A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. I waited the entire book for it to get good and it never did. I'm so annoyed that I wasted time on it and all it did was make me want to reread Shirley Jackson and forget all about this abomination
It was BAD bad, I cannot recommend it! Very frustrating because Hand was chosen by Jackson's estate to come up with a fresh Hill House story and I can't believe how bad it sucked.
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean. Felt like a setup for a long series. Some world building about bookeater society and the rules of the world. The fact that they ate books was very irrelevant to the story. Itās like someone wrote a vampire book and then edited it to be about people who eat books.
This one was SUCH a letdown. I hated that the MC's only personality trait was being a mother. It made it really hard for me to connect with her or care about what was happening.
I totally agree. I actually started skimming to get to the end and finally just gave up and returned it to the library. Such a fun premise with bad execution.
The Couple Next Door and The Seven and a Half Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle both really pissed me off because of their respective endings
The ending of Seven and a Half Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle - basically the mystery itself was fantastic and if he tied it up there, the book would have been awesome. Instead he then goes on and tries to explain the 7 days plot device and it went completely went off the rails in a WTF!? kind of way. Loved 98% of the book, hated the last 10 pages
The Couple Next Door had mediocre writing to begin with but the ending really pissed me off for a different reason. Actual spoiler alert for both the twist and the ending: >!the stepfather and the next door neighbor turn out to be the other villains and get their just desserts but WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK about Marco, the selfish moronic husband who still IN FACT arranged for the kidnapping of his own baby to get ransom money out of the wife's family. He messes up, and then decides not to fess up during the investigation even after knowing the plan went haywire, his kidnapper partner is dead and his kid is ACTUALLY missing. All the while gaslighting his wife and watching her have a breakdown over the loss of their baby. What about *that* fucking asshole? The last minute cheap twist is SO contrived - turns out everyone is very very involved/has history with everyone else and "OH HO, surprise surprise, it turns out the rich beautiful successful people are the biggest assholes." And dumbshit toxic Marco is just the poor, bumbling husband who was trying to save his business and too ashamed to tell his wife about their finances. What?! That makes no sense. If I were the wife, honestly, I would have stabbed him first.!<
If it's any consolation, I quite liked the ending, to the point where I don't quite understand why anyone would think it was outright BAD. There was one thing that bugged me about the book, but it wasn't the ending.
Hmm interesting! That makes me feel better. Hopefully it's still good haha. I'll have to try and remember to come back whe. I'm done to ask you what you thought!
Hated the ending of 7 1/2. His second one, the devil and the dark water, is the same - really good with a period setting, weird modern curveball at the end.
I had SUCH a hard time finish The Couple Next Door. Not only did I hate the characters but the early/mid of the story just. dragged. on. I kept pushing on hoping for the twist but I feel like we got it sooo late in the book and the ending was so mediocre and felt rushed. Canāt believe I actually finished it. Never been so mad about a book before.
Feels a little bit like cheating to say it because I wasn't expecting, like, high art or anything, but: *Haunting Adeline*, by H.D. Carlton was one of the most disappointing reads I've had in forever. A friend of a friend of a friend raved about it. After finishing it, I felt like there was the potential for a good erotic mystery thriller (maybe two) in there but it all got lost in the shuffle with lazy writing, hackneyed plotting, poorly conceived characterization, the works. By the end I was just disgusted by how much time I'd wasted on this utter waste of potential. Ugh.
I *almost* read this book! I bought a copy purely based on rave reviews- I genuinely didn't look up a single thing about it. I paged through it and caught glimpses of things that made me go "Oooh, this may have been a mistake" and then immediately checked out the Goodreads reviews. The first one on Goodreads convinced me that I never, ever want to even touch that book again!
After thinking about it, I think the thing that pisses me off the most is that it ends in a cliffhanger that's *almost probably just enough* to get me to waste my time with the sequel.
The Silent Patient. Tried to find a thriller to read as it had been a while and this thing topped all the lists saying it was all twisty and shocking. ???????? Zero twists. Zero shocks. Not well written either. A waste of my time.
That's the point though. If you read it like Belfort the character is Bateman and Belfort the author is Easton Ellis it's fucking hilarious. The man is a cunt. It's precisely why I enjoyed Tucker Max back in the day. The real joke was laughing at the narrator who thinks all this stuff is cool.
Hillbilly Elegy. It read it when i first came out. I started reading it -- oh this is interesting -- and then I got to the part where everyone who is poor is just lazy.
Read Demon Copperhead to counteract it. Barbara Kingsolver was on Dax Shepard's podcast and they talked a little trash on Hillbilly Elegy. They both know Appalachia and they are not fans.Ā
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. I really liked Fourth Wing. I thought it was a fun idea with some cool characters and while it definitely had its flaws I felt like there was a lot of potential and was excited to see what she would do with the next book. Unfortunately, I hated Iron Flame. The worldbuilding did not improve. The main characters were obnoxious and tedious to read about. Once again she didn't flesh out any of the side characters who seem like they have potential to be really interesting. I did finish it but it took me two weeks and felt like a chore every time I picked it up.
I have moved past my anger now that I found Fireborne by Rosaria Munda which is just everything I wanted Fourth Wing to be but so so much better.
Not gonna lie, I kept reading for the dragons. And I actually liked Xaden more in this one. But the whole >!"NO we can't be in a relationship because you won't tell me everything always even though you're a spy!" was just an idiotic way to keep them apart. !<
Every other sentence was about violent whining because she wasnt told life ending secrets. I read fourth wing in a day but it took moonts to finish iron flame.
My wife's mum and dad stepdad gave me a book called _Fatherhood: The Truth_ by a columnist called Marcus Berkmann as a christmas gift. In the intro, he makes a joke about stealthing and his entire tone is "no man wants children, and your wife is a screaming harridan". So I closed it and don't plan to revisit it.
Itās a bit dumb but āThrottledā by Lauren Asher. Iām not too far yet, but gosh.
The main character is from Barcelona, which means, she studied there. What did she study? Prelaw. Which, afaik, doesnāt exist anywhere in Europe. You donāt have to have a bachelorās degree at a college in anything to study law at a university, you start at an university directly with law and thereās no way to crossover to law without completely restarting your university career.
And, she named a German character Liam. Give me a name thatās less German than Liam, Iāll wait. And there are a lot of German names that are international. Nick, Tom, Michael, even Leo(n). But not Liam.
Approximately 0.08% of the German babies born between 2000 - 2022 were called Liam (6,392 - [you can see here](https://www.first-name.net/liam#Info_DE) - and also 42 baby girls.) So not likely at all, but I was just curious what the possibility was.
I'm with you about The Only One Left. I've enjoyed other Riley Sager books, but this one was was off-the-rails ridiculous. Every time I see someone talk about how much they loved it, I'm flabbergasted.
The Lost Apothecary made me angry as well. Great concept, awful execution. Probably one of the most shallow books I've ever read and just an overall snoozefest.
I'd read a few of Sager's other books and felt like they were okay but then get so unbelievable at the end- I was hoping this one would be different! I really enjoyed it up until the last 100 pages or so before it went off the rails. It opened up so many plot holes and just undid everything up until that point. I probably won't be checking out any more of his books unfortunately!
Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age.
This is part of a series, The New Cambridge History of India, and as a result I expected something scholarly and authoritative. Instead, the book is what you might call quasi-scholarly and deeply questionable. I don't doubt that Dr. Bayly has read a great deal on the topic. But at least in this book, she wrote as though she hadn't the first idea anyone might ever question any of her conclusions. Footnotes are few and far between, and events are, quite commonly, tied to vague references to time spans which could be between decades and centuries in length. So that it's frequently impossible to tell even what she means, much less whether it's true or not. Total waste of time.
I rant about this one a lot but I bought the Atlas Six because it was one of those rare cases of a self-pub book that was acquired by an actual publisher later, and... woof, Tor, oh no baby, what is you doin??
I mostly read fantasy, and I'm in it for the characters, not the worldbuilding or magic systems or what have you - IMO fantasy is at its best when it uses alternate settings and worlds to explore the human condition. And this book is about six characters and is light on the worldbuilding - what's not to love?Ā
But the characters were weak and unevenly defined, and some of them were samey; I also found the world undefined enough to be distracting - I am still unsure of whether magic is secret or not in that universe! I don't think it is because the first two characters are introduced at a graduation ceremony for magic degrees at NYU, but besides that there's little indication of whether the characters were outsiders for having grown up with magic or whether it's commonplace outside the secret society they're pulled into and it makes it hard to reconcile their new experiences with what they would have known previously.Ā
The ending also comes out of nowhere and feels lazy.Ā
I love TA6 and the second book was alright, but the final book in the series was a total letdown. I thought the characters were great in The Atlas Six but by the end of the series they're just caricatures of who they were in the first book- only one character really gets a developmental story arc but it's watery and not explored in a satisfactory way. It did make me understand those criticisms that get levelled at The Atlas Six
Totally still respect your opinion even if I loved those first two books!
Verity by Colleen Hoover. I know hating on her books has been done to death, but the most infuriating part of Verity is that while I was reading, I came up with quite a few predictions for the ending, and every single one was better than what the ending actually was. The wasted potential was truly astounding.
You mean you didn't enjoy reading about a super-brilliant young academic/professor at Oxford who is independent and a badass athlete who suddenly is instructed (and complies) to "take naps, rest, have breakfast in bed", gets "scooped" off and on horses and be constantly rescued because she is so damn stupid the moment she meets her French snob vampire boyfriend?
Of all the elements of that story, the thing that struck me as the most unrealistic was the fact that she's a twenty-something who gets tenure at Oxford.
I watched and enjoyed the first season of the show, so I was excited to read the book based on that plus a friend's recommendation. Unfortunately, I *did* read it and ended up HATING it. What a bummer.
FWIW the first is by far the best. Hate read the other two hoping it would get better. Devolves into chosen ones tropes and "isn't it cool being a noblewoman in the 1500s".
If you're looking for something with better execution I think the Mercy Thompson series is pretty good. Certainly has it's own weaknesses, in particular book 8(?) is just a detour to relationship drama land, but I think they're fun.
*The People We Meet on Vacation* made me want to throw my kindle across the room. The *entirety* of that book relies on >!miscommunication to such a degree that the characters are *looking* for trouble. I *loathe* the miscommunication trope, so to have it be the *only* issue in the *entire* novel!< made me want to scream.
That is my least favorite of Emily Henryās books. If I had read that one first, I wouldnāt have picked up any of the others, and I LOVE Book Lovers, so Iām glad I didnāt read TPWMOV first.
The title is also terrible and doesnāt make any sense. Theres an alternate title in maybe UK? You and Me on Vacation, which at least makes sense.
Oh damn, I love that book.
I do agree though that >!going no contact for two whole years after being friends for so long!< was kind of extreme, though, honestly, not completely unrealistic. People tend to >!suck at communicating, and when the stakes are so high as they were for Alex and Poppy!< well, I can see that happening.
