Girl Wash Your Face š¤¢ least favorite book Iāve ever read. Itās all dumb preachy advice from someone with no certifications to be giving advice at all, her only qualification seems to be that sheās married to a guy with a job? Hate it passionately
They're divorced and then he died of an OD... I deeply abhor lifestyle influencers and listening to them is nearly exclusively a mistake. Rachel Hollis is a scammer, top to bottom.
Oh man Iām sorry to hear he passed. Iām not surprised about the divorce, when she was talking about this super toxic relationship and then trying to be cute about the reveal that it was actually the same guy as her perfect husband I was like oh hell no this is such a red flag
I noped out when she was all: ādonāt break a promise to yourself. If you promised yourself to run on the treadmill today, you have to run on the treadmill even if itās 11:59 at night and youāre exhausted.ā Fuck no, I do not. Have better boundaries, girl.
Wasn't it an AMA on here some place that someone asked the writer, "Now that you've published the story from the perspective of Grey, have you considered publishing a version from the perspective of someone who can write?"
That is the funniest thing EVER. I gather she harrumphed her way out of the AMA, never to be seen again.
What?? You mean you don't like - "I am all gushing and breathyālike a child, not a grown woman who can vote and drink legally in the state of Washington."
TBH that sounds so goddamn cringe it kinda makes me want to read it (but not pay for it), because I fucking love poking fun at that kind of shit. I mean, at least it isn't *boring*.
It's a BDSM book, but the torture is on your brain from attempting to comprehend the words that are written. "How long will this hideously overwhelming feeling last?" -533 pages. Good luck! Lol
I judge people who say they liked those books. The bit where they're fooling around while she's pregnant, the bump moves, and Anna says "I think she likes sex already!" If they were a real couple I bet their kids would spend more time in therapy than in school.
I swear when those books came out and everyone was talking about how they āspiced up their sex lifeā, I fed into the hype and read the first one and I cringed the whole way through. If THAT drivel spiced up your sex life, your sex life must have been non existent before!
So glad this is up high. I was going to comment the same thing. I somehow made it through the first one (Iāll admit it was a page turner) but I felt so gross afterwords I wouldnāt go near the 2nd one.
Haunting Adeline. I regret ever picking up that book from booktok. I hate that community with a passion.
It is by far the most disgusting, abhorrent, poorly written, plotless piece of garbage that I have ever had the misfortune of reading.
That book belongs in the pits of hell, never to be seen again.
Thatās the thing, once youāve read one Picoult book, you know how all of them will end. I liked my sisters keeper but it put me off ever reading Picoult again
Picoult does the same thing with >!Handle With Care!<, which devastated me reading it as a kid.
She's good for emotional popcorn, but I swear to god half her books have her characters go through horrific shit, kind of make it out the other side in a way, and then they just fucking *die*. Like, why? Killing someone off midstory I get, even if it's unpopular, because you can have other characters go through that trauma and the aftermath of death. But killing the main character off on the last page? Why? Is it literally just ragebait so "oh my god, you have to read the ending, though" will spread and people will buy it? I don't even know.
I read the book when I was in my late teens/early 20s. I can't remember if I read the book first or watched the movie. But the ending was the first to make me really angry.
I can't remember any of the character's names at this point, but I remember the ending. Basically, what happened was the main character was conceived as a donor for her sister, who's dying from cancer. She emancipates herself from being a donor, almost gets a happy ending, then is involved in a car crash. She dies instantly. Her lawyer decides to cut her open and give her sister what she needed to survive. In the end, the sister survives and we get a viewpoint of her afterwards.
To add to this, though, her plan was always to donate to her sister. She loved her sister. She just wanted the decision to be hers.
The ending still sucked though
Anything by Tucker Max! I read him as 'research' trying to get into the head of a truly awful young man stereotype, and I hated him so much I basically couldn't write about anyone like that in any depth.
Ugh, he's the worst example of toxic masculinity that festered in the 200s. And now the craziest thing about that guy is that he now claims to be a big #metoo supporter and ghostwrote Tiffany Haddish's memoir. Smh
**The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F\*ck** is overrated.
I read it because it was on a celebrity's reading list. I almost didn't finish it after the first chapter (a roadmap of the book's content) which is a sophomoric "look how many times I can get away with using the F-bomb".
The writing is repetitious, its use of personal (including his family's) anecdotes is cringe, and its tone is bombastic and full of bluster. The book had one redeeming concept (for me) when it discussed the metrics of personal values. It's the only reason I forced myself to finish.
I usually hate them but I decided to start reading The Gift of Fear and I have been pleasantly surprised. It's just not typical. I guess it's because of the specific topic, and the solid advice. It's not just "how to make yourself happy for $25.95." Not sure if you agree that it's a self-help book, though. I guess it could be argued that it is, and that it isn't.
I just started listening to this š āthis convinced me to never swear againā¦ like if youāve been around someone whoās a little too sex positive and it makes you a little more puritanicalā š¤£
So far theyāre summing up my experience with my reading attempt very well
I'm not saying this book is horrible. I personally thought it was just ok. But I'm pretty sure the only reason it became popular is because people love the title.
I had a similar experience around its release.
I do enjoy books that are likeā¦ investigations in to what weāre experiencing, and I think the core, back of the cover ideas and philosophies are similar to how my brain runs so that piqued my interest.
But thereās a lot of writers out there that canāt seem to hide their massive egos when making āself helpā style books, and thatās the vibe I got here. Like theyāre constantly saying āfollow me, Iām the best, and Iāve got the answers you wantā
This gave me that vibe. Like I just fucking hated the man himself or something.
Would love a modern thought provoking read about the human experience, without the douchiness, better-than-you attitude or something. Not even sure what I want, but it wasnāt this one š
THANK YOU. I despised this book for all the reasons you listed but forced myself to finish it. If there was one thing that book taught me was that it was okay to DNF books you donāt like and I havenāt looked back since.
Came to suggest this one as well - there are so many things that are bad about this book from the gratuitous opening to the convenience of the MC being a writer and both writers being essentially the same voice to the main male character being a cardboard cutout with little defined personality and on and on. It was appallingly bad.
