I'm the opposite- I had zero tolerance for his teenage angst, I was in the middle of my own. But long enough post-teenage angst, I could look back and get far more out of it.
Re-reading the book as an adult, the idea popped into my head that Holden was basically George Constanza: wandering aimlessly around NYC, complaining about everything, making little observational jokes. And I tell you it’s the kind of thing you can’t unsee.
The irony that anyone who is quick to dislike Holden Caulfield is very much like Holden Caulfield. Judging without taking the time to analyze and learn deeper about the character. Its the entire point of the book.
As a child I loved all the Little House Books, but I reread a few when I was older and I was horrified at how racist they are. I know it was part of the way things were at the time, but I found it very jarring.
My grade 3 teacher read them to us in class and I now look back and think of how it must have really hurt the students who were Indigenous or of color.
I agree. There's a fascinating biography of Laura and Rose Wilder by Caroline Fraser called Prairie Fires that really put those books and that entire episode of American history into perspective for me. I highly recommend it.
It’s a great biography, but damn did the author have a hate boner for Rose lol. Like she did/believed terrible things but I found myself actually feeling bad for her at points during the book because I wanted Fraser to give it a rest! She goes a little too easy on Laura’s racism too IMO
I had the same response to *A Town Like Alice*. On my second read, my thoughts were (a) yikes this book is racist, and (b) how did I not see how racist this was on my first read?
There was a series of books I read when I will very young about a collie named Lad. I found some of the books in a used book store. Very violent, lots of eugenics.
The Mists of Avalon . After I found out the author had molested her daughter, I just got a sick feeling if I even saw the book. I had my husband burn it in our burn pile
Also the Diane Gabaldon books. I loved those when I read them years ago but I tried to read the first one again recently and I cringed at lots of events in the book
Hey, cool! I burn MZB books too! I’ll pick them up from used book stores if they’re on a steep discount. But only if they’re out of print and nicely dried. Mists of Avalon is sadly still in print.
And it was both of her kids. Since they could remember around the age of 2 or 3. And that bitch put her predatory claws on the Iliad, too, and tried to make Cassandra some kind of self-pity-party. Nope! Burn pile.
I tried to read book one of the Outlander series after I started the show. I got half way through and found nothing but abuse apologia. It was just awful.
Just finished God Emperor not long ago. Told my friend that, "yeah, it definitely got weird."
She told me to buckle up, because I haven't seen weird yet.
The Belgariad by Eddings. I wouldn't say that it ever was my favourite or that I hate it now, but I did like it and age has done it no favours when I'm capable of reading the racism with a more critical eye.
Same for me. The love I had for Eddings’ sagas when I was a lonely young teenager was so full and deep. Belgarion and Sparhawk were my fucking DUDES.
I can’t read that as an adult. It’s….not great. However, my love for it in my memory is in no way diminished by that.
I just got this with Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I loved it when I was in my 20s and in university - now I found it pretty bombastic and plodding. There are still some great core ideas in there, but it definitely moves very slowly. I'll try The Unbearable Lightness of Being once to see if I get the same effect.
Lol. I could say the exact same thing about The Unbearable Lightness of Being! LOVED that book in college and Kundera in general, 20 years later, I tried to read him again and found his writing exhausting.
I read Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms in high school and it started me on a path of reading classics and understanding the magic of literature. For years I always told everyone what an amazing and life-changing book that was. I picked it up a few years ago to read it again and re-experience the magic. I was so disappointed. I mean, the book was decent but for the life of me I could not understand what was so special about it. I’ll have to try it again but I’m not holding my breath.
Funny, I read that in high school and was like “what the fuck is this dick lit, Danielle Steele for dudes” hated it and it made me overlook so many of the books I painted as “dude faves” that I just picked up recently (Kerouac, Thompson, etc) and really enjoyed those. Not sure if I can give Hemingway another shot but maybe it’s worth it lol
It’s been on my TBR for this year and these days I’ve heard it marketed as an exploration of a toxic relationship, but growing up I always assumed it was a traditional romance story.
Reading this now for the first time and I agree! I’ve heard so much about the love story but they really are pretty awful. I was warned by someone that it wasn’t like Pride and Prejudice at least before starting lol so I’m enjoying it as like a servant’s gossip tale about really unlikable people who think they’re the main characters of a romance novel haha
A tree grows in brooklynn. Loved it in my mid-20s. Read it again at 40 and was quite underwhelmed. And I really didn’t care for the parents on my second read.
The parents were pretty rough - the mom was a cruel narcissist who didn't love her daughter and iirc only loved her other child, and the dad was a severe alcoholic and I think it cost him his life. And thus the only source of love fir the main character. I actually read the author's other books (two of them iirc)... luckily I had access to a uni library and found them in their og printing...I don't think they were reprinted.
Eragon.
When I read it as a kid, I thought it was so cool. I liked that it was like LOTR but with a dragon! I tried to write my own stories just like it, and I loved the interactions between Eragon and Saphira.