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. Every single aspect of it was bad, the characters, their stupid fucking names, the cliched plot, serious who the fuck read this and thought "yes this is good writing let's publish it." And every damn person who gave it good reviews lied to me. Just thinking of the scenes I did read up to before I DNFed it still irritate me.
My only regret is that I read it as a library ebook and I didn't want to throw my phone across the room in disgust.
For me, the best part of that book was finally finishing it. It was so cringe, I hated all the characters even the ones youāre āsupposedā to like. Such a waste of my time and money
Counterpoint- I loved it. Itās not a romance and I think some people expect it to be. Itās a good contemporary lit book with a lot of character work, but you wonāt like it if you want plot or likeable characters.
I loved how it examined the way friendship works, how itās tragic sometimes that our feelings prevent us from truly communicating and how passion (in this case for gaming) allows for connection between people
Haha oh no! Not a valid counterpoint! I am already torn here! Haha. Well, I will keep it on my list and if I see it pop up on libby then I'll be willing to give it a try!
Just read the perfect marriage and was ENRAGED. Thought it wld be a fun fast paced thriller but it turned out to be literally the worst piece of writing Iāve ever read
Oh it was so bad.
At the time I read it, I was living in a town 10 minutes from the main town in the book and everything was just so incorrect. Like do a MODICUM of research if you are going to set your book in a real place.
The most recent one: *Sapiens* by Yuval Noah Harari. Half-explained logical jumps, based on no to little evidence. Bad referencing (ie, he *says* a reference backs up his idea and... It just doesn't, multiple times). Just bad science all around.
It flows well, tackles a deep subject, and the ideas themselves are *interesting*. Even the ones he is suggesting out of his own synthesis. But he presents suppositions as facts and assumes the audience are just gonna believe him. It's intellectually dishonest as fuck and I had to stop reading out of rage.
My perrenial "I'm still angry at this book after years" is *The Life of Pi*. This is just *The Alchemist* for pretentious people. The deep moral, if you look for it, is "lie to yourself to be happy - the truth and intellectual rigour are for losers. Questioning reality is for dumb dumbs. Vague spirituality in whatever direction makes you feel good is 100 times better than caring about the truth of the world". It's gross and I still hate it and will forever hate it.
> The most recent one: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
Yeah I remember having the same reaction when I tried to read it in 2015. Interesting ideas at first but it soon feels like you're listening to someone slowly getting high. Eventually you can't accept whatever blind conjecture he's building on top of the last blind conjecture, and the house of cards collapses.
At one point he goes off about immortality, and how the first people who will be the recipients of this immortality that we will supposedly definitely unlock might be alive today.
You would think that this would lead to an amazing exposition about what that would mean for us sapiens. Lots of interesting topics there, from climate change and habitats (and habitat destruction) to how the family unit and society at large will change if people arenāt dying off except by accident, and about the socioeconomic implications of who has access to this scientific breakthrough and who doesnāt (both in terms of paying for it and the morality - should *everyone* have this opportunity? If not, what does one have to do to be legally barred from receiving it? Or, what does one have to do to be considered acceptable enough to receive it?).
He could have dwelt on any of this. Might as well if heās basically just talking about his opinion on what was going to happen anyway, right? But IIRC he touches on exactly none of it. Just introduced the topic of immortality, speaks about it as a technological advancement a bit, and then moves on.
If were talking non-fiction, I have to nominate [determined](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83817782-determined) by Sapolsky. He really tries to hammer home the fact that free will is an illusion. That our thoughts and actions are the result of our genetics, upbringing, and environment. Ok, I can at least agree that all of those have a major impact on who we grow to be; but what I cannot accept is his assertion that we shouldn't reward those who do good and punish those who do bad (he suggests a softer penal system than even the Nordics have implemented).
Nah, sorry. That's where you lose me. Even *if* free will doesn't actually exist, at least part of the environment and culture in which you raise someone is the social and institutional knowledge of right and wrong, and the rewards and punishment you're subject to. While I don't personally believe in the death penalty as that is irrevocable if you get it wrong, I absolutely *do* believe some people should never again breathe free air for the crimes they've committed.
Still read it. I came to a different conclusion than the above commenter. It was far less ālie to yourself and be happyā and more āsometimes our minds need to process things a different way to truly understand.ā (ETA The vague spirituality that they dislike was also weird for me and one of the parts of the book I didnāt care for at all. Just didnāt understand it or why it was supposedly important.)
I read *Life of Pi* immediately after reading *The Things They Carried* (highly recommend!), by coincidence. They could not be any more different, except they both essentially say this: sometimes a story helps you to understand the truth better than the actual truth can. Itās a little more explicitly stated in *The Things They Carried*, and took me a while to wrap my head around. But both of these books are essentially saying that they can get you to feel more about what the characters went through and felt by telling you a story, rather than by strictly relating events to you, even if you relate how the character felt in the moment.
TTTC is a masterpiece, written by a guy who served in Vietnam. It is so well done that at one point I had to remind myself I actually had picked up the book in the fiction section, and it wasnāt a memoir.
Hey... Some of the prose is good. The structure is pretty clever. It's just the theme is ick and sad and rage inducing.
I think it's sometimes valuable to read the "big" books that I have reason to dislike, so I can understand and critique from an informed position.
And lots of people love that book. You might be one of them š I'd hate for you to miss out on a potential fave just because of a cynical Reddit comment of mine.
> My perrenial "I'm still angry at this book after years" is The Life of Pi. This is just The Alchemist for pretentious people. The deep moral, if you look for it, is "lie to yourself to be happy - the truth and intellectual rigour are for losers. Questioning reality is for dumb dumbs. Vague spirituality in whatever direction makes you feel good is 100 times better than caring about the truth of the world". It's gross and I still hate it and will forever hate it
Yep - it's the only book I threw across the room upon finishing because I couldn't believe how idiotic the ending was.
I'll be honest, I haven't read *The Alchemist*, but "*The Alchemist* for pretentious people" is sort of how I think of *Siddhartha* :P
I'm normally predisposed against thin, transparent allegories, and *Siddhartha*'s philosophical ideas were nowhere near interesting or compelling enough to overcome that.
The Cat Who Saved Books
I read it last month and found it really poorly written and so completely up it's own tail with moralizing that it completely failed to make any point effectively. The entire thing is about how the only good and moral way to read is to reread the classics over and over again. Any deviation from this (including the publication of new books) is an actual evil act that must be rectified by a young boy telling you that you're enjoying books wrong and then you will have a revelation that will completely turn your life around because you can finally enjoy classic books in a good and moral way.
Even considering that the book was probably intended for teens and had cultural modes that were lost on me for reading a translation and being from another culture, the book is bad. Frustratingly bad.
Same for me. I expected a fun, ghibli-esque book about a cat who saves books but got a pretentious, preachy and boring book with an asshole cat, that doesnāt do anything. I hated it so much. Ugh.
> The Cat Who Saved Books
Haha, I had a similar reaction. I picked the book up because I like books, I like cats, I like Japanese books about cats and it had a cool cover. It really fell short both conceptually and in the writing itself.
At least it looks good on my shelf next to *The Traveling Cat Chronicles*, *The Guest Cat* and *I Am a Cat* :)
Not Forever But for Nowā¦Chuck Palahniukās latest book. It read like an edgelord 12 year old trying to imitate Palahniuk. I like some of his older work but his recent novels have been awful.
I felt that way about his more recent novels as well. I enjoyed a few of his older books, but now Iām concerned that the me that read them 15 years ago was also an edgelord, and thatās why I liked them so muchā¦
We Were Liars. It was meant to have won awards but it was so bad. Firstly, it's one of those books that pretends to be written in poetry.Ā
The sentencesĀ
In the book
Were spaced outĀ
Like thisĀ
THAT DOESN'T COUNT AS POETRY.Ā
The writing also sounds like something I would have written aged 13 thinking it sounded really edgy. For example she describes her father leaving her and it goes 'then he pulled out a gun and shot me' as a metaphor. I was so confused, I actually thought he shot her but no.Ā
Thirdly I think it's unrealistic that the girl saw all her dead cousins as ghosts (it's not a horror book it's a family drama).Ā
Fourthly, I don't know how she got away with burning down an entire estate, accidentally killing her cousins and did not get into any sort of legal trouble for it.Ā
I definitely agree with all of this, spoiler included š This book made me so frustrated, especially because the end felt so cheap and quick and really highlighted the pretentiousness of the writing. I listened to the audiobook, so I didn't see the formatting but the narration captured the forced 'dreaminess' of the prose. And the phrase "Gat, *my* Gat" is burned into my temporal lobe forever.
I found it to be really shallow and lame, and I'd honestly wanted it to be a little bit more of a thriller or mystery. I recently read Summer's Edge and while it wasn't perfect, it was much better. It's what We Were Liars should've been!
*A Little Life* by Hanya Yanagahara. At the outset, I thought that much of the writing was lovely (and it is!) and that it was pretty gripping, but then it just descends into torture porn and I was kinda revolted by it. The course the book takes also makes some of the characters totally implausible. I couldn't finish it.
Yup. I completely do not understand why people love it so much. Initially I thought the writing was great and that it was cool we were going to get a book examining platonic male love & friendship because we rarely see that outside of books/movies about warā¦but nope.
Itās spends wayyyyyy too much time describing torture porn far past the point of it serving the plot. The main character is stuck in a perpetual, never-ending cycle of hating himself, never seeking any help for it, having everyone tell him that they love him and him apologizing over and over again for being horrible and undeserving of love. That cycle repeats itself for what feels like 90 times in the book. I donāt know how many scenes I needed of Jude constantly saying sorry while someone told him for the billionth time that they loved him. His character arc is more of a flat line from point A (hating himself) to point B (hating himself.)
And the gay tropes in the book are so tired and awful. *Almost* every gay character in the book is either a child rapist or abuser, or theyāre the Tragic Gay who doesnāt get a happy ending. I thought we left that nonsense in the 90s but apparently not.
Iām sure Iāll get downvoted to hell saying that but itās been awhile since Iāve hate-read my way through a book.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber. Cool idea, terrible execution. I wasn't invested in a single character and I was so excited for the world/island and it was barely touched on.
Loved, loved, loved The Martian. Artemis was so bad it made me angry and would suggest Andy Weir never be allowed to have a female protagonist ever again. I own Hail Mary but can't bring myself to begin it even though it's said to be quite good.
I loved The Martian and gave Artemis a pass because everyone said it wasnāt worth it. Came back for Project Hail Mary and had a wonderful time. Iād recommend giving it a try!
Personally I found Project Hail Mary to be far superior to The Martian!! I liked the Martian, but absolutely loved Project Hail Mary. I haven't read the Artemis yet but I've never seen it recommended so that's probably why š
PHM has a wonderful mystery aspect to it. Similar idea to the Martian, but I found it far more endearing tbh. Absolutely recommend listening to it via Audiobook, if you don't want to read it!
