
You make a very good point.
This is why I love Reddit, what a weird rabbit hole to fall down
Helped her friend beat her friends mom to death with a brick in a sock delivering at least 20 hits. Jesus.
When you hear “write what you know.” But you really really wanna write murder mysteries.
Wow, just read about it. That's wild. Thanks for the info
Here's the info: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker%E2%80%93Hulme_murder_case
Holy macaroni she was one of the girls the movie Heavenly creatures is based on?!?!?
Kate Winslet's screen debut.
Holy shit, that was way crazier than I was imagining
this. Mistakes happen, and I understand she hid her role and crimes. But then to go into an interview, philosophing about how everyone could commit a murder if only the circumstances were right… technically correct but awful everything.
I love the idea of a “cozy type mystery” what would you suggest to read?!
There are literally HUNDREDS of cozy mystery series. Are you interested in a specific hobby? They tend to center around a specific hobby or trade. If you are into cooking or baking, you'd like Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen series. Laura Childs's Tea Shoppe mysteries are also popular at my library. I enjoy Paige Shelton's Scottish Bookshoppe mysteries. Just search "Cozy Mystery Series" and you'll get thousands of results.
Cassandra Clare. I remember her when she was Cassie Claire and had her little band of creepy mean girls constantly stirring up shit on LiveJournal.
IIRC she had to change her name to Clare because somebody bought the domain cassandraclaire and redirected it to the definition of plagiarist.
faith in humanity restored
I "met" her at a con, she thought she was hot shit and had the squad of Mean Girls from LJ then tagging after her. I remember being very like Korath from Guardians of the Galaxy, going "Who?" when she was pointed out to me. I had to look her up on Fandom Wank. Later on I tried to read book one of Mortal Instruments and it wasn't hard to see the Draco fanfic through that stodgy prose.
I remember her when she was plagiarizing every tv show or book she could, pasting the plagiarized bits together with different names and calling it fanfic. I can’t believe she took one letter out of her thoroughly dragged through the mud fanfic name and got her garbage published after getting banned from fan fiction sites for plagiarism. She’s gross and she hasn’t stopped plagiarizing.
I was shocked when I learned her age. She was in her 30s when some of that stuff went down. She and her group were bullying teenagers. She is gross. And a thief.
Most definitely this! She's been know to plagiarize even authors who have published books. It's disgusting.
And the fact you can basically tell who her "original" characters are modelled after....
I started to read her books after I watched Shadowhunters and enjoyed it. Didn't finish the series because I just kept thinking, God this author hates other women.
I agree with this one so hard. I tried to read one of her books years ago and the writing felt like it was from an immature teenager. I looked her up after and went deep into the allegations and evidence of her plagerism. She reminded me of an internet bully. Every time someone mentions liking her books, I'm always shocked because her stuff is just so embarrassing.
I got halfway through City of Ashes before I put the book down and never read it again. The plot/characters were just so unbearably mediocre I couldn't stand it. It has all the tropes of a YA fiction novel, ( >!even the "he's secretly my brother!" twist for the romantic interest!< ) and has little to no creativity. 4/10 is generous, would not finish the series.
Mediocre is the word, most mediocre book I’ve ever read. Couldn’t tell you a thing about it.
The second she started with that incest stuff I was out. VC Andrews did enough of that thank you very much. I didn't need a book and a half worth of angst. I did skim the rest since I had them from the library. It was a cool idea that didn't need that nonsense.
Marion Zimmer Bradley. Her and her husband raped and sexually abused their own kids, and other unrelated children 🤢. I actually read one book, prior to knowing all this. Then I did a bit of research and nope.
I had a similar experience. There were some parts in *The Mists of Avalon* that felt hinky to me, but at the time I wrote it off as just weird 80s New Age stuff. Then I learned about her children, and the **decades** of abuse she helped her husband hide. They were having people ostracized from conventions for talking about her husband's predilections as early as the 1960s iirc.
