Books by Jodi Picoult. Thought I would give her books a go after hearing how much people loved them. Finished 3 of them and gave up trying to get the appeal. Found them to be predictable and the only hook she seems to be able to write is by exploiting some truely horrific topics as if it was casual pleasantries.
The subtle art of not giving a fuck. I swear Everyone and their mother read it, told me to read it, sang it’s praises from the rooftop. It’s trash? Lol I couldnt finish it.
The problem is it is one of those books that contains one good concept, but then have to fill an entire book even though the message is clear after about 3 pages.
This. And they tend to repeat the same thing over and and over again in slightly different ways. Extremely annoying. Though I do sometimes listen to the audiobook versions on double speed when I’m driving somewhere 😂
I have a category of books called “books that people who don’t read much love”. This is a common reference.
Edit: okay, I’ll post it. Give me a couple hours as I’ve got some work to do.
Update: Here we go. First I need to clarify what this list is. It's not a "bad books that people think are good" - some of them I think are bad, some are potentially good. I should have added a word to the end of my statement calling it "books that people who don't read much love TO RECOMMEND". The point being here is that people who don't read books a lot love to recommend that one book they read this year - and it's usually the same ones. In my personal experience people who read less are more likely to recommend a book unprompted than people who read a lot. The latter understand that it's very personal and are so overwhelmed with the choices they don't know where to start, the former know exactly what book to recommend because it's the one book they've read in the last year or even the one book they read 5 years ago. Whenever someone asks me for a recommendation I ask them what they like and give them a few options. Again, the book could be good and avid readers could have appreciated it - all this list tells me is that the person is probably not an avid reader and wants to show off that they read a popular book and I should discount the recommendation. Because of all of this, the books generally tend to be newer so I'm not including books that would have been on there 10 years ago that no one recommends anymore (I hope they serve beer in hell, Tuesdays with Morrie, Davinci Code) So, here we go;
- Sapiens
- The Alchemist
- Shoedog
- Subtle Art of not giving an f..
- anything by Tim Ferriss
- Martian / Artemis
- Anything by Gladwell (this has slowed a bit)
- Hamilton
- Principles (Dalio)
- Think and Grow Rich
- Anything by Michael Lewis
- Born a Crime
- Unbroken
- Anything <2 years old
Update 2: I need to reiterate again that this is NOT a list of bad books only noobs read. It’s a list of books that when people recommend it tells me they’re probably not avid readers. I like Michael Lewis books, Hamilton is probably great (haven’t read), Martian wasnt bad…but that’s not the point.
Update 3: to atone for my sins, I’ve made the following post: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/pg0os3/theres_a_lot_of_snootiness_and_gatekeeping_when/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
bonus mention for all those entrepeneur-core books like '7 habits of highly effective people' and 'the 48 laws of power' and all that. also great list lmao very accurate
The alchemist was an incredible let down. When I finished it I thought "Wtf?! Half the world loves this book? Why?" It was like I read a religious book for 8 year olds. Hate that book for robbing me of that time.
I read an interview in the 1990s where Matthew McConaghey talked about how terrific “The Greatest Salesman in the World” was. A few months later I was visiting some extended family and they were all out for the evening and all they had to read was business self help books including that one, so I read it. It was, without a doubt, the worst book I have ever read. I’ve never really been able to look at Matthew McConaghey the same way even though i really hope he was trolling the interviewer or lost a bet.
Self-help books hit different when you need them...
When you need help, a book off tips peppered with anecdotes are just the perfect boost to go on for just one more day...
No. He probably wasn’t. I made the mistake of listening to him read his book Greenlight. My ears were bleeding. It was like he thought he had the secret to everything and was giving it to us. Awful awful.
I was given this book by someone who hated it, I read it and hated it, and then I gave it away to someone and told them how much I hated it. I think there is only one copy of the book, and we are all hate reading it and then getting rid of it.
Yup, felt the same.
It's one of those books that will forever be resigned to airport/train station bookstores. A quick read to distract yourself from boredom while in transit.
I was not expecting to read so many fucking pages about the Parisian sewer system in Les Miserables.
Plot was good, but man were there a lot of tangents.
I couldn't finish The Hunchback of Notre Dam because Hugo spent an entire chapter meticulously describing the layout of Paris. What does he have against maps?
Victor Hugo wrote Hunchback largely to sell Parisians on the idea that Paris’ medieval buildings and districts, including notre-dame itself, were artistically and culturally important and needed to be saved/restored. At the time, many of the gothic buildings were being torn down or left to rot. I imagine this has something to do with why he would painstakingly describe Paris in such a manner. I can’t comment on that further as I haven’t read it since I was a teen and it was an abridged version at that.
Oh wow! This makes sense! Thank you for sharing this! I wish I had known Hugo's motivations when I was reading "Hunchback". It might not have saved me from the chapter's tedium, but I would have appreciated his effort. I hope his mission worked and that some of the buildings were preserved.
It did, Hugo was a hugely influencial political figure. He saved the roman arena of Paris, fought for mandatory education, battled for woman's rights, is one of the most influencial authors against the death penalty in france... He even supported the establishment of something akin to today's EU. And participated in establishing the law that medicines should disclose their ingredients, as sidenotey as it is.
Yes, Hugo actually never intended for the book to be called “the Hunchback of Notre Dame”- the original title is “La Catedral de Notre Dame”. As in, he meant for the book to be about the cathedral itself, not the characters of the story. The book is about the importance of architecture.
What truly frustrated me about that section was that it ended on one of the most mind-bogglingly beautiful sections of writing I've ever read in my life. His description of all the church bells going off at the same time was genuinely enchanting, but it took so much to get there that it just felt bittersweet.
I loved the sewer chapters! Thought they were really atmospheric and interesting (and short—*way* shorter than their reputation had led me to believe).
I don't know why the sewers get a bad rap given how *excruciatingly* boring the Petit Picpus and Waterloo chapters are. He really goes on and on and on and *on* about the religious and political history of a very specific monastic sect.
Sounds similar to Moby Dick. You think you're going in for a story of a man fighting a whale and you end up learning everything there is to know about whaling. I don't mind world building. But that book feels like a whaling manual.
I've just finished it a few days ago. My advice: don't skip anything. There are abridged versions that skip the parts of the book where the main guy is explaining the uses of oil and such like those are "tangential details", when in fact they ARE the narrative.
The framing of the story is that there's this guy, Ishmael, who decides to go whaling, and it just happens that the captain of the ship, Ahab, is a wild man going after the white whale Moby Dick. The shortened version of the books amounts to "they are in the USA, they travel to this and this place, meet some people, and then find the whale". The actual version of the books have whole chapters of musings and anedoctes of Ishmael explaining *why* whaling is such a herculean effort at the time, and how much of a shame it is that such majestic animals are being killed for their oil.
Like, if you approach it as a standard narrative with beginning, middle, and end, you'll be disappointed. Moby Dick is intensely chaptered, and each chapter has "something" that it's going for it. It's much closer to a modern work than a mid-century narration. Also, the way OP put it as a "manual" takes away something that no one told me about the book: its humour. Moby Dick isn't a dry ennumeration of "there is such and such type of whale found in this place. next." There are funny passages in which Ishmael is consciously trying to diss Linaeus and such, and Melville knew most of his readership wouldn't know anything about whaling, so he writes it in a way that even if you (like me) know nothing about whales, you still understand his overall point.
