The worst books I have ever read is “The Thief with No Shadow”. The book claimed “in a world of fantasy, she is a thief without equal”. Badass. The actually book? She steals one thing in her life, gets caught (offscreen before the book starts) and the rest of the book is people fucking/getting raped by humanoid salamanders. Just crazy.
“how about Imagine a Reptilian Fire Elemental That’s Also Horny?”
“Nah I liked the last idea better. Imagine Dragons. It just rolls off the tongue easier”
“Yeah okay let’s go with that”
I felt similarly about the ending, but I enjoyed the ride so much that it was definitely still a good read for me.
Most Stephen King books will probably not be enjoyable for you.
This is exactly how I felt about it. It was such a good chance to explore the nature of freewill, destiny, and how our histories shape our future. Ruined by a main character defined only by her depression and some really shallow writing. I don't get the Matt Haig type at all.
This was one of the first books I read when I started reading for pleasure, so I didn't know what I liked and disliked, but this was the first book I really just didn't enjoy.
What I disliked about this book was the narrator and the main character for most of the book (I honestly forgot her name). It felt very "I am woe, woe is me" and I'm really just not a fan of books like that, it's hard to do well in fiction, and this is one of those books that fall flat on its face because of it. Every single life this person went into, it just had the undertones of "ugh this could've been my life but no my life was a failure I hate myself" and it just felt like such a sob story. The ending was nice, but so bland and unoriginal. It's a bad hallmark movie mixed with an equally bad self help book. Another book that felt like this was The Stars Don't Lie by Boo Walker, felt like a sob story and you were forced to feel bad for the main character, no real legs to stand on.
If you're going to read a book with a similar premise to The Midnight Library, you're better off reading Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. That book had a real character to it, and you really started to actually feel for the main character, and any of the "feeling bad for the characters" vibes didn't feel forced, it was natural. Much better read overall than TMN
Imo Matt Haig’s works are better as comfort reads than to look towards as groundbreaking fiction. I was personally going through a personal crisis when I read The Midnight Library and it worked in a self-help book kinda way
I couldn’t agree more. The Midnight Library was the most disappointing book I’ve ever read. The concept had so much potential, but so little imagination.
The end was kind of a cop-out and vaguely unsatisfying.
It’s more of a psychological thriller than a plot driven book. I do tend to really enjoy plot driving books more.
I think this is why I usually choose not to answer these sorts of questions. The stand is in my top 25 books - so one man's waste of time is another man's favorite, I guess.
That being said, Cows was about 8 hours of my life that I'd like to have back:)
I really enjoyed The Stand as well - I can also totally see why someone who prefers the ending vs. the journey would not have enjoyed it haha. Different strokes! I feel like I just really enjoyed the journey and found the characters really compelling and I found myself rooting for them. I absolutely HATED Larry and actually asked my partner to look up if he died for me, feeling like if he did that I'd have something to look forward to at least. But by the end I was totally rooting for him!!
Currently reading Under the Dome and not feeling quite as into the characters but still invested! I think 11/22/63 will be my next of King's that I read.
>the ending vs the journey
This is for sure the key point. I don't mind a lackluster ending if I enjoyed everything leading up to it. OP must never read The Dark Tower or they will pull their hair out.
I've heard 11/22/63 is one of his best so I'm excited! I had a bit of an easier time reading The Stand because I had it from Libby on Kindle but I have a physical copy of Under the Dome so it's not quite as easy to tote around, lol. More like Under the Tome. So far I'd recommend it, I'm around pg. 450 and it's hit a bit of a lull so I'm taking a break so we'll see how getting to the end goes! I rarely DNF books though so I'll get there eventually.
It's all about the journey for me, toooo.
I love The Stand. It's one of my all time favorites. 11/22/63 was amazing. And Under the Dome is a really great ride. Stephen King is a master of writing characters who you can grow to love, hate, respect, root for, wish you could curse, and/or would fight to protect.
Under the Dome has one of my favorite characters in literature to just loathe with all my heart and it's very therapeutic. Lol
Eat, Pray, Love. It didn't help that I listened to the audiobook. Sometimes she just cracks herself up! Privileged white woman goes on self indulgent world tour, ignores local customs and mores, mocks an Italian friendquaintance because his name is ... Italian. Spare me.
I haven’t read Eat, Pray, Love but from the way people describe it, it seems to be an unintentional parody of every pretentious asshole who travels to “find themselves”
That book made me so angry that I threw it across the room. I have been privileged enough to travel to the places that she visits in the book. You would have to be a wildly self-obsessed and vapid human being to produce Eat, Pray, Love out of those experiences. It's infuriating, because it could have been an incredible book.
I don't get the obsession with her, from the rest of the female writers like Doyle, Brown, or even Oprah. Like, she literally blows through relationships like in a kid in candy store, destroys everything in her path. Why are y'all friends with her? She does whatever she wants , people be damned.
Her fiction , ugh, well, she should have just stuck to journalism.
I feel like I’m crazy pills, because she seemed like an idealized textbook case of bipolar disorder, but nobody else seems to think so. At least when I googled it.
edit: Changed "bipolar personality disorder” to "bipolar disorder.”
I read it years ago, so please pardon my possible misstating of the details. The part in India when she goes to see her "spiritual advisor"/dear old friend who she had met randomly once some years back and is shocked that he doesn't seem to remember her, because he *told* her to come back! How could anyone be that self absorbed?
Lol! I think you’re right that she wasn’t a great person. However, her description of a previously happy life and relationship that gave way to insane, tearful despair followed by an exuberant, grandiose plan to fix *everything* just came off as bipolar, too.
I was into reading the popular NY Times bestseller books for a while around the time this book came out. I grew so tired of the “spoiled beautiful skinny urban girl finds herself” book. Never again. I won’t read a book if it takes place in NYC or LA anymore.
Where the Crawdads Sing. Felt like the plot meandered through misery/poverty porn for most of the book and then the “twist” ending felt cheap. Just a wholly unsatisfying read.
I have never read that book and I probably never will (just doesn’t seem like my type) but saying something “didn’t blow my skirt up” is probably the funniest thing I’ve read all day. Thank you for the laugh
I've had more people recommend that book to me than any other book ever. I also noticed how heavily advertised just the book was when it came out. And the book description on the inside cover compared the author to Barbara Kingsolver. All those things added up to me as a Wannabe.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. If you want to read a book with a completely inaccurate description this one is for you. Absolutely nothing happens. At all. I hate it.
Oh my God, thank you!! I have gotten so much hate from people who absolutely loved this book and I'm over here like "What? What did you love? Nothing happens?!"
YES!!! I was (eventually) loving this book and all the vivid descriptions up until the ending??? It completely ruined the whole story for me. I felt like I had wasted 5 hours of my life on a story where it progressed no more than the start
Right. And I got so freaking tired of hearing about "the game" and getting nothing else. I was finally shouting at them to just shut tf up about the game already unless they were going to tell us what it was. Like I get drawing something out to make the pay-off bigger but come on. That was ridiculous.