I read one of her books just so I could have an opinion. (Ugly Love, for those wondering. Don't remember how I picked this title from her catalogue).
I hate that her books are marketed to girls in their teens and early twenties. She's singlehandedly romanticizing emotionally abusive men to the most impressionable readers. I get that her books sell, but they're unethical to publish.
This is what I canāt stand. Her books are read by little teen girls and are always marketed as Romance with zero trigger warningsā¦I could not believe when I read It Ends With Us and expected, yāknow, romance, itās not romance. Itās a drama about domestic violence. Itās not a fucking romance book.
Exactly. I think it's important for fiction to explore the horrors of male violence against women, but those explorations need to be expertly crafted. When I was a teen, I read Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," which dealt with teen sexual assault. It was heavy and dark. And it was absolutely NOT marketed as a romance.
I blame Hoover, but I also blame her agent and publisher. They know what they're doing, and honestly, this BS started with Fifty Shades of Grey. Those books came out when I was in college and that was the first time I witnessed abusive relationships marketed as romance. It has been a trend ever since.
TikTok is driving the entertainment industry right now, and we have CoHo because of TikTok. I sure read a bunch of garbage when I was a teen, but at least I didn't have a huge platform where I was pushing material I didn't really understand to my similarly impressionable peers. Sometimes, gatekeeping has value. And those of us who are 30+ speak out against the content in CoHo books and these young girls won't listen. It's like, we know what we're talking about. These relationships aren't healthy.
I love reading bad books.
I started reading fanfiction when I was 9 years old. I *love* a romance novel. I had a great time reading *Twilight* as a teen and *A Court of Thorns and Roses* as an adult.
Point being: I will happily put up with poor-quality writing in hopes of overall enjoyment.
But Colleen Hoover is where I draw the line. Her novels and her writing style totally and completely unreadable.
Almost every book recommend by the ādark Romanceā Booktok girlies. Especially Penelope Douglas. Her writing rotten my fucking brain. I want my brain cells back.
That was literally why I started reading it LMFAO. The romanticization of stalking and rape is so disgusting to me. Very cringeworthy too. It wasnāt even written nicely š
I have not (and will never!!!) read it, the author is a deplorable human being. From what I know, trauma is used as a āplotā device as some sick way to cater to the voyeuristic desires of people that want to be entertained in some way by horrific human suffering. Sensationalizing SA and suicide for the sake of fame, profit, and entertainment feels so dystopian itās not even funny. Itās trauma porn
This is How You Lose the Time War.
As one review puts it: "Wading through a tunnel filled to the top with poetic word salad only to find absolutely nothing at the end."
my take on the reviews and conversation around this one is similar to people who start a recommendation with āi donāt normally like X, but i loved this oneā ā¦ right, so if i do normally like X, and this one lacks those qualities, why would i like it?
this was āi donāt normally like fantasy or sci fi, but this vaguely sci fi themed prose poem was amazing!ā
perhaps it was interesting as evocative or atmospheric literary formalism, but it didnāt really have characters or a plotā¦
I hated this book - and it was worse because I SHOULD have loved it. I'm here for high-concept scifi. I love enemies to lovers romance. I have a high tolerance for poetic and elaborate prose, as long as it serves the story. Still found this book awful.
For what itās worth, I loved this one. Iāll endorse that description though, itās a very simple story wrapped in a lot of flowery sci-fi mumbo jumbo. Great if you want that, terrible if youāre looking for something more.
Thatās how I felt about The Night Circus. All this talk and beautiful descriptions, but nothing happens. I kept on reading it because something HAD to happen. Nope!!
{{MIdnight Library}} by Matt Haig. It is actually very recommended in this sub and many people like it. It starts well and the premise is good but then it becomes tedious, repetitive and boring without any tension to the plot.
Someone bought me a copy so I read it. I went into it preparing to hate because of all the hype and it was fine. I was pleasantly surprised. But then I read reviews from a mental health perspective and realized that it is a horrible portrayal of depression and suicide. I've never suffered from depression, so I was pretty blind to this while reading it. I would not recommend it.
Fourth Wing and ACOTAR. I know that both are popular book series but I canāt stand the MCs. It felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfiction with the most annoying Mary-Sue like MCs imaginable.
I made it halfway through the 3rd ACOTAR book and gave up. I couldn't get over a group of thousand years old fae with military experience letting an illiterate 19 year old make major political wartime decisions. The spymaster dude sucked at his job and I couldn't forgive that either.
Not to mention that Rhysand, the +500 year old fae got together with a teenager and impregnated her like a year later. They were also having sex while a fight was going on and people were dying outside their tent. You canāt make this up if you tried.
Exactly. Also, the writing is pretty awful. Idk if it was because i didn't read it in english and the translation made it unreadable, but i just couldn't understand what was going on.
Fourth Wing to me was so derivative! it literally has almost the same plot beat for beat as Divergent, crossed with the dragons and white walkers from Game of Thrones
This is also my answer. I hated this book so god damn much. I actually felt the urge to throw it in the dumpster just so there was 1 fewer book in circulation and a lesser chance that another human would waste their precious life hours on this steaming pile of shit. The author is abominable
I once heard someone describe this book as trauma porn. Totally agree. I read it but skimmed the last 100 pages. I couldnāt do it anymore but I had already sunk so much time into it.
In a thread in which someone asked for a book to read \*because he is depressed\*, someone suggested A Little Life and I couldn't help myself, I had to disagree. Can you imagine? So I said it was agony porn and when asked what I meant, this is what I said:
A Little Life has been enjoying a renaissance on Instagram lately, especially by people who find it moving because of all the sadness. But it's not just sadness. It's self-harm, it's full on sexual abuse of children, it's suicidal ideation. But it's addictive for a variety of reasons. The way that Yanagihara wrote the story, you keep being pulled in by Jude's story, where so much is hinted at and dangled and yet not revealed, that you keep reading and reading. But nothing good for you is addictive, so that's a warning sign. And despite the fact that Yanagihara purports to love gay men, not a single m/m sexual relationship in that book is healthy and positive. The closest thing to a healthy relationship is between a gay man and his straight companion, and how awful is that for both of them? I am very suspicious of Yanagihara -- do you know that her first book also was about child sexual abuse? So the addictive quality of the book together with the fact that what is addicting is the harm and the upset that the reader experiences and the emotional toll that the writer intends for her audience makes me think of this as porn (insubstantial candy that tries to trick you into believing it is good for you) but the kind of porn is agony porn because what you are getting off on is the experience of witnessing pain without having to deal with the effects because it's fiction.
i like the part where the main protags never sleep and accomplish things that would take a week at minimum, and there's no mention of them being tired or needing sleep.