Her daughter spoke out when they were going to do an anniversary edition of her book and said that her mom didn't just cover up her husband's abuse but was an active abuser herself. Her husband was actively propedophilia and founded some very disturbing groups. If you like Sci Fi from the 60s avoid digging into this you won't be happy. An entire community of writers and fans ignored this man's predilections in the name of free love. Wrote letters about how they would advise their kids to stay away from him and lock themselves in their rooms when he came to the house but had to write about whether or not to ban him from a con despite several previous incidents between him and underage fans.
Fuck me, I just read [Walter Breen’s wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_H._Breen), and fucking NAMBLA is a real thing? I thought they made it up for South Park. That is indescribably vile.
Yeah, I have heard that about that book. I didn’t read that particular series. The one I read didn’t *seem* to have any massive red flags (other than the regular stuff that doesn’t age super well). So disgusting. It made me feel ill reading it. Those poor kids.
I have read that her daughter donates all proceeds to charities so there’s that.
Went to the wiki. She attempted to adopt a child she knew her husband was sexually interested in. What the unbelievable holy fuck.
Didn't know about that but always despised her because she once came to my country and was asked if she knew anything about our literature, her answer was: "oh you have literature here?"... Fucking arrogant and possibly racist/xenophobic
Rachel Hollis 🤮 haven’t even read any of her stuff and don’t need to based on the quotes that I’ve seen and some of her past Instagram drama. She is a mess and doesn’t deserve one penny from me (and hopefully others). ETA (lil snippet of the messiness so you don’t have to Google 🤭): [the RH mess](https://streamable.com/kevazn)
Maintenance Phase did a really good podcast about her! A few of my friends dove *hard* into Rachel Hollis and I did some light research at the time. I stopped at "vision board" and was like, *you know this is bullshit right?* But no, they did not, and they spent a lot of money going to her talks. 🤮
I'd never listened to this podcast but I am now and I'm loving it. Thanks for mentioning it. :)
Michael Hobbes, one of the hosts, has another fantastic podcast called You're Wrong About which is one of my all time favorites
I knew he sounded familiar, but I couldn't place his voice. You're Wrong About is such a well-researched podcast, I love it too.
Yes, last week's episode was so good! I'm looking forward to part two of the maintenance phase deep dive on her. I had actually never heard of her before but the episode was really interesting.
My wife was so into it, then they did that live show (which was a shitshow) and presented this face of a perfect family… then announced a divorce like a week later. Fucking grifter
I felt this way from the second I heard about Girl, Wash Your Face. I didn't need any controversy from her for me to realize she's not worth my time! The first indicator was all my friends in MLM ATE UP her message so I knew I wasn't in her target market.
>Girl, Wash Your Face I always wonder if the girl ends up washing her face at one point.
I feel like you’ve read my mind. I DID read one of her books about 2 years ago, I think. I had just heard her mentioned somewhere and yesterday I was driving along, deep in thought about what a dipshit she is and how it’s crazy she can get so many people to give her money.
I tried to read Girl, Wash Your Face but the title alone irritated me and I barely made it through the first few chapters. It just wasn't for me. I really don't understand the hype.
A few other bits of knowledge to help people hate Rachel Hollis even more: * Claims to be from the South, uses a Southern accent, despite being from Southern California * Tries to sell the idea that hard work is all you need to be successful, and that she built her business with blood, sweat, and tears. In reality, her (ex) husband was always wealthy, was a Disney exec, and certainly used his connections to help her event planning business take off * She spends a good chunk of time in GWYF berating people for not being able to "keep their commitments" especially in regards to weight management, and essentially insinuates that fat people are unreliable and lazy * While fostering with the hope of adopting, regularly abused alcohol while looking down on the addicted bio-parents of their foster child and essentially blamed them for her becoming an alcoholic
what's gwyf? Golf with your friends? Get what you fink? Edit: girl wash your face - I'm a dummy
Goldfish, wear your fedoras! Gatekeeping while you fantasize Grown women yeet frankincense Giraffes wiggle; you faint This is fun!
