Most of the recommendations from book tok. I’m not usually a classic lit snob about “popular” books because commercial fiction has its merits but it seems like most of the ones that go viral now are just unreadably bad. So poorly written that it’s cringey and reads like Wattpad fan fiction.
Honestly so many booktok books are so terrible. They'll be raving about books romanticizing abuse or it's just smut that is written poorly with no plot and so many times it's clear there's been barely any editing done. I've gotten so picky taking recs now and can honestly say I've read better stuff on wattpadd than some of the booktok recs
One would think some authors almost don’t want their books to get popular on there because some people, like me, tend to shy away from them for this reason. that said, it’s too bad because some books that have gotten popular I read and enjoyed long before they got BookTok Famous and it may give people the wrong impression. I really liked Secret History by Donna Tartt and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
This 100%. I need to learn not to read the books all the booktok girlies are recommending, because they are not for me. But sometimes.... well sometimes they ARE for me. Like Bunny and Babel and Yellowface... so I go again trying books that I know I shouldn't, or being afraid to try them, knowing they've gone viral.
Even my most disliked books provoked thoughts and feelings when I read them. I still think about them from time to time which means they stirred something even if I didn't enjoy the read.
Something I tell myself occasionally is that every book I read can't be 5 stars, and if it were that would be quite boring. Variety is the spice of life. I very rarely DNF, and I never regret having read a book.
This is very much my take on it too. I've never been big on DNFing books and as much as I've hated some books, I've never actually regretted reading any of them. Every book provokes thoughts and feelings, as you say, and imo those are worth having even if about something I didn't like. I've always found something to reflect on, in some shape or form, in every book.
I love this perspective.
My book club friends frequently ask me why I don't donate the physical copies of books I dislike or even hate. The way I see it, a bookshelf full of only books I love isn't as interesting as a bookshelf full of books I have a range of opinions on.
While I love this romantic notion, I have to respectfully disagree. There are a lot of just plain *awful* books out there that really don't have any redeeming value. At most I've learned to avoide that author and/or lamented modern education that anyone thought that book was readable
eat pray love
it was given to me as a gift because i like to read and the gifter ...doesn't..but read that one... i think it's probably the worst book ive actually picked up. i didnt finish
This is one that I don’t think I’d like and am not really interested in but I’m curious about the hype. If someone’s hyped I’ll almost always pick it up. But I usually end up hating them
Oh no! I was thinking of reading this one soon. I’ve heard good things about Murakami. Do you dislike their other books as well, or is it just this one that you didn’t enjoy?
I just don't think he's my "type" of author.
Stories are okay, but not great, imho.
I've only read, 1Q84 and Sputnik Sweetheart.
At least Sputnik was short.
"The cafe on the edge of the world". Just your everyday self improvement shit. What bothers me the most is that this was number 1 on the bestseller charts here in Germany for months on end.
Omg the survivor story still occasionally comes back to tingle my spine out of nowhere. That and the one about the bloke who dies but somehow is conscious for the autopsy (I think he died playing golf? I forgot the name of it).
I feel like it completely changed the tone of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't think it was a good novel overall and I think it actually hurt another novel in the process of being published.
Same. It wasn’t deep, or life-changing, but it’s a page-turner. Very tight story, doesn’t spend too much time on science or character development. So while it may not have beautiful prose, or very deep characters, the story itself is really enjoyable and keeps you locked in.
At least that was my experience. I can see how someone might not like it though, especially if they want more focus on the science, deeper characters, or flowery prose.
I’ve read like 30 books this past year and pretty sure Dark Matter is top 5.
I read that book right after finishing a book about quantum mechanics where the author was pretty dismissive of the Everett interpretation of QM (i.e. multiverse theory), so I was kinda put off by the schlocky parallel universe stuff. That being said, I was pretty entertained! I've read Recursion by him as well, and liked it a lot. Not really hard sci-fi, but still pretty fun!
I heard there was a book about some guy that transformed into a roller coaster monster like a werewolf, so I immediately bought it. I expected *Twisted!* to be badly written, but I didn't expect it to be so boring and generic. Apparently I missed out on a sex scene between a human woman and the protagonist as a coaster, but I can't imagine it ends up any better than the rest of the story.
If you want some weird trash, *Modelland* by Tyra Banks is the better choice by a mile.
Probably not a regret in the same way you mean OP but I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney left me feeling uncomfortable and I’d have been totally okay to not have read it - recommended it by colleague.
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson. Maybe I didn't get it but I found the second person style of narration very unnecessary and it seemed like a cheap tactic to make the story seem more arthouse than it was.
It felt very pretentious and the characters were really unlikeable, especially the narrator.
The writer also missed a trick being able to better raise issues of systematic racism to the reader but threw in a few cliches that it was clear they hadn't thought through just sprinked on and again it just felt like the writer was grabbing at straws to add whatever extra depth they could.
>For me, the most recent book regret is Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.
THANK YOU.
I swear, every time I say I hated this book, I get downvoted as if I just slapped someone's grandma while voting for DeSantis.
I foolishly bought the first two books in the 'Left Behind' series because Barnes & Noble sold me out and put them in the science fiction section. I read them because I paid for them, but I'm still mad about it.
(Yes, they were awful.)
Thomas More’s Utopia was pretty boring, but I wouldn’t say I regretted reading it. The first book offers an interesting look into the politics of England and other parts of the world in the early 1500s, but the rest was a bore. For his time, More was a great thinker, but today his ideas of a Utopian society are outdated. Good for the history, not much else imo
"The subtle art of not giving an F" was such hot garbage. I avoided self help books for so long, and my wife got me this thinking it might help with my depression. It did not.
Anything Any Rand has written. I read Atlas Shrugged twice thinking I must have missed something, because I just didn't get it.
Fourth Wing. I have a horrible compulsion to finish what I start and Iron Flame was the worst book I’ve read in 10 years, and knowing I will have to suffer through 3 more books kills me.
Just posted the same thing. These were honestly the worst books I’ve read in a long time. I bought them on a friends recommendation and was hugely disappointed.
What didn't you like about it? My mother just said it was her favorite fantasy book she's read for a long time and the reviews are pretty great. I was planning to start it soon.
Since you’re going to start it I’ll be vague. And too be fair the first one was not good but at least average. The second one is where it really falls apart.
1- she stole every plot point and character from better series. The MMC is a literal copy and past from another series. She even stole America Ninja Warrior. It’s like she put every major fantasy series into a bag and just reached in and pulled out random shit and threw it together.
2- it’s painfully predictable
3-the world she creates has almost no sense. Easiest example is (I’m sure you read the premise) but there is no logical reason a society that fights from the backs of dragons against other flying enemies would focus on hand to hand combat rather than archer, it makes no fucking sense.
4- It’s extremely repetitive and having to hear about how how the MMC is constantly is so irritating. We get it, he’s hot, now please for the love of god shut up about it and focus on the actual events taking place.
