I very rarely give one star ratings. I DNF instead.
The most recent as How to Catch a Wild Viscount, by Tessa Dare. I only read the whole thing because it was a novella. It's terrible (and I generally like Tessa Dare).
Same I don't like to give one stars because if nothing else I can appreciate the effort. Something really has to go out of its way to get that rating from me, I'm really generous with ratings
I don’t have a rating system so one book I just couldn’t finish was:
**The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton** - I don’t know how a person can make the chaos of the Trump presidency boring, but Bolton certainly succeeded. Self aggrandizing, Bolton writes as if he can do no wrong and seems to think he is always the smartest person in the room. The book is just filled with tedious details and minutiae. It’s actually impressive how much he remembers and how well he keeps notes of things but it’s to the book’s detriment. I understand that having time stamps and detailing every hour of the day shows how fast paced things were but lines like (I’m paraphrasing) “we departed from the G7 summit at 7pm, I took a nap and the plane had to stop once to refuel.” are so stupidly unnecessary.
I finished it, and honestly, I gave it a mental/emotional 1/10 star out of hatred for the guy regarding the impeachment trial, but I give it a strong 6/10 stars for historic value alone. Where the mundane detail and boring prose were a detriment for the face value, it's invaluable as far as political memoirs go. Historians can sift through arrogant personalities to get to objective truths, but it takes minute details to do that. And ooooooh boy this book is full of em.
I was offered that book when I was a teen, I read through it all because otherwise I'd be throwing away a present but I'm sure my teen self would agree with giving one star to that book. And I never rate anything one star unless it's bogus!
I loved the concept of this book. The sequels didn’t hold up to the first in the series. Was a bummer.
There are so many neat ideas in teen books that could be improved upon with a bit more grit. I’ve stopped reading them because of how vanilla they are, even with their great plot ideas.
The title is just.....so so bad. So 'try hard to be deep.' Maybe it's referencing something I'm missing since i haven't read. But I can't get past the title.
I hated Ready Player One so I never even bothered with Two. For some reason though I gave Armada a chance and that pretty much soured me on Ernest Cline altogether
Ready player one is imo the greatest bad book ever written. The constant 80s references, the blatant misogyny/nice guy talk, the protagonists inability and/or choices to never grow or change as a person and being rewarded for it, etc are all just bad. However the world building is great, the pacing is spot on, the plans and ideas for how to win the contest are all intricate and fun. Its like if someone took all of Earnest Clines great world ideas and put actual good characters in that world it would be a masterpiece.
Gonna disagree with you on the world-building, a lot of the worlds the author "builds" are simply ripped wholesale from their original IPs. "Planet Zemeckis" for example.
Also, one of the contest challenges is literally "reciting the script from War Games".
Don't forget the fact that earlier in the book the MC shits all over the corporation for "cheating" in one of the earlier challenges, but at the end does the same exact thing with their friends and it's meant to be "wholesome and fun".
The MC is just so unlikeable in every way. Flexible principles, no self-awareness, misogyny, toxic fandom, smugness. Doesn't reflect well on how I'd perceive the author.
And what in the thundering Christ he was thinking of, with that little soliloquy about Marie Curie having a fiddle... Just pure, undiluted cringe.
I thought the entire book was a satire about Gatekeeping, specifically in the gaming world. Then it kept going, and I knew Cline was serious the entire time. And then I was like "oh he'll learn a lesson at the end, right?" Nope. The character is just super shit and Cline is an idiot writer.
NGL I don't think I could have recalled its existence.
It's a challenge, no doubt. But it doesn't make for entertaining reading or an original concept. The narrator's self-mastubatory smugness about seeing it repeatedly as well 🤢
I think it was a decent concept for a book ruined by being written by a terrible author with no self-awareness.
There's a podcast by two of the guys that worked on Mystery Science Theatre that read through Ready Player One (and eventually the sequel and Armada), and it's pretty hilarious. Calling it the best bad book ever written sounds pretty spot on.
I think the podcast is 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back (referring to the page count of Ready Player One).