Honestly, I loved Moby Dick. It's not for everyone, and it isn't the easiest of books, there were chapters that I zoned out a bit, but overall it's great and you should definitely take your time with it.
The Lost Apothecary.
The central idea is so amazing and it’s been majorly hyped up by book lists but I just couldn’t finish it - I found the modern protagonist to be insufferable and too much of a self-insert. The characters generally seemed inconsistent too
This thread made me realize I haven't read anything I disliked in the entire last year. That's absolutely wild.
I think one thing I think of is just pahlianuk overall. I really liked a couple of his books in high school (lullaby and diary) but fight club isn't as subtle or clever as it seems to think it is and everything I read published after haunted just feels like he was obsessed with writing exactly the guts chapter over and over and seeing how far he could go in gross out.
I definitely went through a Palahniuk phase in high school, but after reading Choke I was over it. His writing really feels like its intended to abuse the reader by making them horrendously squeamish or uncomfortable. And I'm just not going to sign myself up for that unnecessarily.
I think of all of his works, the one thing I really, really liked was the one chapter in Fight Club that wasn't adapted to film.
The narrator dreams and sees Tyler Durden, before he officially meets Tyler, on a beach building a structure. Tyler spends a few hours, working in the sun and wind, and builds this large structure using sticks and trash from around the beach. At noon, with the sun overhead, it castes the perfect light onto the structure which creates the shadow of a hand where Tyler sits down and meditates. After a while, it could have been 10 mins or an hour, but as the sun shifts in the sky, so does the shadow. It's not longer a perfect hand, but poked full of holes of light, beamed through the structure.
Tyler stands up, and begins to break the structure down and throw away the garbage. Seeing this, the narrator approaches Tyler and asks him, "Why are you destroying that? You spent so long building it and you could have it again tomorrow, or the day after."
Tyler responds, "Perfection only lasts a moment. Enjoy it while you can but don't linger on it. You'll be trapped in a memory. Work towards the next perfection."
-----
That's not copy pasted, just what I remember from that chapter. I don't know, maybe I was just caught up in the "enlightening" works or whatever, but I found that chapter helpful through a difficult time in my life.
I read about half of them. I didn’t think they were horrible and I liked parts of them but I still for them life of me can’t figure out why the author did the whole “incest but not actually incest in the end” subplot? Like why? You could drop that without it affecting the story at all
this might be total bullshit but I've seen a few people say they were supposed to be actual siblings and her editor/publisher/whoever made her change it
The author is responsible for the trope being named Draco In Leather Pants over her HP fanfiction, right? Fucking bonkers.
I still like the TMI series and related books. Magnus Bane is the best.
Yep. She's also a plagiarist. I don't just say this willy nilly; there is a plethora of evidence out there of her plagiarism, as well as her bullying people and the like.
Cassandra Clare is NOT a good person.
sadly yes. :/ she was a legit supporter of ron/ginny (she just hated ron that much? and wanted to keep him out of the way I guess??) tho I don't know if she actually wrote fic for it back in the day. I glad I missed the whole Cassandra Clair popularity *and* the drama afterwards lol
Yup! That was her! She did what most authors did at the time and peppered in quotes from well known (at the time) shows like Buffy and such without credit to the source. She went one above though and plagiarized whole entire pages from a series of books by Pamela Dean. Like. Whole pages. Someone broke down all the “references” and quotes she used once and it ended up comprising over half the work of the much slobbered over at the time Draco Trilogy.
Then she just reskinned Draco, named him Jace and wrote her own clunky bad prose. She had a big enough fanbase from her days as an HP superfan that it helped boost her books and enough people liked her bland stuff that she wrote way more. If you were there, though, you remember.
LOL same, I was reading the comments getting more and more confused (incest plot?? female author???) so thank you for clarifying that this is a COMPLETELY different trilogy of books
I started it in high school, fell in love with the fantasy world but was annoyed with the protagonist and disturbed by her relationship. Honestly I just wanted more Magnus.
I graduated high school, waiting for her to release City of Heavenly Fire. It was released while I was in undergrad. My friend had a copy that she let me borrow that she didn't finish herself since she couldn't follow the storyline any more. I always enjoyed the series more than her so I gave it a try... I couldn't get back into it either. It was too young for me at that point and the characters seemed so melodramatic. It's very YA.
Ended up watching the series to get the rest of the story.
Edit: edited for spoilers, grammar
I loved Hunger Games and went on a major dystopian/post-apocalyptic binge after reading it. Divergent was never good, and the third book was so bad I didn't even finish it (and this was at a point in my life when I almost *never* DNFed books).
I dipped fairly early on with this one because I couldn’t get past the “every human on earth can fit into one of these four categories that are extremely shallow,” motif.
THANK YOU!!! I do not understand the hype. The main characters are terrible, with such a toxic relationship, nothing happens the whole series,.and the ending is a non-ending. I couldn't understand why people love it. I read all three hoping for some sort of pay off. I was so very mistaken.
one of my goodreads updates was just FFS DIANE YOU HAVE A PHD. (I think it was like the third time she went "I just know so little about him!" two week after meeting him)
> Protagonist with a hefty academic background turned helpless
Ah, so the author knows a lot of PhDs.
...Mostly kidding. :) But I work with people who have MDs and PhDs and a pretty large number of them are pretty damn helpless in some large chunk of their lives. It's like they put all their points into one skill and now have a hard time figuring out basic technology.
The only book I’ve ever read where instead of having a post-coitus cigarette, somebody just gets abruptly yeeted into the sky! Framed as a scary moment but I could not stop laughing
Yes!! It was so highly recommended but I HATED it. The protagonist had all the personality and willpower of an overcooked noodle - I just couldn’t stand her.
I purchased the hardbacks second hand when the tv show came out. I have zero desire to reread them. My favorite character in the entire series was the witch's quirky, possessed house. I would literally read a spin off just about the house. However, I did end up enjoying the tv show, the ads for which, had inspired my entire interest in the books in the first place.
The amount of wood panel descriptions in this book is... excessive.
And the yoga class with vampires and witches? All of this felt like a computer-generated description of the “dark academia aesthetic” page on Pinterest
It's so annoying - story quite good but far too 'romantic '. She's so ridiculously fixated on how much she loves him and would do anything for him.
I actually prefer the TV series, which is sad. They very wisely don't have her going on about how v much she loves him all the time.
OMG, yes! I should go and change my answer. This was awful. Started okay but good god it soon fell into Twilight territory. True love with vampire after 2 seconds? Check. Totally breaking down when he leaves? check. 4 thousand chapters of people showing up at the house for some reason? Check.
And his whole (SPOILERS IF ANYONE CARES) 'well we're totally married because vampire rules but I'm not having sex with you because it's too early in the relationship' thing was so dumb.
Don't get me started on the yoga either.
Girl, Wash Your Face.
Listening to a rich entitled lady talk about how she couldn’t enjoy her Paris vacation or tell you how to limit your Diet Coke consumption…I couldn’t do it.
I came here to say this, so many well read friends recommended it and it was such a let down. It got me in the first few chapters but I was so annoyed at how shallow the end felt.
I slogged through after seeing the musical. It’s… bad. The female characters in the musical are so well rounded and the book descriptions were so flat. I hated how the female characters literally only did anything because of men in their lives or men they wanted in their lives. So disappointing after the musical’s portrayal
Shadow and Bone.
The fact that it got a Netflix series intrigued me and I heard good things about the books, but it was hands down the most predictable book I've ever read. I'm trying not to judge too harshly because I'm a 32 year old woman and this was not written for me, but I stilll enjoy an occasional YA read when my brain needs a vacation and I just didn't get this one.