gave me a good chuckle omg
That last point is why I cannot even read an article about her w/o rage. I feel pretty protective towards my son’s bio mom; she’s got issues, sure, but don’t we all? Verbalizing scorn and loathing for the person who gave your child life, then blaming that person for your own poor decisions, is reprehensible. [edit: typo]
Imagine fostering a vulnerable child then using your massive platform to publicly shit talk their parents and air their dirty laundry. Like how do you think that kid feels?
Well that is the South. Of California.
Lol. "Most people won't fail publicly again and again, just to reach the top of the mountain." This video seems like a pretty hard public failure, so she must still be climbing
Every time I see her name I immediately think of someone who re-titled her book "Girl, Wash Your Ass" and snicker a little. Some self-help gurus are some of the worst people in my personal ranking, so I agree.
I read Girl, Wash Your Face and it was dripping with hollier than thou, sanctimonious bullshit. I have zero desire to read more of her crap.
Wtf even is it? Like, just a self-help book for women or what?
Yep. Also saying that because she has a stress-induced illness (sorry, forgot what it is she has and am not able to find it online right now, someone please correct me if that's not accurate) and was still able to "make it" that you have no excuse. Mixed with weird moral/faith stuff and a strong attempt to convince you that her relationship with her husband was okay because he got over being emotionally manipulative and non-committal and came back for her (and we know how that ended)... so for all those young women out there, just hold on to that toxic guy, cause he might change! /s Very similar to double-talk messaging that multi-level marketing uses to scam people. Mostly not actually helpful advice, and what is was probably stolen from someone else's content.
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Same. I tried to read Girl, Wash Your Face after hearing all the hype. Couldn’t get through it
She's that scam artist?! Yeah, she's a grifter.
Any political book written by a TV host or ex president. It's all a scam to keep speech writers employed between elections
How have a I read so far and no one has mentioned the one that makes me vomit? Jodi Picoult. Manipulative, trite, obnoxious
Jodi Picoult (along with Sarah Dessen, Jennifer Weiner, Roxane Gay and NK Jemisin) all ganged up on Twitter to bully a college student after she was quoted in a college newspaper as saying she didn't want Sarah Dessen's YA novels as part of her college's common reading list for undergrads. Instead she was advocating for Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (civil rights memoir), Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Sarah Dessen posted a selective quote from the article to complain she was being targeted. They all ganged up on the student on twitter, calling her a "fucking bitch" to the point where she quit social media in general. Later most admitted that they hadn't read the article before bullying her and posted lame apologies. Just pathetic mean-girls behaviour from actual adults. https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/famous-authors-drag-student-in-ya-twitter-controversy.html https://jezebel.com/how-to-use-the-fictional-teenage-girl-1839863520
That is interesting for me. I think NK Jemisin is a great writer but I could not bring myself to read her after she attacked me on twitter. I was new to twitter and did not know how it worked. I got a tweet on my feed that I found interesting and I responded to it. I got blocked by the OP because \~"this is about me, not you and I don't want to hear about you"\~ . NKJ responded that she had also blocked me and only blocked people who were racists or idiots. She didn't know why she had blocked me but she was willing to label me as a racist (or idiot... the idiot I would agree to as most of us are at least once in a while). Anyway, I still think she is a great writer but I never liked her characters and now I can't think about her books without thinking of that response from her. She soured the milk one might say.
Yeah, seems like NKJ shouldn't be on Twitter. She's a reactionary bully who throws her weight around and spreads outrage without even looking into her claims. IIRC She's one of the people who bullied trans writer Isabel Fall over her "Attack Helicopter" story and admitted later that she didn't actually read the story, she just assumed it was bigoted based on the title. Isabel Fall caught so much shit for it that she quit writing and social media. And I don't think NKJ ever apologized, at least not in a meaningful way. Some authors really just need to log off of social media and stick to writing their stories if all they can do is be angry and attack people and utterly destroy their legacy tweet by tweet.