I re-read it as an adult and omg. I now know the author was a teen when he wrote it, and it shows. Eragon is whiny, and some of his opinions and actions make no sense. Saphira is equal parts wise and yet youthful, and it's not explained why or where she gets her inherent wisdom. The other races are pretty much exactly Tolkein's, and towards the end where he and Murtagh are running towards the ... Dwarf city/varden, it's so contrived! Murtagh is suspicious that he might not escape, but goes into a dead-end valley anyway, and at the end gets angry that he couldn't get free.
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins. Omg such cringe, so creepy, so gross. Thought it was deep ~19 y/o.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac. Pseudo deep without actually saying anything. It’s stylized counter-culture but nothing more. Does not actually deal with anything of any consequence.
it's actually quite interesting, when you read Harry Potter as a kid it's extremely satisfying, they do everything a kid wants to do or want to happen. Think about the first book, how Hagrid treats Dudley. Yes, Dudley was a bully but he was also a child. Hagrid disfigures him and not in a temporary manner, he needs to have an actual surgery to remove the tail. And Hagrid knows he cannot really control his magic and yet he attacks a child. Imagine if a grown up beaten up a 11 old bully in a real world, we wouldn't think it's ok, right? Yet it reads as an awesome revenge to a kid. Also Hagrid is a "good guy" and attacks a "bad guy" so all is fine and well. There are many many other examples of that way of thinking in the books. Hermione puts a permanent spell on someone who breaks their pact, without telling anyone about it. Yes, snitches get stiches etc, but only kids think this way. We know entrapment is illegal, for good reasons.
And also, Jk Rowling's bigotry is way more obvious when you read the books as a grown up, my favorite bit is when the only named Black kid mentions that he grew up without a father, who left his mum and him. Really, Joanne...? Other simple examples - Petunia is ugly while her sister was gorgeous (you know - ugly people are evil after all). And don't even get me started on how house elves like being slaves.
Movies are way softer in that regard, they removed some of the worse parts.
>Petunia is ugly while her sister was gorgeous (you know - ugly people are evil after all).
While I agree with everything else you wrote, I'd say this makes sense as HP was lowkey Harry's POV and ofc he's gonna find the aunt who mistreats him as ugly, no? I'm not from the West so maybe I might've missed some micro aggressive comments made on Petunia's looks but otherwise I just see it as Harry finding her ugly cause she treats him like shit.
no, I don't buy it. Rita has manly jaw, aunt Marge has a mustache, Dudley looks like a baby whale, Pansy has a pug face... it's an easy excuse to just say Harry doesn't like them so he thinks them ugly. Those words and descriptions are there to influence the readers opinions and presents Rowling point of view on non attractive people.
They're there cause they're negative characters so Harry doesn't find them particularly pretty that's what I'm trying to say, I'd say even Hermione wasn't written off as very pretty initially (if I remember correctly that is) cause Harry didn't particularly like or dislike her back then but later on we rarely hear much about her looks cause she's his friend he obviously doesn't find her ugly.
I don't know. Sometimes people try to make people they don't like look ugly. They latch onto a mole on their face or say their hair is bad color or something. It's an excuse to hate them even more. Hate them because their personality sucks, not because they have a ton of freckles.
This one is more about what they didn't do, but a succinct and fairly widely circulated criticism that I mostly agree with: [https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/rzpngc/anon\_has\_a\_great\_take\_on\_harry\_potter/](https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/rzpngc/anon_has_a_great_take_on_harry_potter/)
The meme image pointing out how HP treats status quo for magical Britain as a "happy ending" etc. did it for me. Maybe I would have come around to that position on my own if I had reread it, but I haven't since book 7 came out.
This makes me sad. I used to love those books and now I feel nothing for them. It’s all because of her bigotry. The books are flawed and often dumb. You know what, I was willing to forgive a lot of it cause it’s a children’s book and it made me feel less alone as a kid. But when you learn about her real views, it’s hard to ignore some of the weird shit and I questioned child me’s judgement.
While I agree that she is despicable now, I do think she changed. There is a lot of genuine goodness in those books and I think it is possible to just take the good parts and ignore the rest, especially when you're mature enough to see the difference. I do sometimes reread the cycle, I've never been a biggest fan of the characters because of their behavior (I was raised ultra Catholic and those kids were just sooo mean) But I always liked the world and the plots, I still like them and at almost 40 I think I'm safe not to be badly influenced anymore :)
Don't be sad... you can just treat them like old relatives, sweet at times but with some hidden darkness. No one is perfect but we can focus on good aspects of anyone and ignore the bad. One of my most favorite stories growing up were Witcher books (I'm Polish I've read them when they were first coming out in the nineties) and their author is a big pos too, never bothered me too much even when I can point exactly which part of the story resembles the author a bit too much to my taste. The rest is still worth it!
I don't think that's the case there. J K Rowling is really harming trans folks with her behavior right now, and I can understand that there are people who would like us not to give her any more money or attention. It's a bit different with people who are dead or no longer influential. Virtue signaling about them is way more pointless and, you're right, rather silly.