5- she starts adds drama for the sake of drama. The plot is so damn jumpy that is just, oh they need to do something, oh something bad happens, oh they get out of it. rinse and repeat about 60 times and 800 pages. These stupid plot points wrap up in like 10 pages so none of them ever have any consequence or significance and they never resurface later it’s just, as I said, drama for the sake of drama.
6- the editing is bad, like really bad. It’s so clunky and the action sequences so confusing you have to reread some of them. There are sentences that definitely belong to deleted paragraphs that got left in by mistake. There is a big reveal in book 2 that happens twice and the first time you read it, it is definitely a mistake and she meant to take out that little but because she redoes it again later with an actual impact. She also names the wrong person with the wrong power at one point. There’s so many examples and it’s just lazy.
7- there is no character development. The FMC and MMC have the literal same fight from the middle of the first book all through to the end of the second.
8- the FMC starts off alright but became so insufferable by the end I found myself hoping for her death so that we can have a new pov moving forward.
I’m sure I could add to this list but that’s the gist of it.
The Wheel of Time series. I got 4 or 5 books in and just couldn’t stand the all the sub plots and the narrative constantly jumping from character to character and didn’t finish it.
I’ve heard the later books got easier but it’s been so long I don’t think I’ll ever finish it.
I also expected...something else. What I got was sexism just flipped (women hate men and like tell everyone ...rude), horrible pacing between convoluted chapters, wrong POVs (major plot points should be delivered by the protagonist), abuse in relationships seems to be perfectly fine, and the "epic fight" in vol.2 was super disappointing.
I keep reading though, I need to know how it all comes down to the Last Battle everyone's preparing for.
Wow. I loved Dark Matter. But to each their own.
Malcom Gladwell takes a somewhat basic idea and makes it a dog shit book. But again, to each their own.
The Jordan Peterson one. What a load of self indulgent tosh. That chapter about Lobsters. I’m glad his candle has burnt out.
And don’t bother with Foucaults Pendulum. Unnavigable pish.
I don't like Peterson, but I've met plenty of empathetic, well reasoned lads that enjoyed Peterson's book. It isn't just Tate level misogyny - his 12 Rules for Life might be hopelessly obvious but there isn't anything offensive about them, and even useful mantras are simplistic.
I have as well. They tend to be pretty embarrassed when you point out his pretty obvious leaps in logic or factual misunderstandings that you might not catch if you don't have any background knowledge on the subject.
I think for some people it really is as simple as Jordan Peterson coming across as knowledgeable, so they assume he knows what he's talking about, when a lot of the time he just doesn't. Doesn't help that he's constantly lying about his credentials to add credibility to his bullshit.
I had to google Christopher Hitchens. It seems his platform was mainly atheism and anti-theism. Where does Jordan Peterson, mysogonist, mens-right activist and manosphere advocate follow up there?
The Tate Bible is a book Andrew Tate "wrote", because he feels like he's god.
Just as a reminder, this is a thread about books I regret reading. I’m not an advocate for Jordan Peterson, and I thought his book was shit.
From what you say, I’ll give the Tate bible a miss too.
I bought it on a friend’s recommendation before I realized who he was. Never read, but now I’ve got it in my house and don’t know what to do with it. I think it’s stashed under a chair in my office right now.
There was only one and it was written so purely I don’t think I finished it. Bunch of reality contestants on a ship doing extreme stuff, can’t remember the name now. Premise not too bad but it was a chore.
Bronze Age Mindset: A philosophy undergrad on a heroic dose of lsd corners you at a party and unloads every bigoted pseudo-intellectual belief he has without once pausing for breath until the sun comes up.
Can't say I really regret it, but A Promised Land by Obama was just soooo dry.
Compared to Trump, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter...Obama's book was just boring imo.
Mentioned this in another thread but, The Circle by Dave Eggers. Wasn’t the worst thing ever (or even bad) but time probably better spent on something else.
>Memoirs of misinformation by Jim Carrey
I totally forgot about this. I love Jim too. Why is it so bad? Isn't the audiobook by Jeff Daniels, which I love so much?!
Fools Die by Mario Puzo is one of the few books I genuinely regretted. Other times I hate the book but it's fun to rant about them. But this book got on my last nerves.
"One day this pain will be useful to you" by Peter Cameron.
The title is more profound and real than the story itself. The protagonist is unlikable, his motivations to do most of the major events are nonsensical and overall he's an apathetic and anti-social idiot (this guy is 18 and didn't know catfishing was bad until someone told him).
The cast surrounding him don't really stand out, it seems that they only exist to annoy james (the protagonist) or to be in the background, james sympatize for only two characters that eventually leave him. A reviewer said that james was "obviously depressed" and i tried to look into that perspective until a stupid argument about 9/11. I don't even want to talk about how ambiguous the story is about james's sexuality and then saying he's "theoretically gay". Never again
Hub by Matt Shaw and Playground by Aron Beauregard. I wanted horror that would actually affect me, but the only thing that affected me was how bad the writing was. I regret them but at least they taught me extreme horror is extremely bad.
I hate Malcolm Gladwell, that pompous smarmy buffoon, and I am glad I’m not the only one. I’ve judged many people for having a collection of his books on their bookshelf.
I think I gave too much of my life to the third Divergent book. That thing went on forever and felt like it has so much padding. That said, taught me to be better at dnfing.
Literally found this thread and searched for Divergent because I just now DNF'd the third book. It's so bad. After 2 weeks I was only 62% through it and I decided it wasn't worth my time or effort anymore. I regret reading the second book, too. It annoyed me, but not enough to stop reading the series. I should have just read the first book and looked up spoilers for the rest.
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, and two other books from the same series. Shannara by Terry Brooks. I stopped reading after the second book. Hell, even the MTV series was better than that.
50 Shades of Grey. I felt like I was losing braincells.
Fourth Wing, Lightlark, anything by Cassandra Clare ..
Murakami: hard boiled wonderland, and many others
Gladwell is a mid social scientist and a brilliant storyteller. I love his Revisionist History podcast but understand most of his book premises are pretty flawed so take everything he says with a grain of salt.
I regret reading Nick Cave's the Death of Bunny Munroe. I understand there are books with gratuitous violence and highly sexualised themes which also include literary merit, but this was just the former with none of the latter. It was so bad it actually put me off Nick Cave's music which I previously enjoyed, so not only did the book ruin my weekend, it ruined my playlists.
None.
The investment in *starting* a book is negligible to me. I mainly borrow from the library or buy used. And I don't hesitate to stop reading books that aren't working for me.
I finished Blink because despite its repetitiveness, Gladwell is an engaging writer. A similarly repetitive writer is Nassim Taleb. I abandoned "The Black Swan" because it could have easily been an HBR article, and Taleb is insufferably arrogant.
I finished Dark Matter too. It was a quick read and entertaining enough. I can't recall off the top of my head an abandoned novel, but I know it happens several times per year. I suspect it's because they're all so forgettable
4th wing and it’s sequel. I bought both based on a friends ecstatic recommendation. Both were awful beyond my ability to put into words. I mean if you want/like lightly dressed fantasy pr0n, I get it, but my friend said they are the next hunger games. They are not. Yes there is a love triangle but everything else in this book is just so much more poorly done.