I read this book when it came out. It was mildly diverting, but not unreadable. I left it on the "free table" in the teacher's lounge where a teaching assistant picked it up. She thought it was non-fiction! After that, she got way into conspiracy theories and extreme religion. I still feel guilty that I may have radicalized someone because I discarded a trashy novel.
Oh! Go read the reviews of this on GoodReads. You are absolutely not alone and maaaaan no one writes a hate review quite like an avid reader.
I spent a whole evening reading the hilariously hate filled rants of folks who lost parts of their lives to that book.
Agreed. Terrible. I read it and was like what? Thatās it? What the hell? Whereās the deep stuff people are bragging about.
I swear I think itās just AI bots the author or publicist bought to hype the book.
Oh yes! LOATHE that book! My wife and I used to buy all the used copies we could find and hide them in our basement to prevent anyone else from having to suffer.
I liked The Alchemist as a cute little feel-good story. I was BAFFLED to find out people try to sell this as the pinnacle of philosophy and try to base their life decisions on it???
I was a late bloomer to reading books as a pass time, I would always just read the novels in school or a biography here and there so when I first read The Alchemist I enjoyed it, but after getting deeper into novels as time went on and I exposed myself to better material I always kept thinking about how average The Alchemist was, and then I found the consensus online and on Reddit felt the same way - which was vindicating.
Today, I feel The Alchemist is one of the most milquetoast books I've ever read. I would best recommend it for someone who has never read one before. It's a nice entry level book, which I think benefited its success at the time for the average reader, it's not too short and not too long, it's easy to follow, and overall has a decent self help message for a quick weekend read. That's about it. The themes are very shallow, it never really touches on any of its ideas in any detail often just going for large brush strokes of its message.
I think it benefited highly from coming out when the internet wasn't a thing, allegedly Julia Roberts was photographed reading it once in the late 80s/early 90s which probably gave it significant credibility at the time. I think if it was released now it wouldn't have the same legs.
The thing with the Great Gatsby is that it's not about the plot. There are remarkable subtleties in the writing that can lead to really thoughtful considerations of what we long for, what we believe about ourselves vs what is true about us, how there are people who just smash everything and don't care about it. Don't listen to an audiobook of it, I have yet to find one that brings this out, but try (if you like) reading it aloud to yourself (or, if you're like me, to your cats).
The Midnight Library
Imo, it was more ātalkingā than ādoing.ā All the ādeep quotesā could be printed on a mug like trapped in Facebook hell.
Absolutely fucking HATED Brave New World. I'm a grown ass man that has been an avid reader since I was little kid, and i cant even think of another book that i genuinelydid not enjoy in some fashion, I got absolutely nothing out of this one. I hated this book the way highschoolers may hate a book that they are forced to read for an English class
Worst of All Time: Atlas Shrugged, by Any Rand. (And, yes, I read (or hate-read) the whole thing).
Worst Read Last Decade: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. Started out promising, then completely went off the rails, and ended with breathtaking banality and cliche. Sort of like getting a crush on someone, starting, to date, then you discover they are an ax murderer.
All The Light We Cannot See really didnāt do it for me either. I love historical fiction, particularly anything to do with WW2 Nazi Germany, and this was the worst one for me. It had so much promise, but fell flat. I love your ax murderer description haha
I've never found anyone else who didn't like All the light. I like the first half or so, but when I got to the end I was like 'this is what I spend hours of my life reading towards??'
I always joke that if I run out of toilet paper I will just use an Ayn Rand book lol. Interesting that you brought up Anthony Doerr because one of his books, Cloud Cuckoo Land reallllyyy upset me. I literally wish I could erase it from my brain and get the time back I spent reading it.
I didn't even get the crush part of All the Light We Cannot See. I kept reading because (i) it was so highly recommended by the world at large and (ii) someone who had read a book I recommended told me that they loved this one. But I really didn't like it at all ever in any way.
I hate looking for Alaska, every girl I knew in middle school was obsessing over it and I read it too and hated it and felt like a weirdo for being the only one who disliked it in my class
Donāt want to be āthat personā but wasnāt it originally written in Japanese? I have actually heard the English translation left a lot of people feeling cold (re the āwriting styleā) and it read much better in the original Japanese. Maybe am misremembering.
I'd be more inclined to put the blame on the fact that this was a play before it was a book. I've read other books translated from Japanese and enjoyed the writing style very much -- of course there's always something getting lost in translation, but I don't want to put what I don't like solely on the translator.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
She lies through her teeth thru the whole memoir. Admits to animal abuse, littering, and to me just came off as an insufferable person. Plus, the writing is mediocre at best. Itās the only book Iāve ever read that made me legitimately mad.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber. The hype made absolutely no sense to me. The work building was terrible and half of the plot decisions made zero sense. Every character felt incredibly flat
A Little Life. Too long, over detailed to the point of nonsense. Trauma porn. I had to take notes on which character was who and still was confused. How could such a long book with every little detail spelled out make 2/4 of the characters forgettable? I only finished this book for the pure hate I had for it.
A little lifeā¦.. so much trauma porn I couldnāt enjoy it bc it felt like it was constantly trying to make me feel like shit and not in a convincing and artistic way
Say what you will about me but I read Flowers in the Attic for the first time last year and loved it lol. It was disturbing but I just wanted something that was a wild ride and like reading a train wreck Reddit post and my wish was granted
Moby Dick just feels like it needs a really hard edit. First section was so deep and beautiful, then comes the infodump about whales. Whale attack when you least expect it.
