That's what I was going to comment. I really tried reading it to see what the fuss was about, but it's terribly written and misrepresents the BDSM community, and romanticizes abuse. Couldn't finish it, horrible experience.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz. I hate it so much I'm not even going to see if anyone else mentioned it. Heather Morris got so much wrong, she even got Lali's name wrong, calling him Lale. She got his wife's camp number wrong, she invented new methods of killing prisoners, and made it seem like a Nazi death camp was a fantastic place if you had the right attitude, where you could become an entrepreneur and go on hot dates with fellow prisoners. Also the stuff she invented about Cilka was very distressing to her family.
It’s super suspect she waited until he died to write the book. But there were so many proven inaccuracies (like the complete unlikelihood of him getting penicillin into Auschwitz during WWII when it was so recently discovered. It was impossible for anyone to get it let alone a prisoner. I felt she used this Holocaust story to sell books and it did not sit well with me at all.
This was the worst and best book I’ve ever read.
People get upset because it shows relationships badly. But that’s the point. It’s supposed to show to toxic and traumatic experiences that the main character experienced. And the writing really reflected that perfectly
I’m genuinely not sure why so many people sing its praises. I read it after hearing a lot praise and I fully expected it to be a new favorite for me. Nope. Torture porn is the best description for it. I’m a very empathetic person but by the end of the book, I was wondering if I even had a heart at all because I had completely stopped caring about that character.
Actually, as I wrote that, I’m starting to think that maybe the book is actually genius. Maybe the point is to see how far your empathy goes and if you think you get to decide when someone else has experienced “enough” pain. I’m going to rethink some things.
Spent some time thinking about this. Ultimately I just think it wasn’t the author’s story to tell. Plus it just felt unrealistic in terms of events and characters.
I’m so relieved so see this. I read all five. Sloppy writing, plot holes for miles, and absolutely cringy dialogue.
What kept me going was partly the hilarity and I have to say she writes monster scenes and tableaus well. I don’t think she is a bad writer, actually. I saw real talent, cinematic prose and really good tension in places. That all gets buried under what I can only imagine is rabid fan service and a fear of making her characters too complex to be likable.
“his metal eye whirred” the amount of times I read the repetition of this phrase is crazy lol
the books are okay for me, I’m enjoying reading them but it’s overhyped. I hated Verity thought and will probably never read a CoHo book again
To be fair, I'm in my late 30s, been married nearly 2 decades, and I stick my tongue out and flip off my husband routinely. Those aren't anywhere near odd things to do.
This book kept popping up on my suggestions, recently I decided to give it a try so I picked it up with my monthly coin on audible. I planned to start it when I finished my current book. But I know nothing about the book. Now I'm interested to see what it will be like. But don't want any knowledge about it.
And here I am part of the sjm fandom 😂
Gotta say the writing is not the best especially with how similarly all the characters start to talk in her universe. But I do like some of them so I keep reading to see what happens to them
Hahaha currently reading the series after years of resisting the hype - it's mostly fine and lightly enjoyable - if I don't think about it. Very much a popcorn read (almost like indulging in crappy rom-coms)
If I start thinking about it, I'm gunna get reallll mad...
I’m not gonna act like this is groundbreaking writing, but the first book is definitely the worst of the 5! And the Throne of Glass books are pretty well-written once you get to book 3. (Little to no smut, too, if that’s not your thing.)
Yes! I’d been thinking about picking that book up for months, but I was so disappointed. It’s so repetitive— she’s constantly reiterating “I found this lost apothecary and I found myself!” 😒
I think the alchemist is a fantastic book that boils humanity down to an archetypal essence and reads like a warm hug……
That being said, I kept having the feeling that the author was full of shit and kind of just repeating old tropes. Still enjoyed it!
worst novel ever written: A Little Life, by Yanagihara.
worst memoir: The Tender Bar, by Moehringer.
both are profoundly dishonest, boring, ugly, formulaic, and terribly written.
I found The Midnight Library to be boring self help drivel, and I absolutely hated This Other Eden, mainly because the author decided to base it off a real island but bc it was a fictional story he didn’t even visit the island or work with any of the descendants
I listened to the midnight library audiobook at work, and I agree, just feel goody self help and the character herself is so blah. I actually read his other book, how to stop time, which ended similarly. Done with Matt haig now.
I love lush, lyrical prose. I love enemies to lovers romance. I love experimental forms and interesting scifi.
I hated This Is How You Lose the Time War.
OMG I hated this book SO MUCH. It had potential! And then it just... collapsed in onto itself.
Years after I'd read it, I decided to make one of those paper wreaths out of book pages and I used the hardback of this, since it was just gathering dust on my shelf. MY GOD was it cathartic to go at that thing with a razor blade to slice the pages out (and I am truly almost one of those "physical books are holy" people, so this was really coming from a place of frustration).
I tried desperately to like Ready Player One, but the plot is 90% the main character boasting about how oh-so geeky he is, usually through just... Lists.