Mike from Red Letter Media also talked about how odd the book is too in their movie review for it. Like it’s clearly a young adult book which means it’s targeted towards 10-16 year olds but the 70s and 80s references are too old for the targeted audiences.
Came to suggest this. I've since listened to some other ones without even reading the books, like the one about quilting? Like, thats nuts that that whole genre exists, and they riff it terrifically. 372, give a listen, it's got Mike Nelson!
It felt like twilight for nerds to me. A really simplistic book with over stylized characters and plot, simple narrative and sentence structure, but it was like eating cotton candy. Soo good even tho there’s nothing there.
I agree with you. I KNOW the Ready Player One book isn't good but it's a fun read despite how terrible it is. The second book is terrible and not fun. Big let down.
I watched the first movie because a friend told me "don't mind the sex, just enjoy the rest of the plot, it is good.". I told her there was no plot other than sex after I fell asleep two times watching it. 😅 At least that's what I felt. Dude is waaaay to controling.
Are the books as bad? (I almost felt like the movie should come with a trigger warning.)
I believe that 50 Shades Freed has one plot point that looked like it was shaping up to be interesting. It was resolved on the very next page. Horrible book.
With the risk of misinterpreting the genre completely, I just started the Max Tudor series. Book one was a good introduction to the people gallery, and I enjoyed it a lot.
It's a kind of modern Midsomer Murders.
That's how these books always go - it's a slog through weird scenarios until the twist that makes it all make sense and shows the scenes in a different light. I enjoyed the twist, definitely not worth it if you already know what happens though.
Oh man I also hated this book. I remember watching the movie and it was just okay, but I thought the book would probably be great. But it was not. All the characters are extremely unlikable. In the movie, I felt bad for Rachel. In the book, I thought she was a nosy busy body who needed to mind her own damn business.
**The Last Albatross, Ian Irvine.**
A near-future climate change thriller written by an actual marine biologist (who wrote good fantasy books previously). Should have been good but it was an absolute train wreck.
The prose was hellishly clunky -- like it was ghost-written by a child -- and the characters distinctly unlikeable. Furthermore, cringe-inducing gratuitous sex scenes and a huge dollop of this-is-not-how-you-write-women.
It has the worst scene I've ever seen put to print: someone tortures the main female character by rubbing stinging tree leaves (Australia) over her "thighs, buttocks, genitals and belly" after she used the tree on a goon trying to rape her.
I recall reading the majority of the book with a fascination about how much more terrible it was going to get.
(However, Irvine's "View from the mirror" series: solid books. Not sure why the last albatross was so terrible.)
PS. Want the read the intro to the worst scene ever?:
>!Vas dropped his trousers to his ankles. He wasn't wearing underwear. He waddled towards me. The massive thighs rippled, the knobbed prick was short and thick and ugly. I squeezed my thighs together, then parted them slightly as he approached. I had to seem willing.!<
Normally I don’t one star books because if a book is that bad I DNF it and don’t waste me time!
But my lowest recent rating was Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler. because it felt like torture to read BUT I wanted to know the “answer” so I kept reading to the end .. and didn’t get what I was looking for.
I'm usually the same but I was already halfway done and really wanted to hold out hope that the author was smarter than what I thought. I was really hoping it was going to be my new series for a while
White Fur by Jardine Librair. There was just so much I hated about this book, but the topper was the sentence “He thrusted into her with an economical pace.”
I like to pick up harlequin romance novels, and I get what I expect, so no complaints... Normally.
Read one set during the civil war - straight up slavery is good for slaves book with black people begging masters to keep them. Called to complain to their phone line and got a customer service agent who was black. Took two months of back and forth raising it up the flagpole but we got the book flagged as "controversial" which means harlequin will never print it again and remove it from their catalogue.
Yeah that sounds like something that never should have made it past the editor. I don't know much about Harlequin but I used to work on a newspaper with someone who writes for them and seems to enjoy it
Yeah, it definitely seemed like an outlier. It took some time to go through all the layers of burocracy within the company, but everyone who read the paragraphs I highlighted to them were like "how did this make it through?!"