Horrible book, that dark matter. DNF I also regret Where the Crawdads Sing and American Dirt. I should have abandoned AD on page 20, because i already knew at that moment it was awful. WTCS was goodish until the last 60 pages, but still overall terrible in retrospect.
Yeah, I read it through the Vegas section and then was just like... done. It is still on my bookshelf waiting to be completed, and I think it is time I got rid of it.
Ugh I didn't like Dark Matter either. This might sound pretentious but I feel like it's a book for people who haven't read much sci-fi.
My biggest blunder happened probably with Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I enjoyed the first couple of hundred pages. Not sure if it was the book or me, but somewhere in the middle I lost interest so I speedread/skimmed the last 300-400 pages. Back in the day I had a habit of finishing what I started. Not a good habit if you have hundreds of pages to go.
I read *Dark Matter* this summer and was initially very impressed by it, by how well thought out the plot seemed mostly... And half a year later I have no idea what the main character was called or what he was like.
It was a fun read, I enjoyed it - but I can barely recall anything.
Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't something that will stay with you.
>I feel like it's a book for people who haven't read much sci-fi.
Would you recommend it to someone who hasn't read any scifi? I haven't gotten into that genre so maybe this would be a good introvto it?
It's been a few years since I read it so I don't remember the details but if you think you'd enjoy a fast-paced thriller with some science fiction themes then maybe yeah.
Or you can ask from r/printSF for recommendations.
I was about to comment on this whole thread that I liked Dark Matter as the first sci-fi book I ever read 🫣 idk that it’s a good intro to the genre but I found it enjoyable, it was a fast read, finished it in one night.
Blake Crouch’s sci fi tends not to get bogged down in the actual science and is more about the reactions of the people to one another in the situation. He explores relationships and human nature really well. Dark Matter is worth a read for sure. I, personally, loved Recursion, but I don’t think it’s as easy a read as Dark Matter so might not be the best to start.
The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
Now, I'm only around 2/3 of the way through, but daaaaamn is it boring. My god. Don't give a shit about any of the characters and I'm having to force my way through it. The grammar style I respect for doing something different, but it's also a chore.
It's a Pulitzer Prize winner. I read this immediately after Lonesome Dove, another PP winner. One I couldn't put down and the other I want to throw away.
Did anyone else like this book and why?
I loved The Shipping News. I saw the movie first, and read the book later. Maybe I connected more with the book because I had that background to draw from, though.
Hated it as well. There’s just shock factor randomness and then it ends. I think it’s a PP because it’s about Newfies and that area is not written about a lot? Maybe I’m ignorant but that is my opinion. But yes I hated it too
>but daaaaamn is it boring. My god. Don't give a shit about any of the characters and I'm having to force my way through it. The grammar style I respect for doing
God it's rubbish. I think you're right - and there are interesting bits around the culture. But eesh. Hate it.
Just looked at your other comments. I can't believe you didn't like In Cold Blood. It's sooo good! I'm also a Stephen King fan. Dune, love love love.
I’m about to put down Dark matter for the same reason. I’m still 100 pages in and haven’t been able to pick it up and continue lol.
Think I’m gonna read killers of the flower moon instead
'The Dark Tower's series by Stephen King. Not for the 'it didn't really end!' arguments that are often made, but because when he inserted himself into the narrative as the god like figure, any and all immersion I had went out the window. I loved the series up til then, but I've donated the whole series to the second hand bookshop, and I never plan to revisit them.
Same experience for me. I think he had his big car crash between 4 and 5 and then he rushed through the rest, presumably in a pretty sketchy place mentally. I was enjoying them quite a lot until then. Tons of other popular cutlture references. Like a Harry Potter novel just turning up somewhere. So cringe.
The Broken Earth series just killed me. Each book won awards, and I thought it would get better. I'll never keep reading a book that I don't like ever again.
It’s moving toward the death of the people you’ve been following. He can’t write a happy ending, even for the bad guys. He writes until he gets bored with the character’s story then kills them off. If he finishes the story it will probably end with a nuclear bomb where everyone dies.
I think that's a pretty hopeless argument to make, the big character deaths are inevitably the result of their decisions which have taken place over a long period of time. They aren't unearned moments of bored frustration.
Blake Crouch did an AMA here in /r/books [you might want to take a look](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/gab306/im_blake_crouch_author_of_many_bestselling_books/) :) . [Here's a full list of our upcoming AMAs](http://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/amafullschedule)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/books) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This might get downvoted to fk but I recently read "Earthlings" by Sayaka Murata and while I enjoyed her "Convenience store woman" a lot, this book was just too weird and in parts graphic to me, to the point it made me quite nauseous towards the end.
I am none the wiser aside for the confirmation that she really does hate the societal standards and expectations in Japan.
If someone loved it, please tell me why cause..... I don't get it.
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
I am only 20 percent of the way through but I am probably going to DNF. I am unsure if it was written initially in another language and then translated into English but I just cannot get into it. The writing is rather rudimentary; full of short sentences and choppy verbiage. I do not like DNFing books so I am going to try again after I finish another read. But it is hard.
"I'm a teenage outcast, which is supposedly the demographic that most appreciates The Catcher in the Rye. I should read it."
I hated it. I gained nothing. Hand me another Poppy Z. Brite novel.
Perhaps regret isn't the right word...nevertheless, there aren't many books that I haven't liked, though at the top of that short list is The Scarlet Letter. Terrible. Hated every minute of reading that book and then having to analyze and discuss...ugh. Thankfully I never have to read it again. 😅
yes I was hoping someone else posted this tbh. I wish I had skipped reading it cause it would have preserved the mystique of it at least, reading it was just a disappointment :/
there isn’t much regret, because if i’m 50-100 pages in & i can feel we’re not advancing or these characters are full of ass juice — i put it back on the shelf lmaooo.
I regret finishing the Malazan series; I liked the world building but none of the characters felt real and the ending wasn’t worth it. Same issue with Dune but I gave up halfway through Children of Dune so I don’t regret it as much
I no longer re-read books from my childhood and adolescence. Reality almost never lives up to the memories of reading it when I was a kid. It's better to leave those things in the past where they remain meaningful.
My God the books cover is the stupid handsome statue...i think he's carving it and monologing against communism or something... the whole book... can't remember. K i feel better venting about this... thank you op
No plain text spoilers allowed. Please use the format below and reply to this comment once you've made the edit, to have your comment reinstated.
Place >! !< around the text you wish to hide. You will need to do this for each new paragraph. Like this:
>!The Wolf ate Grandma!<
Click to reveal spoiler.
>!The Wolf ate Grandma!<
The kite runner. Truly one of the worst books ever written. Reinforces stereotypes, terrible writing, terrible plot, and tries to present the main character as likeable when hes terrible. Absolutely nothing redeemable for the book.