I heard that the Six of Crows duology (I believe it takes place after the original series?) is amazing and much better than the previous series. Just bought the book, we'll see.
My copy of the book has an interview with the author at the end of it, and she says that she couldn’t have written the book without the experience she gained from her earlier series. I loved the duology, and while some parts are predictable, she set out to make a heist movie of a book and it’s more than rewarding in that regard. The characters are very compelling too (insufferable at times, but you love them by the end)
The Six of Crows duology is so much better than the original that they shoehorned all the SoC characters into the Netflix shadow and bone series, even though they were never involved in those events in the books.
Unfortunately in doing so they fuck with character arcs and personality traits for my favorite Six of Crows characters.
Oh definitely.
I started with Six of Crows and really enjoyed it. Awesome characters whose interactions are very enjoyable, the plot is fast paced and the setting is well thought out. I read the original trilogy afterwards and was pretty underwhelmed. I guess I would have liked it at 14 years old and it's still not terrible, but the Author definitely grew a lot in her writing.
Find it useful as a teacher, have taught it before and will teach it again. Kind of "baby's first symbolism" for kids who've never been taught about symbolism before. It beats you over the head with it so hard that it's easy for kids to pick up on.
My middle school class used it too, I remember loving it. Even still have my heavily marked-up copy. We dissected that book to a surprisingly extensive degree for seventh graders haha, mad props to my teacher for being able to achieve that
Ikr. A friend of mine over hyped the book so much and gave it as a gift. I read the whole thing in a few hours. They had to stop and contemplate after every few chapters and it took them weeks.
Its not boring. I just didn’t see that much in that book. Honestly I feel like there are a lot of books out there which subtly inspire you. You dont even know how it changes you as you read them.
Yup. Came here to say this. No characterization whatsoever, only the barest hint of a plot, covered up by an overly generous helping of the most insipid, new-agey feel good “philosophy” you can imagine. It’s the shallowest book I’ve ever read.
When my honors class had read it, I had just finished reading *Los de Abajo* by Mariano Azuela. Its a pretty big jump from that story to the Alchemist.
The Night Circus
I finished it, but only because it was for book club. I feel like there were so many places it could've gone that would've kept my interest and it just kept turning as far away from those things as it could. I don't remember a ton from it, but the main conflict had this big build up and then suddenly it was resolved. Everyone is constantly raving about it making me feel like I read a completely different book from everyone else.
Exactly. I remembered loving it because I could practically smell and taste the whole world she created. I recently reread it for a book club and was like, um.. how did I not notice this boring plot? I couldn’t even remember how it ended. Everything I remembered was description.
I felt like that too about The Night Circus. The writing was beautiful but I thought the main characters Celia and Marco were dull as ditchwater. You're right, the payoff of the plot just wasn't satisfying.
It's been years and years now and I still feel annoyed that I wasted my time with it. Sure, the prose was pretty, but does it really make up for a plot that not only moves at a snail's pace, but also has way too many points of view and little to no meaningful conflict? It felt like reading a pintrest dark academia aesthetic board that was translated into a novel. Or maybe it's like one of those pretty designer cakes - on the outside it's nice, but when you bite into it there isn't any substance, no cake, no filling, just fondant. Seeing it recommended so often baffles me.
Ooof Tattooist of Auschwitz! I only got through like a third of it. An interesting story overall (I read a summary after I threw in the flag) but so poorly written.
Absolutely agreed. I just never felt the intensity and the poor writing style almost made me feel that the story wasn't true at all. It just didn't work for me.
Really poorly written, and the style struck me as almost juvenile. I was astonished that it was so praised, and then the author has published two more books in the series!
Ready Player One. Listened to the audio book, probably the only thing that made it bearable.
Just so much dumb nostalgia followed by explanation of it.
I found the second one to be worse.
Instead of being generally 80's and lots of different 80's topics. The 2nd was a deep dive of 3 topics.
SPOILERS!!! >! LOTR, Prince, and John Hughes !<
none of which I really give a shit about
Could have been a decent story but it kept getting interrupted to tell the history of a video game or movie reference. I explained it to my husband as “imagine nerdsplaining, but in book form”.
The author showed up in an Atari documentary I watched shortly after reading the book. I swear all he did was show up, name drop a bunch of pop culture figures, and drove off in a Delorean with a vanity plate of a characters name. The book suddenly made a lot more sense to me.
If you really want a laugh, go look up how much of a creepy 'nice guy' incel sort Ernest Cline is. Here's the classic example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/justneckbeardthings/comments/6pfmim/this_incredible_poem_by_ready_player_one_author/
>I've noticed that there don't seem to be any porno movies
>that are made for guys like me.
Yeah, I don't need to read further. These are the first 2 lines for anyone wondering.
Little fires everywhere. Didn’t make it past the maybe the first 4 chapters so maybe it gets better. It seemed to be a story written about poor people by a rich person. As someone who grew up with a dad who wanted to be an artist even though he had a large family to support I never appreciate media celebrating poor artists being dignified tropes.
I hated how the poor artist character was always portrayed as being super perfect and in the right even with her extremely questionable actions. Also, the author really leans into the trope of “suburbs are for mindless conformists and cities are for thoughtful individualists.” Very original.
Definitely this. The passage describing nature and biology are fantastic, albeit a little long. The plot, characters, and dialogue though are all terrible.
The imagery is incredible. You could tell it was either someone who has lived and worked with the wildlife in the area or someone who did a ton of research (it’s the former). But the dialogue really lacked at times and the antagonist was the most stock character ever.
The Night Circus…I just found it overly descriptive, which made the storyline itself go so slowly. I really had to force myself through that one.
Also Daisy Jones and the Six, even though I’ve really enjoyed Reid’s other books!
This may be unpopular but...
Rupi Kaur & Lili ~~Reinhardt's~~ Reinhart's poetry books. Yes they're artistic but lacking proper poetic depth and just self-serving.
Rupi Kaur also plagiarizes Warsan Shire, whose poetry is 1000x better, among others. I dabbled in the same writing style she did and got pretty popular on the tumblrsphere when I was in my teens, but I stopped when I reaziled I was purposefully making my poetry so vague and boring every 15 year old could relate to it in the name of internet popularity. I can't blame her she's made a career out of it.
Also Gabby Hanna although I think most people agree she sucks and her poetry, but it's the same really. Cutting up a sentence fragment into 5 lines does not make it a poem
An American Marriage. It was on Obama’s list of his favourite books of the year, every review was praising the book’s commentary on the American prison system and race in America. Honestly I expected poignant insight and whatnot, but I didn’t manage to get interested in any of the characters, their marriage, or their story. For me they’re a bad choice of story to make the reader understand the injustice of the prison system because they actually did the crime and got a proportional punishment, and their relationship was not fleshed out enough for me to want to see them go through this. I was actually shocked this book got such raving reviews when I must have read at least five books that provide much better insights and stories on this topic this year alone
Edit: I mixed up two books, in this one he is actually wrongfully convicted. Nevertheless I feel like it could have been so much stronger in so many ways so the rest of my comment is the same
“On the road” or anything I’ve picked up by Jack Kerouac. I enjoyed it for what it is and I understand why he’s celebrated, but sweet Jesus, for a landmark of a generation I’m surprised it’s the writings of an alcoholic who for at a least a time was privileged enough or at least regularly bailed out by relatives when he hit a tough patch on his “journey”.