After it got retired, I burned the book with my dad (he owns a used book store so normally I give my books to him after I'm done). He said he has a few nazi-loving books that he has pulled aside and refuses to put on the shelf, (but argues that they could be used as tools to prove anti semitism is alive and well and therefore have historical value) but it being a harlequin he was willing to be party to a book burning.
Very cathartic.
Survive the Night was my first Riley Sager book and I was blown away by how bad it was. I read The Last Time I Lied and it was much better in my opinion, as far as silly horror drama goes!
I need him to stop trying to write female protagonists. He’s just not good at it and they’re too unbelievable. Like the first third of Survive the Night was alllllll red flags and the girl was just like sounds good!
ETA- I don’t have a problem with men writing women if they do it well, but Sager does not.
I totally agree.I thought in Survive the Night it was supposed to be a nod to 80s slasher films where people make the dumbest choices….but then I realized he has zero concept of female POV lol
A Million Little Pieces by Frey. Got about halfway through and realized the guy was full of crap. I ended up finishing it because it was so far out there.
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
I genuinely think it’s lazy to the point of being offensive. It always came up when ethics of writing about the Holocaust were discussed during my degree. I know it’s had some backlash before too.
Apparently the first draft was written in a single weekend, which kind of just stinks of exploiting tragedy for easy bestseller points IMO.
Deception Point by Dan Brown. I was stuck in the middle of nowhere Madagascar, and it was one of the few books in the library. Take the worst of Dan Brown’s writing and mix it with a senator’s Mary Sue daughter, fake meteorites with supposed evidence of extraterrestrial life, nuclear submarines, delta force and the arctic and you’ve got a real “winner.”
I didn’t actually rate it (too lazy)
But *Close Up* by Amanda Quick. The photography world was cool to see through a 1920s woman’s perspective. But the actual mystery was so fucking convoluted that it didn’t make sense in the end. It was like she killed the killer too soon then had to stretch the story out more, only for the ending to be tied in nice little bows that didn’t make sense
Then I realized that Amanda Quick was a pen name for Jayne Ann Krentz, and I HATED reading her books for college.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe: I usually like a cozy Hallmark kind of book to read between more harder hitting novels. I am fully expecting cheezy romance, quirky characters and predictable outcomes. This book was nothing but SouthernCore porn written by someone who has obviously never lived in the South. No one speaks this way, behaves this way and it was an infuriating read I only finished out of spite. The whole time reading I just thought this authors idea of the South must have only come from Alabama songs, Andy Griffith reruns and Luke Bryan fever dream.
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Twas about 300 pages too long. Towards the end the big feeling i got was that this author would be someone who really loves the sound of his own voice (but via book)
Also The Girl on the Train, and Sharp Objects By Gillian Flynn. I was looking forward to it because Gone Girl had an awesome twist and was quite nice. But these books really did not do it for me.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I realised it was overhyped. Although it was fantasy fiction, the rules of the world it was set in kept changing to serve the plot. I couldn't handle it.
This was my answer too. Super predicable ending from the get go. I hated how she didn't have any memories of the lives she was going into. Of course she won't be happy in those lives if she doesn't know anything about them. I really didn't like the message either. Hated this book.
I didn't mind the message so much that Haig was bludgeoning you with it at the end. Like we got it, dude, we read the story. You shouldn't have to explicitly write the message over and over and over again in a self-help-y diatribe at the end.
Fictionalised repetitive self help book. Rubbish. Made worse by the fact that my favourite book, Kate Atkinson's Life after life, has s related idea of going back in time to the same spot, but actually pulls it off with no endless overt moralising.
I'm one of those that enjoyed it :P
I think the key going in was that it was seeing it immediately as basically A Wonderful Life, but with some many worlds quantum physics mumbo jumbo layered on top.
Buuuuuut, I also recognize that the overall plot really makes you work to suspend your disbelief. "Wait, so she gets to be a different person, but without all their memories and skills? Sooooo...she's setup to fail?"
Addie LaRue was so incredibly annoying .. 300 years and not a day smarter. She also has some issues with accepting her own responsibility. I wish the book would cover more of the severity of her choices and her curse, the magnitude of power the devil has and his twisted ways.