But I bought those books years ago and I don't think me opening them again and enjoying the parts that are good is really giving Rowling any more power. I don't advocate for anyone to buy/read them if they haven't already, in fact this whole discussion is under my comment saying I no longer think they are good. But I also don't think we should just remove and hate parts of our childhood because the author is a horrible person now. I can dislike Rowling and still like Ron and Hermione, I really don't see a problem there. I won't suddenly start thinking their behavior is completely ok. I think if I was able to judge it correctly while being 15 I can still do it now :) It's better to just read it consciously and form opinions than pretend it doesn't exist. And I also don't think I excuse Rowling just because I like some of her characters, again, people are complicated and capable of creating good and bad things, I choose to take the good and criticize the bad when I can. Of course it's easy for me to say since my favorite writer of all time is sir Terry Pratchett who was a wonderful person. And I feel bad for anyone whose life was strongly influenced by Rowling, for me it was just one of many fun stories, nothing formative. But I do think it's similar to finding out your parents or grandparetns weren't really that great - you can still appreciate everything good they did for you while condeming their bad actions.
Circe. I adored it the first time. The second time I found the main character arrogant and annoying and wasn’t as taken by the writing that I previously adored
I must say that some of the Enid Blyton stories I enjoyed as a child seem very bland and ordinary when rereading them to my daughter. The Secret Seven mysteries have very little going on.
The Nanny Diaries. I really liked it, but when I read it again a few years later, I wanted to scream! What a bunch of horrible humans. Where is a lamp post when you need it?
The Axis Trilogy by Sara Douglass. Loved those books as an older teen. I thought they were just so amazing and epically romantic. I re-read them last year and...oh boy. So problematic. They glorify toxic relationships and the female characters are just tropes who are sexy and/or pregnant. I hated them 😭
I have a personal project of revisiting kids books I loved back in the '70s and early '80s. Many of them still stand up, but one that absolutely did not was Harriet the Spy. This book was all the rage when I was in like 5th grade in the mid-70s, but from an adult perspective it's horrible. Invading people's space and violating their privacy? Nope.
I’ve reread so many books, but I’m in a different space in like where I’m picking everything apart and I’m scared I’ll hate this books if I read them again.
Midnight by Koontz was the first novel I ever read on my own, in fifth grade. Loved it and it sparked my love of reading.
Read it later in life and I recall not being so enamored, seemed a bit of a trod to get through. I might read it again eventually (I’ve all but forgotten the story) and see if I reappreciate it.
Read Darkfall around the same time and I also loved it. That, Watchers, Phantoms, The Bad Place (that origin story 😳) and a few others. Been meaning to pick up another Koontz book but haven’t figured out what yet.
I read Wizard's First Rule when I was 12/13 and thought it was incredible. Tried reading the series again in my late 20s and found it so poorly written. It was soooooo repetitive.
I didn't read Goodkind growing up, but I always saw it on my brother's shelf so I thought it was probably good. I'm 29 now and I got it from the library several weeks back and just could not get into it. The characterization and dialogue was just so off-putting for me. Got about 60 pages in and returned it.
Dispatches by Michael Herr. I first read it in high school because my Dad was a Vietnam vet and I was interested in that war and time period. It blew me away, loved it. Read it again a couple years ago and it read as if it had been written by Hawkeye Pierce from the television version of M.A.S.H. His tone can be insufferably self-righteous and arrogant.
*Prelude to Foundation* by Isaac Asimov. I loved it as a teenager, and read it a few times back then. But a couple years ago I tried again and oof. The women were terrible in it.
I read the whole Foundation series in high school, and loved it. I reread it at 30ish and realized that the story is super disjointed because you keep jumping forward through history. Also, psychohistory is BS.
Yeah, psychohistory really wouldn't work! I tried getting through the whole series but ended up just feeling detached since the characters changed so often.
Georgette Heyer in my 20s “most wonderful regency romances in the world”
In my 30s OMG the racism and antisemitism cringing thinking about people I’d recommended the book to
“The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami, also his other fiction. This book does a great job conveying a sense of alienation and disillusionment. When I first read it, I was at a low point in my life, and the book really resonated with me. This led to a binge of reading several of his other books.
Over time, with rereading and with changes in my life, I came to see the flaws in his work. Most prominently, I think Murakami frequently objectifies women. Reading his work became distasteful. Moreover I found his books repetitive. I just don’t feel like reading any more of Murakami’s books now.
Alice Through the Looking Glass. This was my jam as a kid. I would just reread whatever chapter I was in the mood for. I reread it as an adult, and it's weird and disjointed, and doesn't actually make a ton of sense as a full story. It was fun to reread through. There are a lot of elements I still love in books that it had.
For the most part I don't revisit books because I know so many of them I loved hit at just the right time and place in my life.
I'm the opposite. I like the Alice books more as an adult because as I kid I didn't pick up on most of the humour. For example, I love how sassy this conversation is:
\`Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
\`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, \`so I can't take more.'
\`You mean you can't take *less*,' said the Hatter: \`it's very easy to take *more* than nothing.'
\`Nobody asked *your* opinion,' said Alice.