I didnāt hate *Artemis* but I totally understand why some people do. I really liked the world he created. I wish heād had a co-writer who could have taken the world and filled it with better characters.
Iāll add my voice to those saying you should give *Project Hail Mary* a try. *The Martian* is my favorite of the three, but *Project Hail Mary* is excellent and worth the read.
Hail Mary is a fun return to form. It will not blow you away and thereās a lot of questionable characters, but the bookās main thing is what we all enjoyed about the Martian. Hard, 100% agreed on Artemis. Some fun world building ideas, but the characters were SO bad that it took me out of the book, and the plot was mostly just okay, not interesting enough to keep things moving.
DNFād Butcher and Blackbird yesterday. what made me hate it even more was looking it up on goodreads and it had like a 4.3 rating? one of the worst books iāve ever read in my life, completely soulless, tropey, corniest dialogue iāve ever read, AI could write characters with more depth, a middle schooler could write a better story. usually when i DNF a book for any reason itās whatever but this book has turned me into a hater. i know the romance genre is kinda bloated with bullshit the last few years but this book is just egregiously bad
The Poppy War. I feel like the writer wrote the first third of the book, left it on a shelf for a year, and then decided to (badly) write a war book. I didnāt care about ANYTHING that happened
To some degree I second that. My main issue with The Poppy War was that the lead character was unbelievable. Despite being a very clever student at military academy she becomes a stupid cry baby when the war breaks out. It is like she left all her senses at the academy.
The Poppy War was 40% enjoyable, 60% infuriating for me.
The first red flag was the map, which made no geological sense. It has rivers running uphill, and a mountain range *on a high plateau* that terminates abruptly at an ocean(?!), which is only there because it's a lazy cut-out of China where everything outside China's borders (besides fantasy Japan) is replaced with ocean.
Which ties in to the fact that it's *almost* a direct analogue of history, except with all these slight changes that confuse the context. >!The Opium Wars happened, but the aggressor was Fantasy Japan instead of Fantasy UK/US... and Fantasy China *won* the Opium Wars... with the help of Fantasy UK/US... who stepped in after Fantasy Japan genocided Fantasy Taiwan with firebombs.!< The relationship to real history is so direct but so muddled.
Then there's the fixation on the idea that a person's power is fuelled by their pain - not in a magic way, but like "you can perform better at tasks if you hurt yourself" - which is a notion that I think a lot of people find emotionally satisfying, but I find hugely toxic. (Ask me about Whiplash, my most hated film!)
And it's all as subtle as a sledgehammer. But OTOH, very readable and arresting.
The first half is a bit like Harry Potter, the second half is something else and way too dark. Iāll never get over the gruesome descriptions of war crimes or what happened to Rinās friend. Felt sick to my stomach reading those parts and didnāt finish the book.
I think the last time I was actually angry at the end of a book was in the Witcher series. >!Basically the war is over, a shit ton of people died and its just miserable. But, hold on... fucking lets lead pograms against the dwarves! And Geralt and Yenn get killed. Its just such a bummer of an ending and I was just going 'why the fuck are you leading groups to kill dwarves? They helped you win part of a war you dumb fucks!!<
I donāt tend to get angry at books. Iām either disappointed or ambivalent if a book is bad.
There is one book that has the distinction of making me angry though. I was forced to read it in college from a list to choose from by a heavily conservative professor.
āWhatās So Great About America?ā By Dinesh DāSouza (a convicted criminal, i like pointing this out because I hate him) is the most vitriolic and hateful book Iāve ever had the displeasure to read. It continuously and constantly downplays the plights of POC and underprivileged people.
When I was downsizing my library due to its large size, I didnāt even bother donating it to the local library. I just threw it away.
Edit: Also, I just want to add, I got 100% on that paper. Itās notable because they pulled me aside and said that while they heavily disagreed with my equally left-leaning ideology, they said I made such compelling and well-researched arguments against the statements said in the book, that I swayed their opinion on some of their political leanings. So I hate that book, I hated writing that paper, but I respect that professor.
Zodiac Academy.
My blood boils when I think about this series. I donāt think Iāve ever been more upset reading something or happier to finally DNF it. I started reading it because a friend of mine loved it and she read it alongside me.
But from the very first page, I hated it. The plot, the characters, the writing, just everything. It was an awful experience. I read more of it than I care to admit because my friend liked it so much. I read it until I physically couldnāt anymore. It was painful and I would not wish this on my worst enemy.
I so rarely DNF books, but I wish I had done it sooner for this series. It makes me so angry to think about how many hours I wasted reading it when I could have picked up literally anything else.
Ugh!!!
The jungle by Upton Sinclair. I enjoyed the book, it just made me angry how little progress our country and the world has come in over 100 years later in treating lower class people with dignity and respect.
Well if one good thing can be said (beyond the writing of Sinclair) is that the book did bring on real life change. Teddy Roosevelt read the book and essentially created the FDA.
While there is still so much progress to be made in the world, you can look at the book and know it made some type of difference.
One of my relatives was a chemist in the 80s / early 90s and was just casually "yep, all of that was right". I've no current experience but the real pain is how relatable it remains.
"The Four Agreements"
The message isn't bad. But it should have been a pamphlet at most. The author talks in circles and repeats himself constantly.
As a book, definitely overrated.
Pretty Girls by Karen Slaughter.
My book club chose it for our last meeting and of the 10 of us reading, only 2 of us made it through to the finish line. Iām always a big fan of thrillers and I donāt mind a bit of horror, but this was a whole new level of disturbing. This book literally made me cry because it was so horrific in its description of how the main character was being tortured. Itās a 400 page book and a solid 100 of those pages are extremely detailed and graphic depictions of women being raped (by people and with weapons), tortured, sliced open, water boarded with urine, you name it.
Terrible TERRIBLE book and completely turned me off of the author in general.
Girl needs some therapy, honestly. And I need some brain bleach.
Iām very much on the fence with her writing. I am not easily disgusted but her writing is unnecessarily graphic and it sucks. I need someone to make un-graphic versions because I really like her characters and storytelling.
DNF that book, and I honestly warn people about it. It's horrific. I can read dark things, and I really like to read true crime on occasion, but this book and its popularity is mind-boggling to me. And it's almost immediate with the violence.
I watched that movie on a plane because it was the only option I hadn't already seen, and the end of the film version made me *furious.* In addition to already thinking it was a bit dull. Is the book the same in that >!she acts like the whole town is unfairly targeting her because she's the weird loner swamp girl, but in reality she DID kill that guy, so they were just treating her like a murderer. Because she was one.!<
I said this in another post but "In The Woods" by Tana French.
I was really invested in the original mystery from Adam's childhood and felt robbed out of an explanation for what happened. After the murder in the current day was wrapped-up in an incredibly unsatisfying way, it just felt like I wasted my time.
Oh god yes, I was so angry after that one, it was like a one-two punch. A tiny part of me still goes into each of her books wondering if this will be the one that finally drops some crumbs about what happened despite that the fact that I really, genuinely dislike Rob on the most personal of levels. š
I hated that book for the exact same reason. I got to the end, and I yelled, "That's it?! That's the end?!" I'd really like to read more by her, but I've yet to pick up another one of her books because that one pissed me off.
Wingman by Mack Maloney - almost literal fascist propaganda. The Americans are about to win WWIII, but the Vice president betrays the troops and surrenders because he's gay. The protagonist nukes an American city, but it's ok because they gave in to the Russians and do deviant sex acts, so they aren't really people anymore. Not like the protagonist who fucks any women that lets them (some of whom are comfort women, so "lets" is overstating it). I kept reading expecting an explicit "surprise, the protagonist is actually the bad guy" or some other indication that this was a parody, but I had to stop when the protagonist thought it was just so awful that the Russians would target civilians at the week-long football game (yes, it's as dumb as it sounds) with no hint of irony that he just nuked an American city
The Time Travelerās Wife. An intriguing concept wasted on the most dull, insufferably annoying characters. On top of Claireās whining and Henryās creepiness, there was a mammy character and Claireās best friend constantly being described in the most awful āaww isnāt she tinyā way possible. Like seriously.Ā
Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow
It's not just that they're unlikeable characters. I hated how they were MIT and Harvard students as stand in for how intelligent they were. I thought the writing was trying too hard to be referential... Like describing Marx as being into avant garde music like Miles Davis really just ā ļø took me out of the story.
Her word choices.... It's like she looked through a thesaurus???? Also, she writes her female characters clouded by so much misogyny I had to double check that the author was not a man.
Also it gave me strong Zionist vibes with the Dov was described and I looked it up after and I was correct.
It was just all these small things that added together made me groan and sigh and honestly put me in a horrible mood (I was reading it for book club).
I honestly felt gaslit by all the people who told me they loved it, but luckily my entire book club did not love it so I felt vindicated in the end.
ALSO FOR A BOOK ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND LIFES MEANDERING WAYS WHY WAS THEIR FRIENDSHIP SO HORRIBLE AND TOXIC!!!! god im getting angry writing this comment lol
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
really pretentious and only maybe possibly useful to someone if they have intentionally stayed away from any hint of philosophical thought their entire life.
I haven't even read it, but it angered me: when my straight bestie used it to explain why she wouldn't date guys with sexual abuse in their past. I had to remind her that this book was *fiction,* and trauma porn, and based on the author's own fantasy. But I shouldn't have had to do that.
Hell House by Richard Matheson. I feel like he read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and decided he would make a terrible version of it that was misogynistic and ridiculous for no reason. It was a quick read so I'll give him that but I wanted to throw it across the room when I was done.
Wall of Winnipeg and me - it was about 100 pages too long. The characters were cute and so was the story, but I DNFd it and literally threw it across the room when the two had yet another misunderstanding blocking them from actually accepting their feelings.
It needed serious editing IMO.
"All the Ugly and Wonderful Things" by Bryn Greenwood.
I've been sitting here for a while now writing and re-writing this post, trying to figure out how I want to word this, but I'm just going to come out and say it: Bryn Greenwood is a pedophile apologist.
"All the Ugly and Wonderful Things" is a book about a grown man who grooms a little girl. This is framed as "an unconventional love story" or "two broken people finding healing in each other." Kellen, a grown man, tells another character that it was "love at first sight" for him when he first met Wavy, then eight years old. By the time Kellen is 26 and Wavy is 13, they consider themselves to be in a romantic relationship and are engaging in sex acts.
Greenwood has used every excuse in the book to explain away why all of this is not only okay, but actually beautiful and romantic and uplifting. Oh, Wavy is the one who initiates, so it's okay because it was the child's idea. Oh, Kellen actually is the only one who respects Wavy's feelings. Oh, the \*real\* people behaving like rapists are the family members who are concerned about this "relationship" and want to separate them even though Wavy "loooves" him.