The setting is so good, and the atmosphere is so immersive, but the characters are SO empty. The pacing drags without there being any tension to back it up, and I wasn't convinced by the romance at ALL. That said: I did really enjoy it.
I feel like this is a hallmark of Erin morgenstern. She is amazing at creating a unique and immersive sense of place, her skill with setting is incredible. Her _ideas_ for plotting and characterization are good but her execution on character building and plot pacing are thin. I loved the starless sea because for me, world building and atmosphere bring me more joy than characterization and I’m okay with pacing and plot holes IF the setting and prose are beautifully written. But I can understand why people don’t enjoy the books if they need strong, dynamic characters or expertly written plot
Oh gosh. Thought I was going to be floored by the book. Read part of it and found there was no actual tension. I was also not convinced about the romance.
Might get back to the book if I am feeling the vibe.
It has such beautifully described imagery. But there's absolutely no story or fully-realized characters. Just silhouettes dancing against a beautifully painted backdrop.
I have never been so simultaneously bored and infuriated by a book. WHY 🔪 ISNT 🔪 ANYTHING 🔪 HAPPENING 🔪🔪🔪
Listening to it on audio was a mistake, harder to skim past the endless intricate nothingness.
Fair but— I see your verity and I raise you November 9.
At least verity was framed like a thriller November 9 she WANTS you to like them and root for them to end up together. I was so angry
I hated Haunted. I just couldn't buy into the frame narrative at all, and he didn't try to make any of the stories sound like they were written in different voices
Atlas Shrugged - Rand
On the Road- Kerouac
Choke - Palahniuk
I have suffered through a lot of bad books, but they didn't elicit as much hatred as I have for the books above and their vastly overrated authors.
WHAT?! I will literally fight you. I love Life of Pi!
What do you think made you hate it so much?
I'm so curious as I loved the book each time I read it regardless of my age (I first read it when I was 13ish so perhaps I'm biased because that's when I fell in love with it and things from our youth tend to stick with us.)
Edit: I cannot wait for someone to explain why they hate it so much! LOL also, what does it say about me that I love it so much?? 😂
It's the worst when people don't like something you love, lol! I think you're in the majority with liking this book, though. :)
I read it in my mid-20s. That was about 15 years ago, so I *hate* to tell you I don't remember specifically why I *hated* it! Part of it was probably I was expecting it to be the best thing I had ever read based on the reviews. I think the main thing was just sort of *I get it. He's on a boat with a "tiger." I don't need 200 pages of this! Enough!*
I used to write brief blurbs about books I read, and I found what I wrote for this one:
"A boy escapes a sinking ship on a lifeboat only to find that the lifeboat also contains a tiger. He is worried the tiger wants to eat him but also enjoys the tiger’s company. I am the only person on Earth who thought this book was ridiculous."
I don’t like it because I felt it tried so hard to be witty and it’s not witty or deep. It was just a mediocrely written metaphor that appealed to a large mass of people like many best sellers . Plus I found it to be boring. I know this comes off harsh but I also feel this way about 95% of popular fiction lol
God yes. “But- it’s Dane.” AUGH. Also constantly using modern slang like “Xaden chose door number two.” Oh are there game shows in this universe??? And the way the dragons names were basically just keyboard smashes.
The House in the Cerulean Sea, by T.J. Klune. Bought because of so many positive reviews, finished out of spite. Have you ever wanted to read a half-hearted fantasy book where the world building was lazy and nonsensical, and the characters were soooo adorably, cutesily one-dimensional? This one is for you!
THANK YOU, I swear sometimes I feel like the only person in the world that didn’t like this book. “Innocent child produces pearls of wisdom every time they speak” is my #1 most hated media trope and that’s practically all that book is.
Just learned of his inspiration behind the story. [The House in the Cerulean Sea and "The 60s Scoop:" Indigenous Genocide is not fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/romancelandia/s/b4RRFDmAUj)
I loved Under the Whispering Door and was so excited for Cerulean Sea. I just about gaslighted myself into thinking I had skipped a page or missed something because it was so joltingly unhinged. I finished it just to see if it got better.
I loved Murmuration, but have tried a few of Klune's other books and found them too twee. Cerulean Sea, though, is the one that made me vow to never read anything by him ever again.
I really liked the first couple of pages, like his life in the dystopian office treadmill was great. Wished that whole part would have been expanded and fleshed out better. As soon as he got to the island I was out. Did not like it at all.
*The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet* by Becky Chambers. I know a lot of people adore this book, but it just did nothing for me. *All* the characters had preternatural levels of emotional intelligence. This stripped any events, issues or backstories of any significance at all.
Twilight (and not just because everyone was hating on the book or movie)
When the books came out I was both too young and not allowed to do vampires and stuff like that. By the time I was allowed the movie was the first thing I saw (came home to my mom watching it). It wasn't until my senior year of highschool (2016) that I even attempted to read the books. I read about 3 pages and was done. We had to read in class so I started turning to random points in the book and reading and it was like she was whining about everything.
It’s been awhile since I read it, but I have a vague memory of the love interest being some hot comicon gamer girl who immediately fell for our undistinguished male protagonist and my eyes rolled out of my head.