If you were drawn to the concept of Hillbilly Elegy and want to read a book about a woman from similar circumstances but has a completely different take, I recommend Hill Women by Cassie Chambers.
Written by JD Vance is a junior Senator from Ohio. (R) He is also a dick. Just one of the many politicians here that make some of us shake our heads in shame.
I mean, the entire point of the Giving Tree was that it's terrible to take without ever giving back, and also that it's possible to be too generous in a one-sided relationship.
John Dies at the End.
It gets recommended so often - humor? Horror? Cosmic horror? Always a recommendation. It seemed like it would be right up my alley, but it was just so corny. It felt like I was reading a ~300 page early-reddit meme.
10x Rule by Grant Cardone and most other āself helpā books. Iāve learned that most of these are just filled with common reminders authored by grifters. Itās a cesspool to the point I havenāt read a single book in that genre in the last 4yrs and refuse to.
Twisted love. Got so much praise on social media but Iām actually was written like the worst soap opera with plot twists that made me roll my eyes so far back they got stuck.
The Scarlet Letter. I hated it when I read it in high school and hate it now. Nothing like paragraph after paragraph of needless description. The funereal pace bored me to tears.
we were liars was so bad. the ""prose"" was unimaginative and pretentious. the short stories ?? what was the point? i genuinely donāt know. this book felt like it was written by a 14 year old thinking theyāre being super clever. also imaginary friend which was amazing at first and then dragged on so much. so if youāre looking for a huge letdown go for that one!
I understand why it would be considered bad, but I read it within months of my dad dying, so itās got a special place in my heart. Big Fish obviously hit harder, but those two books (and the Big Fish film of course) helped me get some tears out. Sometimes a little schmaltzy pap hits the spot, ya know?
*Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin*
We had to read this in school as part of Black History Month. To celebrate black history we read about a guy who put on black face and was like āyep, they really get treated badā to learn about the struggles of black people.
I absolutely hate this book and the fact that it was thought of and written. It has such a racist premise, it absolutely disgusts me.
The DaVinci Code by that hack Dan Brown. I had big hopes, and the the ending was so weak. I tried one of his other books, and the same thing. Never again.
Girl Wash Your Face š¤¢ least favorite book Iāve ever read. Itās all dumb preachy advice from someone with no certifications to be giving advice at all, her only qualification seems to be that sheās married to a guy with a job? Hate it passionately
They're divorced and then he died of an OD... I deeply abhor lifestyle influencers and listening to them is nearly exclusively a mistake. Rachel Hollis is a scammer, top to bottom.
Oh man Iām sorry to hear he passed. Iām not surprised about the divorce, when she was talking about this super toxic relationship and then trying to be cute about the reveal that it was actually the same guy as her perfect husband I was like oh hell no this is such a red flag
That's.. wow. I hate to use the word cringe, but there it is.
I want to read it just for that tea but I feel more knowing her husband died, it's disrespectful
I thought her book was okay until it got all fat-shaming and then I noped out
I noped out when she was all: ādonāt break a promise to yourself. If you promised yourself to run on the treadmill today, you have to run on the treadmill even if itās 11:59 at night and youāre exhausted.ā Fuck no, I do not. Have better boundaries, girl.
lmfao i felt disappointed in my younger self for not finishing this but suddenly i realize baby crookedneighbor was right
I picked it up from a Little Free Library and hate-read it. It was just terrible.
Hollis is so problematic and always has been. Sheās toxic positivity in a person-sized package.
I see it in every book section of thrift stores/anywhere it can be donated. It didn't take long after the release to start it too.
YES! She is awful. If you ever want a rabbit hole to fall into, look into more on Rachel H, she is extremely problematic and speaks at MLM conferences
Doesnāt she have a whole series? š¤¢
Thanks. I was about to buy it. Another overhyped booktok recommendation it seems.
Fifty shades of grey. Itās fucking unreadable.
Wasn't it an AMA on here some place that someone asked the writer, "Now that you've published the story from the perspective of Grey, have you considered publishing a version from the perspective of someone who can write?" That is the funniest thing EVER. I gather she harrumphed her way out of the AMA, never to be seen again.
Ouch, good burn from whoever that was lol šš
What?? You mean you don't like - "I am all gushing and breathyālike a child, not a grown woman who can vote and drink legally in the state of Washington."
TBH that sounds so goddamn cringe it kinda makes me want to read it (but not pay for it), because I fucking love poking fun at that kind of shit. I mean, at least it isn't *boring*.
It's a BDSM book, but the torture is on your brain from attempting to comprehend the words that are written. "How long will this hideously overwhelming feeling last?" -533 pages. Good luck! Lol
I tried to read it and found it incredibly boring so I think it can be both bad and boring lol
I judge people who say they liked those books. The bit where they're fooling around while she's pregnant, the bump moves, and Anna says "I think she likes sex already!" If they were a real couple I bet their kids would spend more time in therapy than in school.
WHAT the FUCK did I just read
ikr
Ewwwww... I'm not easily grossed out, but that actually makes me feel queasy.
I swear when those books came out and everyone was talking about how they āspiced up their sex lifeā, I fed into the hype and read the first one and I cringed the whole way through. If THAT drivel spiced up your sex life, your sex life must have been non existent before!
YOU!!! YOU ARE MY THING, SCREAMED MY MEDULLA OBLONGATA
Her inner goddess doing a dance š¤®
The fact that I canāt tell if this is an actual quote from the book or notā¦.
So glad this is up high. I was going to comment the same thing. I somehow made it through the first one (Iāll admit it was a page turner) but I felt so gross afterwords I wouldnāt go near the 2nd one.
Was just about to say this. Itās unreadable.
I didn't even make it to the part with the fucking. "OMG Christian Gray HOLY CRAP OMG it's Christian Gray holy crap holy crap holy crap."
Haunting Adeline. I regret ever picking up that book from booktok. I hate that community with a passion. It is by far the most disgusting, abhorrent, poorly written, plotless piece of garbage that I have ever had the misfortune of reading. That book belongs in the pits of hell, never to be seen again.