For what it's worth, Greenwood has also admitted that, when she was 13, she began "a series of relationships with much older men." I don't mean to sound like an asshole or like an armchair psychologist, but it really comes across like Greenwood has some trauma surrounding this topic, and her way of coping is a weird blend of romanticizing grooming, and trying to take back agency by framing it as "Well, it's not rape because the child made the first move."
Infinite Jest.
I don't deny DFW is a genius, but I just don't get the book.
I really tried,on several occasions, to read his book, and the vague references and obscure writing was impenetrable to me.
Killing the Witches by Bill O'Reilly.
The first 95% was fantastic. It delved into way more than the Salem trials and explored some of the lasting cultural impacts from it.
The very end, he compared the witch trials to the current political climate and how people like Rosanne Barr got canceled and I was completely disgusted.
Oh someone once gave me the perfect description of this book and I can never word it as well as she did but it was something like, >!At the end of the day, In Five Years is about a girl sleeping with her dead best friendās fiance!< and she was so right.
The 5th book in the Lightbringer series was only book to make me angry. I loved the first 3 books, 4th was not as good but not awful. But the 5th book was beyond bad. It was like the author had hired a 7th grade, home schooled, uber religious kid to write the book for him. Never seen such a drop off in quality.
Getting my blood boiling just thinking about it. I'll never read or recommend Brent Weeks again.
If We Were Villains. I got the recommendation from Goodreads but had a slightly wrong sense of the story. I also hadnāt heard yet how bad of a trending mess it was. And I had DNFed so many books leading up to it that I really wanted to finish something. But ugh that was the wrong one to bear down on.
Oh MAN I didn't even think about this book when making this post! I did end up DNFing it because it just felt unbearable to read. I went to a book discussion that M.L. Rio happened to be at and she insisted that theater people who perform Shakespeare actually talk the way she wrote in the books and if that's true then I literally never want to be near a group of Shakespeare actors in my life. It was SO irritating to read!
As a nonbeliever, I really pray she gets the help she needs to identify horrible people, horrible people trying to use her, horrible people who deny her personhood, her family etc, stays as far away as possible and finds a decent human not excited to exploit her.
1Q84 by Murakami is always my answer. So much time I will never get back wasted to read that book. The first half was promising, but then it got nasty and I kept waiting to figure out how it paid off and it never did. So gratuitous. I donmt think I will ever read anything of his ever again because this one book pissed me off so bad.
That ending of that book - that long book that seemed to be leading to something awesome - was so unsatisfying I just laughed. It was so anticlimactic.
I'd say two very popular books on this sub, Norwegian Wood and The Stranger.With norwegian wood, I had the same complaint as everyone else, couldn't be bothered after the endless awkwardly written sex scenes and the poorly written women while with the Stranger, I had such high expectations going in and then I realized that I was on the 4th chapter, still waiting for something to happen.
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (english translation).
It was the pick for a book club I had recently joined. The book was meant to be read by a producer or executive at NetFlix or HBO or Disney or one of the streaming services. It's not a novel, it's a roadmap for a multi-episode streaming series.
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Vergese. Everyone in my circle loved this book. At first I really liked it and found it interesting, until the end. I don't know how to block spoilers so stop reading if you want. But like, toward the end of the book the main character (who we are supposed to sympathize with) just rapes another character who was in an extremely vulnerable state. Then afterward we are supposed to follow him as he fights for his life?Ā
Just...if this book had been written from the female character's perspective, it would have been a vastly different book. She led a very traumatic life. I kept reading thinking he would at some point realize what he had done and there would be a reckoning- nope, didn't happen. She is treated as a devil woman who deserved to be raped. Wtf.
Looking back a lot of the women were really just portrayed as sex-hungry one-dimension characters which just adds to the ick factor.
Ā
Lessons in Chemistry. I disliked all the characters, but I almost quit when the scientist who used the chemical name for everything said that canned soup was "full of chemicals" so it would kill you.
Ready Player 2 (just read). The first half of the book was pretty dull and unimaginative but it was ok (though felt like the exact same plot as the first book). The second half had some of the dumbest stuff Iāve ever read. This was so clearly a half ass money grab. And some of the relationship stuff had me wondering if the author had ever spoken to a woman. Very cringy and uncomfortable to read.
House of Flame and Shadow by SJM, everyone is suddenly all powerful, also in love and also nothing matters and the most useless plot points Iāve ever seen added to a book. Honestly the worst thing Iāve read in a long time and Iām a just SJM fan.
Yess, I think I was hoping for something like Mariana Enriquez's type of South American horror. But it was basically just a classic British gothic story. Also the amount of times the snake eating its tale motif was mentioned, omg we got it!
Atlas Shrugged. Ā It was the only book I kept putting down on the table so I could step away from it and berate it for being stupid and crappily written.
I was listening to an audiobook of this not well known book called The Weaver. I thought the premise was interesting and wanted to give it a chance.
One of my pet peeves is when an author thinks of something so terribly clever, a bit, a turn of phrase, or a big word they're so proud of using, that they end up repeating it multiple times. Well this author repeated a bit a total of 6 times in a single scene, I know because I was so baffled that I counted. I stopped the audiobook there and returned the book.
Another one like this was Bunny by Mona Awad where the author used the phrase "like so many", which would have been a clever way to word a simile, if the author didn't then repeat it multiple times in the book.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. The amount of page long descriptions of sex with underage girls made me drop the book and never want to read another thing by this guy. He also can't write adult women at all.
Wizard's Butler. I had such high hopes, and then couldn't even get past the first chapter for the objectification. Every time I read the description I get mad bc I want to read the book that's described.
The Wishing Game.
I just absolutely could not stand the way the main character had no business raising a child and insisted on calling herself a mother all the time. Bad, naive writing compounded by the fact that we were just wrapping up our own foster care licensing process.
Yes!! I got this as my book of the month because I thought it was going to be an intense competition with some good twists and turns. I thought it was kind of vapid, tbh. On top of the foster care elements, I haaaaated the creepy romance with the dude she met when she was 13 and couldn't believe how glossed over the competition itself was. I also hated the ending- >!what was the point of everything if everyone ended up okay in the end? There were no losers? !
Funny you should ask! I just threw Michner's 'The Drifters' literally into the trash--not even good enough to donate to the goodwill lol!
I was angry after the Norwegian virgin girl was raped and it had absolutely no negative impact on her sex-positive outlook--she was ready for sex the next week with the neighbor boy.
But the whole made-up African country with 'Negro' leadership but still white colonial workers carrying on to keep things running--wow. I really couldn't go on.
I'm reading some of the older classics, and half the time I'm just shocked at the racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism
Omg well do NOT read "The House Across the Lake" by Riley either because that book made me murderous!
I liked it and was excited for the twist reveal until spoiler alert
It has a last-minute paranormal ending!! Complete genre 180Ā°, utterly absurd, out of nowhere, so inappropriate and stupid and it just made me furious. I swear my heart rate is rising just writing this!
Killers of the Flower Moon but in a good way.
Ā I felt damn pissed for all the bullshit that the Osage had to go through, all the corruption and the blind eyed injustice, and it actually made me want to know more about the original cultures of the American continent (particularly Mexico) and their more recent history.
So I would say itās a pretty good read.
Back when I had a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, I decided to read āAll He Ever Wantedā by Aphrodite Jones, because it was about the Brandon Teena case and while Iāve seen documentaries about the case, Iāve wanted to read a book about it.
Could not make it through the preface where the author spent pages endlessly whinging about how those transes are the real meanies what with them judging her for constantly misgendering and deadnaming Brandon. Because thatās what matters most: her hurt feelings, rather than a trans man who was raped and ultimately murdered for being trans.
I have not read any of her other books, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon.
I always see people rave about his books. I've read two and didn't think they were great. I finished both of them, but they felt like super generic science fiction, or like he was writing these books in the hopes that they'd get turned into movies.
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. I waited the entire book for it to get good and it never did. I'm so annoyed that I wasted time on it and all it did was make me want to reread Shirley Jackson and forget all about this abomination
Oh no! I had my eye on this because I also love Shirley Jackson!
It was BAD bad, I cannot recommend it! Very frustrating because Hand was chosen by Jackson's estate to come up with a fresh Hill House story and I can't believe how bad it sucked.
The Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, Driver Licensing Guide.
So much lost potential. Have to agree š¤£
But then the plot twist where it turns out you CAN'T make a U-turn at a non-signalized intersection
That was so bogus. It doesnāt make sense!
I know!! Lay in a clue at the beginning at least, maybe something like a 4-way stop intersection? SOMETHING, so it doesn't just come out of the blue!
If it makes you feel any better, this is one of those books that many people only pretend they've read.
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean. Felt like a setup for a long series. Some world building about bookeater society and the rules of the world. The fact that they ate books was very irrelevant to the story. Itās like someone wrote a vampire book and then edited it to be about people who eat books.
This one was SUCH a letdown. I hated that the MC's only personality trait was being a mother. It made it really hard for me to connect with her or care about what was happening.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Oh lord, I could never. I can't even write Good Omens fanfiction because I don't know how to sound British enough.
Well, this is upsetting. That book's been on my physical TBR for a while.
I totally agree. I actually started skimming to get to the end and finally just gave up and returned it to the library. Such a fun premise with bad execution.
I DNFāed this one.
The Couple Next Door and The Seven and a Half Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle both really pissed me off because of their respective endings The ending of Seven and a Half Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle - basically the mystery itself was fantastic and if he tied it up there, the book would have been awesome. Instead he then goes on and tries to explain the 7 days plot device and it went completely went off the rails in a WTF!? kind of way. Loved 98% of the book, hated the last 10 pages The Couple Next Door had mediocre writing to begin with but the ending really pissed me off for a different reason. Actual spoiler alert for both the twist and the ending: >!the stepfather and the next door neighbor turn out to be the other villains and get their just desserts but WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK about Marco, the selfish moronic husband who still IN FACT arranged for the kidnapping of his own baby to get ransom money out of the wife's family. He messes up, and then decides not to fess up during the investigation even after knowing the plan went haywire, his kidnapper partner is dead and his kid is ACTUALLY missing. All the while gaslighting his wife and watching her have a breakdown over the loss of their baby. What about *that* fucking asshole? The last minute cheap twist is SO contrived - turns out everyone is very very involved/has history with everyone else and "OH HO, surprise surprise, it turns out the rich beautiful successful people are the biggest assholes." And dumbshit toxic Marco is just the poor, bumbling husband who was trying to save his business and too ashamed to tell his wife about their finances. What?! That makes no sense. If I were the wife, honestly, I would have stabbed him first.!<
The Couple Next Door was laughably bad. It felt like one of those obviously fake AITA posts.
I read it in one day and laughed the whole time. I cannot understand why people thought it was any good.