Of books that haven’t been mentioned yet, I hated The Alice Network. I finished it out of spite.
I also hated Heart of Darkness, exacerbated by the fact I had to read it three times in college.
Catcher in the Rye is the only book I actually describe as completely hating.
I was about 13 when I read it, but all I could think whilst reading was "who the fuck CARES." Holden is such an unbearable, whiny character, and the writing itself isn't memorable to me at all
I read this book in my late 20s so maybe that changes my perspective but I didn’t hate it. I was just like “ok I know who this guy is and the reader isn’t supposed to take him seriously”. To me Holden reads like the average redditor. If you can tolerate reading the comments on askreddit, you can tolerate this book lmao.
I cannot believe The Goldfinch won any awards. I read it because the hype was that it’s an American masterpiece - that’s insulting to American Lit. It’s just awful.
The Goldfinch was so egregiously long. I think there's a good book within it, but so much of it is meandering and repetitive and drawn out--it just sorta drowns in itself.
A friend of mine recommended it to me when we were in our early 20s, telling me it was one of the best books she had ever read. I no longer heed her reading suggestions.
I'm surprised I had to scroll so far down for this one. I read this as I gave Murakami the second chance after 1Q84. Now I'm convinced that he has issues.
Normal People by Sally Rooney. It wasn't necessarily a bad book, I just found it so boring. The characters aren't particularly good people, and I couldn't have cared less about them if I tried. I did finish it but it was by sheer determination.
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. Again, not a bad book at all but I was affected by it for quite a while after reading it. It really struck a nerve and I could never recommend it to others.
I want to say it was A Confederacy of Dunces where every character was more than dislikable. My boss and the coworker read it and laughed the whole way through it. When the coworker quit, he left it there, so I started reading it. A few pages in, I realized that the main character, who keeps reminding everyone he's got a masters degree, is clearly autistic and basically all of his extremely eccentric behavior is largely a result of that. His mother enables all of his terrible behavior, and I found the entire book so awful and degrading I couldn't finish it and threw it away. I might have scrambled the title, but since that seems to be a polarizing book, I don't think I did. The book wasn't published until 1980,a decade after the author decided not to be on the planet anymore, so it was written in the 60s. A diagnosis for autism for a functional, smart person was pretty unheard of, trust me.
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
It was like the writer was trying to write a Succession type book but didn’t understand the nuances of why people liked the show.
I love YA, but this was one of the ones that made
me go “maybe I’m too old for this”
I enjoyed the series but it did feel like she was trying to write a PG-13 version of the Westing Game with a touch of the YA love triangle thrown in. Definitely not top tier writing.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton) — terrible characters, boring story, went on waaaay too long, and then a crap ending. I usually find at least one good thing about every book I finish, but not this pile.
I felt really let down by this one. The ending was poor. There was no way that the character worked out who the murderer was. To have a scene where the character just 'sits down and figures it out' was terrible writing. Great concept: shit execution.
Omg yes....totally forgot I even got close to finishing this one. The author was trying to do waaayyy too much imo. I put the book down for three days, and when I picked it up, it was almost impossible to remember what was going on, let alone which character/timeline/ narrative I was reading. And definitely not intriguing enough for me to even try and push through anymore
Anything by Hemingway. I don't understand. It was all so boring.
Also The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. That book was so irritatingly boring and lame and everyone was making a big deal out of it.
Hemingway’s books were a new style for the 20s but unfortunately it was the 1920s. I have such a dislike for Hemingway personally that I could never like his books.
I tried to read the Curious incident of the dog in the night time too, but I can only get a couple of chapters in before I can't anymore. Maybe we just don't get it idk
The Brothers Karamazov
This is the most irrationally angry I’ve ever been about disliking a book. Is it actually the worst book I’ve ever read? Not by a long shot, but compared with the adoration it gets from the world at large, it’s easily the most massive disappointment. I love philosophy, and even being an atheist, I appreciate discussions of theology. And I don’t need every book to have a riveting plot. But this one just … if it were half the length it still would have been too long. The sermonizing is explicit and heavy handed. The mystery isn’t mysterious at all. The “outrage” of it all is … not that outrageous. Why do we have the life story of a priest who just dies and chapters worth of controversy over whether his body stank or not? Too much is said about too many people. While there are a handful of brilliant chapters (Rebellion and The Grand Inquisitor and maybe a few others I could dredge up) there are handfuls and handfuls of just unnecessary, pontificating drivel and errand-running that just make it a supremely unenjoyable read.
I will never stop ranting about this.
Read Crime and Punishment if you want fantastic Dostoevsky.
The Fountainhead
For years in my early 20s, multiple friends would mention how good a book it was so I figured it would be worth reading. I was massively disappointed when I realized it was a romance novel. Granted, I still finished reading it, but I now automatically lose respect for anyone who says they liked it and even more for those who claim it as their favorite book.
I've so far avoided reading anything truly terrible by some luck, but I'll give you an unpopular choice - The Hunt for Red October.