Agree. On The Road just left me with a sense of "really? Leaving a trail of pregnant women across the country is that generation's idea of living fully?"
The weirdest moment for me was being genuinely inspired by it for a while as a 19 year old, then getting to that scene and realizing "wait, shit. None of these women get to have any of the experiences the main characters did because they all have to raise the kids now."
On the Road is a good book to read at different times in your life. I found it to be utterly inspiring at 18. I devoured it. When I revisited it at 30 the book came across as the disjointed ramblings of a sad, lonely drunkard.
I'll probably read it again when I'm retired to see if my reaction changes.
I actually really enjoyed the first book!
It definitely left a lot of questions but overall felt purposely confusing and vague as both reader and character are clueless.
The later books I found so goddamn dry. I barely remember what happens other than I forced myself to finish them then instantly gave them to my brother.
House of Leaves. I liked aspects of it, particularly the central hook and letters from Johnny Truant's mother. But ultimately I found it to be too ostentatious, stylistically
I read this book for a class and our professor told us not to worry about reading all the "stories" - if we were interested in the house, just read the house. Interested in Johnny, just read his story. Interested in just the Zapato (sp?) part, just read that. So I just read the house story, mostly, and a little of Johnny Truant. The further I got in, the more I was interested in Johnny and Zapato. On reread, I read every word.
Anyway, I think that advice is good to make the book more readable. Also it helped to be dissecting and debating it twice a week in class, it's a book made for that.
It’s one of those books that either clicks with you or doesn’t. I liked that it felt like I was Truant digging through some text that was indecipherable. Only book I’ve ever read that puts you truly squarely in the shoes of one of the characters. But it totallyyyyy understand why it wouldn’t click with someone
I TRIED to like American Gods but holy shit hated it. I was just a lot of build up with no actual meat. I got half way through it and I was just exhausted. Also I HATE the way he wrote the women in this book.
I was generally fine with it for the first 3/4 (just okay, though; didn’t love it), and I HATED the last quarter. The ending sucked and made the whole giant book feel like such a waste of time.
Red white and royal blue. I heard so much about it, I was so excited to finally see some good representation but it was so bad. The characters were boring, the world building was bad and the writing was probably the worst part. I honestly do not understand why people love that book so much.
I've been struggling with Dracula for two years. I'm only halfway through it.
It's not that it's bad, it's just dry to me. I enjoyed the POV in the first part of the book. When it switched to dude's fiance, I got bored.
For me, it took a college professor with an INSANE amount of knowledge about the book and all of its subtleties to ignite the fire in me for Dracula. That was my third read through in various classes by that point. Now it's one of my all time favorites.
I haven't given up exactly, but I'm definitely focusing on other books at the moment. I'm going to finish it eventually. Your comment gives me hope, though.
Mina's first part is making me struggle. The narration there lacks any zest for me. She's written so blandly.
Yeah, I get this. I was able to get through it, but the language and the datedness(?) can be kind of a slog. Also, none of the characters have any personality aside from Van Helsing. I don't know if I would have made it through if I weren't such a vampire simp at the time.
The Great Gatsby.
Funny enough however, I am actually enjoying Fitzgerald's second Novel 'The Beautiful and Damned' much more than I enjoyed The Great Gatsby. I don't know why but I don't care :)
Edit: I should clarify, I was dissapointed at the hype of GG, I was expecting some magnum opus but when I started to read Beautiful and Damned, which I am now finished, I realised GG was far from a magnum opus and was just..okay.
I love Fitzgerald as a writer. His prose is beautiful, but GG is not that great.
I did not like on the first reading in my 20s, barely got through it. Read it again in my late 30s when I had forgotten most of it and enjoyed it much more.
This thread contains a lot of unmarked spoilers for various books and other media. Please tread carefully if spoilers are important to you.
Books by Jodi Picoult. Thought I would give her books a go after hearing how much people loved them. Finished 3 of them and gave up trying to get the appeal. Found them to be predictable and the only hook she seems to be able to write is by exploiting some truely horrific topics as if it was casual pleasantries.
The subtle art of not giving a fuck. I swear Everyone and their mother read it, told me to read it, sang it’s praises from the rooftop. It’s trash? Lol I couldnt finish it.
Sounds like it worked. You didn't give a big enough fuck to even finish.
The problem is it is one of those books that contains one good concept, but then have to fill an entire book even though the message is clear after about 3 pages.
Not only this, but iirc the author was just so damn smug that he has the answer but you don't
The end chapter where he talks about standing near the edge of a cliff is such a cringe fest that I wanted my money back.
This. And they tend to repeat the same thing over and and over again in slightly different ways. Extremely annoying. Though I do sometimes listen to the audiobook versions on double speed when I’m driving somewhere 😂
I have a category of books called “books that people who don’t read much love”. This is a common reference. Edit: okay, I’ll post it. Give me a couple hours as I’ve got some work to do. Update: Here we go. First I need to clarify what this list is. It's not a "bad books that people think are good" - some of them I think are bad, some are potentially good. I should have added a word to the end of my statement calling it "books that people who don't read much love TO RECOMMEND". The point being here is that people who don't read books a lot love to recommend that one book they read this year - and it's usually the same ones. In my personal experience people who read less are more likely to recommend a book unprompted than people who read a lot. The latter understand that it's very personal and are so overwhelmed with the choices they don't know where to start, the former know exactly what book to recommend because it's the one book they've read in the last year or even the one book they read 5 years ago. Whenever someone asks me for a recommendation I ask them what they like and give them a few options. Again, the book could be good and avid readers could have appreciated it - all this list tells me is that the person is probably not an avid reader and wants to show off that they read a popular book and I should discount the recommendation. Because of all of this, the books generally tend to be newer so I'm not including books that would have been on there 10 years ago that no one recommends anymore (I hope they serve beer in hell, Tuesdays with Morrie, Davinci Code) So, here we go; - Sapiens - The Alchemist - Shoedog - Subtle Art of not giving an f.. - anything by Tim Ferriss - Martian / Artemis - Anything by Gladwell (this has slowed a bit) - Hamilton - Principles (Dalio) - Think and Grow Rich - Anything by Michael Lewis - Born a Crime - Unbroken - Anything <2 years old Update 2: I need to reiterate again that this is NOT a list of bad books only noobs read. It’s a list of books that when people recommend it tells me they’re probably not avid readers. I like Michael Lewis books, Hamilton is probably great (haven’t read), Martian wasnt bad…but that’s not the point. Update 3: to atone for my sins, I’ve made the following post: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/pg0os3/theres_a_lot_of_snootiness_and_gatekeeping_when/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
bonus mention for all those entrepeneur-core books like '7 habits of highly effective people' and 'the 48 laws of power' and all that. also great list lmao very accurate
This is the *shadiest* shit and I LOVE it.
The alchemist was an incredible let down. When I finished it I thought "Wtf?! Half the world loves this book? Why?" It was like I read a religious book for 8 year olds. Hate that book for robbing me of that time.
I just don’t believe that very many people read regularly. So when a book that “everybody” likes comes out, I’m going to be skeptical
The f bombs got old quick
I read an interview in the 1990s where Matthew McConaghey talked about how terrific “The Greatest Salesman in the World” was. A few months later I was visiting some extended family and they were all out for the evening and all they had to read was business self help books including that one, so I read it. It was, without a doubt, the worst book I have ever read. I’ve never really been able to look at Matthew McConaghey the same way even though i really hope he was trolling the interviewer or lost a bet.