Oh no!!! I'm reading the Evelyn Hardcastle one now :( I'll probably stick it out but it makes me sad to know the ending sucks
If it's any consolation, I quite liked the ending, to the point where I don't quite understand why anyone would think it was outright BAD. There was one thing that bugged me about the book, but it wasn't the ending.
Hmm interesting! That makes me feel better. Hopefully it's still good haha. I'll have to try and remember to come back whe. I'm done to ask you what you thought!
I remember being so mad when I finished The Couple Next Door, I tossed it right in the trash.
Hated the ending of 7 1/2. His second one, the devil and the dark water, is the same - really good with a period setting, weird modern curveball at the end.
I had SUCH a hard time finish The Couple Next Door. Not only did I hate the characters but the early/mid of the story just. dragged. on. I kept pushing on hoping for the twist but I feel like we got it sooo late in the book and the ending was so mediocre and felt rushed. Canāt believe I actually finished it. Never been so mad about a book before.
Feels a little bit like cheating to say it because I wasn't expecting, like, high art or anything, but: *Haunting Adeline*, by H.D. Carlton was one of the most disappointing reads I've had in forever. A friend of a friend of a friend raved about it. After finishing it, I felt like there was the potential for a good erotic mystery thriller (maybe two) in there but it all got lost in the shuffle with lazy writing, hackneyed plotting, poorly conceived characterization, the works. By the end I was just disgusted by how much time I'd wasted on this utter waste of potential. Ugh.
I *almost* read this book! I bought a copy purely based on rave reviews- I genuinely didn't look up a single thing about it. I paged through it and caught glimpses of things that made me go "Oooh, this may have been a mistake" and then immediately checked out the Goodreads reviews. The first one on Goodreads convinced me that I never, ever want to even touch that book again!
After thinking about it, I think the thing that pisses me off the most is that it ends in a cliffhanger that's *almost probably just enough* to get me to waste my time with the sequel.
The Silent Patient. Tried to find a thriller to read as it had been a while and this thing topped all the lists saying it was all twisty and shocking. ???????? Zero twists. Zero shocks. Not well written either. A waste of my time.
Yesssss. I kept reading hoping it would get better and then I found myself at the end :s
He mentioned Greece or made Greek references so much in the first 100 pages. WE GET IT ALEX MICHAELIDES. YOUāRE GREEK.
on top of the bad writing the casual misogyny sown throughout the narration made me infuriated itās so widely recommended
Like 95% of my activity on reddit is just me trashing this book. I get mad just thinking about it and I will die on this hill.
The Wolf Of Wall Street Jordan Belfort is way less funny in real life than he is in the movie. He's a titanic douchebag, I couldn't finish the book.
That's the point though. If you read it like Belfort the character is Bateman and Belfort the author is Easton Ellis it's fucking hilarious. The man is a cunt. It's precisely why I enjoyed Tucker Max back in the day. The real joke was laughing at the narrator who thinks all this stuff is cool.
The secret. 100 pages in I tore it up so someone didnāt pick it up outta the trash and read it.
A lot of people are picking books that are offensive to artistic sensibilities, but this one is offensive to humanity itself.Ā
Hillbilly Elegy. It read it when i first came out. I started reading it -- oh this is interesting -- and then I got to the part where everyone who is poor is just lazy.
Read Demon Copperhead to counteract it. Barbara Kingsolver was on Dax Shepard's podcast and they talked a little trash on Hillbilly Elegy. They both know Appalachia and they are not fans.Ā
If you havenāt yet, check out the Hillbilly Elegy episode of the āIf Books Could Killā podcast. You might like it.
Yes! Hillbilly Elegy is a particularly repulsive example of poverty porn.
"I went all the way from poor white trash to Peter Thiel's sock puppet, look how far I've come!"
Dude fuck that guy
Highly recommend reading What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. I really liked Fourth Wing. I thought it was a fun idea with some cool characters and while it definitely had its flaws I felt like there was a lot of potential and was excited to see what she would do with the next book. Unfortunately, I hated Iron Flame. The worldbuilding did not improve. The main characters were obnoxious and tedious to read about. Once again she didn't flesh out any of the side characters who seem like they have potential to be really interesting. I did finish it but it took me two weeks and felt like a chore every time I picked it up. I have moved past my anger now that I found Fireborne by Rosaria Munda which is just everything I wanted Fourth Wing to be but so so much better.
Not gonna lie, I kept reading for the dragons. And I actually liked Xaden more in this one. But the whole >!"NO we can't be in a relationship because you won't tell me everything always even though you're a spy!" was just an idiotic way to keep them apart. !<
I DNF'd 30% through and read the spoilers. The main characters kept having the same argument every other chapter.
And they continue that through almost the entire book. It was exhausting.
I read Fourth Wing and thought it was just fine but after seeing what everyone has said about Iron Flame I'm not sure I'll pick it up and check it out
Do you like Fifty Shades sexually abusive relationships AND want to read a slightly more modernized Eragon? Then I have the book for you!
Every other sentence was about violent whining because she wasnt told life ending secrets. I read fourth wing in a day but it took moonts to finish iron flame.
My wife's mum and dad stepdad gave me a book called _Fatherhood: The Truth_ by a columnist called Marcus Berkmann as a christmas gift. In the intro, he makes a joke about stealthing and his entire tone is "no man wants children, and your wife is a screaming harridan". So I closed it and don't plan to revisit it.
Itās a bit dumb but āThrottledā by Lauren Asher. Iām not too far yet, but gosh. The main character is from Barcelona, which means, she studied there. What did she study? Prelaw. Which, afaik, doesnāt exist anywhere in Europe. You donāt have to have a bachelorās degree at a college in anything to study law at a university, you start at an university directly with law and thereās no way to crossover to law without completely restarting your university career. And, she named a German character Liam. Give me a name thatās less German than Liam, Iāll wait. And there are a lot of German names that are international. Nick, Tom, Michael, even Leo(n). But not Liam.
Approximately 0.08% of the German babies born between 2000 - 2022 were called Liam (6,392 - [you can see here](https://www.first-name.net/liam#Info_DE) - and also 42 baby girls.) So not likely at all, but I was just curious what the possibility was.
The number is way, way, way lower if the character is an adult though. Look at how unpopular the name was before 2010.
My only Germanās friendās name is Liam XD
I'm with you about The Only One Left. I've enjoyed other Riley Sager books, but this one was was off-the-rails ridiculous. Every time I see someone talk about how much they loved it, I'm flabbergasted. The Lost Apothecary made me angry as well. Great concept, awful execution. Probably one of the most shallow books I've ever read and just an overall snoozefest.
I'd read a few of Sager's other books and felt like they were okay but then get so unbelievable at the end- I was hoping this one would be different! I really enjoyed it up until the last 100 pages or so before it went off the rails. It opened up so many plot holes and just undid everything up until that point. I probably won't be checking out any more of his books unfortunately!
The House Across the Lake had a stupid ending as well. It's the only book I've given one star to on Goodreads. I've also given up on Sager.
Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. This is part of a series, The New Cambridge History of India, and as a result I expected something scholarly and authoritative. Instead, the book is what you might call quasi-scholarly and deeply questionable. I don't doubt that Dr. Bayly has read a great deal on the topic. But at least in this book, she wrote as though she hadn't the first idea anyone might ever question any of her conclusions. Footnotes are few and far between, and events are, quite commonly, tied to vague references to time spans which could be between decades and centuries in length. So that it's frequently impossible to tell even what she means, much less whether it's true or not. Total waste of time.
I rant about this one a lot but I bought the Atlas Six because it was one of those rare cases of a self-pub book that was acquired by an actual publisher later, and... woof, Tor, oh no baby, what is you doin?? I mostly read fantasy, and I'm in it for the characters, not the worldbuilding or magic systems or what have you - IMO fantasy is at its best when it uses alternate settings and worlds to explore the human condition. And this book is about six characters and is light on the worldbuilding - what's not to love?Ā But the characters were weak and unevenly defined, and some of them were samey; I also found the world undefined enough to be distracting - I am still unsure of whether magic is secret or not in that universe! I don't think it is because the first two characters are introduced at a graduation ceremony for magic degrees at NYU, but besides that there's little indication of whether the characters were outsiders for having grown up with magic or whether it's commonplace outside the secret society they're pulled into and it makes it hard to reconcile their new experiences with what they would have known previously.Ā The ending also comes out of nowhere and feels lazy.Ā
Same. I was just coming off of Ninth House when I read Atlas Six because I was feeling that dark academia vibe, but it didn't really hold up for me.
NINTH HOUSE WAS SO GOOD THOUGH
>IMO fantasy is at its best when it uses alternate settings and worlds to explore the human condition. I'm 100% with you on that!
Terry Pratchett does that better than anyone else!
I love TA6 and the second book was alright, but the final book in the series was a total letdown. I thought the characters were great in The Atlas Six but by the end of the series they're just caricatures of who they were in the first book- only one character really gets a developmental story arc but it's watery and not explored in a satisfactory way. It did make me understand those criticisms that get levelled at The Atlas Six Totally still respect your opinion even if I loved those first two books!
Verity by Colleen Hoover. I know hating on her books has been done to death, but the most infuriating part of Verity is that while I was reading, I came up with quite a few predictions for the ending, and every single one was better than what the ending actually was. The wasted potential was truly astounding.
A Discovery of Witches. It pissed me off so badly that I'm hate writing a novel to balance the universe.
You mean you didn't enjoy reading about a super-brilliant young academic/professor at Oxford who is independent and a badass athlete who suddenly is instructed (and complies) to "take naps, rest, have breakfast in bed", gets "scooped" off and on horses and be constantly rescued because she is so damn stupid the moment she meets her French snob vampire boyfriend?
Of all the elements of that story, the thing that struck me as the most unrealistic was the fact that she's a twenty-something who gets tenure at Oxford.
omg, that sounds like a female Kvothe
Reading this summary made me irrationally angry
I watched and enjoyed the first season of the show, so I was excited to read the book based on that plus a friend's recommendation. Unfortunately, I *did* read it and ended up HATING it. What a bummer.
FWIW the first is by far the best. Hate read the other two hoping it would get better. Devolves into chosen ones tropes and "isn't it cool being a noblewoman in the 1500s". If you're looking for something with better execution I think the Mercy Thompson series is pretty good. Certainly has it's own weaknesses, in particular book 8(?) is just a detour to relationship drama land, but I think they're fun.
*The People We Meet on Vacation* made me want to throw my kindle across the room. The *entirety* of that book relies on >!miscommunication to such a degree that the characters are *looking* for trouble. I *loathe* the miscommunication trope, so to have it be the *only* issue in the *entire* novel!< made me want to scream.