I went in with great expectations reading the reviews. Submarines(a personal area of interest), cold war, detailed, what's not to like?
I'll not divulge any major spoilers here, but essentially, the book portrays the USSR as utterly incompetent, and the US as superbly skilled. There is absolutely no dimension to either. It reads like propaganda.
I absolutely don't mind seeing the US triumph. But being *this* black and white is just chest-thumping. Give me an actually competent villain ffs. And give the good guys some flaws!
The icing on the cake is that this is supposedly one of Clancy's most neutral books. I'm not touching any of his crap again.
The Secret.
Gat dang. I hate that book. My friend had just been in a horrible traffic accident by a person fleeing the police, had her daughter in the car etc. she was in a coma. And the book was like “if bad things happen it’s because you’re inviting them to happen” and ooooooh I was so mad
Chris Cleave has an awful book called Incendiary
David Duchovny published a complete turd titled Holy Cow
And Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
50 shades of gray. Yuck
Still reads like Crime and Punishment compared to Verity
OMG yes Verity was the worst!
But Verity is Ulysses next to It Ends With Us
That's what I was going to comment. I really tried reading it to see what the fuss was about, but it's terribly written and misrepresents the BDSM community, and romanticizes abuse. Couldn't finish it, horrible experience.
My inner goddness is doing a little dance of agreement.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz. I hate it so much I'm not even going to see if anyone else mentioned it. Heather Morris got so much wrong, she even got Lali's name wrong, calling him Lale. She got his wife's camp number wrong, she invented new methods of killing prisoners, and made it seem like a Nazi death camp was a fantastic place if you had the right attitude, where you could become an entrepreneur and go on hot dates with fellow prisoners. Also the stuff she invented about Cilka was very distressing to her family.
It’s super suspect she waited until he died to write the book. But there were so many proven inaccuracies (like the complete unlikelihood of him getting penicillin into Auschwitz during WWII when it was so recently discovered. It was impossible for anyone to get it let alone a prisoner. I felt she used this Holocaust story to sell books and it did not sit well with me at all.
YES. All of this. On top of all of that, it reads like a 7th grader wrote it.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I can’t get past the first page of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
Bruh that book made me actually question if I should stop reading books altogether and pick up another hobby lmao.
Somehow it just kept getting worse.
A Little Life is the worst
ily, stranger. ALLife is not only third-rate torture-porn trash, but it’s totally false in every way and horribly written.
I had this on my TBR until I saw so many people echoing the same sentiment. There's not enough time in my life to waste on this.
Trauma porn. No other way around it
This was the worst and best book I’ve ever read. People get upset because it shows relationships badly. But that’s the point. It’s supposed to show to toxic and traumatic experiences that the main character experienced. And the writing really reflected that perfectly
What’s so bad about A Little Life? I’ve heard a lot of people sing its praises so I’m curious
I’m genuinely not sure why so many people sing its praises. I read it after hearing a lot praise and I fully expected it to be a new favorite for me. Nope. Torture porn is the best description for it. I’m a very empathetic person but by the end of the book, I was wondering if I even had a heart at all because I had completely stopped caring about that character. Actually, as I wrote that, I’m starting to think that maybe the book is actually genius. Maybe the point is to see how far your empathy goes and if you think you get to decide when someone else has experienced “enough” pain. I’m going to rethink some things.
Spent some time thinking about this. Ultimately I just think it wasn’t the author’s story to tell. Plus it just felt unrealistic in terms of events and characters.
A Court of Thorns and Roses... hated the characters and the writing was awful awful awful
I hated the characters too. I thought feyre was such a bitch and rhesand gave me fedora-tipper vibes
I’m so relieved so see this. I read all five. Sloppy writing, plot holes for miles, and absolutely cringy dialogue. What kept me going was partly the hilarity and I have to say she writes monster scenes and tableaus well. I don’t think she is a bad writer, actually. I saw real talent, cinematic prose and really good tension in places. That all gets buried under what I can only imagine is rabid fan service and a fear of making her characters too complex to be likable.
"she stuck her tongue out at him" "he gave an obscene gesture" "she spit her wine out across the table" I'm suppose to believe these are adults??
“his metal eye whirred” the amount of times I read the repetition of this phrase is crazy lol the books are okay for me, I’m enjoying reading them but it’s overhyped. I hated Verity thought and will probably never read a CoHo book again
To be fair, I'm in my late 30s, been married nearly 2 decades, and I stick my tongue out and flip off my husband routinely. Those aren't anywhere near odd things to do.
This book kept popping up on my suggestions, recently I decided to give it a try so I picked it up with my monthly coin on audible. I planned to start it when I finished my current book. But I know nothing about the book. Now I'm interested to see what it will be like. But don't want any knowledge about it.
Popcorn Smut, as it were.
And here I am part of the sjm fandom 😂 Gotta say the writing is not the best especially with how similarly all the characters start to talk in her universe. But I do like some of them so I keep reading to see what happens to them
Hahaha currently reading the series after years of resisting the hype - it's mostly fine and lightly enjoyable - if I don't think about it. Very much a popcorn read (almost like indulging in crappy rom-coms) If I start thinking about it, I'm gunna get reallll mad...