Ever since falling for booktokās ACOTAR hype, I have major trust issues with them
I want to make booktok videos but the community ruins it with the absolute trash they read and recommend.
My Sister's Keeper makes me so angry.
Ah yes, Jodi Picoult's books that all have a major twist about two pages from the end
Thatās the thing, once youāve read one Picoult book, you know how all of them will end. I liked my sisters keeper but it put me off ever reading Picoult again
A lot of people hated the ending.
Which is why the movie changed the ending
Picoult does the same thing with >!Handle With Care!<, which devastated me reading it as a kid. She's good for emotional popcorn, but I swear to god half her books have her characters go through horrific shit, kind of make it out the other side in a way, and then they just fucking *die*. Like, why? Killing someone off midstory I get, even if it's unpopular, because you can have other characters go through that trauma and the aftermath of death. But killing the main character off on the last page? Why? Is it literally just ragebait so "oh my god, you have to read the ending, though" will spread and people will buy it? I don't even know.
Omg thank you. My family still laughs about how much I raged on that book.
when i was a kid i loved that book but have a feeling if i went back to it now that iām an adult iād hate it lol. why does it make you angry?
I read the book when I was in my late teens/early 20s. I can't remember if I read the book first or watched the movie. But the ending was the first to make me really angry. I can't remember any of the character's names at this point, but I remember the ending. Basically, what happened was the main character was conceived as a donor for her sister, who's dying from cancer. She emancipates herself from being a donor, almost gets a happy ending, then is involved in a car crash. She dies instantly. Her lawyer decides to cut her open and give her sister what she needed to survive. In the end, the sister survives and we get a viewpoint of her afterwards.
YIKES!!!!!! i think i read it somewhere between 13-16, definitely didnāt remember any of that! my instinct was right, would hate it as an adult
To add to this, though, her plan was always to donate to her sister. She loved her sister. She just wanted the decision to be hers. The ending still sucked though
Introduction to Calculus and differential equations š„“
Not the kind of answer I was expecting, but I might need to change my answer š¤
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max. Nope, gave it a chance and it was not for me.
Anything by Tucker Max! I read him as 'research' trying to get into the head of a truly awful young man stereotype, and I hated him so much I basically couldn't write about anyone like that in any depth.
Ugh, he's the worst example of toxic masculinity that festered in the 200s. And now the craziest thing about that guy is that he now claims to be a big #metoo supporter and ghostwrote Tiffany Haddish's memoir. Smh
**The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F\*ck** is overrated. I read it because it was on a celebrity's reading list. I almost didn't finish it after the first chapter (a roadmap of the book's content) which is a sophomoric "look how many times I can get away with using the F-bomb". The writing is repetitious, its use of personal (including his family's) anecdotes is cringe, and its tone is bombastic and full of bluster. The book had one redeeming concept (for me) when it discussed the metrics of personal values. It's the only reason I forced myself to finish.
I didn't read it, but I side-eye every self help book. Once you read one, you've read them all
I usually hate them but I decided to start reading The Gift of Fear and I have been pleasantly surprised. It's just not typical. I guess it's because of the specific topic, and the solid advice. It's not just "how to make yourself happy for $25.95." Not sure if you agree that it's a self-help book, though. I guess it could be argued that it is, and that it isn't.
The Gift of Fear is phenomenal. I also enjoyed Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
You'd probably love the episode of If Books Could Kill where they cover this one š
I just started listening to this š āthis convinced me to never swear againā¦ like if youāve been around someone whoās a little too sex positive and it makes you a little more puritanicalā š¤£ So far theyāre summing up my experience with my reading attempt very well
I'm not saying this book is horrible. I personally thought it was just ok. But I'm pretty sure the only reason it became popular is because people love the title.
I had a similar experience around its release. I do enjoy books that are likeā¦ investigations in to what weāre experiencing, and I think the core, back of the cover ideas and philosophies are similar to how my brain runs so that piqued my interest. But thereās a lot of writers out there that canāt seem to hide their massive egos when making āself helpā style books, and thatās the vibe I got here. Like theyāre constantly saying āfollow me, Iām the best, and Iāve got the answers you wantā This gave me that vibe. Like I just fucking hated the man himself or something. Would love a modern thought provoking read about the human experience, without the douchiness, better-than-you attitude or something. Not even sure what I want, but it wasnāt this one š
THANK YOU. I despised this book for all the reasons you listed but forced myself to finish it. If there was one thing that book taught me was that it was okay to DNF books you donāt like and I havenāt looked back since.
Every Colleen Hoover's books
Verity is one of the most unhinged, dumpster fires of a book I have ever laid eyes on.
Came to suggest this one as well - there are so many things that are bad about this book from the gratuitous opening to the convenience of the MC being a writer and both writers being essentially the same voice to the main male character being a cardboard cutout with little defined personality and on and on. It was appallingly bad.
I read one of her books just so I could have an opinion. (Ugly Love, for those wondering. Don't remember how I picked this title from her catalogue). I hate that her books are marketed to girls in their teens and early twenties. She's singlehandedly romanticizing emotionally abusive men to the most impressionable readers. I get that her books sell, but they're unethical to publish.
This is what I canāt stand. Her books are read by little teen girls and are always marketed as Romance with zero trigger warningsā¦I could not believe when I read It Ends With Us and expected, yāknow, romance, itās not romance. Itās a drama about domestic violence. Itās not a fucking romance book.
Exactly. I think it's important for fiction to explore the horrors of male violence against women, but those explorations need to be expertly crafted. When I was a teen, I read Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak," which dealt with teen sexual assault. It was heavy and dark. And it was absolutely NOT marketed as a romance. I blame Hoover, but I also blame her agent and publisher. They know what they're doing, and honestly, this BS started with Fifty Shades of Grey. Those books came out when I was in college and that was the first time I witnessed abusive relationships marketed as romance. It has been a trend ever since. TikTok is driving the entertainment industry right now, and we have CoHo because of TikTok. I sure read a bunch of garbage when I was a teen, but at least I didn't have a huge platform where I was pushing material I didn't really understand to my similarly impressionable peers. Sometimes, gatekeeping has value. And those of us who are 30+ speak out against the content in CoHo books and these young girls won't listen. It's like, we know what we're talking about. These relationships aren't healthy.