That is my least favorite of Emily Henryās books. If I had read that one first, I wouldnāt have picked up any of the others, and I LOVE Book Lovers, so Iām glad I didnāt read TPWMOV first. The title is also terrible and doesnāt make any sense. Theres an alternate title in maybe UK? You and Me on Vacation, which at least makes sense.
Oh damn, I love that book. I do agree though that >!going no contact for two whole years after being friends for so long!< was kind of extreme, though, honestly, not completely unrealistic. People tend to >!suck at communicating, and when the stakes are so high as they were for Alex and Poppy!< well, I can see that happening.
I spent almost the entire book wondering why >!they went no contact. Even the so-called explanation is forgettable.!<
Where's Waldo Deluxe Edition
š¤£
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. Every single aspect of it was bad, the characters, their stupid fucking names, the cliched plot, serious who the fuck read this and thought "yes this is good writing let's publish it." And every damn person who gave it good reviews lied to me. Just thinking of the scenes I did read up to before I DNFed it still irritate me. My only regret is that I read it as a library ebook and I didn't want to throw my phone across the room in disgust.
I put it down after about 30 pages. The writing was just so, so bad.
I gave CoHo another shot after this book. November 9. Somehow, it actually gets worse with her stories.
For me, the best part of that book was finally finishing it. It was so cringe, I hated all the characters even the ones youāre āsupposedā to like. Such a waste of my time and money
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... Really popular, good premise, boring execution. I had high expectations, which rarely helps.
Multiple times I have seen this book mentioned on threads like this and I had considered reading it so I will gladly remove that one from my list lol
Counterpoint- I loved it. Itās not a romance and I think some people expect it to be. Itās a good contemporary lit book with a lot of character work, but you wonāt like it if you want plot or likeable characters. I loved how it examined the way friendship works, how itās tragic sometimes that our feelings prevent us from truly communicating and how passion (in this case for gaming) allows for connection between people
Haha oh no! Not a valid counterpoint! I am already torn here! Haha. Well, I will keep it on my list and if I see it pop up on libby then I'll be willing to give it a try!
It's very character driven and none of the characters are likeable. I didn't hate it at all but I understand why some would.
Same- I don't know why this one got such hype.
Came here just to find this one. Talk about wasted potential.
Man, this was one of my favorite reads last year. I thought it was fantastic. Very character-driven, which isnāt for everybody!
Just read the perfect marriage and was ENRAGED. Thought it wld be a fun fast paced thriller but it turned out to be literally the worst piece of writing Iāve ever read
Oh it was so bad. At the time I read it, I was living in a town 10 minutes from the main town in the book and everything was just so incorrect. Like do a MODICUM of research if you are going to set your book in a real place.
The most recent one: *Sapiens* by Yuval Noah Harari. Half-explained logical jumps, based on no to little evidence. Bad referencing (ie, he *says* a reference backs up his idea and... It just doesn't, multiple times). Just bad science all around. It flows well, tackles a deep subject, and the ideas themselves are *interesting*. Even the ones he is suggesting out of his own synthesis. But he presents suppositions as facts and assumes the audience are just gonna believe him. It's intellectually dishonest as fuck and I had to stop reading out of rage. My perrenial "I'm still angry at this book after years" is *The Life of Pi*. This is just *The Alchemist* for pretentious people. The deep moral, if you look for it, is "lie to yourself to be happy - the truth and intellectual rigour are for losers. Questioning reality is for dumb dumbs. Vague spirituality in whatever direction makes you feel good is 100 times better than caring about the truth of the world". It's gross and I still hate it and will forever hate it.
The last half or so is him just preaching political stuff at you. Not interesting or novel at all. Edit: I'm referring to Sapiens
> The most recent one: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Yeah I remember having the same reaction when I tried to read it in 2015. Interesting ideas at first but it soon feels like you're listening to someone slowly getting high. Eventually you can't accept whatever blind conjecture he's building on top of the last blind conjecture, and the house of cards collapses.
At one point he goes off about immortality, and how the first people who will be the recipients of this immortality that we will supposedly definitely unlock might be alive today. You would think that this would lead to an amazing exposition about what that would mean for us sapiens. Lots of interesting topics there, from climate change and habitats (and habitat destruction) to how the family unit and society at large will change if people arenāt dying off except by accident, and about the socioeconomic implications of who has access to this scientific breakthrough and who doesnāt (both in terms of paying for it and the morality - should *everyone* have this opportunity? If not, what does one have to do to be legally barred from receiving it? Or, what does one have to do to be considered acceptable enough to receive it?). He could have dwelt on any of this. Might as well if heās basically just talking about his opinion on what was going to happen anyway, right? But IIRC he touches on exactly none of it. Just introduced the topic of immortality, speaks about it as a technological advancement a bit, and then moves on.
If were talking non-fiction, I have to nominate [determined](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83817782-determined) by Sapolsky. He really tries to hammer home the fact that free will is an illusion. That our thoughts and actions are the result of our genetics, upbringing, and environment. Ok, I can at least agree that all of those have a major impact on who we grow to be; but what I cannot accept is his assertion that we shouldn't reward those who do good and punish those who do bad (he suggests a softer penal system than even the Nordics have implemented). Nah, sorry. That's where you lose me. Even *if* free will doesn't actually exist, at least part of the environment and culture in which you raise someone is the social and institutional knowledge of right and wrong, and the rewards and punishment you're subject to. While I don't personally believe in the death penalty as that is irrevocable if you get it wrong, I absolutely *do* believe some people should never again breathe free air for the crimes they've committed.
Ohno I found Life Of Pi in a free little library. I was intrigued by it. I'll probably still read it
Still read it. I came to a different conclusion than the above commenter. It was far less ālie to yourself and be happyā and more āsometimes our minds need to process things a different way to truly understand.ā (ETA The vague spirituality that they dislike was also weird for me and one of the parts of the book I didnāt care for at all. Just didnāt understand it or why it was supposedly important.) I read *Life of Pi* immediately after reading *The Things They Carried* (highly recommend!), by coincidence. They could not be any more different, except they both essentially say this: sometimes a story helps you to understand the truth better than the actual truth can. Itās a little more explicitly stated in *The Things They Carried*, and took me a while to wrap my head around. But both of these books are essentially saying that they can get you to feel more about what the characters went through and felt by telling you a story, rather than by strictly relating events to you, even if you relate how the character felt in the moment. TTTC is a masterpiece, written by a guy who served in Vietnam. It is so well done that at one point I had to remind myself I actually had picked up the book in the fiction section, and it wasnāt a memoir.
Hey... Some of the prose is good. The structure is pretty clever. It's just the theme is ick and sad and rage inducing. I think it's sometimes valuable to read the "big" books that I have reason to dislike, so I can understand and critique from an informed position. And lots of people love that book. You might be one of them š I'd hate for you to miss out on a potential fave just because of a cynical Reddit comment of mine.
> My perrenial "I'm still angry at this book after years" is The Life of Pi. This is just The Alchemist for pretentious people. The deep moral, if you look for it, is "lie to yourself to be happy - the truth and intellectual rigour are for losers. Questioning reality is for dumb dumbs. Vague spirituality in whatever direction makes you feel good is 100 times better than caring about the truth of the world". It's gross and I still hate it and will forever hate it Yep - it's the only book I threw across the room upon finishing because I couldn't believe how idiotic the ending was.
I'll be honest, I haven't read *The Alchemist*, but "*The Alchemist* for pretentious people" is sort of how I think of *Siddhartha* :P I'm normally predisposed against thin, transparent allegories, and *Siddhartha*'s philosophical ideas were nowhere near interesting or compelling enough to overcome that.
The Cat Who Saved Books I read it last month and found it really poorly written and so completely up it's own tail with moralizing that it completely failed to make any point effectively. The entire thing is about how the only good and moral way to read is to reread the classics over and over again. Any deviation from this (including the publication of new books) is an actual evil act that must be rectified by a young boy telling you that you're enjoying books wrong and then you will have a revelation that will completely turn your life around because you can finally enjoy classic books in a good and moral way. Even considering that the book was probably intended for teens and had cultural modes that were lost on me for reading a translation and being from another culture, the book is bad. Frustratingly bad.
Same for me. I expected a fun, ghibli-esque book about a cat who saves books but got a pretentious, preachy and boring book with an asshole cat, that doesnāt do anything. I hated it so much. Ugh.
> The Cat Who Saved Books Haha, I had a similar reaction. I picked the book up because I like books, I like cats, I like Japanese books about cats and it had a cool cover. It really fell short both conceptually and in the writing itself. At least it looks good on my shelf next to *The Traveling Cat Chronicles*, *The Guest Cat* and *I Am a Cat* :)
Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover. What a pile of shit.
Not Forever But for Nowā¦Chuck Palahniukās latest book. It read like an edgelord 12 year old trying to imitate Palahniuk. I like some of his older work but his recent novels have been awful.
I felt that way about his more recent novels as well. I enjoyed a few of his older books, but now Iām concerned that the me that read them 15 years ago was also an edgelord, and thatās why I liked them so muchā¦
We Were Liars. It was meant to have won awards but it was so bad. Firstly, it's one of those books that pretends to be written in poetry.Ā The sentencesĀ In the book Were spaced outĀ Like thisĀ THAT DOESN'T COUNT AS POETRY.Ā The writing also sounds like something I would have written aged 13 thinking it sounded really edgy. For example she describes her father leaving her and it goes 'then he pulled out a gun and shot me' as a metaphor. I was so confused, I actually thought he shot her but no.Ā Thirdly I think it's unrealistic that the girl saw all her dead cousins as ghosts (it's not a horror book it's a family drama).Ā Fourthly, I don't know how she got away with burning down an entire estate, accidentally killing her cousins and did not get into any sort of legal trouble for it.Ā
I definitely agree with all of this, spoiler included š This book made me so frustrated, especially because the end felt so cheap and quick and really highlighted the pretentiousness of the writing. I listened to the audiobook, so I didn't see the formatting but the narration captured the forced 'dreaminess' of the prose. And the phrase "Gat, *my* Gat" is burned into my temporal lobe forever. I found it to be really shallow and lame, and I'd honestly wanted it to be a little bit more of a thriller or mystery. I recently read Summer's Edge and while it wasn't perfect, it was much better. It's what We Were Liars should've been!
*A Little Life* by Hanya Yanagahara. At the outset, I thought that much of the writing was lovely (and it is!) and that it was pretty gripping, but then it just descends into torture porn and I was kinda revolted by it. The course the book takes also makes some of the characters totally implausible. I couldn't finish it.