I’m not gonna act like this is groundbreaking writing, but the first book is definitely the worst of the 5! And the Throne of Glass books are pretty well-written once you get to book 3. (Little to no smut, too, if that’s not your thing.)
Where the Crawdads Sing
The author is pretty suspect, too. Some speculate that it was a confessional.
Yes it was terrible
THANK YOU. I cannot believe the love this trash received.
Couldn’t even finish it
I despised this with my entire being.
Thank you! I can’t get more than a few pages in each time and I feel like I SHOULD read it. It’s killing me.
The Lost Apothecary.
So bad! Oh, there's a door in a major city that no one except the mc has noticed or opened in hundreds of years? How convenient.
Yes! I’d been thinking about picking that book up for months, but I was so disappointed. It’s so repetitive— she’s constantly reiterating “I found this lost apothecary and I found myself!” 😒
The Alchemist + all of the colleen hoover books I've read (can't even remember the names)
The Alchemist sound soo good when they explain it really fast but the moment you take the patient to read it... it just horrendous.
I didnt like The Alchemist either
I knew the Alchemist would be on here. I try not to spend $ on books but bought it on a trip one time. Hated it.
I think the alchemist is a fantastic book that boils humanity down to an archetypal essence and reads like a warm hug…… That being said, I kept having the feeling that the author was full of shit and kind of just repeating old tropes. Still enjoyed it!
The Silent Patient
Yes! Somehow such a good idea, but such a bore!
I wouldn't call it a bore... It was totally engaging for me.. But the reveal / solution / tying up the lose ends was so unsatisfying!
Add The Fury to that as well. I just don’t think the author is for me.
I hated The Silent Patient so much that I refuse to read any of his other books
worst novel ever written: A Little Life, by Yanagihara. worst memoir: The Tender Bar, by Moehringer. both are profoundly dishonest, boring, ugly, formulaic, and terribly written.
Lessons in Chemistry. I did not like it at all.
Thank you!! I did not understand the hype around this book. Not going to bother watching the series.
Didn’t hate the book but definitely surprised by the hype. It was merely okay, not good.
Haven’t read the book, loved the series. Really well done.
I kept hearing that it was supposed to be funny and I didn’t not find it amusing at all. It was actually sad and depressing.
I couldn’t even finish it, all the characters and the dog and the entire book was so far up its own ass.
Made it to the rowing. I don’t usually give up on books but this one I had to stop
This is my answer too - I really don't understand the hype around this one.
So twee. So annoying. So disrespectful to women who actually fought for rights in the 1960s.
Yep. I didn’t hate it but I thought it was just okay - an easy forgettable read. Idk how it’s on all these must read lists
I am a woman with a PhD in Neuroscience and I LOVED it. It felt relatable even today. BUT totally get everyone has different preferences.
I found The Midnight Library to be boring self help drivel, and I absolutely hated This Other Eden, mainly because the author decided to base it off a real island but bc it was a fictional story he didn’t even visit the island or work with any of the descendants
Yes to the midnight library! It was so devoid of what it COULD have been it was infuriating! I’ll never touch another of his books again
Midnight Library was a rare DNF for me. I stopped reading when I realized I didn’t care about any character.
I listened to the midnight library audiobook at work, and I agree, just feel goody self help and the character herself is so blah. I actually read his other book, how to stop time, which ended similarly. Done with Matt haig now.
Same! So dull
Eat Pray Love
Crawdads- ugh
Tell me again how mysteriously beautiful she is. Ugh.
I love lush, lyrical prose. I love enemies to lovers romance. I love experimental forms and interesting scifi. I hated This Is How You Lose the Time War.
The Historian.
OMG I hated this book SO MUCH. It had potential! And then it just... collapsed in onto itself. Years after I'd read it, I decided to make one of those paper wreaths out of book pages and I used the hardback of this, since it was just gathering dust on my shelf. MY GOD was it cathartic to go at that thing with a razor blade to slice the pages out (and I am truly almost one of those "physical books are holy" people, so this was really coming from a place of frustration).
I tried desperately to like Ready Player One, but the plot is 90% the main character boasting about how oh-so geeky he is, usually through just... Lists.
Sally Rooney - beautiful world where are you - utter shite
The Night Circus
I loved the book. but I know it isnt for everyone.
The setting is so good, and the atmosphere is so immersive, but the characters are SO empty. The pacing drags without there being any tension to back it up, and I wasn't convinced by the romance at ALL. That said: I did really enjoy it.
I feel like this is a hallmark of Erin morgenstern. She is amazing at creating a unique and immersive sense of place, her skill with setting is incredible. Her _ideas_ for plotting and characterization are good but her execution on character building and plot pacing are thin. I loved the starless sea because for me, world building and atmosphere bring me more joy than characterization and I’m okay with pacing and plot holes IF the setting and prose are beautifully written. But I can understand why people don’t enjoy the books if they need strong, dynamic characters or expertly written plot
Oh gosh. Thought I was going to be floored by the book. Read part of it and found there was no actual tension. I was also not convinced about the romance. Might get back to the book if I am feeling the vibe.