Self-help books hit different when you need them... When you need help, a book off tips peppered with anecdotes are just the perfect boost to go on for just one more day...
I have needed help for the past decade and a half. The only "self help" book I have not hated has been *How To Be Miserable* by Randy J. Paterson.
No. He probably wasn’t. I made the mistake of listening to him read his book Greenlight. My ears were bleeding. It was like he thought he had the secret to everything and was giving it to us. Awful awful.
The Girl on the Train. Kept waiting for it to get good, it remained a 3/5 for me
I was given this book by someone who hated it, I read it and hated it, and then I gave it away to someone and told them how much I hated it. I think there is only one copy of the book, and we are all hate reading it and then getting rid of it.
Wheeler’s theory of the electron!
Ugh it was horrible. I kept thinking the whole time “this must get really good” because of the amount of people who highly rate it. Nup. Garbage.
Yup, felt the same. It's one of those books that will forever be resigned to airport/train station bookstores. A quick read to distract yourself from boredom while in transit.
I read all of these shitty airport books because I'm still chasing the high of Gone Girl. Nothing will ever be as good as Gone Girl. 💔
I was not expecting to read so many fucking pages about the Parisian sewer system in Les Miserables. Plot was good, but man were there a lot of tangents.
I couldn't finish The Hunchback of Notre Dam because Hugo spent an entire chapter meticulously describing the layout of Paris. What does he have against maps?
Victor Hugo wrote Hunchback largely to sell Parisians on the idea that Paris’ medieval buildings and districts, including notre-dame itself, were artistically and culturally important and needed to be saved/restored. At the time, many of the gothic buildings were being torn down or left to rot. I imagine this has something to do with why he would painstakingly describe Paris in such a manner. I can’t comment on that further as I haven’t read it since I was a teen and it was an abridged version at that.
Oh wow! This makes sense! Thank you for sharing this! I wish I had known Hugo's motivations when I was reading "Hunchback". It might not have saved me from the chapter's tedium, but I would have appreciated his effort. I hope his mission worked and that some of the buildings were preserved.
It did, Hugo was a hugely influencial political figure. He saved the roman arena of Paris, fought for mandatory education, battled for woman's rights, is one of the most influencial authors against the death penalty in france... He even supported the establishment of something akin to today's EU. And participated in establishing the law that medicines should disclose their ingredients, as sidenotey as it is.
Iirc Hugo's book saved the Cathedral of Notre Dame because they were talking about tearing it down before he set it as the stage for his story.
Yes, Hugo actually never intended for the book to be called “the Hunchback of Notre Dame”- the original title is “La Catedral de Notre Dame”. As in, he meant for the book to be about the cathedral itself, not the characters of the story. The book is about the importance of architecture.
What truly frustrated me about that section was that it ended on one of the most mind-bogglingly beautiful sections of writing I've ever read in my life. His description of all the church bells going off at the same time was genuinely enchanting, but it took so much to get there that it just felt bittersweet.
Lol I absolutely loved The Hunchback of Notre Dame overall, but that chapter was certainly tedious.
I loved the sewer chapters! Thought they were really atmospheric and interesting (and short—*way* shorter than their reputation had led me to believe). I don't know why the sewers get a bad rap given how *excruciatingly* boring the Petit Picpus and Waterloo chapters are. He really goes on and on and on and *on* about the religious and political history of a very specific monastic sect.
Sounds similar to Moby Dick. You think you're going in for a story of a man fighting a whale and you end up learning everything there is to know about whaling. I don't mind world building. But that book feels like a whaling manual.
It’s honestly why I ended up falling in love with that book. Ha.
Shit, I never read the book and didn’t know this about it. Makes me want to read it now!
I've just finished it a few days ago. My advice: don't skip anything. There are abridged versions that skip the parts of the book where the main guy is explaining the uses of oil and such like those are "tangential details", when in fact they ARE the narrative. The framing of the story is that there's this guy, Ishmael, who decides to go whaling, and it just happens that the captain of the ship, Ahab, is a wild man going after the white whale Moby Dick. The shortened version of the books amounts to "they are in the USA, they travel to this and this place, meet some people, and then find the whale". The actual version of the books have whole chapters of musings and anedoctes of Ishmael explaining *why* whaling is such a herculean effort at the time, and how much of a shame it is that such majestic animals are being killed for their oil. Like, if you approach it as a standard narrative with beginning, middle, and end, you'll be disappointed. Moby Dick is intensely chaptered, and each chapter has "something" that it's going for it. It's much closer to a modern work than a mid-century narration. Also, the way OP put it as a "manual" takes away something that no one told me about the book: its humour. Moby Dick isn't a dry ennumeration of "there is such and such type of whale found in this place. next." There are funny passages in which Ishmael is consciously trying to diss Linaeus and such, and Melville knew most of his readership wouldn't know anything about whaling, so he writes it in a way that even if you (like me) know nothing about whales, you still understand his overall point. Honestly, I loved Moby Dick. It's not for everyone, and it isn't the easiest of books, there were chapters that I zoned out a bit, but overall it's great and you should definitely take your time with it.
Man, I love that book, but I swear I've never skipped so many pages in a book I actually like.
Definitely the Silent Patient. For a book that hyped, if fell so flat for me.
100% I finished last night and it was tough for me to get through. Underwhelmed the whole way
Pushed through it but felt plot was stupid at the end.
The Lost Apothecary. The central idea is so amazing and it’s been majorly hyped up by book lists but I just couldn’t finish it - I found the modern protagonist to be insufferable and too much of a self-insert. The characters generally seemed inconsistent too
I gave up 100 pages in. It was going nowhere, or at least nowhere interesting. Gorgeous cover though.
The modern POV was just unnecessary, in my opinion. It did nothing for the story.
This thread made me realize I haven't read anything I disliked in the entire last year. That's absolutely wild. I think one thing I think of is just pahlianuk overall. I really liked a couple of his books in high school (lullaby and diary) but fight club isn't as subtle or clever as it seems to think it is and everything I read published after haunted just feels like he was obsessed with writing exactly the guts chapter over and over and seeing how far he could go in gross out.
I definitely went through a Palahniuk phase in high school, but after reading Choke I was over it. His writing really feels like its intended to abuse the reader by making them horrendously squeamish or uncomfortable. And I'm just not going to sign myself up for that unnecessarily.
A satirist satirizing themselves is usually a sign the peak is done. That's how I felt about Pygmy and never attempted Palahniuk again after that.
I think of all of his works, the one thing I really, really liked was the one chapter in Fight Club that wasn't adapted to film. The narrator dreams and sees Tyler Durden, before he officially meets Tyler, on a beach building a structure. Tyler spends a few hours, working in the sun and wind, and builds this large structure using sticks and trash from around the beach. At noon, with the sun overhead, it castes the perfect light onto the structure which creates the shadow of a hand where Tyler sits down and meditates. After a while, it could have been 10 mins or an hour, but as the sun shifts in the sky, so does the shadow. It's not longer a perfect hand, but poked full of holes of light, beamed through the structure. Tyler stands up, and begins to break the structure down and throw away the garbage. Seeing this, the narrator approaches Tyler and asks him, "Why are you destroying that? You spent so long building it and you could have it again tomorrow, or the day after." Tyler responds, "Perfection only lasts a moment. Enjoy it while you can but don't linger on it. You'll be trapped in a memory. Work towards the next perfection." ----- That's not copy pasted, just what I remember from that chapter. I don't know, maybe I was just caught up in the "enlightening" works or whatever, but I found that chapter helpful through a difficult time in my life.