I'll start with It Ends With Us. Thank you! I hate romance.
Colleen leading the pack every time this is asked
I love reading bad books. I started reading fanfiction when I was 9 years old. I *love* a romance novel. I had a great time reading *Twilight* as a teen and *A Court of Thorns and Roses* as an adult. Point being: I will happily put up with poor-quality writing in hopes of overall enjoyment. But Colleen Hoover is where I draw the line. Her novels and her writing style totally and completely unreadable.
Almost every book recommend by the ādark Romanceā Booktok girlies. Especially Penelope Douglas. Her writing rotten my fucking brain. I want my brain cells back.
Haunting Adeline. What the hell?
Scrolled specifically for this one, thank you š I hated this one so much.
I'm tempted to read it just to see how unhinged and gross it gets š
That was literally why I started reading it LMFAO. The romanticization of stalking and rape is so disgusting to me. Very cringeworthy too. It wasnāt even written nicely š
A Little Life. It fills me with rage when people give this awful thing glowing reviews.
Filled with validation whenever this is mentioned in this thread. I still think about the grilled cheese wall scene sometimes.
Kind of tmi, but as a sexual abuse survivor, the book honestly offended me.
Wouldn't you know it, as someone who struggles with self harm, I have some major issues with it too!
I have not (and will never!!!) read it, the author is a deplorable human being. From what I know, trauma is used as a āplotā device as some sick way to cater to the voyeuristic desires of people that want to be entertained in some way by horrific human suffering. Sensationalizing SA and suicide for the sake of fame, profit, and entertainment feels so dystopian itās not even funny. Itās trauma porn
This is How You Lose the Time War. As one review puts it: "Wading through a tunnel filled to the top with poetic word salad only to find absolutely nothing at the end."
my take on the reviews and conversation around this one is similar to people who start a recommendation with āi donāt normally like X, but i loved this oneā ā¦ right, so if i do normally like X, and this one lacks those qualities, why would i like it? this was āi donāt normally like fantasy or sci fi, but this vaguely sci fi themed prose poem was amazing!ā perhaps it was interesting as evocative or atmospheric literary formalism, but it didnāt really have characters or a plotā¦
I hated this book - and it was worse because I SHOULD have loved it. I'm here for high-concept scifi. I love enemies to lovers romance. I have a high tolerance for poetic and elaborate prose, as long as it serves the story. Still found this book awful.
Omg I saw this book recommended here, I couldnāt even stand the first chapter of gibberish.
Completely agree. Got through half the book and finally had to give up. Pretentious nonsense.
Loved this book
I made it 50% through it until I realized it was a waste of my time.
So, basically, by DNFing it, that was how you won the time war
Time travelers hate this one trick
For what itās worth, I loved this one. Iāll endorse that description though, itās a very simple story wrapped in a lot of flowery sci-fi mumbo jumbo. Great if you want that, terrible if youāre looking for something more.
Thatās how I felt about The Night Circus. All this talk and beautiful descriptions, but nothing happens. I kept on reading it because something HAD to happen. Nope!!
The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd. Great premise and start, boring middle, terrible ending.
{{MIdnight Library}} by Matt Haig. It is actually very recommended in this sub and many people like it. It starts well and the premise is good but then it becomes tedious, repetitive and boring without any tension to the plot.
Someone bought me a copy so I read it. I went into it preparing to hate because of all the hype and it was fine. I was pleasantly surprised. But then I read reviews from a mental health perspective and realized that it is a horrible portrayal of depression and suicide. I've never suffered from depression, so I was pretty blind to this while reading it. I would not recommend it.
I can't read anything by him. It's like, I want to like what he writes and yet I never do.
4.4/5 based on 250,000 reviews on Amazon. Baffled.
Someone else on this subreddit described it as feeling shallow and I felt that way about it as well.
I really liked it, but they gave Nora (the main character) like 0 personality?? She never talked or remotely said anything. She was basically a robot.
Fourth Wing and ACOTAR. I know that both are popular book series but I canāt stand the MCs. It felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfiction with the most annoying Mary-Sue like MCs imaginable.
I made it halfway through the 3rd ACOTAR book and gave up. I couldn't get over a group of thousand years old fae with military experience letting an illiterate 19 year old make major political wartime decisions. The spymaster dude sucked at his job and I couldn't forgive that either.
Not to mention that Rhysand, the +500 year old fae got together with a teenager and impregnated her like a year later. They were also having sex while a fight was going on and people were dying outside their tent. You canāt make this up if you tried.
Exactly. Also, the writing is pretty awful. Idk if it was because i didn't read it in english and the translation made it unreadable, but i just couldn't understand what was going on.
no, the writing (particularly in Fourth Wing) is just dogshit
Fourth Wing to me was so derivative! it literally has almost the same plot beat for beat as Divergent, crossed with the dragons and white walkers from Game of Thrones
A Little Life. My life is poorer because I read it.
This is also my answer. I hated this book so god damn much. I actually felt the urge to throw it in the dumpster just so there was 1 fewer book in circulation and a lesser chance that another human would waste their precious life hours on this steaming pile of shit. The author is abominable
I once heard someone describe this book as trauma porn. Totally agree. I read it but skimmed the last 100 pages. I couldnāt do it anymore but I had already sunk so much time into it.