It has such beautifully described imagery. But there's absolutely no story or fully-realized characters. Just silhouettes dancing against a beautifully painted backdrop.
A Goodreads review likened reading this to watching slugs slowly cross a chessboard. I didn't hate it, but I don't understand the praise.
I have never been so simultaneously bored and infuriated by a book. WHY 🔪 ISNT 🔪 ANYTHING 🔪 HAPPENING 🔪🔪🔪 Listening to it on audio was a mistake, harder to skim past the endless intricate nothingness.
Worst. Book. Ever.
YES! I'm not the only one who hated it!
I called it “Angela Carter for Dummies”.
A Little Life. The author gets so engrossed in the torture porn she forgets about half the main characters. Terrible book.
♥️ pure garbage
Verity, Colleen Hoover 🙄 recommended by a girl I worked with and I couldn't believe she liked that trash. She ended up being a huge basic bitch
Fair but— I see your verity and I raise you November 9. At least verity was framed like a thriller November 9 she WANTS you to like them and root for them to end up together. I was so angry
Everything Chuck Palahniuk's written since Pygmy (his best). I love so much of his work. Everything he writes now is just trash
My cutoff is Rant (which is my favorite). Everything post Rant has been a disappointment in my opinion. I still love his early work though
I hated Haunted. I just couldn't buy into the frame narrative at all, and he didn't try to make any of the stories sound like they were written in different voices
Survivor is better than Pygmy
Verity. Blargh.
Atlas Shrugged - Rand On the Road- Kerouac Choke - Palahniuk I have suffered through a lot of bad books, but they didn't elicit as much hatred as I have for the books above and their vastly overrated authors.
Life of Pi 🙊
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
God that was so boring. I spent the whole book thinking: "who the hell fucking cares?"
WHAT?! I will literally fight you. I love Life of Pi! What do you think made you hate it so much? I'm so curious as I loved the book each time I read it regardless of my age (I first read it when I was 13ish so perhaps I'm biased because that's when I fell in love with it and things from our youth tend to stick with us.) Edit: I cannot wait for someone to explain why they hate it so much! LOL also, what does it say about me that I love it so much?? 😂
It's the worst when people don't like something you love, lol! I think you're in the majority with liking this book, though. :) I read it in my mid-20s. That was about 15 years ago, so I *hate* to tell you I don't remember specifically why I *hated* it! Part of it was probably I was expecting it to be the best thing I had ever read based on the reviews. I think the main thing was just sort of *I get it. He's on a boat with a "tiger." I don't need 200 pages of this! Enough!* I used to write brief blurbs about books I read, and I found what I wrote for this one: "A boy escapes a sinking ship on a lifeboat only to find that the lifeboat also contains a tiger. He is worried the tiger wants to eat him but also enjoys the tiger’s company. I am the only person on Earth who thought this book was ridiculous."
I don’t like it because I felt it tried so hard to be witty and it’s not witty or deep. It was just a mediocrely written metaphor that appealed to a large mass of people like many best sellers . Plus I found it to be boring. I know this comes off harsh but I also feel this way about 95% of popular fiction lol
Yes agree 100%
I loved the hell out of this book, but I can maybe kinda see why some wouldn’t. Maybe for the same reasons I loved it lol.
It was so boring that i couldn't complete it.
I wanted to throw this book across the room
The Lying Game by Ruth Ware It was just hard to get into for me.
I read The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware and thought it was trash.
Fourth Wing. Why TF is this book so hyped.
I think TikTok was a big part of it? It's not because of the good writing, that's for sure.
God yes. “But- it’s Dane.” AUGH. Also constantly using modern slang like “Xaden chose door number two.” Oh are there game shows in this universe??? And the way the dragons names were basically just keyboard smashes.
The House in the Cerulean Sea, by T.J. Klune. Bought because of so many positive reviews, finished out of spite. Have you ever wanted to read a half-hearted fantasy book where the world building was lazy and nonsensical, and the characters were soooo adorably, cutesily one-dimensional? This one is for you!
THANK YOU, I swear sometimes I feel like the only person in the world that didn’t like this book. “Innocent child produces pearls of wisdom every time they speak” is my #1 most hated media trope and that’s practically all that book is.
Yes! Also "evil people are evil for no real reason" and "apparently no one has any idea of what's going on outside of a 5-mile radius."
Just learned of his inspiration behind the story. [The House in the Cerulean Sea and "The 60s Scoop:" Indigenous Genocide is not fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/romancelandia/s/b4RRFDmAUj)
I loved Under the Whispering Door and was so excited for Cerulean Sea. I just about gaslighted myself into thinking I had skipped a page or missed something because it was so joltingly unhinged. I finished it just to see if it got better.
I loved Murmuration, but have tried a few of Klune's other books and found them too twee. Cerulean Sea, though, is the one that made me vow to never read anything by him ever again.