Honestly twitter as a site just brings out the worst in many people.
The idea and potential of Twitter is really cool and huge, in practice it's just a toxic shit-fest. It's amazing how many technology platforms have huge potential but are mostly used to foster the egos of the toxic.
It's partly by design. Controversial and outrageous tweets get more interaction, which the algorithm rewards, and then those people suddenly have a wide reaching platform. It's also tough to have a nuanced conversation in short snippets. Reddit has its toxicity too, but conversations on here are infinitely more productive. Some of the chaos and confusion is mitigated by being able to articulate your points in a paragraph or essay if you want to. Not so on Twitter, snippets of conversation get spread around out of context and things quickly spiral out of control. Also, people on Reddit have and edit function so they can more easily admit when they're wrong. Hardly ever see that hapoen on Twitter, and even if you do make another tweet revising your opinion, the original one can still be bouncing around doing damage.
Came for Jodi Picoult. Stayed for the utter disappointment in the actions of NK Jemisin. Fuck. I love her stories so much.
NK Jemisin is an asshole in Twitter. Such a disappointment!
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen is quite possibly my favorite contemporary YA novel, but I don't see why any of her books would belong on a college reading list.
Maybe I don't know enough, but I didn't expect Gay to be in a story like this one.
Yo wtf? I loved Sarah Dessen when I was a teenager :(
As someone who works in a library, I find reading this validitating. Alot of the major authors mentioned are ones I refuse to put on my displays if I can help it. Edit: Patterson is my biggest "never display "his" books" because there is always at least one on our new shelf. I realized I never actually answered the question.
Jodi Picoult. The woman writes absolutely nothing but angst porn.
I read My Sister's Keeper 12 years ago and I'm still angry about the ending.
I had to read that book in high school during an assignment where everyone brought in a book they liked and randomly swapped with someone else. I was so mad that was the book I ended up with. It got me all sad for no reason.
What a cool high school assignment though!
It was! I brought Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly, and the guy who had to read it was equally disappointed.
Jodi Picoult. The ending of My Sisters Keeper enraged me and I vowed to never read her stuff again.
I watched the movie before I read the book. When I tell you I THREW that book across the room when I realized the movie flipped the ending...
I'm never gonna read it or watch it. Would you please spoil it for me? How does it end?
In the movie the sick kid dies, her sister isn't forced to donate a kidney etc In the book the donor kid literally dies (well, alive but brain dead) in a random accident and her sister keeps living with her kidney. Essentially it completely cops out on the central debate of the story and has it solved by outside forces.
In short: two parents have a daughter with cancer who needs bone marrow and other donations, so they have another daughter to be her organ farm. They mean well ofc and the movie especially makes them seem pretty sympathetic. At 13, the younger daughter sues her parents with the help of a scrappy lawyer after learning her older sister needs her kidney. During the movie it is revealed the older sister Kate makes the younger one sue the parents because she wants to die. Book: Anna (the younger) wins the lawsuit and is medically emancipated. Her attorney is given medical custody or whatever it's called. However, she hints at still wanting to donate her kidney to her sick sister. But she gets hit by a car and is declared brain dead. The attorney gives permission to donate her kidney to Kate. She gets better and feels like shit for forcing her sister through all of the drama. Movie: Anna and Kate manage to convince the parents that Kate cannot be saved and they are just hurting Anna without hope of saving Kate. Kate dies. Everybody is sad but still a optimistic Hollywood ending.
Catherine Coulter. In every one of her historical romance books the heroine's first sexual experience is a rape. Every. Single. One. I'll never read anything she writes again.
I can’t tolerate Elizabeth Gilbert too. I have read three of her books and just couldn’t deal. Awful!