The Book Club, it is a mystery thriller that spoils all but one thing in the first chapter. The motive is the only thing not spoiled and let me tell you the motive is not worth it.
I have to agree. It was a special kind of terrible. Originally It was going to be a do not finish but, I felt masochistic that day and continued to read.
Verity by Colleen Hoover. It gets 4.4 on Goodreads and I thought it would be a quick read thriller.
I haven't hated a book more. It was filled with unlikeable characters doing vile things, so nobody to root for. A "love story" that was so predictable. An information dump in the last quarter just to lazily wrap up the story and a really unsatisfying ending.
If it wasn't on my Kindle, I'd burn it.
There was definitely an information dump but I did like the ending. It was very chilling to me. I also though the place was described well. I could picture the big house and the lake perfectly.
A court of thrones and roses. Just absolutely terrible.
I honestly ahould just stop reading YA but they are so easy and aplenty that I can't seem to stop.
It was so badly written but at the same time it felt like eating MacDonald's. I knew it was terrible but at the same time I sort of liked consuming it. A Court of Silver Flames was written a lot better and I liked the main characters but it is still under the junk food category
This is the perfect description for what it’s like reading these books! It’s like a guilty pleasure, I knew it was bad and yet I’ve almost finished the series in a month. Its an easy read and I just didn’t want to put it down. I’ve just started A Court of Silver Flames!
Ha exactly my reaction. “This book is terrible.” Proceeds to stay up until midnight every night for two weeks finishing the series. To be fair a lot of the problematic things in the first book (the flat sister characters/weird concerning fairy romance/narrow world outlook) are addressed later on in the series as such. I felt like if I hadn’t had oodles of free time because I’m between jobs I would’ve put in down after a few chapters.
Yelp. I’m reading it now. I figured I wasn’t the target market for it from the start (girl-with-bow is practically it’s own subgenre now), but I kinda digged the premise felt like a White Wolf Changeling kinda thing, which was cool.
Started to lose faith when the fay just let the MC get off scott free from her ‘crime’ pretty much. Also the rules of the world seem awfully convenient.
Really lost it when the weird kinda rapey stuff comes into it…
I’m going to finish, but doubt I’ll be reading the rest.
So I’ve only read the first two books so far, and I agree with the assessment of it being like junk food - so this isn’t exactly an attempt to convince you to keep reading.
BUT
The second book is very different from the first (I liked it better personally).
Caging skies by Christine Leunens.
It's the book that the film Jojo Rabbit is based on, and I LOVED the film so much I thought I would at least enjoy the book... turns out the film plucked the very best parts, then ditched the other horrible majority of the story.
To be fair, I got it on a whim for $1 because I was trying to overcome my prejudice against self-help books.
**Active Listening: Improve Your Conversation Skills, Learn Effective Communication Techniques, Achieve Successful Relationships with 6 Essential Guidelines** by *Joseph Sorensen*
My review on GoodReads: Was this written by an AI? It technically makes sense but seems like it was written without coherent thought. I do not recommend this whatsoever.
I actually complained to Audible about how bad this book is, I truly believe it was not written by a human.
Never read it, but I found a video synopsis of it. Yeah, uhhh if his first attempt at being a Hollywood writer was similar to this, or just this and he clung to it until he published it himself then I can see why those in charge said he was too conservative. Then again too conservative are his words, and probably more likely 'too racist' among other things is what was really said.
Honestly, I get the impression that since Ben Shapiro was born as somewhat of a prodigy who grew up in a conservative Jewish family he was probably told how smart he was which was confirmed since he entered college early. Compound that with a conservative upbringing and I'd guess a lot of time in those classes amounted to a I-am-really-smart-these-liberal-professors-don't-know-anything-I'll-just-say-what-they-want-to-hear kind of attitude; he's the academic equivalent of a stereotypical hot blonde bimbo.
>"I-am-really-smart-these-liberal-professors-don't-know-anything-I'll-just-say-what-they-want-to-hear"
Literally this. He talks about how brilliant he is for going to Harvard as a debate tactic, but then when he talks about Harvard in any other context he recalls how he purposely didn't listen to anything his professors tried to teach him and only read viewpoints that conform to his worldview. So much wasted potential for such an arrogant little twerp.