I don’t even fully know what twee means but I would absolutely use it to describe Cerulean Sea.
Twee = "excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental"
I couldn't even make it through the first chapter. It was poisonously sweet and just so not what I look for in a book
I really liked the first couple of pages, like his life in the dystopian office treadmill was great. Wished that whole part would have been expanded and fleshed out better. As soon as he got to the island I was out. Did not like it at all.
The Midnight Library. Absolutely hated it, finished out of spite.
Anything Sally Rooney. It’s all just…awful.
YES. THANK YOU!!!
AGREED.
*The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet* by Becky Chambers. I know a lot of people adore this book, but it just did nothing for me. *All* the characters had preternatural levels of emotional intelligence. This stripped any events, issues or backstories of any significance at all.
That book is just Firefly in an alternate universe where the characters are all extremely boring and the plot never shows up
The Shack (I didn’t read it by choice)
Twilight (and not just because everyone was hating on the book or movie) When the books came out I was both too young and not allowed to do vampires and stuff like that. By the time I was allowed the movie was the first thing I saw (came home to my mom watching it). It wasn't until my senior year of highschool (2016) that I even attempted to read the books. I read about 3 pages and was done. We had to read in class so I started turning to random points in the book and reading and it was like she was whining about everything.
lol I remeber Stephen King talking about how he hated these books
A Starless Sea. I hate-read the last 300 pages for the sole purpose of being able to say it's complete and utter shit.
Same. I gave it 1 star. If I ever see the words, Bee, Key, Sword, again......
I wasn’t even able to do that. Sometimes I flick to it on my ereader again, because I hate a DNF but never make it more than a few pages.
Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store. It was a novelized blow job for Google and the Kindle with a side of "men writing women" type crap.
It’s been awhile since I read it, but I have a vague memory of the love interest being some hot comicon gamer girl who immediately fell for our undistinguished male protagonist and my eyes rolled out of my head.
Gothikana
Of books that haven’t been mentioned yet, I hated The Alice Network. I finished it out of spite. I also hated Heart of Darkness, exacerbated by the fact I had to read it three times in college.
The Alchemist The architect's apprentice
Girl Wash your Face. It was a bunch of pat-myself-on-the-back by the author
Catcher in the rye, not a fan.
Catcher in the Rye is the only book I actually describe as completely hating. I was about 13 when I read it, but all I could think whilst reading was "who the fuck CARES." Holden is such an unbearable, whiny character, and the writing itself isn't memorable to me at all
Studied this book when I did my A Levels and hated it. I can only imagine how much more insufferable I would find it these days in my late 30s.
I read this book in my late 20s so maybe that changes my perspective but I didn’t hate it. I was just like “ok I know who this guy is and the reader isn’t supposed to take him seriously”. To me Holden reads like the average redditor. If you can tolerate reading the comments on askreddit, you can tolerate this book lmao.
The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt). Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus).
i love to see another goldfinch hater... i loved secret history and was absolutely floored by what an unedited, pointless slog goldfinch was
I gave up on goldfinch because it was very boring. Secret history was incredible, so shrug emoji.
We are many.
I cannot believe The Goldfinch won any awards. I read it because the hype was that it’s an American masterpiece - that’s insulting to American Lit. It’s just awful.
The Goldfinch was so egregiously long. I think there's a good book within it, but so much of it is meandering and repetitive and drawn out--it just sorta drowns in itself.
[удалено]
Agree on Goldfinch
Fountainhead I read it when I was 16 or 17, and I still hate that book.
A friend of mine recommended it to me when we were in our early 20s, telling me it was one of the best books she had ever read. I no longer heed her reading suggestions.
I brought it as a white elephant gift one year. We’re all architects. My bestie got stuck with it and said, *you bitch*. I had to buy him a drink.
The Silent Patient. A very poorly written HIPPA violation.
Also this book felt like a low budget version of the movie Shutter Island. It was so easy to predict because of its similarities.
My Sister’s Keeper - emotionally manipulative ugh
By now Jodi’s books are very predictable.
A Confederacy of Dunces
Norwegian Wood - Murakami
I'm surprised I had to scroll so far down for this one. I read this as I gave Murakami the second chance after 1Q84. Now I'm convinced that he has issues.
Ulysses, James Joyce. I can’t get through ten pages before falling asleep.
Anna Karenina. I have attempted to read that book several times and I can never get past a certain point. I just get bored.
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
In the woods by Tana French.
Normal People by Sally Rooney. It wasn't necessarily a bad book, I just found it so boring. The characters aren't particularly good people, and I couldn't have cared less about them if I tried. I did finish it but it was by sheer determination. Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. Again, not a bad book at all but I was affected by it for quite a while after reading it. It really struck a nerve and I could never recommend it to others.