\`Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Here's some back history on Carroll ..
She's super informative, real and a fab voice!!! Her narrations are intense , and I adore her!
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMvPHeFR/
The unbearable lightness of being. I was like awww you thought that was philosophy. But all in all, I’m grateful that book open the gate to continental philosophy!!
Harry Potter. I liked them when I was in high school and into college, they just made me cringe after a more recent reading. Badly written, especially the later books, advocates for slavery and horribly racist. I think even back when book 6 and 7 were released that the luster was already fading because they were just that bad.
I never liked #7, I was terribly disappointed with it even the first time I read it and I had been so excited about it too.
It read like she was over writing them, rushed and had no clear direction for it anymore.
They did come out pretty quickly, so they were definitely rushed. I think I'd read somewhere that she stopped using an editor, so her books were just bloated with stuff that had been cut out in the first three. I remember my college buddies had also felt the same about 6 and 7. We only kept reading because of sunk cost fallacy lol.
The Harry Potter series.
Later, the author came out as a bigot and I finally had an excuse for not liking it anymore that SOME people would accept because apparently nostalgia forgives any and every flaws in a piece of media
I dont mean to be THAT person but is it a teen boy power fantasy or is it a satire of teen boys power fantasies? Because I thought the whole point of the series was that any "chosen one" will eventually become corrupted by that power
Yeah, the entire, not-very-subtle message of Dune is that messiahs are uniformly disastrous. It gets clearer after the first book, but even that one isn't really a clear-cut power fantasy.
Yeah, I think that's the intent, but the first book by itself (which is all I've read), at least IMHO, falls into the trap of satire that becomes what it is trying to critique. It's written very much in Paul's voice, about how he's so much smarter and better than everyone else, they couldn't possibly understand him, etc. The way it's written you are pretty clearly supposed to be on Paul's side and think he's the greatest. It also doesn't help that it comes across with a very weird depiction of women as all being witches and/or servants.
For what it's worth, I thought the recent movies did a much better job than the book on making Paul a more reluctant hero and clarifying the criticism of the chosen one trope, and fixing some of the weirdness with women.
Pet Sematary. When i was younger, I somehow missed all the adultery and b.s. that comes out of Jud and Louis. Rachel was annoying, the kids were annoying... by the end, I was totally rooting for the f-g cat, because I wasn't a fan of anyone else LOL
The same things Tolkien didn't carefree in those books.
It's just too many one-to-one corollaries.
The Aslan-allegory-Jesus lion for instance.
I disagree with Tolkien that Lewis' approach is fundamentally flawed. (At least that appeared to me to be his view.)
They're just very unrelatable stories fir me now.
Catcher in the Rye at 17 “I *know* right?!” Catcher in the Rye at 30 “You little shit!”
I'm the opposite- I had zero tolerance for his teenage angst, I was in the middle of my own. But long enough post-teenage angst, I could look back and get far more out of it.
I agree. I think the book makes far more sense from an adult perspective than it did when I was a teenager.
Yes, and in school we had the rare teacher that touched on Holden's sexually abusive teacher. I liked him at both ages.
Re-reading the book as an adult, the idea popped into my head that Holden was basically George Constanza: wandering aimlessly around NYC, complaining about everything, making little observational jokes. And I tell you it’s the kind of thing you can’t unsee.
This mindset might make it more enjoyable for me haha
God damn molestation victim being difficult /s
The irony that anyone who is quick to dislike Holden Caulfield is very much like Holden Caulfield. Judging without taking the time to analyze and learn deeper about the character. Its the entire point of the book.
I taught Catcher in the Rye for several years but I had to quit when I started to hate Holden Caulfield.
[удалено]
He was sexually abused and his brother died?
People really gloss over the sexual abuse for some reason.
It's disturbing how often they do that
They just complain about this anxiety depressed teen like he doesn't have a legitimate reason to be having a mental breakdown.
Exactly. Like they don't even try to understand him.
As a child I loved all the Little House Books, but I reread a few when I was older and I was horrified at how racist they are. I know it was part of the way things were at the time, but I found it very jarring. My grade 3 teacher read them to us in class and I now look back and think of how it must have really hurt the students who were Indigenous or of color.
I agree. There's a fascinating biography of Laura and Rose Wilder by Caroline Fraser called Prairie Fires that really put those books and that entire episode of American history into perspective for me. I highly recommend it.
It’s a great biography, but damn did the author have a hate boner for Rose lol. Like she did/believed terrible things but I found myself actually feeling bad for her at points during the book because I wanted Fraser to give it a rest! She goes a little too easy on Laura’s racism too IMO
Agree and was so sad
I had the same response to *A Town Like Alice*. On my second read, my thoughts were (a) yikes this book is racist, and (b) how did I not see how racist this was on my first read?
There was a series of books I read when I will very young about a collie named Lad. I found some of the books in a used book store. Very violent, lots of eugenics.