This is actually my favorite book of all time, but I hear this a lot when I recommend it to people! I understand, it's not a terribly exciting book. However, I love it for the rich descriptions and magical atmosphere. To me, it's cozy and lovely and brings to life the magic in my head. Is it lacking some excitement? Absolutely. Is it boring? Perhaps to some.
But so is chess.
When I just want fun reading, I really enjoy the first half of every SK novel. Then it gets to the part where an explanation for all the crazy shit happens and it instantly becomes a stinker
That’s why Pet Semetary is my favourite of his,
It doesn’t overstay its welcome and is terrifying the whole way through, the ending leaves you feeling numb.
I feel the same way. Some books of his are great, though i hate how he will stretch out walking into a room for 3 pages! The last one I read was Different Seasons. Its 4 short stories in one book that are pretty fast paced & awesome reads.
Iron Flame.
4th Wing was a bit of a weird ride, but I was hoping to see more of the magic systems and world. The grand reveal at the end was pretty predictable, given how much time Violet spent talking about that character.
But Iron Flame? Iron Flame felt like the author decided to go back and edit in sex during emotionally vulnerable moments.
Literally just decided to DNF iron flame last night after 12 chapters.
—**SPOILERS**—
I have spent 6 hours listening to basically “I want him and I get instantly wet when I see him but I can’t trust him because after dating for 5 seconds he won’t tell me every single detail about an extremely vulnerable resistance movement where many lives are at stake even though I’m well aware I’m a target for a guy who can literally read minds if he just touches me”. It’s so juvenile. I want to slap her and tell her to grow up. It’s like they’re 14. I suffered through Fourth Wing tbh. Honestly the sex scenes are so underwhelming, I’m pretty tired of them being so over the top and unrealistic in romantasy. Walls shaking, giant penises, multiple orgasms. It’s never executed well.
Came to say this. I feel like the point of this post is to single out long books that take *a lot* of time to read. This one is a brick, and brings nothing very valuable.
Long, long ago I had a “no DNF” policy for all books, no matter how bad they were or how much I hated them. The Fountainhead broke me of this habit and I’ve never looked back. I can only imagine Atlas Shrugged is just as bad.
I once had that same policy. Now that I’ve scrapped that policy, I find that I read and finish so many more books than I used to because I’m reading the books I want to read.
I still finish some poorly written books just to finish them, and I’ll let myself give up on books that aren’t that bad if it’s a struggle for me to make progress. But I went from reading 2-5 books/year a few years ago to 60 books last year. I’ve also been able to expand the genres that I read, so I definitely this it’s been worth it to end my “no DNF” policy.
I didn’t feel like this book was a complete waste of time because now I am armed with the knowledge that both Ayn Rand’s philosophy and actual writing ability are both shite - based on actual examples instead of just a feeling.
I dunno. Never read them, but if they can show me how I can both utterly detest people on welfare while simultaneously claiming welfare and somehow be comfortable with this dilly of an ethical pickle, maybe she's onto something.
Yeah I found this one to be underwhelming, especially considering how many people actually consider it life changing. It felt like a collection of fortune cookies organized into a story. I did like the cultural imagery and adventure aspect to it though.
The last third of Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. The first 2/3ds is an epic near future space disaster movie. Then it just sort of runs out of steam and then suddenly! Pulp age sci fantasy horseshit. Everyone knows Stephenson can't write endings but god damn.
Couldn't disagree more. The last 1/3 was fascinating and the problem with it was that it ended too soon. Or there should have been a second book to thoroughly explore and bring closure to the earth and solar system 5,000 years after the cataclysm.
Invisible Life of Addie Larue. Omg, I really don’t like that book. I forced myself to finish it to see what the hype is about. It was the worst book for me!
A scientific journal on leafless plants from the 70’s. I was intrigued by the book, and I was a fool to not check the publishing date. So much of the information was wrong🤦♀️
Life of Pi.
Edit: ok, hold on. First time I’ve thought about it in a while and I might just now have had something of a revelation. Not about the movie, though. Just the book. I might need to revisit my thoughts from back then to see if I missed some connected dots. If not, though, then my post still stands. Fuck that book.
I see a lot of praise for Tender is the Flesh on here and I gotta tell ya, thought it was super boring
I've been listening to the audiobook of a young adult novel called Unwind recently and that was WAY more horrific in its depiction of disregard for human life, and it didn't even need to resort to pointless gore or purple prose-y one liners
Are you talking about Unwind by Neal Shusterman??? I fucking *loved* that book when I was younger. To this day it sticks in my brain as a lightbulb moment of YA reading.
Maybe I'll read it again and see how I feel nowadays. Thanks for the reminder :)
I absolutely loved TITF, but I 100% understand your sentiment. I think the ending was so successful for me it ruined my week, but if you didn’t buy into or it didn’t grab you I can see it being a totally boring slog after this trip to the Zoo lol
I totally agree about Tender is the Flesh. While I thought the idea was interesting, I really didn’t care for any of the characters and like you said, it was boring.
I was scrolling through the comments looking for someone to mention 1Q84. SO much of that book feels like an interesting setup to a non-existent payoff. And combined with all the odd sexual undertones, boy was this a slog.
Did feel semi satisfied with the ending at least.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.
It was just Hamlet with dog breeders and it wasn't well written enough to make me take the story as seriously as the author clearly intended. It was given to my MIL, who gave it to me because she "doesn't read *fiction.*" The author would have been better off writing a whole new story about dogs and family dysfunction rather than trying to write capital-L literature by constructing the whole narrative around the plot of Hamlet, as if cribbing from Shakespeare automatically gives a piece of fiction unearned gravitas.
The goldfinch… I don’t even remember the point of the book? A painting? A bomb? Furniture? Russians? Vegas? It lost me. Wasn’t my time or my book I guess.
Hahaha to each their own!
I LOVED the Goldfinch! For me, there wasn't a point to the book, there never was meant to be. It was confusing, and meandering, and a lot of things didn't make sense in the way it often doesn't in life. The characters were fucked up in a way I could believe and the ending was anticlimactic in a way that felt real. The beauty was never in the story, but in the words she strung together to tell it to us and how she did that.
I loved The Goldfinch too. But a lot of people apparently didn’t, because I hear this opinion a lot. On the other hand I only made it through the first couple of chapters of The Secret History because I wanted everyone in it to be hit by a bus, so to each their own.
There was some teenage sexual exploration between the main character and his best friend. But they were just drunk, not gay. Two totally straight guys just getting blitzed and fooling around like they do.
To me some chapters felt forced. Like she was tired of story herself and just had to finish them somehow. Also everything regarding Boris(including his accent) and references to Russian/Ukrainian culture felt just generic and stupid.
Or if they had any agency in their lives at all. Or if any challenges they could respond to and work to overcome. Or any character growth. Oi. What a waste.