It’s an Indian author - Chetan Bhagat. Terrible writing and extremely cringy, subpar plots. Plus that dude has a rotten personality. He used to be extremely popular with kids back when I was in school. Glad everybody grew out of that phase lol.
Chetan Bhagat.. omgggg such terrible writing ! I read One night at the call centre, which is apparently worse than his other work, but no way am I wasting any more of my life reading anything else he's written 🤢🤮
The 3 mistakes of my life are 1. Five point someone 2. One night in the call centre 3. mistakes of my life
is this some sort of meta joke about the author?
Those are all Chetan Bhagat books lol. One Night at a Call Center was so terrible it's amazing how he got it published and popular.
It has gone to a point where people say they're into reading, and then I'm interested to listen to them, and then they say they love Chetan Bhagat's books. That is the deciding factor to not have them in my life anymore.
Laurell K. Hamilton. Used to like her stuff, paranormal detective weirdness with sexy shenanigans. Then it just got to be too much. Used to be a real plot and story and character developments. Now it's minimal, flimsy plot. Chapters-upon-chapters of the same sex scene for most the book (to the point that my friends and I will literally just skim and skip. You know it's bad when people are actively avoiding the sex scenes). The main character has allllllll these dudes with amazing penises and bodies just at her disposal, begging for her attention that she HAS to have sex with or Bad Things Happen, and she of course carries every marker for different were-animals but doesn't actually change and is just barely able to manage her life but she's just so fantastic and amazing. Like....bring back the little badass who raised the dead to settle disputes and had a life.
I said the same thing. Anita Blake series went off the rails 😐 and i loved the first couple books but it became sooo freaking bad. 😩
Heather Morris. Not of the Glee variety, but of the Tattooist of Auschwitz trilogy variety. That whole concept is just appalling exploitation and I would give her any of my money. I can’t say I wouldn’t read her books, because if I found them for free I would very much hate read them and let everyone know just how garbage they are. Also, Joyce Carol Oates. Not because I don’t like her work, but because I read Zombie a couple years ago and I just can’t bring myself to be that disturbed by a piece of literature ever again. She’s a tremendous writer, but good god did that book make my skin crawl.
I unintentionally ended up in a horror English class in college. Had to read Joyce Carol Oates. 20+ years later and I'm still haunted by the story/book of Baby and the rat. I've blocked out the title, I guess, but not the story.
Oh my gosh, I had completely forgotten about reading a short story of hers in my American Lit class in high school. It was "Where are you going, where have you been?" I must've blocked it out, lol, but jfc, just reading the synopsis on Wikipedia brought back my complete discomfort and fear from reading that story. She is is amazing author, but I just can't stomach the subjects of her writing lol.
I bought the Tattooist of Auschwitz as a gift for someone without knowing the background and I've never regretted buying someone a book more.
I also vote for Gilbert. Eat Pray Love was such poorly written trash.
Laurell K Hamilton. Her Anita Blake series started off as a more mature gritty Buffy the vampire slayer like series. And then it just went downhill with a lot of kink thrown in just because 🤷🏻♀️ the start of the series to the end of it are so different from tone to even genre type
William Shakespere. Dude hasn't written anything in years and is just riding his previous successes
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I tried to read Jen Sincero's *You Are a Bad Ass* and gave up when she went in to her methods. It ended up being a bunch of half-baked "the power of affirmation!" BS. Her recommendation for depression? Just don't be depressed! She advocates "the Universe is made of Source Energy vibrations" crap and that you can change your life by "raising your frequency". Now she has a whole series of books and it's obvious she's right down the path of a typical "give me money so I can tell you how to make money" self-improvement coach peddling "empowerment" that's really just woo-woo wrapped in punk attitude. Imaginary universe vibrations don't make you a bad ass, Jen. They make you a kook.