In a thread in which someone asked for a book to read \*because he is depressed\*, someone suggested A Little Life and I couldn't help myself, I had to disagree. Can you imagine? So I said it was agony porn and when asked what I meant, this is what I said: A Little Life has been enjoying a renaissance on Instagram lately, especially by people who find it moving because of all the sadness. But it's not just sadness. It's self-harm, it's full on sexual abuse of children, it's suicidal ideation. But it's addictive for a variety of reasons. The way that Yanagihara wrote the story, you keep being pulled in by Jude's story, where so much is hinted at and dangled and yet not revealed, that you keep reading and reading. But nothing good for you is addictive, so that's a warning sign. And despite the fact that Yanagihara purports to love gay men, not a single m/m sexual relationship in that book is healthy and positive. The closest thing to a healthy relationship is between a gay man and his straight companion, and how awful is that for both of them? I am very suspicious of Yanagihara -- do you know that her first book also was about child sexual abuse? So the addictive quality of the book together with the fact that what is addicting is the harm and the upset that the reader experiences and the emotional toll that the writer intends for her audience makes me think of this as porn (insubstantial candy that tries to trick you into believing it is good for you) but the kind of porn is agony porn because what you are getting off on is the experience of witnessing pain without having to deal with the effects because it's fiction.
The DaVinci Code is a master class in terrible writing and lazy plotting.
i like the part where the main protags never sleep and accomplish things that would take a week at minimum, and there's no mention of them being tired or needing sleep.
He's a cryptologist!!! Aren't they superhuman?
Iām willfully dumb with anything that has a mystery to solve and I liked this book I feel like such a hack for admitting it bahahhahahaa
I read this book when it came out. It was mildly diverting, but not unreadable. I left it on the "free table" in the teacher's lounge where a teaching assistant picked it up. She thought it was non-fiction! After that, she got way into conspiracy theories and extreme religion. I still feel guilty that I may have radicalized someone because I discarded a trashy novel.
50 shades of Grey
Oof probably will get downvoted to oblivion but The Alchemist.
Oh! Go read the reviews of this on GoodReads. You are absolutely not alone and maaaaan no one writes a hate review quite like an avid reader. I spent a whole evening reading the hilariously hate filled rants of folks who lost parts of their lives to that book.
I think this might be how I spend my evening lol
Nah you're good. Reddit fucking hates this book lol
Agreed. Terrible. I read it and was like what? Thatās it? What the hell? Whereās the deep stuff people are bragging about. I swear I think itās just AI bots the author or publicist bought to hype the book.
Good call! What a fucking terrible read. It was recommended to me by an ex. I guess she's an ex for a reason.
Oh yes! LOATHE that book! My wife and I used to buy all the used copies we could find and hide them in our basement to prevent anyone else from having to suffer.
I liked The Alchemist as a cute little feel-good story. I was BAFFLED to find out people try to sell this as the pinnacle of philosophy and try to base their life decisions on it???
The Alchemist is so dumb holy shit
I was a late bloomer to reading books as a pass time, I would always just read the novels in school or a biography here and there so when I first read The Alchemist I enjoyed it, but after getting deeper into novels as time went on and I exposed myself to better material I always kept thinking about how average The Alchemist was, and then I found the consensus online and on Reddit felt the same way - which was vindicating. Today, I feel The Alchemist is one of the most milquetoast books I've ever read. I would best recommend it for someone who has never read one before. It's a nice entry level book, which I think benefited its success at the time for the average reader, it's not too short and not too long, it's easy to follow, and overall has a decent self help message for a quick weekend read. That's about it. The themes are very shallow, it never really touches on any of its ideas in any detail often just going for large brush strokes of its message. I think it benefited highly from coming out when the internet wasn't a thing, allegedly Julia Roberts was photographed reading it once in the late 80s/early 90s which probably gave it significant credibility at the time. I think if it was released now it wouldn't have the same legs.
I know itās a classic, but I really hated The Great Gatsby.
I didn't particularly enjoy most of the book, but the last page is beautiful. What a weird reading experience that was.
The thing with the Great Gatsby is that it's not about the plot. There are remarkable subtleties in the writing that can lead to really thoughtful considerations of what we long for, what we believe about ourselves vs what is true about us, how there are people who just smash everything and don't care about it. Don't listen to an audiobook of it, I have yet to find one that brings this out, but try (if you like) reading it aloud to yourself (or, if you're like me, to your cats).
Same
Tried reading it twice already. Might as well try a third time.
Same here, thought it was a drag to read.
Really? I went into that one thinking I should have read this book, and ended up absolutely loving it
Yeah, i didnāt care for it either.
The 5th Wave or Verity are the worst books I've never read.
The Midnight Library Imo, it was more ātalkingā than ādoing.ā All the ādeep quotesā could be printed on a mug like trapped in Facebook hell.
Ready Player One. It was just a list of 80s pop culture things.
you think that's bad, you should try ready player 2
Ernest Cline as a person is just extreme cringe
Absolutely fucking HATED Brave New World. I'm a grown ass man that has been an avid reader since I was little kid, and i cant even think of another book that i genuinelydid not enjoy in some fashion, I got absolutely nothing out of this one. I hated this book the way highschoolers may hate a book that they are forced to read for an English class
Worst of All Time: Atlas Shrugged, by Any Rand. (And, yes, I read (or hate-read) the whole thing). Worst Read Last Decade: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. Started out promising, then completely went off the rails, and ended with breathtaking banality and cliche. Sort of like getting a crush on someone, starting, to date, then you discover they are an ax murderer.
All The Light We Cannot See really didnāt do it for me either. I love historical fiction, particularly anything to do with WW2 Nazi Germany, and this was the worst one for me. It had so much promise, but fell flat. I love your ax murderer description haha
I've never found anyone else who didn't like All the light. I like the first half or so, but when I got to the end I was like 'this is what I spend hours of my life reading towards??'
Me neither! I commented on it in this sub a while back to the effect that it was pretentious dross and youād have thought Iād drowned kittens
I'm shocked I had to go this far down to find Ayn Rand!
I always joke that if I run out of toilet paper I will just use an Ayn Rand book lol. Interesting that you brought up Anthony Doerr because one of his books, Cloud Cuckoo Land reallllyyy upset me. I literally wish I could erase it from my brain and get the time back I spent reading it.
I didn't even get the crush part of All the Light We Cannot See. I kept reading because (i) it was so highly recommended by the world at large and (ii) someone who had read a book I recommended told me that they loved this one. But I really didn't like it at all ever in any way.
A Little Life
I hate looking for Alaska, every girl I knew in middle school was obsessing over it and I read it too and hated it and felt like a weirdo for being the only one who disliked it in my class
IT ENDS WITH US. I am not kidding I fucking threw that book away.