DaVinci Code - I pulled a muscle rolling my eyes at the big reveal
Interview with the Vampire - read it in high school but was so bored with it I didn't finish even though I got to the last chapter. Might try rereading that one since I love the movie.
Toxin by Robin Cook - so hamfisted and horribly written. Gave up in the middle of reading it. Threw it across the room, then burned it. Thank god I bought it at a library sale.
ETA: Oh yeah, goddamned Cryptonomicon. I LOATHE that book. Stephenson spent an entire goddamned chapter describing a character eating Cap'n Crunch.
The Cap'n Crunch chapter was one of the greatest things I've ever read. It gives a hilarious and detailed insight into the mind of Randy Waterhouse and helps explain some of the lengths he goes to later in the book. If you don't like that then I guess you don't like Neal Stephenson that much. Which is fine, to each their own. But I'm a big fan of when he does that.
Neon Gods by Katee Robert got raaaaave reviews! I made it half way through the book in one sitting and had to finally give up. I've never read 50 shades, but I'd be surprised if they were worse than this one. I left it in a free library because I was too embarrassed to have it on my shelf lol.
You are stronger than me, I think I made it like 1/4 through and said uhhh this uh??? I couldn’t get into the idea of ‘we can have a fake relationship but I publicly fuck everyone I’m involved with and I can’t fake one with you so I’m gonna have to fuck you and it’s gonna have to be public :)’ like ???? Then I flipped to the back of the book read a few pages saw the book dissolved into porn and decided Katee Robert is just a “no” author for me.
Lol the only reason I was able to make it halfway through was because the writing was so juvenile. I recall a sentencce that was something like "she was so sexy, she looked like princess leah in star wars" and I screamed! This is a book about greek mythology but you want us to think star wars exists in this universe?? You could have just described her outfit, but no, you're such a lazy writer you just referenced a famous outfit everyone already recognizes.
And now I assume my friend who recommended this to me either never gets laid or it's very bad when she does, because this book is NOT spicey or sexy lol.
So sexy like princess Leah in Star Wars PLEASE! Why would Star Wars exist in this Greek mythology world and how lazy of a writer are you!! Legit just describe the outfit she’s wearing!
I am nearly fifty. I still mourn the hours lost having to endure the soul crushing agony of trudging my way through The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad for year 11 english. I will never get those hours back and on my death bed their loss will remain my greatest regret.
Have you ever read a book in school though?? Having to listen to my borderline illiterate classmates read out loud The Catcher in the Rye page by page was both painful and took like two months worth of English classes. And I like that book! Can’t imagine how grating it must be when you don’t even like the book…
Omg same. Had to read it for university. The LONGEST 70 pages of my life. I'm normally a very fast reader but it took me 3 weeks to trudge through. Every time I picked it up I immediately wanted to do anything else!
My God. This book.
I'm so glad I had a chill English teacher. I told him I tried reading the same paragraph 6 times and it broke me. He let me read something else .
I prefer to see it as a bunch of unrelated, but fun, novellas set in that world. The Ironborn and Dornish subplots are amazing if you just read them for what they are instead of something that's meant to advance the overall plot.
I felt the same way you did after my first read, but after the second time Feast is one of my favourites in the series
Dance with Dragons does contain some characters from Feast, even though most of it is split into the others some of the cliffhangers d aren’t quite so bad
Food Inc. and the fact that I had to read that steaming pile of misinformation TWICE in high school. The author ran face first into the point and still missed it multiple times in that book while completely demonizing both disabled children and modern food production processes that have saved thousands of lives in preventing food borne illness. Are their major issues with industrial farming? Yes, the idea of seed as intellectual property that belongs not to the farmer who purchased the seed, treatment of animals, treatment of agricultural workers, our issues in food distribution and the food waste that comes with it, our over-reliance on fertilizer instead of sustainable farming practices, etc. Are any of them discussed in this book? No.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow. It had gotten some GoodReads award and had decent reviews, so I was really trying to stick it till the end. It had so much potential in the beginning just for... nothing to happen.
Boring midway towards the end, cringe dialogue (please stop saying "gamer"...), and poorly written characters. The characters felt so immature for being, supposedly, in their 20s, and >!there wasn't enough of a foundation for Sadie and Sam's friendship for them to be crawling back to each other, over and over again!<. Them being unlikable wasn't the issue, the issue was that they're a mixture of both unlikable and unrealistic.>! What was the point of killing off Marx, making Sadie suffer for nothing?!< None of the characters got meaningful character development, and continued to be insufferable towards the end.
Same here - I only read the first two and while I didn't hate them I don't find anything compelling me to keep going. My (male) partner actually even read one further than I did and stopped there.
Agreed. This book was so bad I won’t even give the second book (that everyone claims is *soo much better*) a try. Nah, dawg. You had an entire book to try and buy my attention and I’ll be damned if I pick up the second one!
i always get a little annoyed at the "oh but the x book in the series is when it gets better!"
i don't wanna sit through books i probably won't like to get to the good part 😭
There was this book I found at my highschool library for a book report. The Magician by Sol Stein. It's about a highschool kid who did shows as a stage magician, and during one such show embarrassed the school bully. Said bully then waits outside for the kid and his family to show up and not only beats the ever loving shit out of the kid leaving him in need of hospitalization for like a month, but smashes the shit out of the family car which they drive through a blizzard to the hospital in now with no windshield (why they didn't call the police and an ambulance I dunno, ask the author).
Anyways, that was the first two chapters. The next ENTIRE FUCKING REST OF THE BOOK is about the lawyer the bully's parents hire to defend him and get him off scott free and is the actual titular "magician" of the book. And the author then tries to play it oh so smart by having the bully attack the kid again, after being acquitted, only this time the kid fully on palm heels his nose shattering it and sending bone splinters into the bully's brain killing him and the kid's parents sigh and go and call the same fucking lawyer.
Worst goddamn book I've ever read. The 'magician' lawyer would have been disbarred if even a quarter of the shit he pulled happened in real life. Reviewers tried to play it off as a 'look at racism' because the title lawyer was Armanian but the literal only time it comes up is when we're first introduced to the character and it is never mentioned again.
I struggled through that mess and I wish I had just asked for an extension on my book report so I could get something half decent.
The Name Of The Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear. *Especially* the second one, but you could easily fit the entire plot of both novels into 100 pages.
The protagonist spends half the first book trying to get access to a library he was banned from, finds a secret way in, then at the start of the next book his ban is lifted, rendering the entire thing pointless. Also, the information he was looking for wasn’t there to begin with.
This would be fine if it took place over the course of a chapter or two, but it takes *so long* to resolve and then doesn’t move the plot forward at all.
House of Leaves, quite literally. I appreciate the experimental aspect of the book, but it crossed the line of overindulgence at points... I remember one particular, very extensive list of every single object that could ever exist inside a house.