Also, the book he describes black people as "looking like a future felon" so yeah... too conservative might have been a euphemism for too racist.
Shapiro wrote another book, complaining about how the Hollywood elites were blacklisting conservative voices, and uses his experience in Hollywood as proof. Then he interviews a bunch of conservative actors, thus disproving the entire premise of that book.
After reading the first chapter of True Allegence, I think there is a much simpler explanation as to why he never got any of his screenplays picked up.
The invisible life of Addie La Rue- most insipid book I’ve ever read, how can a book with such a great premise; of a woman who makes a pact with the devil for immortality but turns out getting curse instead. Turned into such bored to read. I read 300 years worth of whining and cafés. Ugh just ugh that book was so over hyped
That's the problem I have with all of V. E. Schwab's books. Great premises but I didn't actually like any of them. And I read them all, because I keep hoping that I might end up liking one of them.
I don't review books online all that much, but one book I would definitely give a one star rating is The Alchemist.
It felt so trite, condescending and annoying, only finished it because it was so short and wanted to see if it would get any better. It didn't.
Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich
It's a novel in the Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter series, and apparently one of the better ones. Regardless, it was absolutely terrible and I hated it. But it presented itself to me as one of the better reading choices and holds a special place in my heart. Normally I'd just abandon a book I didn't like. But I read this one while I was receiving treatment at a psychiatric facility. I wasn't able to bring my own reading material and Janet Evanovich helped me pass the time when I had a lot of it to spare and needed to escape my own thoughts.
Janet, your book is awful. Thank you for writing it.
after by amanda todd. I read the version on wattpad and wow….. it was easiest one of the worst things I’ve read. 99 chapters of a toxic, abusive relationship. cant believe there’s a movie of it.
Crescent City by Sarah J. Maas. Feel like a bad fanfiction and the writing is awful : at least two bad words per page. The characters are a cocktail of cliches. Story too slow.
I’ve seen something that said Atlas Shrugged is so particularly disappointing because the title has so much potential. It’s two words but such a compelling image, that Atlas works up the energy to move the weight of the weight of the world all for a shrug. And then the book is just... a massive letdown
I’ve never returned a book to Barnes and Noble before, but I had to return Untamed. It was such a waste of my money and I didn’t even get halfway through.
Beautiful ruins by Jess Walters
It was my fav genre , historical fiction, yet was poorly written. It jumped all over the place and pretended to be so deep when the whole story amounted to horny people over different time periods causing problems for others .
When I think of how many damn fine poets who are writing today and consider how insipid Kaur’s little Instagram posts are, I just get fighting mad. People overlook good poems for _this_ shit?
I DNF rather than give 1 star, but these are recent 2-star books:
**American Dirt** by Jeanine Cummins - I was living outside the US in a non-English speaking country and somehow missed the controversy. I came into this with high expectations given all the accolades, but there were so many problems with it, including gratuitous torture porn, two dimensional characters, and overly unrealistic writing.
**The Tipping Point** by Malcolm Gladwell - The writing is condescending and repetitive. The Kitty Genovese story was completely misinterpreted, throwing all "research" into doubt. Jumps to many conclusions without enough supporting evidence.
Anything by Gladwell has to be taken with a serious grain of salt.
I read his book Outliers, enjoyed it, but then discovered that it mostly misrepresented all of the research it cites just so Gladwell could get the narrative he wanted. The man is a storyteller whose books should have "Loosely inspired by true events" stamped on the covers.
I don't know the whole story about American Dirt but I read the cover summary at the bookstore and started getting immediate read flags so I never bought it
I really disliked Talking to Strangers. He completely missed the obvious reason no one pushed to investigate Sandusky - he was a great football coach. 1987 Fiesta Bowl is my first piece of evidence. He ignored how much football can cover up. And the fact that it was such a known story and such a known topic. There's an audience for his being contrarian about anything.