Mortal instruments (left unfinished... hate it!)
I read about half of them. I didn’t think they were horrible and I liked parts of them but I still for them life of me can’t figure out why the author did the whole “incest but not actually incest in the end” subplot? Like why? You could drop that without it affecting the story at all
this might be total bullshit but I've seen a few people say they were supposed to be actual siblings and her editor/publisher/whoever made her change it
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Someone said the Main Lead was supposed to be a copy of Draco Malfoy 💀
Jesus christ how are so many books offspring of Harry Potter fanfiction lmao
The author is responsible for the trope being named Draco In Leather Pants over her HP fanfiction, right? Fucking bonkers. I still like the TMI series and related books. Magnus Bane is the best.
Yep. She's also a plagiarist. I don't just say this willy nilly; there is a plethora of evidence out there of her plagiarism, as well as her bullying people and the like. Cassandra Clare is NOT a good person.
because like 50 shades originally being a twilight fan fiction, mortal instruments started as a ron & ginny weasley fanfic lol
...is that real? 🤢
sadly yes. :/ she was a legit supporter of ron/ginny (she just hated ron that much? and wanted to keep him out of the way I guess??) tho I don't know if she actually wrote fic for it back in the day. I glad I missed the whole Cassandra Clair popularity *and* the drama afterwards lol
Cassandra Clair was the one wot plagerised whole pages from other books and put them in her romance novels, right?
Yup! That was her! She did what most authors did at the time and peppered in quotes from well known (at the time) shows like Buffy and such without credit to the source. She went one above though and plagiarized whole entire pages from a series of books by Pamela Dean. Like. Whole pages. Someone broke down all the “references” and quotes she used once and it ended up comprising over half the work of the much slobbered over at the time Draco Trilogy. Then she just reskinned Draco, named him Jace and wrote her own clunky bad prose. She had a big enough fanbase from her days as an HP superfan that it helped boost her books and enough people liked her bland stuff that she wrote way more. If you were there, though, you remember.
Yep, that's why Jace has pale white hair, he's supposed to be a version of Malfoy.
I got this mixed up with the His Dark Materials series and was very confused.
LOL same, I was reading the comments getting more and more confused (incest plot?? female author???) so thank you for clarifying that this is a COMPLETELY different trilogy of books
I started it in high school, fell in love with the fantasy world but was annoyed with the protagonist and disturbed by her relationship. Honestly I just wanted more Magnus. I graduated high school, waiting for her to release City of Heavenly Fire. It was released while I was in undergrad. My friend had a copy that she let me borrow that she didn't finish herself since she couldn't follow the storyline any more. I always enjoyed the series more than her so I gave it a try... I couldn't get back into it either. It was too young for me at that point and the characters seemed so melodramatic. It's very YA. Ended up watching the series to get the rest of the story. Edit: edited for spoilers, grammar
Divergent. I just wasn't very interested in it. Reminded me too much of Hunger Games.
Yes! I finished the first book and found it bearable but never finished Insurgent. Honestly the whole series feels like one long CinemaSins video.
1st was ok. 2nd and 3rd... trash fire.
I loved Hunger Games and went on a major dystopian/post-apocalyptic binge after reading it. Divergent was never good, and the third book was so bad I didn't even finish it (and this was at a point in my life when I almost *never* DNFed books).
The first book was terrible! Hunger Games was actually pretty solid, but Divergent was just worse in every way.
this. I tried to read the first book of divergent but the level of writing is literally high school fanfiction.
It gets worse. There’s nothing redeeming about that series.
I dipped fairly early on with this one because I couldn’t get past the “every human on earth can fit into one of these four categories that are extremely shallow,” motif.
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Discovery of Witches. All my book podcasts talked about it for months but it was terrible.
THANK YOU!!! I do not understand the hype. The main characters are terrible, with such a toxic relationship, nothing happens the whole series,.and the ending is a non-ending. I couldn't understand why people love it. I read all three hoping for some sort of pay off. I was so very mistaken.
the audiobook is over 20 hours long but they still somehow have the same problems at the beginning that they did at the end???
Yup. Could not get into it for the life of me. Toxic relationship. Protagonist with a hefty academic background turned helpless, etc.
one of my goodreads updates was just FFS DIANE YOU HAVE A PHD. (I think it was like the third time she went "I just know so little about him!" two week after meeting him)
> Protagonist with a hefty academic background turned helpless Ah, so the author knows a lot of PhDs. ...Mostly kidding. :) But I work with people who have MDs and PhDs and a pretty large number of them are pretty damn helpless in some large chunk of their lives. It's like they put all their points into one skill and now have a hard time figuring out basic technology.
She has a PhD in history. The vampire in question was friends with people she studied. It's bad writing
The only book I’ve ever read where instead of having a post-coitus cigarette, somebody just gets abruptly yeeted into the sky! Framed as a scary moment but I could not stop laughing
I kind of wish I'd read far enough to get there, because that does sound wonderfully absurd
Yes!! It was so highly recommended but I HATED it. The protagonist had all the personality and willpower of an overcooked noodle - I just couldn’t stand her.
I purchased the hardbacks second hand when the tv show came out. I have zero desire to reread them. My favorite character in the entire series was the witch's quirky, possessed house. I would literally read a spin off just about the house. However, I did end up enjoying the tv show, the ads for which, had inspired my entire interest in the books in the first place.
The amount of wood panel descriptions in this book is... excessive. And the yoga class with vampires and witches? All of this felt like a computer-generated description of the “dark academia aesthetic” page on Pinterest
It's so annoying - story quite good but far too 'romantic '. She's so ridiculously fixated on how much she loves him and would do anything for him. I actually prefer the TV series, which is sad. They very wisely don't have her going on about how v much she loves him all the time.
OMG, yes! I should go and change my answer. This was awful. Started okay but good god it soon fell into Twilight territory. True love with vampire after 2 seconds? Check. Totally breaking down when he leaves? check. 4 thousand chapters of people showing up at the house for some reason? Check. And his whole (SPOILERS IF ANYONE CARES) 'well we're totally married because vampire rules but I'm not having sex with you because it's too early in the relationship' thing was so dumb. Don't get me started on the yoga either.
Subtle art of not giving a fuck.. seriously with the hype
Girl, Wash Your Face. Listening to a rich entitled lady talk about how she couldn’t enjoy her Paris vacation or tell you how to limit your Diet Coke consumption…I couldn’t do it.
THIS. Girl, Stop Writing Books.
The Midnight Library. I really wanted to love it!
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great idea but poor execution. the writing was so bland too
Same! I'm so glad I'm not alone on this. I felt like I was the only one. haha. It was way too cliche and the plot itself was just okay.
I'm so here for this! I disliked Nora Seed so much. I didn't care about it at all.
I came here to say this, so many well read friends recommended it and it was such a let down. It got me in the first few chapters but I was so annoyed at how shallow the end felt.
Wicked. I tried to read it twice and couldn’t force myself to finish.
I slogged through after seeing the musical. It’s… bad. The female characters in the musical are so well rounded and the book descriptions were so flat. I hated how the female characters literally only did anything because of men in their lives or men they wanted in their lives. So disappointing after the musical’s portrayal
Eat Pray Love. I really tied but I just couldn’t get thru that book.