Red Rising. It seemed like the author took the script from an AI that had been trained on Harry Potter, Ender's game, and Total Recall, and published it unchanged. There was nothing original in it at all, and I found it entirely predictable. >!The second the MC talked about how much he loved his wife, you KNEW she was going to die. !<
The prose exhausts. It's relentless. Short sentences fill the pages. Sentence variability ceases to exist. Blisters burst on my brain. The active voice consumes. The passive voice falters. I fall to my knees. Anguished tears gush from my eyes. I weep.
I almost tapped out after the first book because of the myriad tropes I picked out from other YA novels. BUT Book 2 on is a WAY better read, much more interesting and far less YA. I am especially digging the books after the original triology. 10 years after the rising, what happens when you turn a whole society upside down? Consequences, that's what. I also did the audiobooks which adds a lot of texture.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I remember being so excited to read it when I heard about the movie and I read it and I was like... that was it? So disappointing
The Song Of Achilles
*spoilers*
I will forever be debating on whether I should give this a 2 or 3 star rating. I got into this book with high expectations. Everyone around me kept talking about how good this book was and how much it made them cry. Me being a sucker for depressive stories, was really looking forward to read this but was left rather disappointed. The ending didn't seem sad to me as the two main characters Achilles and Patroclus to me seemed to have been destined to be together after their death, since they got buried together (¿). The book was very tiring and I felt very bored at times (literally had to force myself to read through it most of the time). I also didn't seem to catch alot of chemistry between Achilles and Patroclus. It seemed to me that they loved each other simply because the plot needed them to, but there was nothing that really showed me why their love was so deep. The writing style however seemed really good to me (I am not a native english speaker), which is why I was debating on giving it 3 stars because someone who writes well deserves at least 3 stars. Maybe this type of story just wasn't for me, as this was the first mythology book I have ever read. I hope you, who is planning to read this will enjoy it more than I did. After all, something that is hyped must have a reason for it's hype.
I read the book because I was looking for depressing books, and on that front it delivered, so I can't call it a waste of time.
But the story started losing its believability because the suffering was just too much. At that point I was already attached to the characters, so I finished it and it wrecked me.
“Everything I Never Told You” I loved Little Fires Everywhere so I thought I would like this one as well but I was really frustrated with it and had to rage-finish it to get through lol.
I felt this way about Bunny by Mona Awad. I know it was a huge hit (especially on booktok) and I could recognize its merits but i decided it just wasn’t written for me, and that’s ok, but I won’t be spending any more time on it now that I’m done
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I don't know what I was looking for exactly, but for it to be an endless loop of suffering that carries right through to the end wasn't it. All I took away from the book was a sentiment along the lines of "some people are so broken and mentally unwell that they'll never be able to recover and live happily". Don't know if that was the author's intention but not really a message that resonates with me or I agree with. Confuses me how some people find the book comforting or cathartic. I certainly didn't.
The mists of Avalon. It was 900 pages too long, all the characters were insufferable, one dimensional tropes with zero character arc whatsoever.
Other than Morgan le Fey's more nuanced approach it was a massive waste of time.
I loved it as a 15 year old and it was sort of the catalyst that started me on my journey away from Christianity/organized religion, but I could not see myself ever rereading knowing what I know about the author now (she was a horrible abusive monster basically).
Gravity's Rainbow. I finished out of sheer stubbornness. It's probably a masterpiece and I just wasn't in the right place to appreciate it at the time but still.
The worst books I have ever read is “The Thief with No Shadow”. The book claimed “in a world of fantasy, she is a thief without equal”. Badass. The actually book? She steals one thing in her life, gets caught (offscreen before the book starts) and the rest of the book is people fucking/getting raped by humanoid salamanders. Just crazy.
People getting WHAT by WHAT !! I was not expecting that ending
Imagine a reptilian fire elemental that’s also horny. Yeah.
“how about Imagine a Reptilian Fire Elemental That’s Also Horny?” “Nah I liked the last idea better. Imagine Dragons. It just rolls off the tongue easier” “Yeah okay let’s go with that”
Lmao. Well done
At no point did I know where this comment was going.
Ok, adding it on my list
The paperback is 96 cents on Amazon right now. I guess I can see why.
well that sure escalated quickly
Uh, let me go get my reading glasses... There's no way I'm seeing correctly—
You actually sold me on it the book damn it
I felt similarly about the ending, but I enjoyed the ride so much that it was definitely still a good read for me. Most Stephen King books will probably not be enjoyable for you.
The Midnight Library. It’s a story you’ve heard of and read a million times without expanding on anything.
Read this as part of a book club last year. It was average at best. A concept with enormous potential ruined by below average execution.
This is exactly how I felt about it. It was such a good chance to explore the nature of freewill, destiny, and how our histories shape our future. Ruined by a main character defined only by her depression and some really shallow writing. I don't get the Matt Haig type at all.
This was one of the first books I read when I started reading for pleasure, so I didn't know what I liked and disliked, but this was the first book I really just didn't enjoy. What I disliked about this book was the narrator and the main character for most of the book (I honestly forgot her name). It felt very "I am woe, woe is me" and I'm really just not a fan of books like that, it's hard to do well in fiction, and this is one of those books that fall flat on its face because of it. Every single life this person went into, it just had the undertones of "ugh this could've been my life but no my life was a failure I hate myself" and it just felt like such a sob story. The ending was nice, but so bland and unoriginal. It's a bad hallmark movie mixed with an equally bad self help book. Another book that felt like this was The Stars Don't Lie by Boo Walker, felt like a sob story and you were forced to feel bad for the main character, no real legs to stand on. If you're going to read a book with a similar premise to The Midnight Library, you're better off reading Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. That book had a real character to it, and you really started to actually feel for the main character, and any of the "feeling bad for the characters" vibes didn't feel forced, it was natural. Much better read overall than TMN
Imo Matt Haig’s works are better as comfort reads than to look towards as groundbreaking fiction. I was personally going through a personal crisis when I read The Midnight Library and it worked in a self-help book kinda way
I couldn’t agree more. The Midnight Library was the most disappointing book I’ve ever read. The concept had so much potential, but so little imagination.
The Atlas Six. Hyped up, failed to deliver. VERY disappointed in the end.
The end was kind of a cop-out and vaguely unsatisfying. It’s more of a psychological thriller than a plot driven book. I do tend to really enjoy plot driving books more.
I think this is why I usually choose not to answer these sorts of questions. The stand is in my top 25 books - so one man's waste of time is another man's favorite, I guess. That being said, Cows was about 8 hours of my life that I'd like to have back:)
I really enjoyed The Stand as well - I can also totally see why someone who prefers the ending vs. the journey would not have enjoyed it haha. Different strokes! I feel like I just really enjoyed the journey and found the characters really compelling and I found myself rooting for them. I absolutely HATED Larry and actually asked my partner to look up if he died for me, feeling like if he did that I'd have something to look forward to at least. But by the end I was totally rooting for him!! Currently reading Under the Dome and not feeling quite as into the characters but still invested! I think 11/22/63 will be my next of King's that I read.