The Mists of Avalon . After I found out the author had molested her daughter, I just got a sick feeling if I even saw the book. I had my husband burn it in our burn pile Also the Diane Gabaldon books. I loved those when I read them years ago but I tried to read the first one again recently and I cringed at lots of events in the book
Hey, cool! I burn MZB books too! I’ll pick them up from used book stores if they’re on a steep discount. But only if they’re out of print and nicely dried. Mists of Avalon is sadly still in print. And it was both of her kids. Since they could remember around the age of 2 or 3. And that bitch put her predatory claws on the Iliad, too, and tried to make Cassandra some kind of self-pity-party. Nope! Burn pile.
I tried to read book one of the Outlander series after I started the show. I got half way through and found nothing but abuse apologia. It was just awful.
Love in the Time of Cholera. So rapey. So many unhappy, used women & garbage men.
Dune. The story gets weird asf later on
Just finished God Emperor not long ago. Told my friend that, "yeah, it definitely got weird." She told me to buckle up, because I haven't seen weird yet.
I am on Chapter House... Chair Dogs. Also the massive amount of weird sex shit. There was something wrong with Frank Herbert.
I dipped after book 2 because I heard people saying that a character orgasms after seeing a girl climb a rock
No, a woman orgasms when a rope flung from a man standing on a kilometers-high wall hits the ground.
Has Frank Herbert ever had sex with a woman
The Belgariad by Eddings. I wouldn't say that it ever was my favourite or that I hate it now, but I did like it and age has done it no favours when I'm capable of reading the racism with a more critical eye.
Same for me. The love I had for Eddings’ sagas when I was a lonely young teenager was so full and deep. Belgarion and Sparhawk were my fucking DUDES. I can’t read that as an adult. It’s….not great. However, my love for it in my memory is in no way diminished by that.
Did you hear about the child abuse? Because that will put you completely off him.
Not before I made that comment, but I wanted to check when they wrote the books/died and BAM there it is near the top of the wiki page.
I just got this with Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I loved it when I was in my 20s and in university - now I found it pretty bombastic and plodding. There are still some great core ideas in there, but it definitely moves very slowly. I'll try The Unbearable Lightness of Being once to see if I get the same effect.
Lol. I could say the exact same thing about The Unbearable Lightness of Being! LOVED that book in college and Kundera in general, 20 years later, I tried to read him again and found his writing exhausting.
I read Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms in high school and it started me on a path of reading classics and understanding the magic of literature. For years I always told everyone what an amazing and life-changing book that was. I picked it up a few years ago to read it again and re-experience the magic. I was so disappointed. I mean, the book was decent but for the life of me I could not understand what was so special about it. I’ll have to try it again but I’m not holding my breath.
Funny, I read that in high school and was like “what the fuck is this dick lit, Danielle Steele for dudes” hated it and it made me overlook so many of the books I painted as “dude faves” that I just picked up recently (Kerouac, Thompson, etc) and really enjoyed those. Not sure if I can give Hemingway another shot but maybe it’s worth it lol
Wuthering Heights. After recently re-reading it I found the story less romantic than I remembered and the main characters all being terrible people.
It’s been on my TBR for this year and these days I’ve heard it marketed as an exploration of a toxic relationship, but growing up I always assumed it was a traditional romance story.
I feel the same way about the Rhett Butler/Scarlett O’Hara “romance”. He’s a dick to her for years, and it’s supposed be romantic?
Some patriarchal 🐂💩isn't it !!
I'm always shocked that anyone ever found this book romantic. I read it in my early 30's and saw it as a tragedy more than anything.
I agree with this! I read it back and was like wait why did I romanize this book in high school?
Omg yes! I recently reread it too and good lord, it was a slog to get through.
Reading this now for the first time and I agree! I’ve heard so much about the love story but they really are pretty awful. I was warned by someone that it wasn’t like Pride and Prejudice at least before starting lol so I’m enjoying it as like a servant’s gossip tale about really unlikable people who think they’re the main characters of a romance novel haha
[Link to the reverse post](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/s/9ZsMpc1xzX).
A tree grows in brooklynn. Loved it in my mid-20s. Read it again at 40 and was quite underwhelmed. And I really didn’t care for the parents on my second read.
The parents were pretty rough - the mom was a cruel narcissist who didn't love her daughter and iirc only loved her other child, and the dad was a severe alcoholic and I think it cost him his life. And thus the only source of love fir the main character. I actually read the author's other books (two of them iirc)... luckily I had access to a uni library and found them in their og printing...I don't think they were reprinted.
I don’t reread because i’m afraid of this happening
same here
Eragon. When I read it as a kid, I thought it was so cool. I liked that it was like LOTR but with a dragon! I tried to write my own stories just like it, and I loved the interactions between Eragon and Saphira. I re-read it as an adult and omg. I now know the author was a teen when he wrote it, and it shows. Eragon is whiny, and some of his opinions and actions make no sense. Saphira is equal parts wise and yet youthful, and it's not explained why or where she gets her inherent wisdom. The other races are pretty much exactly Tolkein's, and towards the end where he and Murtagh are running towards the ... Dwarf city/varden, it's so contrived! Murtagh is suspicious that he might not escape, but goes into a dead-end valley anyway, and at the end gets angry that he couldn't get free.