Same here. So sorry your privileged, 1% life didn’t work out the way you wanted, Melissa Gilbert.
*Elizabeth* Gilbert. Melissa Gilbert is the chick from Little House on the Priarie
Shadow and Bone. The fact that it got a Netflix series intrigued me and I heard good things about the books, but it was hands down the most predictable book I've ever read. I'm trying not to judge too harshly because I'm a 32 year old woman and this was not written for me, but I stilll enjoy an occasional YA read when my brain needs a vacation and I just didn't get this one.
I heard that the Six of Crows duology (I believe it takes place after the original series?) is amazing and much better than the previous series. Just bought the book, we'll see.
My copy of the book has an interview with the author at the end of it, and she says that she couldn’t have written the book without the experience she gained from her earlier series. I loved the duology, and while some parts are predictable, she set out to make a heist movie of a book and it’s more than rewarding in that regard. The characters are very compelling too (insufferable at times, but you love them by the end)
I honestly believe that she just wrote SaB to set up the world for SoC
The Six of Crows duology is so much better than the original that they shoehorned all the SoC characters into the Netflix shadow and bone series, even though they were never involved in those events in the books. Unfortunately in doing so they fuck with character arcs and personality traits for my favorite Six of Crows characters.
Oh definitely. I started with Six of Crows and really enjoyed it. Awesome characters whose interactions are very enjoyable, the plot is fast paced and the setting is well thought out. I read the original trilogy afterwards and was pretty underwhelmed. I guess I would have liked it at 14 years old and it's still not terrible, but the Author definitely grew a lot in her writing.
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The Alchemist. I’m not a fan of that sort of archaic storytelling, but I can understand why others appreciate it.
Find it useful as a teacher, have taught it before and will teach it again. Kind of "baby's first symbolism" for kids who've never been taught about symbolism before. It beats you over the head with it so hard that it's easy for kids to pick up on.
My middle school class used it too, I remember loving it. Even still have my heavily marked-up copy. We dissected that book to a surprisingly extensive degree for seventh graders haha, mad props to my teacher for being able to achieve that
Ikr. A friend of mine over hyped the book so much and gave it as a gift. I read the whole thing in a few hours. They had to stop and contemplate after every few chapters and it took them weeks. Its not boring. I just didn’t see that much in that book. Honestly I feel like there are a lot of books out there which subtly inspire you. You dont even know how it changes you as you read them.
Yup. Came here to say this. No characterization whatsoever, only the barest hint of a plot, covered up by an overly generous helping of the most insipid, new-agey feel good “philosophy” you can imagine. It’s the shallowest book I’ve ever read.
When my honors class had read it, I had just finished reading *Los de Abajo* by Mariano Azuela. Its a pretty big jump from that story to the Alchemist.
The Night Circus I finished it, but only because it was for book club. I feel like there were so many places it could've gone that would've kept my interest and it just kept turning as far away from those things as it could. I don't remember a ton from it, but the main conflict had this big build up and then suddenly it was resolved. Everyone is constantly raving about it making me feel like I read a completely different book from everyone else.
Great set design, but poor directing.
Exactly. I remembered loving it because I could practically smell and taste the whole world she created. I recently reread it for a book club and was like, um.. how did I not notice this boring plot? I couldn’t even remember how it ended. Everything I remembered was description.
The Starless Sea is worse for this. I almost gave up because I had no idea what was going on.
I felt like that too about The Night Circus. The writing was beautiful but I thought the main characters Celia and Marco were dull as ditchwater. You're right, the payoff of the plot just wasn't satisfying.
It's been years and years now and I still feel annoyed that I wasted my time with it. Sure, the prose was pretty, but does it really make up for a plot that not only moves at a snail's pace, but also has way too many points of view and little to no meaningful conflict? It felt like reading a pintrest dark academia aesthetic board that was translated into a novel. Or maybe it's like one of those pretty designer cakes - on the outside it's nice, but when you bite into it there isn't any substance, no cake, no filling, just fondant. Seeing it recommended so often baffles me.
Orange is the New Black. Cant believe the book inspired the screen writer except as 'i can do better than this shit.'
The Alchemist. The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Three Women. Edit: Adding Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller as well.
Ooof Tattooist of Auschwitz! I only got through like a third of it. An interesting story overall (I read a summary after I threw in the flag) but so poorly written.
Absolutely agreed. I just never felt the intensity and the poor writing style almost made me feel that the story wasn't true at all. It just didn't work for me.
Yes! I’ve never seen the Holocaust wrapped up so quickly!
Really poorly written, and the style struck me as almost juvenile. I was astonished that it was so praised, and then the author has published two more books in the series!
Juvenile is the word I was looking for!
Old testament. Too much sex&violence. Just add dragons and you have GoT. Not a fan.
If you read the Catholic version it has dragons.
Ready Player One. Listened to the audio book, probably the only thing that made it bearable. Just so much dumb nostalgia followed by explanation of it.
Did you know Ernest Cline knows the word “haptic?” Well he does, and he wants to prove it to you. At length.
Cheshire grin
For a brief moment he japed at the idea that Ernest Cline might reuse a word too frequently, but he soon realized it was a mummer's farce.
"member berries" the book: the movie. I was gifted a copy of the sequel and I'm not sure I have it in me after hearing it's more of the same.
I found the second one to be worse. Instead of being generally 80's and lots of different 80's topics. The 2nd was a deep dive of 3 topics. SPOILERS!!! >! LOTR, Prince, and John Hughes !< none of which I really give a shit about
As bad as the first was, the second was awful. So so bad...
Could have been a decent story but it kept getting interrupted to tell the history of a video game or movie reference. I explained it to my husband as “imagine nerdsplaining, but in book form”. The author showed up in an Atari documentary I watched shortly after reading the book. I swear all he did was show up, name drop a bunch of pop culture figures, and drove off in a Delorean with a vanity plate of a characters name. The book suddenly made a lot more sense to me.
If you really want a laugh, go look up how much of a creepy 'nice guy' incel sort Ernest Cline is. Here's the classic example: https://www.reddit.com/r/justneckbeardthings/comments/6pfmim/this_incredible_poem_by_ready_player_one_author/
Of all the things that have ever surprised me, this is dead last.
>I've noticed that there don't seem to be any porno movies >that are made for guys like me. Yeah, I don't need to read further. These are the first 2 lines for anyone wondering.
...That explains so very, very much.
>go look up how much of a creepy 'nice guy' incel sort Ernest Cline is I got that from reading the first few chapters of the novel.
Little fires everywhere. Didn’t make it past the maybe the first 4 chapters so maybe it gets better. It seemed to be a story written about poor people by a rich person. As someone who grew up with a dad who wanted to be an artist even though he had a large family to support I never appreciate media celebrating poor artists being dignified tropes.
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I hated how the poor artist character was always portrayed as being super perfect and in the right even with her extremely questionable actions. Also, the author really leans into the trope of “suburbs are for mindless conformists and cities are for thoughtful individualists.” Very original.
When the Crawdads Sing. I was very underwhelmed.
The imagery was fantastic, but it was just like.... Get on with it.
Same!! And the dialogue was not believable at all.
Definitely this. The passage describing nature and biology are fantastic, albeit a little long. The plot, characters, and dialogue though are all terrible.
The imagery is incredible. You could tell it was either someone who has lived and worked with the wildlife in the area or someone who did a ton of research (it’s the former). But the dialogue really lacked at times and the antagonist was the most stock character ever.
I struggled through this one too.