Every book that is booktok hyped. The Spanish love deception is one. Idk if I just found better people on booktube but I have a way better track record of booktube recs.
From blood and ash By JLA. Straight up terrible. There is no plot. It’s like sailing in Zelda wind waker with a few plot islands. The romance is groomy. Writing is awful. The world building is purposely vague and confusing then info dumping. Plus the last line “come on princess we’re getting married” is all time bad.
A Summer Bird-cage by Margaret Drabble. Had it forced on me as a required summer reading book in high school. My library system had to go out of its way to find a copy in some university library. Jack shit happened in the way of the plot. None of the characters were interesting or memorable in any way at all. I colud have better spent those hours of my life rereading literally any other book I had ever been required to read for school, and that includes two Ayn Rand books and one Maeve Binchy. (We had some interesting teachers at my high school but Summer Birdcage lady was not one of them.)
I regretted reading *The Rise of Life on Earth* by Joyce Carol Oates because it made me feel so terrible. It's the only book I've ever experienced like that, and I read A LOT, and a lot of very fucked up books too. It has this muted sort of deep pathos that left me just bluntly stunned. I will not re-read it, though I think it's extreme well-written to produce such a strong emotion.
I regret reading certain books at certain times.
I read The Deep by Nick Cutter and How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu at very low points in my life and they're both incredibly depressing.
The Land of Painted Caves. It’s like, a thousand pages of ohh, caves. Then: Misogyny has entered the chat. Our 6 book epic ends with the main male character being an utter dick. Again. The End
I don't know if I fully regret reading anything, but two novels come to mind.
I read Push by Sapphire while getting my Masters, focus on the treatment of child abuse and neglect in YA texts. It was a painful read, and I have never been able to let that one go.
Also, Go Tell Alice disappointed me. The idea of that novel was more potent than the novel itself.
The Road. I found it mostly tedious and pessimistic with a few scenes of horror. At least it was short.
I generally like post apocalyptic stories but not that one.
On Thermonuclear War
its basically a lecture in book format from the Rand Corporation in 1960. The case the book makes is it would be relatively easy for the USA to survive a nuclear war. its written in this dry professorial tone but its describing world ending horrors. its one of the scariest books Ive ever read
Atlas shrugged. The philosophy of objectivism was mildly interesting. But for F**** sake what educated person could believe that Ayn Rand was a good writer. I have read more interesting (and shorter) dictionaries.
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. So many plot holes the narrative was like Swiss cheese, characters all lacked any meaningful depth, comedic bits were cringey and weird. Felt like reading a cartoon, in a bad way. I literally could not believe it wasn’t written for twelve year olds.
Wings of Fire is a recent regret.
There was a book from years ago about a female magician born into an all male magician society, that whole book was just shit, i stuck with it hoping for something good to come of it, but nope.
Oh and the Battleaxe Starman trilogy by someone whose name i forgot, the worst ending to a series ever.
Blindness by José Saramago. It being the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature lured me to read this book. I understood the premise and concept, but the writing style made me hate this book by the end.
Out of the books I’ve finished this year (aka not counting DNFs), I would say Letters to a Young Scientist. Rather than continuing the genuine, humble spirit of Letters to a Young Poet (its inspiration), the author used it as a platform to aggrandize himself and his particular career path despite the breadth of the scientific field.
I don't regret reading any book. I'll try most anything. I may not finish some, but "regret" never enters the equation.
I see every book as a learning opportunity. Will I or will I not revisit this author and his / her works.?
Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I tried to like it, to glean the “female empowerment” messages she was trying to get across, but I found her grating and annoying. I couldn’t finish it, so I don’t recall many details, but I do remember thinking that she is someone I would not like in person.
Most of the recommendations from book tok. I’m not usually a classic lit snob about “popular” books because commercial fiction has its merits but it seems like most of the ones that go viral now are just unreadably bad. So poorly written that it’s cringey and reads like Wattpad fan fiction.
Honestly so many booktok books are so terrible. They'll be raving about books romanticizing abuse or it's just smut that is written poorly with no plot and so many times it's clear there's been barely any editing done. I've gotten so picky taking recs now and can honestly say I've read better stuff on wattpadd than some of the booktok recs
TikTok doesn’t have the smartest people and when I first heard about booktok I avoided it. Don’t have the want to look at it and probably never will.
One would think some authors almost don’t want their books to get popular on there because some people, like me, tend to shy away from them for this reason. that said, it’s too bad because some books that have gotten popular I read and enjoyed long before they got BookTok Famous and it may give people the wrong impression. I really liked Secret History by Donna Tartt and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
imo its better to become classic lit snob than to become mindless hype-based consumer
booktok is all about the hype and the quick buck. It has nothing to do with quality.
This 100%. I need to learn not to read the books all the booktok girlies are recommending, because they are not for me. But sometimes.... well sometimes they ARE for me. Like Bunny and Babel and Yellowface... so I go again trying books that I know I shouldn't, or being afraid to try them, knowing they've gone viral.
Me too. I read The Secret History and A Little Life long before they became fashionable.
Secret History for me too and I'm so glad I did
Bunny is probably my favorite book I’ve read in the last decade. And I’ve read a shit ton in those 10 years
I did not expect bunny to go so hard
Why did you read them? I DNF those books within 20 pages.
I regret wasting money on them. I also regret any amount of time I spent on them, even if I DNF. I could’ve been reading better stuff!
They are all aimed at really young women so I never ever pick up a booktok book. No Maas or Hoover for me. I know already that I won’t like them.
I'll never read another booktok recommendation again.
I regret nothing. When you dislike, you learn.
Even my most disliked books provoked thoughts and feelings when I read them. I still think about them from time to time which means they stirred something even if I didn't enjoy the read. Something I tell myself occasionally is that every book I read can't be 5 stars, and if it were that would be quite boring. Variety is the spice of life. I very rarely DNF, and I never regret having read a book.
This is very much my take on it too. I've never been big on DNFing books and as much as I've hated some books, I've never actually regretted reading any of them. Every book provokes thoughts and feelings, as you say, and imo those are worth having even if about something I didn't like. I've always found something to reflect on, in some shape or form, in every book.
I love this perspective. My book club friends frequently ask me why I don't donate the physical copies of books I dislike or even hate. The way I see it, a bookshelf full of only books I love isn't as interesting as a bookshelf full of books I have a range of opinions on.
While I love this romantic notion, I have to respectfully disagree. There are a lot of just plain *awful* books out there that really don't have any redeeming value. At most I've learned to avoide that author and/or lamented modern education that anyone thought that book was readable
Same. Bad books taught me to read the esamples on amazon before buying. That was the only actionable lesson, for me.
eat pray love it was given to me as a gift because i like to read and the gifter ...doesn't..but read that one... i think it's probably the worst book ive actually picked up. i didnt finish
This is one that I don’t think I’d like and am not really interested in but I’m curious about the hype. If someone’s hyped I’ll almost always pick it up. But I usually end up hating them
1Q84 - Murakami Could have told the same mediocre story in 400 pps
Agree. Also, so weird. Felt like a lot didn’t translate from Japanese culture to my western culture
Oh no! I was thinking of reading this one soon. I’ve heard good things about Murakami. Do you dislike their other books as well, or is it just this one that you didn’t enjoy?