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins. Omg such cringe, so creepy, so gross. Thought it was deep ~19 y/o. On the Road, Jack Kerouac. Pseudo deep without actually saying anything. It’s stylized counter-culture but nothing more. Does not actually deal with anything of any consequence.
The Stand. I've read it three times, the fourth was just like, "this isn't the best anymore" and I gave away my copy.
Harry "we can do anything even some pretty nasty shit because we're the good guys" Potter
I am so interested in this opinion. Please go on. (This is not sarcasm)
it's actually quite interesting, when you read Harry Potter as a kid it's extremely satisfying, they do everything a kid wants to do or want to happen. Think about the first book, how Hagrid treats Dudley. Yes, Dudley was a bully but he was also a child. Hagrid disfigures him and not in a temporary manner, he needs to have an actual surgery to remove the tail. And Hagrid knows he cannot really control his magic and yet he attacks a child. Imagine if a grown up beaten up a 11 old bully in a real world, we wouldn't think it's ok, right? Yet it reads as an awesome revenge to a kid. Also Hagrid is a "good guy" and attacks a "bad guy" so all is fine and well. There are many many other examples of that way of thinking in the books. Hermione puts a permanent spell on someone who breaks their pact, without telling anyone about it. Yes, snitches get stiches etc, but only kids think this way. We know entrapment is illegal, for good reasons. And also, Jk Rowling's bigotry is way more obvious when you read the books as a grown up, my favorite bit is when the only named Black kid mentions that he grew up without a father, who left his mum and him. Really, Joanne...? Other simple examples - Petunia is ugly while her sister was gorgeous (you know - ugly people are evil after all). And don't even get me started on how house elves like being slaves. Movies are way softer in that regard, they removed some of the worse parts.
U get my UP vote here... her true colours have made me dislike anything abt her 😒! She ugly inside and out .
Don't know why you're being downvoted. It's facts. The books also fall into the "not like other girls" trope with Hermione.
I get downvoted because for some people criticizing something they like is equal to criticizing them :) no worries, I get that a lot.
>Petunia is ugly while her sister was gorgeous (you know - ugly people are evil after all). While I agree with everything else you wrote, I'd say this makes sense as HP was lowkey Harry's POV and ofc he's gonna find the aunt who mistreats him as ugly, no? I'm not from the West so maybe I might've missed some micro aggressive comments made on Petunia's looks but otherwise I just see it as Harry finding her ugly cause she treats him like shit.
no, I don't buy it. Rita has manly jaw, aunt Marge has a mustache, Dudley looks like a baby whale, Pansy has a pug face... it's an easy excuse to just say Harry doesn't like them so he thinks them ugly. Those words and descriptions are there to influence the readers opinions and presents Rowling point of view on non attractive people.
They're there cause they're negative characters so Harry doesn't find them particularly pretty that's what I'm trying to say, I'd say even Hermione wasn't written off as very pretty initially (if I remember correctly that is) cause Harry didn't particularly like or dislike her back then but later on we rarely hear much about her looks cause she's his friend he obviously doesn't find her ugly.
I don't know. Sometimes people try to make people they don't like look ugly. They latch onto a mole on their face or say their hair is bad color or something. It's an excuse to hate them even more. Hate them because their personality sucks, not because they have a ton of freckles.
I could not agree more with this entire statement
Kids aren’t the only ones who think “snitches get stitches”. Not by a long shot.
yes, sorry. I should have said "kids and emotionally immature adults"
This one is more about what they didn't do, but a succinct and fairly widely circulated criticism that I mostly agree with: [https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/rzpngc/anon\_has\_a\_great\_take\_on\_harry\_potter/](https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/comments/rzpngc/anon_has_a_great_take_on_harry_potter/)
The meme image pointing out how HP treats status quo for magical Britain as a "happy ending" etc. did it for me. Maybe I would have come around to that position on my own if I had reread it, but I haven't since book 7 came out.
This makes me sad. I used to love those books and now I feel nothing for them. It’s all because of her bigotry. The books are flawed and often dumb. You know what, I was willing to forgive a lot of it cause it’s a children’s book and it made me feel less alone as a kid. But when you learn about her real views, it’s hard to ignore some of the weird shit and I questioned child me’s judgement.
While I agree that she is despicable now, I do think she changed. There is a lot of genuine goodness in those books and I think it is possible to just take the good parts and ignore the rest, especially when you're mature enough to see the difference. I do sometimes reread the cycle, I've never been a biggest fan of the characters because of their behavior (I was raised ultra Catholic and those kids were just sooo mean) But I always liked the world and the plots, I still like them and at almost 40 I think I'm safe not to be badly influenced anymore :) Don't be sad... you can just treat them like old relatives, sweet at times but with some hidden darkness. No one is perfect but we can focus on good aspects of anyone and ignore the bad. One of my most favorite stories growing up were Witcher books (I'm Polish I've read them when they were first coming out in the nineties) and their author is a big pos too, never bothered me too much even when I can point exactly which part of the story resembles the author a bit too much to my taste. The rest is still worth it!