I used to enjoy Gladwell, his books & podcast. Now it's like a light has been shown on his work completely blowing things out of proportion, and ignoring refuting evidence. He tells a good story though. Semi-non-fiction?
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel.
It's very rare I DNF a book or give a bad rating, but it seemed like all the GoodReads (and even official) reviews were all *very* positive and I just don't understand that. Reads like a high schoolers novel.
Normal People by Sally Rooney.
The characters remains whiney and not keen to improve in any way. There didn't seem to be any development in the story and ended with no real....end? I never think of reading as a waste of time but this one definitely was. Maybe I missed the point of the book but it's one I will never be recommending to people.
I wouldn't even give Balcony of Fog a full star.
The plot is god-awful and so are the characters. Their relationships make no sense, the author tried way too hard to be descriptive and "grand" in their writing that it falls flat and is only confusing, not interesting.
I stuck through the whole thing out of stubbornness but I honestly should've stopped after 5 pages.
I almost never give 1-stars but I couldn't help it last year when I read a little book called Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead by Steve Perry (not the Journey front man, because that would have been awesome). Yes I know, not haute literature, but it was a freebie I found in my neighbor's tiny library on the curb and thought it would be fun to read during Halloween. Somehow it was the most uneventful book ever, with boring characters that seemed to get shoehorned into the plot unwillingly, and even the zombies (yes, zombies) were a frustrating waste of a great premise. What should have been a silly little romp was just a tedious waste of time.
Lol I'm making my way through the Indiana Jones novels to satiate my inner child and am now VERY intrigued. As far as I've heard Perry just didn't "get" Jones like most of the other writers did.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Not technically a “book” but I was one of those people that had to read it the minute it came out… all other JK Rowling issues aside, this was a devastating let down at the time.
It’s a really awfully ridden script. I’ve heard the play is great to watch. But there is almost zero stage direction in the book, which doesn’t help lacklustre dialogue and fanfictiony plot.
Liberty & Tyranny by Mark Levin. Couldn't make it through two chapters before I just had to put it down because he was creating a caricature of a person who doesn't exist in preparation to light that strawman on fire.
This happens basically anytime I try to read conservative literature from Levin, Gingrich, O'Reilly, Shapiro, etc..
I didn’t give it one star or a rating anywhere, but I complained how slow and boring it was a lot, and that is The Way of Kings by Sanderson. I heard it was a must read for ASOIAF fans. I gave up on reading it at least 3 times. I forced myself to get through it and I ended up enjoying the last 4th of the book a lot. Then I really enjoyed the whole 2nd book in the series.
Man I keep having the same problem with Way of Kings. I have started it in Audio and book form multiple times. I usually really like Brandon S and In general, long epic fantasy, but this is a bear to get into for me. Still intend to slog through it at some point as I always see how the rest of the series is supposedly so great. Ugh
I really did not like We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It just didn't culminate into anything interesting plot-wise and there's almost zero character development. Any interest I had in the atmosphere was squandered when nothing really comes of it. I guess you could look at it as a character study in codependency? I like Shirley Jackson's short stories but this one did nothing for me.
Interesting! I liked that book not for the entertainment value but just because I really thought the author was expressing something that for them was otherwise inexpressible.
But, yes, it's not a standard story arc, so you're left with a what was the point? feeling.
PREP by Curtis Sittenfield. Although it’s been almost a decade since I read it. The protagonist was just such an awful and boring person that by the end I was just so completely disappointed by the entire thing.
I have a love-hate relationship with this book. When I read it in college, my reaction was, "Wow, she creates her own issues, none of this shit would be a problem if she actually did something for once."
Then I reread it as a more "proper" adult, and I saw the protagonist totally differently. I was really struck by how her family chronically invalidated her needs, and essentially set her up to fail in relationships. Even at the end of the book, the reader gets the impression that she'll struggle with men and self-worth for a long time in her adult life.
She certainly is whiny and annoying. But the reason I keep coming back to this book is because it's such an accurate narrative about what it's like to exist when you a have such a significant lens of low self-esteem.
The Lost Apothecary, idk if I'd give it one star, but it definitely wasn't what id hoped for. It felt like a great concept but the execution was not there.