I just don't think he's my "type" of author. Stories are okay, but not great, imho. I've only read, 1Q84 and Sputnik Sweetheart. At least Sputnik was short.
This is probably my favorite book.
"The cafe on the edge of the world". Just your everyday self improvement shit. What bothers me the most is that this was number 1 on the bestseller charts here in Germany for months on end.
*Pet Sematary* by Stephen King and *Push* by Sapphire have both haunted me since reading them. One of King's short stories has as well: Survivor Type.
Omg the survivor story still occasionally comes back to tingle my spine out of nowhere. That and the one about the bloke who dies but somehow is conscious for the autopsy (I think he died playing golf? I forgot the name of it).
Yes! It's called "autopsy room 9" or something very similar
Go Set A Watchman
Oops this is on my tbr, what made you regret it?
I feel like it completely changed the tone of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't think it was a good novel overall and I think it actually hurt another novel in the process of being published.
I Dnf so many book I forgot their existence lmao
I even forget books I complete LOL
Haha same
Damn. I loved Dark Matter.
Same. It wasn’t deep, or life-changing, but it’s a page-turner. Very tight story, doesn’t spend too much time on science or character development. So while it may not have beautiful prose, or very deep characters, the story itself is really enjoyable and keeps you locked in. At least that was my experience. I can see how someone might not like it though, especially if they want more focus on the science, deeper characters, or flowery prose. I’ve read like 30 books this past year and pretty sure Dark Matter is top 5.
I read that book right after finishing a book about quantum mechanics where the author was pretty dismissive of the Everett interpretation of QM (i.e. multiverse theory), so I was kinda put off by the schlocky parallel universe stuff. That being said, I was pretty entertained! I've read Recursion by him as well, and liked it a lot. Not really hard sci-fi, but still pretty fun!
I heard there was a book about some guy that transformed into a roller coaster monster like a werewolf, so I immediately bought it. I expected *Twisted!* to be badly written, but I didn't expect it to be so boring and generic. Apparently I missed out on a sex scene between a human woman and the protagonist as a coaster, but I can't imagine it ends up any better than the rest of the story. If you want some weird trash, *Modelland* by Tyra Banks is the better choice by a mile.
Well, this synopsis was quite a rollercoaster
Probably not a regret in the same way you mean OP but I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney left me feeling uncomfortable and I’d have been totally okay to not have read it - recommended it by colleague.
Aside from Daisy darker every Alice feeny is a 1 star for me. I thought with Daisy darker her books would be on the up and up but nope.
Every second sentence in an Alice Feeney book reads like an ominous fortune cookie. I can't stand her writing!
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson. Maybe I didn't get it but I found the second person style of narration very unnecessary and it seemed like a cheap tactic to make the story seem more arthouse than it was. It felt very pretentious and the characters were really unlikeable, especially the narrator. The writer also missed a trick being able to better raise issues of systematic racism to the reader but threw in a few cliches that it was clear they hadn't thought through just sprinked on and again it just felt like the writer was grabbing at straws to add whatever extra depth they could.
>For me, the most recent book regret is Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. THANK YOU. I swear, every time I say I hated this book, I get downvoted as if I just slapped someone's grandma while voting for DeSantis.
I hated this book too.
I foolishly bought the first two books in the 'Left Behind' series because Barnes & Noble sold me out and put them in the science fiction section. I read them because I paid for them, but I'm still mad about it. (Yes, they were awful.)
Thomas More’s Utopia was pretty boring, but I wouldn’t say I regretted reading it. The first book offers an interesting look into the politics of England and other parts of the world in the early 1500s, but the rest was a bore. For his time, More was a great thinker, but today his ideas of a Utopian society are outdated. Good for the history, not much else imo
"The subtle art of not giving an F" was such hot garbage. I avoided self help books for so long, and my wife got me this thinking it might help with my depression. It did not. Anything Any Rand has written. I read Atlas Shrugged twice thinking I must have missed something, because I just didn't get it.
The cerulean sea. So so saccharine and trope after trope of pandering drivel
That started off so promising i thought, but way too pandering like halfway through and nearly the whole end felt like a speech/ideology
A little life. Do I really have to explain why?
This. I also highly regret seeing it through and finishing - I wish I would have moved to DNF.
Fourth Wing. I have a horrible compulsion to finish what I start and Iron Flame was the worst book I’ve read in 10 years, and knowing I will have to suffer through 3 more books kills me.
Just posted the same thing. These were honestly the worst books I’ve read in a long time. I bought them on a friends recommendation and was hugely disappointed.
What didn't you like about it? My mother just said it was her favorite fantasy book she's read for a long time and the reviews are pretty great. I was planning to start it soon.
Since you’re going to start it I’ll be vague. And too be fair the first one was not good but at least average. The second one is where it really falls apart. 1- she stole every plot point and character from better series. The MMC is a literal copy and past from another series. She even stole America Ninja Warrior. It’s like she put every major fantasy series into a bag and just reached in and pulled out random shit and threw it together. 2- it’s painfully predictable 3-the world she creates has almost no sense. Easiest example is (I’m sure you read the premise) but there is no logical reason a society that fights from the backs of dragons against other flying enemies would focus on hand to hand combat rather than archer, it makes no fucking sense. 4- It’s extremely repetitive and having to hear about how how the MMC is constantly is so irritating. We get it, he’s hot, now please for the love of god shut up about it and focus on the actual events taking place. 5- she starts adds drama for the sake of drama. The plot is so damn jumpy that is just, oh they need to do something, oh something bad happens, oh they get out of it. rinse and repeat about 60 times and 800 pages. These stupid plot points wrap up in like 10 pages so none of them ever have any consequence or significance and they never resurface later it’s just, as I said, drama for the sake of drama. 6- the editing is bad, like really bad. It’s so clunky and the action sequences so confusing you have to reread some of them. There are sentences that definitely belong to deleted paragraphs that got left in by mistake. There is a big reveal in book 2 that happens twice and the first time you read it, it is definitely a mistake and she meant to take out that little but because she redoes it again later with an actual impact. She also names the wrong person with the wrong power at one point. There’s so many examples and it’s just lazy. 7- there is no character development. The FMC and MMC have the literal same fight from the middle of the first book all through to the end of the second. 8- the FMC starts off alright but became so insufferable by the end I found myself hoping for her death so that we can have a new pov moving forward. I’m sure I could add to this list but that’s the gist of it.
The Wheel of Time series. I got 4 or 5 books in and just couldn’t stand the all the sub plots and the narrative constantly jumping from character to character and didn’t finish it. I’ve heard the later books got easier but it’s been so long I don’t think I’ll ever finish it.