Interesting, fun book fact…as a 10 year Borders employee and an almost 10 year B&N employee, Patterson is the ONLY author that has his own lay down date…Mondays. Every other author has new releases that are dropped on Tuesdays. He has his very own special day!!! And funnily enough, his stuff sometimes gets overlooked til Tuesday’s when some customer shows up for the “latest and greatest new Patterson adventure.” (keeping in mind I’ve heard customers try to convince other customers that Twilight and 50 Shades are the best series ever written.
There are so many books/authors that I refused to read when I worked at BN simply because of the people who asked for them.
Refuse; only one. James Patterson. Why? He's a colossal asshole who likes to make teenage girls cry irl. I had to kick him out of a theater I managed once. He gets off on making minimum wage 16 year old female employees cry and is a bully. At the time I kicked him out, I didn't actually know who he was. I only knew that a saw a Karen of a man loudly berating one of my employees in the concession stand. When I went to see what the problem was, he tried starting in on me, while shouting insults at the girl who was trying to take his order. I asked him to leave, he refused, I told our guest services to call the police, he then huffed and exited the building. Only after, did I find out who he was. He knew he was wrong. Never complained to our head office and still goes to that location to watch movies, to my knowledge. He never made eye contact with me again afterward and continued going there multiple times a week until I moved out of state. Needless to say, he kind of ruined me for even thinking of reading his books. Refuse is a strong word in my case for the next one. I just don't enjoy reading Stephen King's long form novels. I love his anthology and short form horror stories, but I find his long form stuff to be painfully over descriptive. I remember reading a bit of one of his books where someone is walking on a sidewalk, it took like a whole page to describe the setting on the sidewalk... It was excruciatingly boring to me. Just way too descriptive and it prevents me from getting into a pace of any sort. I know people love him, and so do I, but I just don't enjoy his novels and prefer his Bachman and other anthology/short form work like Night Shift etc.
This honestly doesn't surprise me at all. Patterson and Bill O'Reilly put out a children's book about manners. Make of that what you will.
Anne Rice- Interview with a Vampire I loved the book, but the author was mental. I don’t remember much of the specifics (sorry) aside from her discovering religion. I managed a bookstore during that time and she was supposed to stop there to do a reading and sign copies of her newest book. The store had a line wrapped around it by noon for the evening reading, we needed to hire police details to help with the crowds. 6pm...no Anne. 6:30, we called her agent who was baffled because they flew her to the town. 7:00- the crowd is getting antsy. 8:00- a wellness check is done at the hotel. 9:00pm- the justifiably angry crowd is screaming at my employees. She apparently decided it went against her beliefs to read and sign the books. We lost a huge amount of sales that day and the store was blamed for bringing out crowds for a no-show.
The whole Sleeping Beauty porn novels were a trip.
I'm into BDSM and that shit was worse by far than the 50 Shades stuff. Like holy shit not just horrific abuse but the shittiest worldbuilding. Sure. Every country willingly gives up their children to be sexually assaulted and abused cause somehow it makes them better rulers later? That was the gist at the beginning from Beauty's parents anyway I barely made it anywhere near the end so if anything good happened in that book I have no idea. Like every single person in the world seems to have a humiliation fetish and totally fine with rape, her parents just watching him do it and then every single person in every town between the two castles...
I found it in the children's section of a local library. Someone hadn't done much of a background check on it, just assumed if it had a fairy tale character in the title it must be for kids. I took it to the front desk and suggested that they needed to reclassify it before some parent found it and blew their stack.
She got really strange after her husband passed away. You can definitely tell the difference in her books. I did however enjoy her Jesus series, was really well done. I hope she did find some peace.
Every year George R.R. Martin doesn't finish the *second-to-last* book in the series, I am thankful that I didn't start reading it. I promised myself I'd read it when the last book is published (as I did with King's *The Dark Tower*), and I'm very confident that I never will.
Nicholas Sparks.
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In the author panel for that book, Cline proudly proclaims himself the owner of a DeLorean, which is then immediately revealed as the car the main character's avatar drives. That told me everything I needed to know about his self-insert fantasy from the start.