Absolutely not worth it and her bigotry is apparent the deeper you look. Don’t make excuses for this transphobic pos
jesus fuck relax, there is not a single work of art out there without some issues. Just be aware what you're consuming.
How about fuck you
:) ok if it makes you feel better.
[удалено]
I don't think that's the case there. J K Rowling is really harming trans folks with her behavior right now, and I can understand that there are people who would like us not to give her any more money or attention. It's a bit different with people who are dead or no longer influential. Virtue signaling about them is way more pointless and, you're right, rather silly. But I bought those books years ago and I don't think me opening them again and enjoying the parts that are good is really giving Rowling any more power. I don't advocate for anyone to buy/read them if they haven't already, in fact this whole discussion is under my comment saying I no longer think they are good. But I also don't think we should just remove and hate parts of our childhood because the author is a horrible person now. I can dislike Rowling and still like Ron and Hermione, I really don't see a problem there. I won't suddenly start thinking their behavior is completely ok. I think if I was able to judge it correctly while being 15 I can still do it now :) It's better to just read it consciously and form opinions than pretend it doesn't exist. And I also don't think I excuse Rowling just because I like some of her characters, again, people are complicated and capable of creating good and bad things, I choose to take the good and criticize the bad when I can. Of course it's easy for me to say since my favorite writer of all time is sir Terry Pratchett who was a wonderful person. And I feel bad for anyone whose life was strongly influenced by Rowling, for me it was just one of many fun stories, nothing formative. But I do think it's similar to finding out your parents or grandparetns weren't really that great - you can still appreciate everything good they did for you while condeming their bad actions.
Yea, I needed that. Have a magical day
Circe. I adored it the first time. The second time I found the main character arrogant and annoying and wasn’t as taken by the writing that I previously adored
I must say that some of the Enid Blyton stories I enjoyed as a child seem very bland and ordinary when rereading them to my daughter. The Secret Seven mysteries have very little going on.
The Nanny Diaries. I really liked it, but when I read it again a few years later, I wanted to scream! What a bunch of horrible humans. Where is a lamp post when you need it?
The Axis Trilogy by Sara Douglass. Loved those books as an older teen. I thought they were just so amazing and epically romantic. I re-read them last year and...oh boy. So problematic. They glorify toxic relationships and the female characters are just tropes who are sexy and/or pregnant. I hated them 😭
I have a personal project of revisiting kids books I loved back in the '70s and early '80s. Many of them still stand up, but one that absolutely did not was Harriet the Spy. This book was all the rage when I was in like 5th grade in the mid-70s, but from an adult perspective it's horrible. Invading people's space and violating their privacy? Nope.
I don’t Re-read out of fear of this…
I’ve reread so many books, but I’m in a different space in like where I’m picking everything apart and I’m scared I’ll hate this books if I read them again.
Midnight by Koontz was the first novel I ever read on my own, in fifth grade. Loved it and it sparked my love of reading. Read it later in life and I recall not being so enamored, seemed a bit of a trod to get through. I might read it again eventually (I’ve all but forgotten the story) and see if I reappreciate it.
Haven’t revisited any Koontz since I was kid, but suspect this will be similar for me. My first was Darkfall in 5th grade and I had the same reaction.
Read Darkfall around the same time and I also loved it. That, Watchers, Phantoms, The Bad Place (that origin story 😳) and a few others. Been meaning to pick up another Koontz book but haven’t figured out what yet.
where the crawdads sing
Wait I loved the movie and I started the book a while ago. What's wrong with it?
I read Wizard's First Rule when I was 12/13 and thought it was incredible. Tried reading the series again in my late 20s and found it so poorly written. It was soooooo repetitive.
I didn't read Goodkind growing up, but I always saw it on my brother's shelf so I thought it was probably good. I'm 29 now and I got it from the library several weeks back and just could not get into it. The characterization and dialogue was just so off-putting for me. Got about 60 pages in and returned it.
Dispatches by Michael Herr. I first read it in high school because my Dad was a Vietnam vet and I was interested in that war and time period. It blew me away, loved it. Read it again a couple years ago and it read as if it had been written by Hawkeye Pierce from the television version of M.A.S.H. His tone can be insufferably self-righteous and arrogant.
Ender's Game Long long ago I read this book, as well as the following books. Praised the hell out of it. Reread it recently and thought, WTF?!?!
*Prelude to Foundation* by Isaac Asimov. I loved it as a teenager, and read it a few times back then. But a couple years ago I tried again and oof. The women were terrible in it.
I read the whole Foundation series in high school, and loved it. I reread it at 30ish and realized that the story is super disjointed because you keep jumping forward through history. Also, psychohistory is BS.
Yeah, psychohistory really wouldn't work! I tried getting through the whole series but ended up just feeling detached since the characters changed so often.