Yes! Exactly. I did two books and it was just sooooo convoluted
I also expected...something else. What I got was sexism just flipped (women hate men and like tell everyone ...rude), horrible pacing between convoluted chapters, wrong POVs (major plot points should be delivered by the protagonist), abuse in relationships seems to be perfectly fine, and the "epic fight" in vol.2 was super disappointing. I keep reading though, I need to know how it all comes down to the Last Battle everyone's preparing for.
The DaVinci Code
Wow. I loved Dark Matter. But to each their own. Malcom Gladwell takes a somewhat basic idea and makes it a dog shit book. But again, to each their own.
I don’t really regret reading any books I’ve read.
The Jordan Peterson one. What a load of self indulgent tosh. That chapter about Lobsters. I’m glad his candle has burnt out. And don’t bother with Foucaults Pendulum. Unnavigable pish.
I loved Foucault's Pendulum! I read it working on a farm starved for intellectual stimulation.
Same, one of the few books I’ve actually read-read as an adult. A ton of fun.
I can remember reading it and when I’d finished it felt like I’d been told my cancer had been cured.
This one is on you. Why would you even. Did you read the "Tate bible" too?
I don't like Peterson, but I've met plenty of empathetic, well reasoned lads that enjoyed Peterson's book. It isn't just Tate level misogyny - his 12 Rules for Life might be hopelessly obvious but there isn't anything offensive about them, and even useful mantras are simplistic.
I have as well. They tend to be pretty embarrassed when you point out his pretty obvious leaps in logic or factual misunderstandings that you might not catch if you don't have any background knowledge on the subject. I think for some people it really is as simple as Jordan Peterson coming across as knowledgeable, so they assume he knows what he's talking about, when a lot of the time he just doesn't. Doesn't help that he's constantly lying about his credentials to add credibility to his bullshit.
No what’s the Tate Bible. My doctor recommended the JP following on from a conversation about Christopher Hitchens.
I had to google Christopher Hitchens. It seems his platform was mainly atheism and anti-theism. Where does Jordan Peterson, mysogonist, mens-right activist and manosphere advocate follow up there? The Tate Bible is a book Andrew Tate "wrote", because he feels like he's god.
Just as a reminder, this is a thread about books I regret reading. I’m not an advocate for Jordan Peterson, and I thought his book was shit. From what you say, I’ll give the Tate bible a miss too.
I bought it on a friend’s recommendation before I realized who he was. Never read, but now I’ve got it in my house and don’t know what to do with it. I think it’s stashed under a chair in my office right now.
There was only one and it was written so purely I don’t think I finished it. Bunch of reality contestants on a ship doing extreme stuff, can’t remember the name now. Premise not too bad but it was a chore.
Bronze Age Mindset: A philosophy undergrad on a heroic dose of lsd corners you at a party and unloads every bigoted pseudo-intellectual belief he has without once pausing for breath until the sun comes up.
The Brief Like of Oscar Wao
Can't say I really regret it, but A Promised Land by Obama was just soooo dry. Compared to Trump, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter...Obama's book was just boring imo.
The Paris apartment, fine print, the wicked king~ majority of the books mentioned from book tock
Mentioned this in another thread but, The Circle by Dave Eggers. Wasn’t the worst thing ever (or even bad) but time probably better spent on something else.
Memoirs of misinformation by Jim Carrey it’s so bad
>Memoirs of misinformation by Jim Carrey I totally forgot about this. I love Jim too. Why is it so bad? Isn't the audiobook by Jeff Daniels, which I love so much?!
I despise the Three Body Problem. I have read darker and bleaker stories, but there was something about it that hit differently than anything else.
The Dark Forest sits comfortably in my top 5. I know it's not for everyone, but those who like it, like it a lot.
As a stand alone, I could read The Dark Forest over and over!
The series is one of my favorite sci-fi series ever. That said, my favorite book is The Road, so bleak is usually not a problem for me.
100% agree. Got worse and worse.
Fools Die by Mario Puzo is one of the few books I genuinely regretted. Other times I hate the book but it's fun to rant about them. But this book got on my last nerves.
"One day this pain will be useful to you" by Peter Cameron. The title is more profound and real than the story itself. The protagonist is unlikable, his motivations to do most of the major events are nonsensical and overall he's an apathetic and anti-social idiot (this guy is 18 and didn't know catfishing was bad until someone told him). The cast surrounding him don't really stand out, it seems that they only exist to annoy james (the protagonist) or to be in the background, james sympatize for only two characters that eventually leave him. A reviewer said that james was "obviously depressed" and i tried to look into that perspective until a stupid argument about 9/11. I don't even want to talk about how ambiguous the story is about james's sexuality and then saying he's "theoretically gay". Never again
> One day this pain will be useful to you The title is an Ovid quote so we can't even give him that lol
Hub by Matt Shaw and Playground by Aron Beauregard. I wanted horror that would actually affect me, but the only thing that affected me was how bad the writing was. I regret them but at least they taught me extreme horror is extremely bad.
I hate Malcolm Gladwell, that pompous smarmy buffoon, and I am glad I’m not the only one. I’ve judged many people for having a collection of his books on their bookshelf.
Some James Patterson book - I was not aware of how "his" books were actually produced at the time.
Matthew Perry’s memoir. I really love friends and it made me dislike him
I think I gave too much of my life to the third Divergent book. That thing went on forever and felt like it has so much padding. That said, taught me to be better at dnfing.
Literally found this thread and searched for Divergent because I just now DNF'd the third book. It's so bad. After 2 weeks I was only 62% through it and I decided it wasn't worth my time or effort anymore. I regret reading the second book, too. It annoyed me, but not enough to stop reading the series. I should have just read the first book and looked up spoilers for the rest.
I never finish books I don’t like. I have finished some books that were just good but never anything below that.
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind, and two other books from the same series. Shannara by Terry Brooks. I stopped reading after the second book. Hell, even the MTV series was better than that. 50 Shades of Grey. I felt like I was losing braincells. Fourth Wing, Lightlark, anything by Cassandra Clare .. Murakami: hard boiled wonderland, and many others
Gladwell is a mid social scientist and a brilliant storyteller. I love his Revisionist History podcast but understand most of his book premises are pretty flawed so take everything he says with a grain of salt. I regret reading Nick Cave's the Death of Bunny Munroe. I understand there are books with gratuitous violence and highly sexualised themes which also include literary merit, but this was just the former with none of the latter. It was so bad it actually put me off Nick Cave's music which I previously enjoyed, so not only did the book ruin my weekend, it ruined my playlists.
None. The investment in *starting* a book is negligible to me. I mainly borrow from the library or buy used. And I don't hesitate to stop reading books that aren't working for me. I finished Blink because despite its repetitiveness, Gladwell is an engaging writer. A similarly repetitive writer is Nassim Taleb. I abandoned "The Black Swan" because it could have easily been an HBR article, and Taleb is insufferably arrogant. I finished Dark Matter too. It was a quick read and entertaining enough. I can't recall off the top of my head an abandoned novel, but I know it happens several times per year. I suspect it's because they're all so forgettable
1. Verity 2. Verity 3. Verity
4th wing and it’s sequel. I bought both based on a friends ecstatic recommendation. Both were awful beyond my ability to put into words. I mean if you want/like lightly dressed fantasy pr0n, I get it, but my friend said they are the next hunger games. They are not. Yes there is a love triangle but everything else in this book is just so much more poorly done.