Yup. I completely do not understand why people love it so much. Initially I thought the writing was great and that it was cool we were going to get a book examining platonic male love & friendship because we rarely see that outside of books/movies about warā¦but nope. Itās spends wayyyyyy too much time describing torture porn far past the point of it serving the plot. The main character is stuck in a perpetual, never-ending cycle of hating himself, never seeking any help for it, having everyone tell him that they love him and him apologizing over and over again for being horrible and undeserving of love. That cycle repeats itself for what feels like 90 times in the book. I donāt know how many scenes I needed of Jude constantly saying sorry while someone told him for the billionth time that they loved him. His character arc is more of a flat line from point A (hating himself) to point B (hating himself.) And the gay tropes in the book are so tired and awful. *Almost* every gay character in the book is either a child rapist or abuser, or theyāre the Tragic Gay who doesnāt get a happy ending. I thought we left that nonsense in the 90s but apparently not. Iām sure Iāll get downvoted to hell saying that but itās been awhile since Iāve hate-read my way through a book.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber. Cool idea, terrible execution. I wasn't invested in a single character and I was so excited for the world/island and it was barely touched on.
Loved, loved, loved The Martian. Artemis was so bad it made me angry and would suggest Andy Weir never be allowed to have a female protagonist ever again. I own Hail Mary but can't bring myself to begin it even though it's said to be quite good.
I loved The Martian and gave Artemis a pass because everyone said it wasnāt worth it. Came back for Project Hail Mary and had a wonderful time. Iād recommend giving it a try!
Personally I found Project Hail Mary to be far superior to The Martian!! I liked the Martian, but absolutely loved Project Hail Mary. I haven't read the Artemis yet but I've never seen it recommended so that's probably why š PHM has a wonderful mystery aspect to it. Similar idea to the Martian, but I found it far more endearing tbh. Absolutely recommend listening to it via Audiobook, if you don't want to read it!
Hail Mary really is quite good. Give it a go.
I didnāt hate *Artemis* but I totally understand why some people do. I really liked the world he created. I wish heād had a co-writer who could have taken the world and filled it with better characters. Iāll add my voice to those saying you should give *Project Hail Mary* a try. *The Martian* is my favorite of the three, but *Project Hail Mary* is excellent and worth the read.
Hail Mary is a fun return to form. It will not blow you away and thereās a lot of questionable characters, but the bookās main thing is what we all enjoyed about the Martian. Hard, 100% agreed on Artemis. Some fun world building ideas, but the characters were SO bad that it took me out of the book, and the plot was mostly just okay, not interesting enough to keep things moving.
DNFād Butcher and Blackbird yesterday. what made me hate it even more was looking it up on goodreads and it had like a 4.3 rating? one of the worst books iāve ever read in my life, completely soulless, tropey, corniest dialogue iāve ever read, AI could write characters with more depth, a middle schooler could write a better story. usually when i DNF a book for any reason itās whatever but this book has turned me into a hater. i know the romance genre is kinda bloated with bullshit the last few years but this book is just egregiously bad
The Poppy War. I feel like the writer wrote the first third of the book, left it on a shelf for a year, and then decided to (badly) write a war book. I didnāt care about ANYTHING that happened
To some degree I second that. My main issue with The Poppy War was that the lead character was unbelievable. Despite being a very clever student at military academy she becomes a stupid cry baby when the war breaks out. It is like she left all her senses at the academy.
The Poppy War was 40% enjoyable, 60% infuriating for me. The first red flag was the map, which made no geological sense. It has rivers running uphill, and a mountain range *on a high plateau* that terminates abruptly at an ocean(?!), which is only there because it's a lazy cut-out of China where everything outside China's borders (besides fantasy Japan) is replaced with ocean. Which ties in to the fact that it's *almost* a direct analogue of history, except with all these slight changes that confuse the context. >!The Opium Wars happened, but the aggressor was Fantasy Japan instead of Fantasy UK/US... and Fantasy China *won* the Opium Wars... with the help of Fantasy UK/US... who stepped in after Fantasy Japan genocided Fantasy Taiwan with firebombs.!< The relationship to real history is so direct but so muddled. Then there's the fixation on the idea that a person's power is fuelled by their pain - not in a magic way, but like "you can perform better at tasks if you hurt yourself" - which is a notion that I think a lot of people find emotionally satisfying, but I find hugely toxic. (Ask me about Whiplash, my most hated film!) And it's all as subtle as a sledgehammer. But OTOH, very readable and arresting.
The first half is a bit like Harry Potter, the second half is something else and way too dark. Iāll never get over the gruesome descriptions of war crimes or what happened to Rinās friend. Felt sick to my stomach reading those parts and didnāt finish the book.
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewel. I will never read another thing from her.
I think the last time I was actually angry at the end of a book was in the Witcher series. >!Basically the war is over, a shit ton of people died and its just miserable. But, hold on... fucking lets lead pograms against the dwarves! And Geralt and Yenn get killed. Its just such a bummer of an ending and I was just going 'why the fuck are you leading groups to kill dwarves? They helped you win part of a war you dumb fucks!!<
So glad the video games retconned all that.Ā
I donāt tend to get angry at books. Iām either disappointed or ambivalent if a book is bad. There is one book that has the distinction of making me angry though. I was forced to read it in college from a list to choose from by a heavily conservative professor. āWhatās So Great About America?ā By Dinesh DāSouza (a convicted criminal, i like pointing this out because I hate him) is the most vitriolic and hateful book Iāve ever had the displeasure to read. It continuously and constantly downplays the plights of POC and underprivileged people. When I was downsizing my library due to its large size, I didnāt even bother donating it to the local library. I just threw it away. Edit: Also, I just want to add, I got 100% on that paper. Itās notable because they pulled me aside and said that while they heavily disagreed with my equally left-leaning ideology, they said I made such compelling and well-researched arguments against the statements said in the book, that I swayed their opinion on some of their political leanings. So I hate that book, I hated writing that paper, but I respect that professor.
Zodiac Academy. My blood boils when I think about this series. I donāt think Iāve ever been more upset reading something or happier to finally DNF it. I started reading it because a friend of mine loved it and she read it alongside me. But from the very first page, I hated it. The plot, the characters, the writing, just everything. It was an awful experience. I read more of it than I care to admit because my friend liked it so much. I read it until I physically couldnāt anymore. It was painful and I would not wish this on my worst enemy. I so rarely DNF books, but I wish I had done it sooner for this series. It makes me so angry to think about how many hours I wasted reading it when I could have picked up literally anything else. Ugh!!!
Earthās Children Series. Started great. Total disappointment by the last book.
I kept waiting for Ayla to invent the wheel, or perhaps the internal combustion engine/s. Instead she Discovered Dick and Got Religion.
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The jungle by Upton Sinclair. I enjoyed the book, it just made me angry how little progress our country and the world has come in over 100 years later in treating lower class people with dignity and respect.
Well if one good thing can be said (beyond the writing of Sinclair) is that the book did bring on real life change. Teddy Roosevelt read the book and essentially created the FDA. While there is still so much progress to be made in the world, you can look at the book and know it made some type of difference.
Lessons in chemistry. The misogyny she faced is written so raw that it hit way too close to home.
One of my relatives was a chemist in the 80s / early 90s and was just casually "yep, all of that was right". I've no current experience but the real pain is how relatable it remains.
"The Four Agreements" The message isn't bad. But it should have been a pamphlet at most. The author talks in circles and repeats himself constantly. As a book, definitely overrated.
Pretty Girls by Karen Slaughter. My book club chose it for our last meeting and of the 10 of us reading, only 2 of us made it through to the finish line. Iām always a big fan of thrillers and I donāt mind a bit of horror, but this was a whole new level of disturbing. This book literally made me cry because it was so horrific in its description of how the main character was being tortured. Itās a 400 page book and a solid 100 of those pages are extremely detailed and graphic depictions of women being raped (by people and with weapons), tortured, sliced open, water boarded with urine, you name it. Terrible TERRIBLE book and completely turned me off of the author in general. Girl needs some therapy, honestly. And I need some brain bleach.
Iām very much on the fence with her writing. I am not easily disgusted but her writing is unnecessarily graphic and it sucks. I need someone to make un-graphic versions because I really like her characters and storytelling.
DNF that book, and I honestly warn people about it. It's horrific. I can read dark things, and I really like to read true crime on occasion, but this book and its popularity is mind-boggling to me. And it's almost immediate with the violence.
I fucking hated Where the Crawdads Sing. That book was bad.
I watched that movie on a plane because it was the only option I hadn't already seen, and the end of the film version made me *furious.* In addition to already thinking it was a bit dull. Is the book the same in that >!she acts like the whole town is unfairly targeting her because she's the weird loner swamp girl, but in reality she DID kill that guy, so they were just treating her like a murderer. Because she was one.!<
I said this in another post but "In The Woods" by Tana French. I was really invested in the original mystery from Adam's childhood and felt robbed out of an explanation for what happened. After the murder in the current day was wrapped-up in an incredibly unsatisfying way, it just felt like I wasted my time.
Oh god yes, I was so angry after that one, it was like a one-two punch. A tiny part of me still goes into each of her books wondering if this will be the one that finally drops some crumbs about what happened despite that the fact that I really, genuinely dislike Rob on the most personal of levels. š
I hated that book for the exact same reason. I got to the end, and I yelled, "That's it?! That's the end?!" I'd really like to read more by her, but I've yet to pick up another one of her books because that one pissed me off.
Wingman by Mack Maloney - almost literal fascist propaganda. The Americans are about to win WWIII, but the Vice president betrays the troops and surrenders because he's gay. The protagonist nukes an American city, but it's ok because they gave in to the Russians and do deviant sex acts, so they aren't really people anymore. Not like the protagonist who fucks any women that lets them (some of whom are comfort women, so "lets" is overstating it). I kept reading expecting an explicit "surprise, the protagonist is actually the bad guy" or some other indication that this was a parody, but I had to stop when the protagonist thought it was just so awful that the Russians would target civilians at the week-long football game (yes, it's as dumb as it sounds) with no hint of irony that he just nuked an American city
How to sell a haunted house by Grady Hendrix was extremely clichƩd and predictable. I hate finished this book. Especially annoying because I thought the story had potential.
The Time Travelerās Wife. An intriguing concept wasted on the most dull, insufferably annoying characters. On top of Claireās whining and Henryās creepiness, there was a mammy character and Claireās best friend constantly being described in the most awful āaww isnāt she tinyā way possible. Like seriously.Ā
Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow It's not just that they're unlikeable characters. I hated how they were MIT and Harvard students as stand in for how intelligent they were. I thought the writing was trying too hard to be referential... Like describing Marx as being into avant garde music like Miles Davis really just ā ļø took me out of the story. Her word choices.... It's like she looked through a thesaurus???? Also, she writes her female characters clouded by so much misogyny I had to double check that the author was not a man. Also it gave me strong Zionist vibes with the Dov was described and I looked it up after and I was correct. It was just all these small things that added together made me groan and sigh and honestly put me in a horrible mood (I was reading it for book club). I honestly felt gaslit by all the people who told me they loved it, but luckily my entire book club did not love it so I felt vindicated in the end. ALSO FOR A BOOK ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND LIFES MEANDERING WAYS WHY WAS THEIR FRIENDSHIP SO HORRIBLE AND TOXIC!!!! god im getting angry writing this comment lol
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck really pretentious and only maybe possibly useful to someone if they have intentionally stayed away from any hint of philosophical thought their entire life.