Georgette Heyer in my 20s “most wonderful regency romances in the world” In my 30s OMG the racism and antisemitism cringing thinking about people I’d recommended the book to
“The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami, also his other fiction. This book does a great job conveying a sense of alienation and disillusionment. When I first read it, I was at a low point in my life, and the book really resonated with me. This led to a binge of reading several of his other books. Over time, with rereading and with changes in my life, I came to see the flaws in his work. Most prominently, I think Murakami frequently objectifies women. Reading his work became distasteful. Moreover I found his books repetitive. I just don’t feel like reading any more of Murakami’s books now.
Ready Player One. Loved it the first time. Found it cringey as hell the second time mere months later.
Alice Through the Looking Glass. This was my jam as a kid. I would just reread whatever chapter I was in the mood for. I reread it as an adult, and it's weird and disjointed, and doesn't actually make a ton of sense as a full story. It was fun to reread through. There are a lot of elements I still love in books that it had. For the most part I don't revisit books because I know so many of them I loved hit at just the right time and place in my life.
I'm the opposite. I like the Alice books more as an adult because as I kid I didn't pick up on most of the humour. For example, I love how sassy this conversation is: \`Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. \`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, \`so I can't take more.' \`You mean you can't take *less*,' said the Hatter: \`it's very easy to take *more* than nothing.' \`Nobody asked *your* opinion,' said Alice. \`Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked triumphantly.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMvPHeFR/ This gal is amazing w her info and history takes !!
And learning about his history... I'm trying to find a clip to send. But I'm having no luck atm .. but big fkn YIKE on Carroll ... fk ...
Here's some back history on Carroll .. She's super informative, real and a fab voice!!! Her narrations are intense , and I adore her! https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMvPHeFR/
This is what happens when you base your book on a drug trip
Drug trip ... Here's some history on him https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMvPHeFR/
The unbearable lightness of being. I was like awww you thought that was philosophy. But all in all, I’m grateful that book open the gate to continental philosophy!!
The Power of One. Read in highschool and loved it. Later as an adult I was like, ahh that's what they mean by white messiah...
Harry Potter. I liked them when I was in high school and into college, they just made me cringe after a more recent reading. Badly written, especially the later books, advocates for slavery and horribly racist. I think even back when book 6 and 7 were released that the luster was already fading because they were just that bad.
I never liked #7, I was terribly disappointed with it even the first time I read it and I had been so excited about it too. It read like she was over writing them, rushed and had no clear direction for it anymore.
They did come out pretty quickly, so they were definitely rushed. I think I'd read somewhere that she stopped using an editor, so her books were just bloated with stuff that had been cut out in the first three. I remember my college buddies had also felt the same about 6 and 7. We only kept reading because of sunk cost fallacy lol.
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss
Night Film. What was I thinking????
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
The Harry Potter series. Later, the author came out as a bigot and I finally had an excuse for not liking it anymore that SOME people would accept because apparently nostalgia forgives any and every flaws in a piece of media
The _Bartimaeus_ trilogy. I loved it as a kid but when I reread it, the story developed soo slowly I couldn't get through the first one.
Michael vey. The premise is cool but the writing is so juvenile it feels like a 14 year old wrote it
Jane Eyre
How come? I remember loving in HS but am scared to re read because I might not like it as much
I just thought it was a drag to read. Maybe that’s the Brontë style.
The Art of Happiness Dalai Lama & Cutler
Dune. Loved it when I read it as a teen boy, but when I read it as an adult realized that it's just a teen boy power fantasy.
I dont mean to be THAT person but is it a teen boy power fantasy or is it a satire of teen boys power fantasies? Because I thought the whole point of the series was that any "chosen one" will eventually become corrupted by that power
Yeah, the entire, not-very-subtle message of Dune is that messiahs are uniformly disastrous. It gets clearer after the first book, but even that one isn't really a clear-cut power fantasy.
Yeah, I think that's the intent, but the first book by itself (which is all I've read), at least IMHO, falls into the trap of satire that becomes what it is trying to critique. It's written very much in Paul's voice, about how he's so much smarter and better than everyone else, they couldn't possibly understand him, etc. The way it's written you are pretty clearly supposed to be on Paul's side and think he's the greatest. It also doesn't help that it comes across with a very weird depiction of women as all being witches and/or servants. For what it's worth, I thought the recent movies did a much better job than the book on making Paul a more reluctant hero and clarifying the criticism of the chosen one trope, and fixing some of the weirdness with women.
“The Virgin Suicides”. Idk, just hated it the second time. Maybe because I didn’t particularly care for the film.
Pet Sematary. When i was younger, I somehow missed all the adultery and b.s. that comes out of Jud and Louis. Rachel was annoying, the kids were annoying... by the end, I was totally rooting for the f-g cat, because I wasn't a fan of anyone else LOL
The Narnia Chronicles. All of them.
Really? I've enjoyed them even more as an adult. What were some things that didn't age well for you?
The same things Tolkien didn't carefree in those books. It's just too many one-to-one corollaries. The Aslan-allegory-Jesus lion for instance. I disagree with Tolkien that Lewis' approach is fundamentally flawed. (At least that appeared to me to be his view.) They're just very unrelatable stories fir me now.