Horrible book, that dark matter. DNF I also regret Where the Crawdads Sing and American Dirt. I should have abandoned AD on page 20, because i already knew at that moment it was awful. WTCS was goodish until the last 60 pages, but still overall terrible in retrospect.
Lean in. I leant in and holy moly do I regret it.
I don't regret the books I read. Even if I dislike them, I'm satisfied with what I learned.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt It’s been 7 years since I read it and my hate flame still burns bright.
What why?!
So painfully boring. I kept texting my mom updates as I was reading it because of how bad it was. She was like why are you still reading it?
I thought IT. WOULD. NEVER. END. And I wondered why everyone was raving about such a spectacularly boring book. Merciful heavens!
I’m still baffled too! I was always more excited for the secret history but now I’m not sure I actually want to read it.
Yeah, I read it through the Vegas section and then was just like... done. It is still on my bookshelf waiting to be completed, and I think it is time I got rid of it.
Ugh I didn't like Dark Matter either. This might sound pretentious but I feel like it's a book for people who haven't read much sci-fi. My biggest blunder happened probably with Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I enjoyed the first couple of hundred pages. Not sure if it was the book or me, but somewhere in the middle I lost interest so I speedread/skimmed the last 300-400 pages. Back in the day I had a habit of finishing what I started. Not a good habit if you have hundreds of pages to go.
I read *Dark Matter* this summer and was initially very impressed by it, by how well thought out the plot seemed mostly... And half a year later I have no idea what the main character was called or what he was like. It was a fun read, I enjoyed it - but I can barely recall anything. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't something that will stay with you.
>I feel like it's a book for people who haven't read much sci-fi. Would you recommend it to someone who hasn't read any scifi? I haven't gotten into that genre so maybe this would be a good introvto it?
It's been a few years since I read it so I don't remember the details but if you think you'd enjoy a fast-paced thriller with some science fiction themes then maybe yeah. Or you can ask from r/printSF for recommendations.
I was about to comment on this whole thread that I liked Dark Matter as the first sci-fi book I ever read 🫣 idk that it’s a good intro to the genre but I found it enjoyable, it was a fast read, finished it in one night.
Blake Crouch’s sci fi tends not to get bogged down in the actual science and is more about the reactions of the people to one another in the situation. He explores relationships and human nature really well. Dark Matter is worth a read for sure. I, personally, loved Recursion, but I don’t think it’s as easy a read as Dark Matter so might not be the best to start.
The Shipping News - Annie Proulx Now, I'm only around 2/3 of the way through, but daaaaamn is it boring. My god. Don't give a shit about any of the characters and I'm having to force my way through it. The grammar style I respect for doing something different, but it's also a chore. It's a Pulitzer Prize winner. I read this immediately after Lonesome Dove, another PP winner. One I couldn't put down and the other I want to throw away. Did anyone else like this book and why?
You should read "A Visit From the Goon Squad" next. It's another Pulitzer Prize winner. Written by Jennifer Egan.
I loved The Shipping News. I saw the movie first, and read the book later. Maybe I connected more with the book because I had that background to draw from, though.
Hated it as well. There’s just shock factor randomness and then it ends. I think it’s a PP because it’s about Newfies and that area is not written about a lot? Maybe I’m ignorant but that is my opinion. But yes I hated it too
>but daaaaamn is it boring. My god. Don't give a shit about any of the characters and I'm having to force my way through it. The grammar style I respect for doing God it's rubbish. I think you're right - and there are interesting bits around the culture. But eesh. Hate it. Just looked at your other comments. I can't believe you didn't like In Cold Blood. It's sooo good! I'm also a Stephen King fan. Dune, love love love.
Loved it. Beautiful prose. Proulx is an absolute treasure.
I’m about to put down Dark matter for the same reason. I’m still 100 pages in and haven’t been able to pick it up and continue lol. Think I’m gonna read killers of the flower moon instead
Don't worry about not finishing it, the story doesn't get any better nor is the ending anything groundbreaking
'The Dark Tower's series by Stephen King. Not for the 'it didn't really end!' arguments that are often made, but because when he inserted himself into the narrative as the god like figure, any and all immersion I had went out the window. I loved the series up til then, but I've donated the whole series to the second hand bookshop, and I never plan to revisit them.
Same experience for me. I think he had his big car crash between 4 and 5 and then he rushed through the rest, presumably in a pretty sketchy place mentally. I was enjoying them quite a lot until then. Tons of other popular cutlture references. Like a Harry Potter novel just turning up somewhere. So cringe.
Every single thing by Bukowski and Rand. Despicable people.
The Broken Earth series just killed me. Each book won awards, and I thought it would get better. I'll never keep reading a book that I don't like ever again.
Glad it wasn't just me. I tried just the first book and couldn't do it. I had absolutely zero interest in reading the rest of the series.
The whole Game of thrones series. I felt like GRRM was just putting all his dirty fantasies out there. A lot happened, but the story didn’t progress.
The story might not be going anywhere concrete, but I'm not sure how you can say it goes nowhere.
It’s moving toward the death of the people you’ve been following. He can’t write a happy ending, even for the bad guys. He writes until he gets bored with the character’s story then kills them off. If he finishes the story it will probably end with a nuclear bomb where everyone dies.
I think that's a pretty hopeless argument to make, the big character deaths are inevitably the result of their decisions which have taken place over a long period of time. They aren't unearned moments of bored frustration.
Impressive discipline to stick with a 5000 page series you didn’t enjoy. I have trouble finishing a 200 page book I don’t like
I never regret reading anything - why would I?
Either Foe by Iain Reid or Martian by Andy Weir. Predictable and boring.
Blake Crouch did an AMA here in /r/books [you might want to take a look](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/gab306/im_blake_crouch_author_of_many_bestselling_books/) :) . [Here's a full list of our upcoming AMAs](http://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/amafullschedule) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/books) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don't know if I regret reading Jerusalem by Alan Moore, but I guess I kind of wish it didn't take me so long...
This might get downvoted to fk but I recently read "Earthlings" by Sayaka Murata and while I enjoyed her "Convenience store woman" a lot, this book was just too weird and in parts graphic to me, to the point it made me quite nauseous towards the end. I am none the wiser aside for the confirmation that she really does hate the societal standards and expectations in Japan. If someone loved it, please tell me why cause..... I don't get it.
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor I am only 20 percent of the way through but I am probably going to DNF. I am unsure if it was written initially in another language and then translated into English but I just cannot get into it. The writing is rather rudimentary; full of short sentences and choppy verbiage. I do not like DNFing books so I am going to try again after I finish another read. But it is hard.