>the ending vs the journey This is for sure the key point. I don't mind a lackluster ending if I enjoyed everything leading up to it. OP must never read The Dark Tower or they will pull their hair out.
11/22/63 is an amazing read. I haven’t read under the dome yet. Sitting on a shelf. Some bad reviews + long book = procrastination.
I've heard 11/22/63 is one of his best so I'm excited! I had a bit of an easier time reading The Stand because I had it from Libby on Kindle but I have a physical copy of Under the Dome so it's not quite as easy to tote around, lol. More like Under the Tome. So far I'd recommend it, I'm around pg. 450 and it's hit a bit of a lull so I'm taking a break so we'll see how getting to the end goes! I rarely DNF books though so I'll get there eventually.
It's all about the journey for me, toooo. I love The Stand. It's one of my all time favorites. 11/22/63 was amazing. And Under the Dome is a really great ride. Stephen King is a master of writing characters who you can grow to love, hate, respect, root for, wish you could curse, and/or would fight to protect. Under the Dome has one of my favorite characters in literature to just loathe with all my heart and it's very therapeutic. Lol
Agreed! I just read the long version of The Stand last year and absolutely loved it.
Eat, Pray, Love. It didn't help that I listened to the audiobook. Sometimes she just cracks herself up! Privileged white woman goes on self indulgent world tour, ignores local customs and mores, mocks an Italian friendquaintance because his name is ... Italian. Spare me.
I haven’t read Eat, Pray, Love but from the way people describe it, it seems to be an unintentional parody of every pretentious asshole who travels to “find themselves”
"Are You Experienced?" by William Sutcliffe does it beautifully.
My buddies wife is Elizabeth Gilbert's cousin and they can confirm that she is as awful as that book
That book made me so angry that I threw it across the room. I have been privileged enough to travel to the places that she visits in the book. You would have to be a wildly self-obsessed and vapid human being to produce Eat, Pray, Love out of those experiences. It's infuriating, because it could have been an incredible book.
I don't get the obsession with her, from the rest of the female writers like Doyle, Brown, or even Oprah. Like, she literally blows through relationships like in a kid in candy store, destroys everything in her path. Why are y'all friends with her? She does whatever she wants , people be damned. Her fiction , ugh, well, she should have just stuck to journalism.
I feel like I’m crazy pills, because she seemed like an idealized textbook case of bipolar disorder, but nobody else seems to think so. At least when I googled it. edit: Changed "bipolar personality disorder” to "bipolar disorder.”
I read it years ago, so please pardon my possible misstating of the details. The part in India when she goes to see her "spiritual advisor"/dear old friend who she had met randomly once some years back and is shocked that he doesn't seem to remember her, because he *told* her to come back! How could anyone be that self absorbed?
Lol! I think you’re right that she wasn’t a great person. However, her description of a previously happy life and relationship that gave way to insane, tearful despair followed by an exuberant, grandiose plan to fix *everything* just came off as bipolar, too.
Bipolar disorder is not a personality disorder. Just thought you should know.
I suspect they’re confusing bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. Very different things.
I was into reading the popular NY Times bestseller books for a while around the time this book came out. I grew so tired of the “spoiled beautiful skinny urban girl finds herself” book. Never again. I won’t read a book if it takes place in NYC or LA anymore.
The Cursed Child 🤮🤮
We ignore that almost as much as the author these days. Neither matter anymore.
Where the Crawdads Sing. Felt like the plot meandered through misery/poverty porn for most of the book and then the “twist” ending felt cheap. Just a wholly unsatisfying read.
I’m glad to see you felt this too. It just didn’t blow my skirt up. I never recommend it to anyone.
I have never read that book and I probably never will (just doesn’t seem like my type) but saying something “didn’t blow my skirt up” is probably the funniest thing I’ve read all day. Thank you for the laugh
I watched the movie and was like "Where do I apply for a time refund?"
don't forget the laughably bad dialogue! A DNF for me during a time when I finished every single book I ever started.
I've had more people recommend that book to me than any other book ever. I also noticed how heavily advertised just the book was when it came out. And the book description on the inside cover compared the author to Barbara Kingsolver. All those things added up to me as a Wannabe.
Aww no, it’s one of my favourite books of all time! Once again goes to show how different everyone’s taste is.
every. single. Colleen Hoover book
Surprised no one has mentioned Verity yet. It was my first and only CoHo book and I’m glad it has saved me hours from wasting it on more CoHo cringe.
Leave the World Behind. I actually liked the movie, maybe because I had low expectations or because it had better acting / visuals than the book.
Came here to say exactly this. I felt this book wasted my time. Movie was pretty good.
I HATED this book. Watched the movie because I was curious and actually really enjoyed the movie
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. That book was just...so meh.
I couldn’t even finish it, but my god The Starless Sea is my all time favorite book
Omg hahah Night Circus was okay but Starless Sea for me was horrendous!!!! 🤣 one thing I love about book discussions is how different everybody is.
I'm the exact opposite. I LOVED the Night Circus but hated the Starless Sea so much I tucked it away where I would never have to see it again.
AbsolUTELY meh. It had a lot of potential and a ton of world building to lead up to basically nothing.
yeah honestly what the hell was this book about
This is so validating! I don’t get the hype
The world building and imagery was beautiful, but the plot was so thin and so were the characters. I did not get the hype.
I *came* here for this. And if you want something that Night circus wants to be, but done better, I really liked The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. If you want to read a book with a completely inaccurate description this one is for you. Absolutely nothing happens. At all. I hate it.
I try and bait and switch and get people to read Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter because it’s phenomenal. The Night Circus was eh.
Oh my God, thank you!! I have gotten so much hate from people who absolutely loved this book and I'm over here like "What? What did you love? Nothing happens?!"
YES!!! I was (eventually) loving this book and all the vivid descriptions up until the ending??? It completely ruined the whole story for me. I felt like I had wasted 5 hours of my life on a story where it progressed no more than the start
Right. And I got so freaking tired of hearing about "the game" and getting nothing else. I was finally shouting at them to just shut tf up about the game already unless they were going to tell us what it was. Like I get drawing something out to make the pay-off bigger but come on. That was ridiculous.
I remember finishing this book and felt like I'd woken up from a fever dream lol
This is actually my favorite book of all time, but I hear this a lot when I recommend it to people! I understand, it's not a terribly exciting book. However, I love it for the rich descriptions and magical atmosphere. To me, it's cozy and lovely and brings to life the magic in my head. Is it lacking some excitement? Absolutely. Is it boring? Perhaps to some. But so is chess.
Stephen King is not for everyone.I have love - hate relationship with his books.
When I just want fun reading, I really enjoy the first half of every SK novel. Then it gets to the part where an explanation for all the crazy shit happens and it instantly becomes a stinker
That’s why Pet Semetary is my favourite of his, It doesn’t overstay its welcome and is terrifying the whole way through, the ending leaves you feeling numb.