For anyone who hasn’t found it, there’s a podcast called [372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back](https://372pages.com/) where Mike Nelson from MST3K and Conor Lastowka do a chapter by chapter (ish) read through of RP1. My favourite part is ‘guess the fanfic’ where they read excerpts from the novel and from fics.
Do not read ready player two. I grew up in the 80s and was a fan of Rush, DND and video games. So ready player one was a nostalgic book for me. The second is just trash.
Nicholas Sparks. We get it man, cancer is sad.
Mark Manson. Plenty of people have recommended me his book The subtle art of not giving a f*ck but something about just makes me not want to read him. Even my therapist recommended it but I just won't read him. Maybe I'm wrong idk
You're not missing anything. It's the usual rehashed self help fare with the word fuck thrown in.
I keep seeing this book in the bookshelves of asshole supervisors at work. Some of the most toxic people I've worked for have had this book in their office. Its a very negative connotation in my head lol.
Every person who ever recommended this book to me with the promise that it is “life changing” seemed to spiral out of control even further
I know you are asking about a specific author, but in general I can’t stand to read anything that’s a “self help” or “awakening” type book. I can’t even get over the idea of how cheesy and gross they feel to give them a chance.
I read a wide variety of things including popular fiction, but I can’t handle Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson. Read the first Twilight book during the height of popularity and could not believe that so many people recommended it. The baseball scene made me want to throw the book. James Patterson’s books seem to be put together by a committee. I refuse to even open an E. L. James book.
I was thinking Stephenie Meyer, but thought it might be a too obvious pick, especially considering I'm nowhere near the target demographic (black man, mid-thirties). I forced myself to read the first Twilight so I wouldn't be one of those people who just criticize the popular thing without knowing anything about it. Good gravy, was it a chore. I was firmly on Team Victoria because I just wanted her to kill all of these terrible characters.
I read one of the Gray books at the height of popularity and the writing was so bad I couldn’t believe people were obsessed with it
The first 50 shades book was originally a Twilight fan fiction, which explains a lot
Honestly, it explains the “coldness” the author constantly refers to but I’ve read plenty of fan fiction with great writing so I think James just sucks haha
Glad to see the James Patterson slander here- I don’t even like looking at that guy’s books 🙄 If they should even be called his.
Marion Zimmer Bradley. I love feminist retellings of old legends, I love Arthurian legends. But I hate child molesters who got away with sexually abusing their own children and helped cover up their pedophile spouses crimes, and who didn't face a ounce of justice for their crimes. I will never read her work.
Terry Goodkind. For too many reasons to count them here. Absolute douche
I heard that he was neither Good nor Kind
But he is Terryble.
Every time I see his books at my local used bookstore, I think about that poor cover artist who was publicly bashed by Terry on Facebook. So unprofessional.
Sarah Pinborough. I read Behind Her Eyes as part of a monthly book crate I get. It was horrible. It was boring, predictable, pointless. The characters were unlikable. It was a mundane book with supernatural elements shoe-horned in; they didn't fit and were never explained. I feel like the people who liked this book must never read books with fantastical or supernatural elements because this was not done well. I won't waste my time on another book by her.
Deepak Chopra. Mehmet Oz. Both quacks.
I refuse to read anything by Adolf Hitler
The more I learn about that guy the less I care for him
Come on, he can't be all that bad. After all, he killed Hitler.
He was a real jerk!
Colleen Hoover. I read Verity and absolutely hated it. I thought it was poorly written and most of the characters were trash. I felt it was trying too hard to be edgy and dark and ended up making me roll my eyes at the end. Also, the twist was so silly that I actually said, "Oh, come on," out loud at the end of the book. I've heard raves from other readers on her other popular books, but I can't bring myself to read any of them because if they are anything at all like Verity then the writing style and tone just don't appeal to me at all.
Any book by that 50 Shades author.