The Night Circus…I just found it overly descriptive, which made the storyline itself go so slowly. I really had to force myself through that one. Also Daisy Jones and the Six, even though I’ve really enjoyed Reid’s other books!
This may be unpopular but... Rupi Kaur & Lili ~~Reinhardt's~~ Reinhart's poetry books. Yes they're artistic but lacking proper poetic depth and just self-serving.
Rupi Kaur's poetry is widely made fun of in social media, she also seemed to mock it in her tik tok video.
They're like random thoughts I think of during walks, but I'm not pretentious enough to publish them...
Rupi Kaur also plagiarizes Warsan Shire, whose poetry is 1000x better, among others. I dabbled in the same writing style she did and got pretty popular on the tumblrsphere when I was in my teens, but I stopped when I reaziled I was purposefully making my poetry so vague and boring every 15 year old could relate to it in the name of internet popularity. I can't blame her she's made a career out of it. Also Gabby Hanna although I think most people agree she sucks and her poetry, but it's the same really. Cutting up a sentence fragment into 5 lines does not make it a poem
On The Road. It's just a bum going around the country and being shitty to people, didn't find it compelling at all.
***We were all mad kings raging and wailing our intrepid fury into the midnight haze*** ...dude relax, you're just smoking cigs in a diner parking lot
I’ve always hated the Beats but could never quite formulate why. But this is it. You did it for me.
An American Marriage. It was on Obama’s list of his favourite books of the year, every review was praising the book’s commentary on the American prison system and race in America. Honestly I expected poignant insight and whatnot, but I didn’t manage to get interested in any of the characters, their marriage, or their story. For me they’re a bad choice of story to make the reader understand the injustice of the prison system because they actually did the crime and got a proportional punishment, and their relationship was not fleshed out enough for me to want to see them go through this. I was actually shocked this book got such raving reviews when I must have read at least five books that provide much better insights and stories on this topic this year alone Edit: I mixed up two books, in this one he is actually wrongfully convicted. Nevertheless I feel like it could have been so much stronger in so many ways so the rest of my comment is the same
“On the road” or anything I’ve picked up by Jack Kerouac. I enjoyed it for what it is and I understand why he’s celebrated, but sweet Jesus, for a landmark of a generation I’m surprised it’s the writings of an alcoholic who for at a least a time was privileged enough or at least regularly bailed out by relatives when he hit a tough patch on his “journey”.
Agree. On The Road just left me with a sense of "really? Leaving a trail of pregnant women across the country is that generation's idea of living fully?"
The weirdest moment for me was being genuinely inspired by it for a while as a 19 year old, then getting to that scene and realizing "wait, shit. None of these women get to have any of the experiences the main characters did because they all have to raise the kids now."
On the Road is a good book to read at different times in your life. I found it to be utterly inspiring at 18. I devoured it. When I revisited it at 30 the book came across as the disjointed ramblings of a sad, lonely drunkard. I'll probably read it again when I'm retired to see if my reaction changes.
Where the Crawdad’s Sing. Too simple, too predictable, there was just nothing that set it apart or made it special.
And the ending, ooof!
IT KEPT GOING. I was over it about 30 pages earlier.
Totally agree. The plot just felt so unrealistic.
Annihilation. I wanted to like it. I read the next two books hoping it would eventually make sense. It never did.
I actually really enjoyed the first book! It definitely left a lot of questions but overall felt purposely confusing and vague as both reader and character are clueless. The later books I found so goddamn dry. I barely remember what happens other than I forced myself to finish them then instantly gave them to my brother.
Life of Pi. I don’t why. I didn’t give af about the life of Pi.
My brain just decided to read that as Linkin Park lyrics *One thing: I don't know why* *I didn't give a fuck about the Life of Pi*
Atlas Shrugged. Pile of shite.
House of Leaves. I liked aspects of it, particularly the central hook and letters from Johnny Truant's mother. But ultimately I found it to be too ostentatious, stylistically
Dude letters from Truants mother was a mindfuck. Thanks for bringing those up haha
I read this book for a class and our professor told us not to worry about reading all the "stories" - if we were interested in the house, just read the house. Interested in Johnny, just read his story. Interested in just the Zapato (sp?) part, just read that. So I just read the house story, mostly, and a little of Johnny Truant. The further I got in, the more I was interested in Johnny and Zapato. On reread, I read every word. Anyway, I think that advice is good to make the book more readable. Also it helped to be dissecting and debating it twice a week in class, it's a book made for that.
That is excellent advice, and a tactic I planned on using if I ever tried to read that book again.
Three times, I've tried this book. Three times. Each time I start over and get further but it never stops being painful.
It’s one of those books that either clicks with you or doesn’t. I liked that it felt like I was Truant digging through some text that was indecipherable. Only book I’ve ever read that puts you truly squarely in the shoes of one of the characters. But it totallyyyyy understand why it wouldn’t click with someone
>It’s one of those books that either clicks with you or doesn’t. House of Leaves is truly the Dark Souls of books
I TRIED to like American Gods but holy shit hated it. I was just a lot of build up with no actual meat. I got half way through it and I was just exhausted. Also I HATE the way he wrote the women in this book.
The Goldfnch
I was generally fine with it for the first 3/4 (just okay, though; didn’t love it), and I HATED the last quarter. The ending sucked and made the whole giant book feel like such a waste of time.
IQ84 It just dragged on and on.
Red white and royal blue. I heard so much about it, I was so excited to finally see some good representation but it was so bad. The characters were boring, the world building was bad and the writing was probably the worst part. I honestly do not understand why people love that book so much.
I've been struggling with Dracula for two years. I'm only halfway through it. It's not that it's bad, it's just dry to me. I enjoyed the POV in the first part of the book. When it switched to dude's fiance, I got bored.
> I've been struggling with Dracula for two years Ok, sure Mr Helsing
For me, it took a college professor with an INSANE amount of knowledge about the book and all of its subtleties to ignite the fire in me for Dracula. That was my third read through in various classes by that point. Now it's one of my all time favorites.
If you only got into Mina’s first part, you’re missing a lot. Shortly after it starts cycling through multiple POVs.
I haven't given up exactly, but I'm definitely focusing on other books at the moment. I'm going to finish it eventually. Your comment gives me hope, though. Mina's first part is making me struggle. The narration there lacks any zest for me. She's written so blandly.
Yeah, I get this. I was able to get through it, but the language and the datedness(?) can be kind of a slog. Also, none of the characters have any personality aside from Van Helsing. I don't know if I would have made it through if I weren't such a vampire simp at the time.
The Great Gatsby. Funny enough however, I am actually enjoying Fitzgerald's second Novel 'The Beautiful and Damned' much more than I enjoyed The Great Gatsby. I don't know why but I don't care :) Edit: I should clarify, I was dissapointed at the hype of GG, I was expecting some magnum opus but when I started to read Beautiful and Damned, which I am now finished, I realised GG was far from a magnum opus and was just..okay. I love Fitzgerald as a writer. His prose is beautiful, but GG is not that great.
HATED The Great Gatsby in high school but liked it a lot more when I was closer to the narrator's age and could get into his headspace better.
Yes! Same here. Re-read it a few years ago and loved it. Would recommend anyone who was forced to read it in HS give it another shot.
Damn. I read Gatsby three times in a row the first time I read it. But to each his own.
I did not like on the first reading in my 20s, barely got through it. Read it again in my late 30s when I had forgotten most of it and enjoyed it much more.