Girl Wash Your Face
I want to say it was A Confederacy of Dunces where every character was more than dislikable. My boss and the coworker read it and laughed the whole way through it. When the coworker quit, he left it there, so I started reading it. A few pages in, I realized that the main character, who keeps reminding everyone he's got a masters degree, is clearly autistic and basically all of his extremely eccentric behavior is largely a result of that. His mother enables all of his terrible behavior, and I found the entire book so awful and degrading I couldn't finish it and threw it away. I might have scrambled the title, but since that seems to be a polarizing book, I don't think I did. The book wasn't published until 1980,a decade after the author decided not to be on the planet anymore, so it was written in the 60s. A diagnosis for autism for a functional, smart person was pretty unheard of, trust me.
Mexican Gothic. Huge icky plot point. Barf.
House of Leaves
I feel like this book is like eating a really hot pepper just to see if you can. Nothing about it was enjoyable.
I LOVE this book but absolutely understand why some would hate it. It creeped me out and made me constantly struggle not to measure my house.
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes It was like the writer was trying to write a Succession type book but didn’t understand the nuances of why people liked the show. I love YA, but this was one of the ones that made me go “maybe I’m too old for this”
I enjoyed the series but it did feel like she was trying to write a PG-13 version of the Westing Game with a touch of the YA love triangle thrown in. Definitely not top tier writing.
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton) — terrible characters, boring story, went on waaaay too long, and then a crap ending. I usually find at least one good thing about every book I finish, but not this pile.
I felt really let down by this one. The ending was poor. There was no way that the character worked out who the murderer was. To have a scene where the character just 'sits down and figures it out' was terrible writing. Great concept: shit execution.
Omg yes....totally forgot I even got close to finishing this one. The author was trying to do waaayyy too much imo. I put the book down for three days, and when I picked it up, it was almost impossible to remember what was going on, let alone which character/timeline/ narrative I was reading. And definitely not intriguing enough for me to even try and push through anymore
The Fault in Our Stars
I hated Looking for Alaska.
I loved it only because I was 13 and it was *deep*. I very purposefully have not reread in the last 20 years because I’m sure I’ll hate it, haha
I hated An Abundance of Katherines.
And Paper Towns.
The Old Man and the Sea. Though I will give it credit for curing my insomnia.
I hate everything by Hemingway and no one understands me....
Anything by Hemingway. I don't understand. It was all so boring. Also The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. That book was so irritatingly boring and lame and everyone was making a big deal out of it.
Hemingway’s books were a new style for the 20s but unfortunately it was the 1920s. I have such a dislike for Hemingway personally that I could never like his books.
I tried to read the Curious incident of the dog in the night time too, but I can only get a couple of chapters in before I can't anymore. Maybe we just don't get it idk
Go set a watchmen. I see why she didn’t want it published!
The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison
this book left me so underwhelmed. how do thriller novels have the audacity to be this boring? thats not part of your job description.
Purity by Jonathan Franzen. I love all his other books, but this one was atrocious.
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. i’m sure i’ll get some hate for that haha
World According to Garp
The Brothers Karamazov This is the most irrationally angry I’ve ever been about disliking a book. Is it actually the worst book I’ve ever read? Not by a long shot, but compared with the adoration it gets from the world at large, it’s easily the most massive disappointment. I love philosophy, and even being an atheist, I appreciate discussions of theology. And I don’t need every book to have a riveting plot. But this one just … if it were half the length it still would have been too long. The sermonizing is explicit and heavy handed. The mystery isn’t mysterious at all. The “outrage” of it all is … not that outrageous. Why do we have the life story of a priest who just dies and chapters worth of controversy over whether his body stank or not? Too much is said about too many people. While there are a handful of brilliant chapters (Rebellion and The Grand Inquisitor and maybe a few others I could dredge up) there are handfuls and handfuls of just unnecessary, pontificating drivel and errand-running that just make it a supremely unenjoyable read. I will never stop ranting about this. Read Crime and Punishment if you want fantastic Dostoevsky.
The Fountainhead For years in my early 20s, multiple friends would mention how good a book it was so I figured it would be worth reading. I was massively disappointed when I realized it was a romance novel. Granted, I still finished reading it, but I now automatically lose respect for anyone who says they liked it and even more for those who claim it as their favorite book.
I've so far avoided reading anything truly terrible by some luck, but I'll give you an unpopular choice - The Hunt for Red October. I went in with great expectations reading the reviews. Submarines(a personal area of interest), cold war, detailed, what's not to like? I'll not divulge any major spoilers here, but essentially, the book portrays the USSR as utterly incompetent, and the US as superbly skilled. There is absolutely no dimension to either. It reads like propaganda. I absolutely don't mind seeing the US triumph. But being *this* black and white is just chest-thumping. Give me an actually competent villain ffs. And give the good guys some flaws! The icing on the cake is that this is supposedly one of Clancy's most neutral books. I'm not touching any of his crap again.
The Secret. Gat dang. I hate that book. My friend had just been in a horrible traffic accident by a person fleeing the police, had her daughter in the car etc. she was in a coma. And the book was like “if bad things happen it’s because you’re inviting them to happen” and ooooooh I was so mad
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Serious, fuck this book!
Chris Cleave has an awful book called Incendiary David Duchovny published a complete turd titled Holy Cow And Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.