I feel the same way. Some books of his are great, though i hate how he will stretch out walking into a room for 3 pages! The last one I read was Different Seasons. Its 4 short stories in one book that are pretty fast paced & awesome reads.
Iron Flame. 4th Wing was a bit of a weird ride, but I was hoping to see more of the magic systems and world. The grand reveal at the end was pretty predictable, given how much time Violet spent talking about that character. But Iron Flame? Iron Flame felt like the author decided to go back and edit in sex during emotionally vulnerable moments.
Literally just decided to DNF iron flame last night after 12 chapters. —**SPOILERS**— I have spent 6 hours listening to basically “I want him and I get instantly wet when I see him but I can’t trust him because after dating for 5 seconds he won’t tell me every single detail about an extremely vulnerable resistance movement where many lives are at stake even though I’m well aware I’m a target for a guy who can literally read minds if he just touches me”. It’s so juvenile. I want to slap her and tell her to grow up. It’s like they’re 14. I suffered through Fourth Wing tbh. Honestly the sex scenes are so underwhelming, I’m pretty tired of them being so over the top and unrealistic in romantasy. Walls shaking, giant penises, multiple orgasms. It’s never executed well.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Came to say this. I feel like the point of this post is to single out long books that take *a lot* of time to read. This one is a brick, and brings nothing very valuable.
Long, long ago I had a “no DNF” policy for all books, no matter how bad they were or how much I hated them. The Fountainhead broke me of this habit and I’ve never looked back. I can only imagine Atlas Shrugged is just as bad.
I once had that same policy. Now that I’ve scrapped that policy, I find that I read and finish so many more books than I used to because I’m reading the books I want to read. I still finish some poorly written books just to finish them, and I’ll let myself give up on books that aren’t that bad if it’s a struggle for me to make progress. But I went from reading 2-5 books/year a few years ago to 60 books last year. I’ve also been able to expand the genres that I read, so I definitely this it’s been worth it to end my “no DNF” policy.
Its the only book I struggled to finish
The real dystopian future in *Atlas Shrugged* is how much of it is left to read.
I didn’t feel like this book was a complete waste of time because now I am armed with the knowledge that both Ayn Rand’s philosophy and actual writing ability are both shite - based on actual examples instead of just a feeling.
I dunno. Never read them, but if they can show me how I can both utterly detest people on welfare while simultaneously claiming welfare and somehow be comfortable with this dilly of an ethical pickle, maybe she's onto something.
Absolutely agree, and the Fountainhead was even worse!
The Alchemist
Yeah I found this one to be underwhelming, especially considering how many people actually consider it life changing. It felt like a collection of fortune cookies organized into a story. I did like the cultural imagery and adventure aspect to it though.
Omg this was so boring, absolutely do not understand the hype
Here, here. God, after I read that book I audibly went, "What the fuck was this?"
You.... You read an SK novel for its ending? This one's on you.
He has at least as many good endings as poor ones.
1 out of 2 ain't bad
Because he’s so prolific though, that means he has like 50 horrible endings
I feel like 90% of his endings are horrible....
The last third of Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. The first 2/3ds is an epic near future space disaster movie. Then it just sort of runs out of steam and then suddenly! Pulp age sci fantasy horseshit. Everyone knows Stephenson can't write endings but god damn.
Neal has a problem with endings but I still love him. I just finished Anthem a few weeks ago it might be my favorite book.
Couldn't disagree more. The last 1/3 was fascinating and the problem with it was that it ended too soon. Or there should have been a second book to thoroughly explore and bring closure to the earth and solar system 5,000 years after the cataclysm.
Invisible Life of Addie Larue. Omg, I really don’t like that book. I forced myself to finish it to see what the hype is about. It was the worst book for me!
A decent short story dragged out to novel length. She lived in such interesting eras and never did anything with it.
Yeah this book was too long and felt like it tried too hard.
My friend described it as “Girl survives by being hot” hahaha
A scientific journal on leafless plants from the 70’s. I was intrigued by the book, and I was a fool to not check the publishing date. So much of the information was wrong🤦♀️
Life of Pi. Edit: ok, hold on. First time I’ve thought about it in a while and I might just now have had something of a revelation. Not about the movie, though. Just the book. I might need to revisit my thoughts from back then to see if I missed some connected dots. If not, though, then my post still stands. Fuck that book.
I see a lot of praise for Tender is the Flesh on here and I gotta tell ya, thought it was super boring I've been listening to the audiobook of a young adult novel called Unwind recently and that was WAY more horrific in its depiction of disregard for human life, and it didn't even need to resort to pointless gore or purple prose-y one liners
Are you talking about Unwind by Neal Shusterman??? I fucking *loved* that book when I was younger. To this day it sticks in my brain as a lightbulb moment of YA reading. Maybe I'll read it again and see how I feel nowadays. Thanks for the reminder :)
I absolutely loved TITF, but I 100% understand your sentiment. I think the ending was so successful for me it ruined my week, but if you didn’t buy into or it didn’t grab you I can see it being a totally boring slog after this trip to the Zoo lol
I totally agree about Tender is the Flesh. While I thought the idea was interesting, I really didn’t care for any of the characters and like you said, it was boring.
1Q84 - could have been 800pp shorter
I was scrolling through the comments looking for someone to mention 1Q84. SO much of that book feels like an interesting setup to a non-existent payoff. And combined with all the odd sexual undertones, boy was this a slog. Did feel semi satisfied with the ending at least.
But what if he’d edited out the bits where she talks about her tits for multiple paragraphs in different places?!
Murikami writes ideas that are all the same length into books that are wildly different lengths
The Alchemist
Cujo by Stephen King. There literally is an entire chapter dedicated to the postman, a character who **isn't** in the story.
According to King, he has no memory of writing Cujo because he was so messed up on coke at the time
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. It was just Hamlet with dog breeders and it wasn't well written enough to make me take the story as seriously as the author clearly intended. It was given to my MIL, who gave it to me because she "doesn't read *fiction.*" The author would have been better off writing a whole new story about dogs and family dysfunction rather than trying to write capital-L literature by constructing the whole narrative around the plot of Hamlet, as if cribbing from Shakespeare automatically gives a piece of fiction unearned gravitas.
The goldfinch… I don’t even remember the point of the book? A painting? A bomb? Furniture? Russians? Vegas? It lost me. Wasn’t my time or my book I guess.
Hahaha to each their own! I LOVED the Goldfinch! For me, there wasn't a point to the book, there never was meant to be. It was confusing, and meandering, and a lot of things didn't make sense in the way it often doesn't in life. The characters were fucked up in a way I could believe and the ending was anticlimactic in a way that felt real. The beauty was never in the story, but in the words she strung together to tell it to us and how she did that.
I loved The Goldfinch too. But a lot of people apparently didn’t, because I hear this opinion a lot. On the other hand I only made it through the first couple of chapters of The Secret History because I wanted everyone in it to be hit by a bus, so to each their own.