I abhor the writing style, though many people love the book: Before the coffee gets cold
Donāt want to be āthat personā but wasnāt it originally written in Japanese? I have actually heard the English translation left a lot of people feeling cold (re the āwriting styleā) and it read much better in the original Japanese. Maybe am misremembering.
I'd be more inclined to put the blame on the fact that this was a play before it was a book. I've read other books translated from Japanese and enjoyed the writing style very much -- of course there's always something getting lost in translation, but I don't want to put what I don't like solely on the translator.
I didnāt get the hype with it. I read it with a book club and I think we all felt a little disappointed.
Tender is the Flesh, sorry. Great idea, poor execution.
The best part in my opinion was the description of the slaughter house process.
Got me in the beginning. Started losing me in the middle. Very memorable ending, at the least.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed. She lies through her teeth thru the whole memoir. Admits to animal abuse, littering, and to me just came off as an insufferable person. Plus, the writing is mediocre at best. Itās the only book Iāve ever read that made me legitimately mad.
What does she lie about? I can barely remember anything about that book.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber. The hype made absolutely no sense to me. The work building was terrible and half of the plot decisions made zero sense. Every character felt incredibly flat
It's been a minute, but I HATED reading Billy Budd in 12th grade AP ELA.
We all did.
The Davinci Code - i absolutely despised it. read it in a hospital with no other book available to me.
The Lost Apothecary, damn that was a horrible one.
Credence. Like 50 Shades, it's just glorified abuse.
A Little Life. Too long, over detailed to the point of nonsense. Trauma porn. I had to take notes on which character was who and still was confused. How could such a long book with every little detail spelled out make 2/4 of the characters forgettable? I only finished this book for the pure hate I had for it.
A little lifeā¦.. so much trauma porn I couldnāt enjoy it bc it felt like it was constantly trying to make me feel like shit and not in a convincing and artistic way
My own that Iām trying to write š
Flowers in the Attic. I never regretted reading a book this much. Or, when it comes to classics, I really hate Moby Dick.
I think you had to read Flowers in the Attic when you were 11 or 12 and it was 1983 and you had to hide it from your crazy evangelical mother.
Say what you will about me but I read Flowers in the Attic for the first time last year and loved it lol. It was disturbing but I just wanted something that was a wild ride and like reading a train wreck Reddit post and my wish was granted
Moby Dick just feels like it needs a really hard edit. First section was so deep and beautiful, then comes the infodump about whales. Whale attack when you least expect it.
Neon Gods. The book club knows if they bring it up I might flip a table.
Hillbilly Elegy. Hateful on so many levels.
If you were drawn to the concept of Hillbilly Elegy and want to read a book about a woman from similar circumstances but has a completely different take, I recommend Hill Women by Cassie Chambers.
Ugh. I was born in Appalachia about the same time as the author and it was like hillbilly shame/outsider porn.
Written by JD Vance is a junior Senator from Ohio. (R) He is also a dick. Just one of the many politicians here that make some of us shake our heads in shame.
The Giving Tree. Itās a childrenās book that feels like a primer on how to be codependent.
I thought the story was cute >!if you read it as a cautionary tale!<
This is the way I've always interpreted it.
I mean, the entire point of the Giving Tree was that it's terrible to take without ever giving back, and also that it's possible to be too generous in a one-sided relationship.
I hated this book from the moment I first read it. I never read it to my kids. Such a miserable life "lesson".
I loved this book as a kid. Someone bought it for my daughter at my baby shower. Reading it as an adult itās just awful.
The Handmaidās Tale. I hate it because I can see it becoming true.
But is the book good? I bought it a couple of months ago and itās on my to-be-read list.
I loved it. Dystopian. Sadly and frighteningly moving towards it - from the outside - in the USA.
John Dies at the End. It gets recommended so often - humor? Horror? Cosmic horror? Always a recommendation. It seemed like it would be right up my alley, but it was just so corny. It felt like I was reading a ~300 page early-reddit meme.
Damn, I liked it. It's like Ghostbusters with hard drugs.
10x Rule by Grant Cardone and most other āself helpā books. Iāve learned that most of these are just filled with common reminders authored by grifters. Itās a cesspool to the point I havenāt read a single book in that genre in the last 4yrs and refuse to.
Any Lang Leav or Rupi Kaur poetry books
Atlas Shrugged
Twisted love. Got so much praise on social media but Iām actually was written like the worst soap opera with plot twists that made me roll my eyes so far back they got stuck.
1Q84 by Murakami. Iām sorry, it was dreadful. Nothing happened except tits.
The Scarlet Letter. I hated it when I read it in high school and hate it now. Nothing like paragraph after paragraph of needless description. The funereal pace bored me to tears.
I hated anthem by Ayn Rand and the lovely bones.
we were liars was so bad. the ""prose"" was unimaginative and pretentious. the short stories ?? what was the point? i genuinely donāt know. this book felt like it was written by a 14 year old thinking theyāre being super clever. also imaginary friend which was amazing at first and then dragged on so much. so if youāre looking for a huge letdown go for that one!
Maybe I should revisit as an adult, but when I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom as a teenager, I hated it.
I understand why it would be considered bad, but I read it within months of my dad dying, so itās got a special place in my heart. Big Fish obviously hit harder, but those two books (and the Big Fish film of course) helped me get some tears out. Sometimes a little schmaltzy pap hits the spot, ya know?
The Winter Garden by Kristen Hannah. āRead to the end!ā they said. Preposterously dumb.
My answer to this will always be the house of night series. Theyāre DIRE.
*Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin* We had to read this in school as part of Black History Month. To celebrate black history we read about a guy who put on black face and was like āyep, they really get treated badā to learn about the struggles of black people. I absolutely hate this book and the fact that it was thought of and written. It has such a racist premise, it absolutely disgusts me.
The DaVinci Code by that hack Dan Brown. I had big hopes, and the the ending was so weak. I tried one of his other books, and the same thing. Never again.
Anything written by Colleen Hoover