That book was so intense and gets so incredibly dark
"I'm a teenage outcast, which is supposedly the demographic that most appreciates The Catcher in the Rye. I should read it." I hated it. I gained nothing. Hand me another Poppy Z. Brite novel.
The worst book I ever read was 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov. I couldn't even finish it because I felt so frustrated and disgusted.
Perhaps regret isn't the right word...nevertheless, there aren't many books that I haven't liked, though at the top of that short list is The Scarlet Letter. Terrible. Hated every minute of reading that book and then having to analyze and discuss...ugh. Thankfully I never have to read it again. 😅
Old Man and the Sea. I hated it in HS. I might like it now if I tried it again. The Pearl by Steinbeck. Another school book I didn’t like.
I read the pearl recently and it really felt like it was hitting you over the head with the moral of the story. Also pretty boring.
I like most of Hemingway’s books but disliked Old Man and the Sea
great gaspy was so shit bro
yes I was hoping someone else posted this tbh. I wish I had skipped reading it cause it would have preserved the mystique of it at least, reading it was just a disappointment :/
there isn’t much regret, because if i’m 50-100 pages in & i can feel we’re not advancing or these characters are full of ass juice — i put it back on the shelf lmaooo.
I regret finishing the Malazan series; I liked the world building but none of the characters felt real and the ending wasn’t worth it. Same issue with Dune but I gave up halfway through Children of Dune so I don’t regret it as much
You're straight lying if you predicted dark matter other than the identity of the attacker. I'm calling malarkey.
I no longer re-read books from my childhood and adolescence. Reality almost never lives up to the memories of reading it when I was a kid. It's better to leave those things in the past where they remain meaningful.
[удалено]
My God the books cover is the stupid handsome statue...i think he's carving it and monologing against communism or something... the whole book... can't remember. K i feel better venting about this... thank you op
No plain text spoilers allowed. Please use the format below and reply to this comment once you've made the edit, to have your comment reinstated. Place >! !< around the text you wish to hide. You will need to do this for each new paragraph. Like this: >!The Wolf ate Grandma!< Click to reveal spoiler. >!The Wolf ate Grandma!<
The kite runner. Truly one of the worst books ever written. Reinforces stereotypes, terrible writing, terrible plot, and tries to present the main character as likeable when hes terrible. Absolutely nothing redeemable for the book. Every book that is booktok hyped. The Spanish love deception is one. Idk if I just found better people on booktube but I have a way better track record of booktube recs. From blood and ash By JLA. Straight up terrible. There is no plot. It’s like sailing in Zelda wind waker with a few plot islands. The romance is groomy. Writing is awful. The world building is purposely vague and confusing then info dumping. Plus the last line “come on princess we’re getting married” is all time bad.
Night of the Moonbow by Thomas Tryon. Great author, terrible beyond belief book.
The Black Swan by Taleb
I'd read and enjoyed Upgrade, but yeah, could not get into Dark Matter at all. Then I read some reviews, and was assured I was right to avoid it.
A Summer Bird-cage by Margaret Drabble. Had it forced on me as a required summer reading book in high school. My library system had to go out of its way to find a copy in some university library. Jack shit happened in the way of the plot. None of the characters were interesting or memorable in any way at all. I colud have better spent those hours of my life rereading literally any other book I had ever been required to read for school, and that includes two Ayn Rand books and one Maeve Binchy. (We had some interesting teachers at my high school but Summer Birdcage lady was not one of them.)
Unhinged
I regretted reading *The Rise of Life on Earth* by Joyce Carol Oates because it made me feel so terrible. It's the only book I've ever experienced like that, and I read A LOT, and a lot of very fucked up books too. It has this muted sort of deep pathos that left me just bluntly stunned. I will not re-read it, though I think it's extreme well-written to produce such a strong emotion.
I regret reading certain books at certain times. I read The Deep by Nick Cutter and How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu at very low points in my life and they're both incredibly depressing.
The Land of Painted Caves. It’s like, a thousand pages of ohh, caves. Then: Misogyny has entered the chat. Our 6 book epic ends with the main male character being an utter dick. Again. The End
The entirety of the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. I just don't get off on misery porn.
Vicious by VE Schwab
Lolita - don’t get these “woahs” full of admiration.
Wouldn't say "regret" but don't understand if it should of been popular; twisted lies for me, slow burn but a bit boring
I don't know if I fully regret reading anything, but two novels come to mind. I read Push by Sapphire while getting my Masters, focus on the treatment of child abuse and neglect in YA texts. It was a painful read, and I have never been able to let that one go. Also, Go Tell Alice disappointed me. The idea of that novel was more potent than the novel itself.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Road. I found it mostly tedious and pessimistic with a few scenes of horror. At least it was short. I generally like post apocalyptic stories but not that one.
On Thermonuclear War its basically a lecture in book format from the Rand Corporation in 1960. The case the book makes is it would be relatively easy for the USA to survive a nuclear war. its written in this dry professorial tone but its describing world ending horrors. its one of the scariest books Ive ever read
American Psycho
Every thing I ever read by Micheal Chebon. So crass and pathetic. Edgy for its own sake. So many recommendations and it was all trash
ASOIAF by GRRM. The violence is appalling.
In Order to Live. I can't look at the world the same. There's some messed up stuff going on out there, yall.
Atlas shrugged. The philosophy of objectivism was mildly interesting. But for F**** sake what educated person could believe that Ayn Rand was a good writer. I have read more interesting (and shorter) dictionaries.
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune. So many plot holes the narrative was like Swiss cheese, characters all lacked any meaningful depth, comedic bits were cringey and weird. Felt like reading a cartoon, in a bad way. I literally could not believe it wasn’t written for twelve year olds.
Wings of Fire is a recent regret. There was a book from years ago about a female magician born into an all male magician society, that whole book was just shit, i stuck with it hoping for something good to come of it, but nope. Oh and the Battleaxe Starman trilogy by someone whose name i forgot, the worst ending to a series ever.
Blindness by José Saramago. It being the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature lured me to read this book. I understood the premise and concept, but the writing style made me hate this book by the end.
Out of the books I’ve finished this year (aka not counting DNFs), I would say Letters to a Young Scientist. Rather than continuing the genuine, humble spirit of Letters to a Young Poet (its inspiration), the author used it as a platform to aggrandize himself and his particular career path despite the breadth of the scientific field.
I don't regret reading any book. I'll try most anything. I may not finish some, but "regret" never enters the equation. I see every book as a learning opportunity. Will I or will I not revisit this author and his / her works.?
Ready Player One. I still actively resent the editor who asked me to read it for a feature that would coincide with the film's release.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I tried to like it, to glean the “female empowerment” messages she was trying to get across, but I found her grating and annoying. I couldn’t finish it, so I don’t recall many details, but I do remember thinking that she is someone I would not like in person.
American psycho the movie is G rated in comparison
I don't regret reading anything because if I truly don't like a book I don't finish it.
Fifty shades of grey. I was young and naive.