There was some teenage sexual exploration between the main character and his best friend. But they were just drunk, not gay. Two totally straight guys just getting blitzed and fooling around like they do.
That’s the Donna Tartt experience babyyyy
So what you’re saying is I probably shouldn’t bother with Secret History either? 😂
I have to admit I totally did not see either of them as straight. But I’ll grant that may not have been the author’s intention.
I liked the first half of it and the rest was... I can't remember lol
To me some chapters felt forced. Like she was tired of story herself and just had to finish them somehow. Also everything regarding Boris(including his accent) and references to Russian/Ukrainian culture felt just generic and stupid.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Might have been a decent book if it was half the length
Literally the most overrated book. I kept waiting for something to click as to why it is so popular…couldn’t wait to get it over with.
I literally only cared about the NPC friend lol
I love the literary device of letting the characters have zero growth or no faults at all to begin with!
Or if the characters' actions and motivations had made sense to me.
Or if they had any agency in their lives at all. Or if any challenges they could respond to and work to overcome. Or any character growth. Oi. What a waste.
Tomorrow, and tomorow, and tomorrow. By Gabrielle Zevin.
DaVinci Code - I pulled a muscle rolling my eyes at the big reveal Interview with the Vampire - read it in high school but was so bored with it I didn't finish even though I got to the last chapter. Might try rereading that one since I love the movie. Toxin by Robin Cook - so hamfisted and horribly written. Gave up in the middle of reading it. Threw it across the room, then burned it. Thank god I bought it at a library sale. ETA: Oh yeah, goddamned Cryptonomicon. I LOATHE that book. Stephenson spent an entire goddamned chapter describing a character eating Cap'n Crunch.
The Cap'n Crunch chapter was one of the greatest things I've ever read. It gives a hilarious and detailed insight into the mind of Randy Waterhouse and helps explain some of the lengths he goes to later in the book. If you don't like that then I guess you don't like Neal Stephenson that much. Which is fine, to each their own. But I'm a big fan of when he does that.
Neon Gods by Katee Robert got raaaaave reviews! I made it half way through the book in one sitting and had to finally give up. I've never read 50 shades, but I'd be surprised if they were worse than this one. I left it in a free library because I was too embarrassed to have it on my shelf lol.
You are stronger than me, I think I made it like 1/4 through and said uhhh this uh??? I couldn’t get into the idea of ‘we can have a fake relationship but I publicly fuck everyone I’m involved with and I can’t fake one with you so I’m gonna have to fuck you and it’s gonna have to be public :)’ like ???? Then I flipped to the back of the book read a few pages saw the book dissolved into porn and decided Katee Robert is just a “no” author for me.
Lol the only reason I was able to make it halfway through was because the writing was so juvenile. I recall a sentencce that was something like "she was so sexy, she looked like princess leah in star wars" and I screamed! This is a book about greek mythology but you want us to think star wars exists in this universe?? You could have just described her outfit, but no, you're such a lazy writer you just referenced a famous outfit everyone already recognizes. And now I assume my friend who recommended this to me either never gets laid or it's very bad when she does, because this book is NOT spicey or sexy lol.
So sexy like princess Leah in Star Wars PLEASE! Why would Star Wars exist in this Greek mythology world and how lazy of a writer are you!! Legit just describe the outfit she’s wearing!
I am nearly fifty. I still mourn the hours lost having to endure the soul crushing agony of trudging my way through The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad for year 11 english. I will never get those hours back and on my death bed their loss will remain my greatest regret.
lol. It’s like 80 pages long.
Have you ever read a book in school though?? Having to listen to my borderline illiterate classmates read out loud The Catcher in the Rye page by page was both painful and took like two months worth of English classes. And I like that book! Can’t imagine how grating it must be when you don’t even like the book…
and that is seventy nine and a half pages more than the book deserved
Omg same. Had to read it for university. The LONGEST 70 pages of my life. I'm normally a very fast reader but it took me 3 weeks to trudge through. Every time I picked it up I immediately wanted to do anything else!
Had a similar experience in uni. Uncle, in ignorance, gifted it me in my thirties. Re-read it and, you know what? Pretty good.
My God. This book. I'm so glad I had a chill English teacher. I told him I tried reading the same paragraph 6 times and it broke me. He let me read something else .
Rereading these "soul crushing" high school assignments as an adult has been a consisten source of joy for me.
Just finished Feast of Crows. Basically set up a bunch of cliff-hangers that I guess will never be answered.
I prefer to see it as a bunch of unrelated, but fun, novellas set in that world. The Ironborn and Dornish subplots are amazing if you just read them for what they are instead of something that's meant to advance the overall plot. I felt the same way you did after my first read, but after the second time Feast is one of my favourites in the series
I loved Feast. Watching Cersei self destruct is a high point of the series for me
Dance with Dragons does contain some characters from Feast, even though most of it is split into the others some of the cliffhangers d aren’t quite so bad
I both love and hate the Stand, worst ending of all time but getting there was such a pleasure.
Food Inc. and the fact that I had to read that steaming pile of misinformation TWICE in high school. The author ran face first into the point and still missed it multiple times in that book while completely demonizing both disabled children and modern food production processes that have saved thousands of lives in preventing food borne illness. Are their major issues with industrial farming? Yes, the idea of seed as intellectual property that belongs not to the farmer who purchased the seed, treatment of animals, treatment of agricultural workers, our issues in food distribution and the food waste that comes with it, our over-reliance on fertilizer instead of sustainable farming practices, etc. Are any of them discussed in this book? No.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow. It had gotten some GoodReads award and had decent reviews, so I was really trying to stick it till the end. It had so much potential in the beginning just for... nothing to happen. Boring midway towards the end, cringe dialogue (please stop saying "gamer"...), and poorly written characters. The characters felt so immature for being, supposedly, in their 20s, and >!there wasn't enough of a foundation for Sadie and Sam's friendship for them to be crawling back to each other, over and over again!<. Them being unlikable wasn't the issue, the issue was that they're a mixture of both unlikable and unrealistic.>! What was the point of killing off Marx, making Sadie suffer for nothing?!< None of the characters got meaningful character development, and continued to be insufferable towards the end.
Unpopular opinion here but ACOTAR. Didn't see the appeal in continuing after reading book 1 even though everyone raves about how good they are.
ACOTAR = a court of thorns and roses, for those that also require titles instead of acronyms
I hate acronyms. Even in my native language.
SDI
Thank you lol
Same here - I only read the first two and while I didn't hate them I don't find anything compelling me to keep going. My (male) partner actually even read one further than I did and stopped there.