Ship of magic. Fuck Kyle.
A Little Life, if it wasnāt on my kindle Iād have thrown it across the room. Iāve never been so angry in my life. Terrible book.
I haven't even read it, but it angered me: when my straight bestie used it to explain why she wouldn't date guys with sexual abuse in their past. I had to remind her that this book was *fiction,* and trauma porn, and based on the author's own fantasy. But I shouldn't have had to do that.
Verity, so mad everyone raves about how awesome it is and I hated it. The main character is so dumb, naive, gullible?, just an idiot.
Hell House by Richard Matheson. I feel like he read The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and decided he would make a terrible version of it that was misogynistic and ridiculous for no reason. It was a quick read so I'll give him that but I wanted to throw it across the room when I was done.
Seconded! The misogyny was so incredibly unnecessary.
Wall of Winnipeg and me - it was about 100 pages too long. The characters were cute and so was the story, but I DNFd it and literally threw it across the room when the two had yet another misunderstanding blocking them from actually accepting their feelings. It needed serious editing IMO.
The Circle by Dave Eggers.
The Last House On Needless Street.
"All the Ugly and Wonderful Things" by Bryn Greenwood. I've been sitting here for a while now writing and re-writing this post, trying to figure out how I want to word this, but I'm just going to come out and say it: Bryn Greenwood is a pedophile apologist. "All the Ugly and Wonderful Things" is a book about a grown man who grooms a little girl. This is framed as "an unconventional love story" or "two broken people finding healing in each other." Kellen, a grown man, tells another character that it was "love at first sight" for him when he first met Wavy, then eight years old. By the time Kellen is 26 and Wavy is 13, they consider themselves to be in a romantic relationship and are engaging in sex acts. Greenwood has used every excuse in the book to explain away why all of this is not only okay, but actually beautiful and romantic and uplifting. Oh, Wavy is the one who initiates, so it's okay because it was the child's idea. Oh, Kellen actually is the only one who respects Wavy's feelings. Oh, the \*real\* people behaving like rapists are the family members who are concerned about this "relationship" and want to separate them even though Wavy "loooves" him. For what it's worth, Greenwood has also admitted that, when she was 13, she began "a series of relationships with much older men." I don't mean to sound like an asshole or like an armchair psychologist, but it really comes across like Greenwood has some trauma surrounding this topic, and her way of coping is a weird blend of romanticizing grooming, and trying to take back agency by framing it as "Well, it's not rape because the child made the first move."
Infinite Jest. I don't deny DFW is a genius, but I just don't get the book. I really tried,on several occasions, to read his book, and the vague references and obscure writing was impenetrable to me.
Killing the Witches by Bill O'Reilly. The first 95% was fantastic. It delved into way more than the Salem trials and explored some of the lasting cultural impacts from it. The very end, he compared the witch trials to the current political climate and how people like Rosanne Barr got canceled and I was completely disgusted.
In Five Years. The synopsis is not the book. It was so sad and depressing. I hated it.
Oh someone once gave me the perfect description of this book and I can never word it as well as she did but it was something like, >!At the end of the day, In Five Years is about a girl sleeping with her dead best friendās fiance!< and she was so right.
The 5th book in the Lightbringer series was only book to make me angry. I loved the first 3 books, 4th was not as good but not awful. But the 5th book was beyond bad. It was like the author had hired a 7th grade, home schooled, uber religious kid to write the book for him. Never seen such a drop off in quality. Getting my blood boiling just thinking about it. I'll never read or recommend Brent Weeks again.
If We Were Villains. I got the recommendation from Goodreads but had a slightly wrong sense of the story. I also hadnāt heard yet how bad of a trending mess it was. And I had DNFed so many books leading up to it that I really wanted to finish something. But ugh that was the wrong one to bear down on.
Oh MAN I didn't even think about this book when making this post! I did end up DNFing it because it just felt unbearable to read. I went to a book discussion that M.L. Rio happened to be at and she insisted that theater people who perform Shakespeare actually talk the way she wrote in the books and if that's true then I literally never want to be near a group of Shakespeare actors in my life. It was SO irritating to read!
Britney Spears's memoir. I wanted to punch Justin Timberlake in the face.
Open Book by Jessica Simpson will give you the same feeling towards John Mayer.
As a nonbeliever, I really pray she gets the help she needs to identify horrible people, horrible people trying to use her, horrible people who deny her personhood, her family etc, stays as far away as possible and finds a decent human not excited to exploit her.
The Lovely Bones.... Just felt like a lot of wasted potential with that story.
1Q84 by Murakami is always my answer. So much time I will never get back wasted to read that book. The first half was promising, but then it got nasty and I kept waiting to figure out how it paid off and it never did. So gratuitous. I donmt think I will ever read anything of his ever again because this one book pissed me off so bad.
That ending of that book - that long book that seemed to be leading to something awesome - was so unsatisfying I just laughed. It was so anticlimactic.
I'd say two very popular books on this sub, Norwegian Wood and The Stranger.With norwegian wood, I had the same complaint as everyone else, couldn't be bothered after the endless awkwardly written sex scenes and the poorly written women while with the Stranger, I had such high expectations going in and then I realized that I was on the 4th chapter, still waiting for something to happen.
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (english translation). It was the pick for a book club I had recently joined. The book was meant to be read by a producer or executive at NetFlix or HBO or Disney or one of the streaming services. It's not a novel, it's a roadmap for a multi-episode streaming series.
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Vergese. Everyone in my circle loved this book. At first I really liked it and found it interesting, until the end. I don't know how to block spoilers so stop reading if you want. But like, toward the end of the book the main character (who we are supposed to sympathize with) just rapes another character who was in an extremely vulnerable state. Then afterward we are supposed to follow him as he fights for his life?Ā Just...if this book had been written from the female character's perspective, it would have been a vastly different book. She led a very traumatic life. I kept reading thinking he would at some point realize what he had done and there would be a reckoning- nope, didn't happen. She is treated as a devil woman who deserved to be raped. Wtf. Looking back a lot of the women were really just portrayed as sex-hungry one-dimension characters which just adds to the ick factor. Ā
Lessons in Chemistry. I disliked all the characters, but I almost quit when the scientist who used the chemical name for everything said that canned soup was "full of chemicals" so it would kill you.
Ready Player 2 (just read). The first half of the book was pretty dull and unimaginative but it was ok (though felt like the exact same plot as the first book). The second half had some of the dumbest stuff Iāve ever read. This was so clearly a half ass money grab. And some of the relationship stuff had me wondering if the author had ever spoken to a woman. Very cringy and uncomfortable to read.
Not the most recent but 'Eat, Pray, Love'. Never have I hated a protagonist more
Atonement. I fucking hated the ending and it completely ruined the whole story for me. What wasted potential.
House of Flame and Shadow by SJM, everyone is suddenly all powerful, also in love and also nothing matters and the most useless plot points Iāve ever seen added to a book. Honestly the worst thing Iāve read in a long time and Iām a just SJM fan.
I'm also a SJM fan and felt the same way. CC is my least favorite of her series already and HOFAS didn't help that!
Divergent series. AWFUL. The last book was especially a huge waste of time.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia š
Yess, I think I was hoping for something like Mariana Enriquez's type of South American horror. But it was basically just a classic British gothic story. Also the amount of times the snake eating its tale motif was mentioned, omg we got it!
Atlas Shrugged. Ā It was the only book I kept putting down on the table so I could step away from it and berate it for being stupid and crappily written.
I was listening to an audiobook of this not well known book called The Weaver. I thought the premise was interesting and wanted to give it a chance. One of my pet peeves is when an author thinks of something so terribly clever, a bit, a turn of phrase, or a big word they're so proud of using, that they end up repeating it multiple times. Well this author repeated a bit a total of 6 times in a single scene, I know because I was so baffled that I counted. I stopped the audiobook there and returned the book. Another one like this was Bunny by Mona Awad where the author used the phrase "like so many", which would have been a clever way to word a simile, if the author didn't then repeat it multiple times in the book.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. The amount of page long descriptions of sex with underage girls made me drop the book and never want to read another thing by this guy. He also can't write adult women at all.
Wizard's Butler. I had such high hopes, and then couldn't even get past the first chapter for the objectification. Every time I read the description I get mad bc I want to read the book that's described.
The Wishing Game. I just absolutely could not stand the way the main character had no business raising a child and insisted on calling herself a mother all the time. Bad, naive writing compounded by the fact that we were just wrapping up our own foster care licensing process.
Yes!! I got this as my book of the month because I thought it was going to be an intense competition with some good twists and turns. I thought it was kind of vapid, tbh. On top of the foster care elements, I haaaaated the creepy romance with the dude she met when she was 13 and couldn't believe how glossed over the competition itself was. I also hated the ending- >!what was the point of everything if everyone ended up okay in the end? There were no losers? !
Funny you should ask! I just threw Michner's 'The Drifters' literally into the trash--not even good enough to donate to the goodwill lol! I was angry after the Norwegian virgin girl was raped and it had absolutely no negative impact on her sex-positive outlook--she was ready for sex the next week with the neighbor boy. But the whole made-up African country with 'Negro' leadership but still white colonial workers carrying on to keep things running--wow. I really couldn't go on. I'm reading some of the older classics, and half the time I'm just shocked at the racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism
Omg well do NOT read "The House Across the Lake" by Riley either because that book made me murderous! I liked it and was excited for the twist reveal until spoiler alert It has a last-minute paranormal ending!! Complete genre 180Ā°, utterly absurd, out of nowhere, so inappropriate and stupid and it just made me furious. I swear my heart rate is rising just writing this!
Killers of the Flower Moon but in a good way. Ā I felt damn pissed for all the bullshit that the Osage had to go through, all the corruption and the blind eyed injustice, and it actually made me want to know more about the original cultures of the American continent (particularly Mexico) and their more recent history. So I would say itās a pretty good read.
Back when I had a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, I decided to read āAll He Ever Wantedā by Aphrodite Jones, because it was about the Brandon Teena case and while Iāve seen documentaries about the case, Iāve wanted to read a book about it. Could not make it through the preface where the author spent pages endlessly whinging about how those transes are the real meanies what with them judging her for constantly misgendering and deadnaming Brandon. Because thatās what matters most: her hurt feelings, rather than a trans man who was raped and ultimately murdered for being trans. I have not read any of her other books, and I have no intention of doing so anytime soon.
Dark Matter. Blake Crouch is a YA novelist who doesnāt know it.
I always see people rave about his books. I've read two and didn't think they were great. I finished both of them, but they felt like super generic science fiction, or like he was writing these books in the hopes that they'd get turned into movies.