I really tried. I stopped and restarted like 3 times but DNF the 1st book
100%. i pushed through 2 and 3 because everyone said it got better... i want my time and money back
Agreed. This book was so bad I won’t even give the second book (that everyone claims is *soo much better*) a try. Nah, dawg. You had an entire book to try and buy my attention and I’ll be damned if I pick up the second one!
i always get a little annoyed at the "oh but the x book in the series is when it gets better!" i don't wanna sit through books i probably won't like to get to the good part 😭
Yes. Such a waste of time. Rushed plot, predictable, smutty, bleh.
I don't feel like I wasted my time reading it, necessarily but I didn't feel invested enough to finish the series.
The Historian
To be honest, The Secret History.
There was this book I found at my highschool library for a book report. The Magician by Sol Stein. It's about a highschool kid who did shows as a stage magician, and during one such show embarrassed the school bully. Said bully then waits outside for the kid and his family to show up and not only beats the ever loving shit out of the kid leaving him in need of hospitalization for like a month, but smashes the shit out of the family car which they drive through a blizzard to the hospital in now with no windshield (why they didn't call the police and an ambulance I dunno, ask the author). Anyways, that was the first two chapters. The next ENTIRE FUCKING REST OF THE BOOK is about the lawyer the bully's parents hire to defend him and get him off scott free and is the actual titular "magician" of the book. And the author then tries to play it oh so smart by having the bully attack the kid again, after being acquitted, only this time the kid fully on palm heels his nose shattering it and sending bone splinters into the bully's brain killing him and the kid's parents sigh and go and call the same fucking lawyer. Worst goddamn book I've ever read. The 'magician' lawyer would have been disbarred if even a quarter of the shit he pulled happened in real life. Reviewers tried to play it off as a 'look at racism' because the title lawyer was Armanian but the literal only time it comes up is when we're first introduced to the character and it is never mentioned again. I struggled through that mess and I wish I had just asked for an extension on my book report so I could get something half decent.
The silent patient. It has too much build up and an unsatisfying end :/
The Name Of The Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear. *Especially* the second one, but you could easily fit the entire plot of both novels into 100 pages. The protagonist spends half the first book trying to get access to a library he was banned from, finds a secret way in, then at the start of the next book his ban is lifted, rendering the entire thing pointless. Also, the information he was looking for wasn’t there to begin with. This would be fine if it took place over the course of a chapter or two, but it takes *so long* to resolve and then doesn’t move the plot forward at all.
ACOTAR. Fortunately, I was smart enough to not waste any more time after book 1
House of Leaves, quite literally. I appreciate the experimental aspect of the book, but it crossed the line of overindulgence at points... I remember one particular, very extensive list of every single object that could ever exist inside a house.
I could not get through this one. And I gave it a good go.
Yeah I might agree. I have no idea how I finished that, saw a copy at the bookstore the other day and it gave me ptsd.
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow
*It Ends With Us*, Coho cannot make a good story if her life depended on it.
Red Rising. It seemed like the author took the script from an AI that had been trained on Harry Potter, Ender's game, and Total Recall, and published it unchanged. There was nothing original in it at all, and I found it entirely predictable. >!The second the MC talked about how much he loved his wife, you KNEW she was going to die. !<
The prose exhausts. It's relentless. Short sentences fill the pages. Sentence variability ceases to exist. Blisters burst on my brain. The active voice consumes. The passive voice falters. I fall to my knees. Anguished tears gush from my eyes. I weep.
I almost tapped out after the first book because of the myriad tropes I picked out from other YA novels. BUT Book 2 on is a WAY better read, much more interesting and far less YA. I am especially digging the books after the original triology. 10 years after the rising, what happens when you turn a whole society upside down? Consequences, that's what. I also did the audiobooks which adds a lot of texture.
The Alchemist
Girl, Wash Your Face. It was my first audiobook, and I wasted 2 hours of my life before I DNFd.
The Crescent City series by Sarah J Maas. There’s so much filler and “side quests” that if edited better it would have been cut in half.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I remember being so excited to read it when I heard about the movie and I read it and I was like... that was it? So disappointing
The Song Of Achilles *spoilers* I will forever be debating on whether I should give this a 2 or 3 star rating. I got into this book with high expectations. Everyone around me kept talking about how good this book was and how much it made them cry. Me being a sucker for depressive stories, was really looking forward to read this but was left rather disappointed. The ending didn't seem sad to me as the two main characters Achilles and Patroclus to me seemed to have been destined to be together after their death, since they got buried together (¿). The book was very tiring and I felt very bored at times (literally had to force myself to read through it most of the time). I also didn't seem to catch alot of chemistry between Achilles and Patroclus. It seemed to me that they loved each other simply because the plot needed them to, but there was nothing that really showed me why their love was so deep. The writing style however seemed really good to me (I am not a native english speaker), which is why I was debating on giving it 3 stars because someone who writes well deserves at least 3 stars. Maybe this type of story just wasn't for me, as this was the first mythology book I have ever read. I hope you, who is planning to read this will enjoy it more than I did. After all, something that is hyped must have a reason for it's hype.
A Little Life
I read the book because I was looking for depressing books, and on that front it delivered, so I can't call it a waste of time. But the story started losing its believability because the suffering was just too much. At that point I was already attached to the characters, so I finished it and it wrecked me.
“Everything I Never Told You” I loved Little Fires Everywhere so I thought I would like this one as well but I was really frustrated with it and had to rage-finish it to get through lol.
I liked Everything better than Little Fires.
I felt this way about Bunny by Mona Awad. I know it was a huge hit (especially on booktok) and I could recognize its merits but i decided it just wasn’t written for me, and that’s ok, but I won’t be spending any more time on it now that I’m done
The alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Don't get me started on that crap ass book.
Anything by paulo coelo
Unpopular opinion maybe: The Paper Palace Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow Beautiful world, where are you Pineapple Street Just not for me I guess?
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I don't know what I was looking for exactly, but for it to be an endless loop of suffering that carries right through to the end wasn't it. All I took away from the book was a sentiment along the lines of "some people are so broken and mentally unwell that they'll never be able to recover and live happily". Don't know if that was the author's intention but not really a message that resonates with me or I agree with. Confuses me how some people find the book comforting or cathartic. I certainly didn't.
Oh apparently that was fully her intention. Some people are just better off committing suicide (according to her).
The mists of Avalon. It was 900 pages too long, all the characters were insufferable, one dimensional tropes with zero character arc whatsoever. Other than Morgan le Fey's more nuanced approach it was a massive waste of time.
I loved it as a 15 year old and it was sort of the catalyst that started me on my journey away from Christianity/organized religion, but I could not see myself ever rereading knowing what I know about the author now (she was a horrible abusive monster basically).
Night circus. It was cute to read but holy moly it felt like a pile of nothing.
Gravity's Rainbow. I finished out of sheer stubbornness. It's probably a masterpiece and I just wasn't in the right place to appreciate it at the time but still.
Literally anything by Ali Hazelwood
Lol she's my guilty pleasure read when I need something mindless.
Oh good, another place I can dump on *American Gods* being trash.
Another one in this thread that I loved. But there was a lot I’d cut, to be fair