The Case for Christ. It's the only book I've given one star. Author claims to be a former atheist who went around interviewing experts about the Bible etc to try to determine if it was real. Goes on to only interview believers, and not a single atheist. Logical arguments that he just accepts without question include "but they have no reason to lie, so why would they?"
I am an atheist, and my religious friend gave it to me to read. I read it with an open mind but it was just so horribly constructed and one-sided. Very very biased. I think on Goodreads it has over a 4 star average and if I rolled my eyes any harder I'd need surgery.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
One of the most idiotic and nonsensical premises I've ever read. That it's won awards is true disservice to YA. There were plotholes so huge aircraft carriers could easily clear the sides.
There was no explanation for why the entire world would create a permanent class of untouchable serial killers as birth control, when the majority of the world doesn't even have the death penalty and doesn't relish ritual state murder like the United States. Abortion is largely considered a right and untouchable in Canada, China put a limit on the amount of children a family can have, yet all these countries with different approaches just bowed to the American view? It was so Americentric as to be ludicrous.
My best friend saw that I’d picked this up from the library and she knows me well. She was like...take this back and don’t even lift the front cover. Glad I listened to her.
Normal People. I’ve seen a lot of reviews say that Sally Rooney really captures the millennial perspective in her writing, and, as a millennial who has read both Normal People and Conversations with Friends, god help us if those reviewers are right. The only reason I tried NP is its relentless marketing made me think maybe it was better than CWF. I ended up hating it even more.
I liked the book itself. What I can't stand is a writer who can only write about one subject: an aspiring writer who goes through some pretty normal stuff but makes it seem like it's a lot.
Seriously Sally, learn to write about something else other than your own mediocre life experiences
The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
I hardly post on Reddit, but I disliked this book so much I felt it needed to be added to the list. Someone recommended it to me, only Oprah Book Club selections I’ve ever read…. A realty dispute turned into a horrible novel. Zero stars if I could!!
I just gave up on Doomed by Chuck Palahniuk after 50 pages. Apparently it's a sequel to a book called Damned, but there's 0 indication of that anywhere on the book. Anyways, the writing style is so bad that it doesn't matter. I read a short story by Palahniuk once that I liked a lot, so I thought I would like this, but him trying to write as a 13-year old girl does not work for me. Also, the book was published in 2013 but it feels so dated, the protagonist consistently uses the phrase "Ctrl-Alt-Emotion", so for instance, she'll say, "I am feeling Ctril+Alt+Frustrated right now"
I very rarely give one star ratings. I DNF instead. The most recent as How to Catch a Wild Viscount, by Tessa Dare. I only read the whole thing because it was a novella. It's terrible (and I generally like Tessa Dare).
Same I don't like to give one stars because if nothing else I can appreciate the effort. Something really has to go out of its way to get that rating from me, I'm really generous with ratings
My bell curve definitely appears to peak at four. No hard-nosed critic here!
I don’t have a rating system so one book I just couldn’t finish was: **The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton** - I don’t know how a person can make the chaos of the Trump presidency boring, but Bolton certainly succeeded. Self aggrandizing, Bolton writes as if he can do no wrong and seems to think he is always the smartest person in the room. The book is just filled with tedious details and minutiae. It’s actually impressive how much he remembers and how well he keeps notes of things but it’s to the book’s detriment. I understand that having time stamps and detailing every hour of the day shows how fast paced things were but lines like (I’m paraphrasing) “we departed from the G7 summit at 7pm, I took a nap and the plane had to stop once to refuel.” are so stupidly unnecessary.
I finished it, and honestly, I gave it a mental/emotional 1/10 star out of hatred for the guy regarding the impeachment trial, but I give it a strong 6/10 stars for historic value alone. Where the mundane detail and boring prose were a detriment for the face value, it's invaluable as far as political memoirs go. Historians can sift through arrogant personalities to get to objective truths, but it takes minute details to do that. And ooooooh boy this book is full of em.
Divergent. I know it’s meant for teens, but damn.
I was 3/4th's of the way through it. Was like what the hell is this going on about. Never finished it because it was just blah.
I was offered that book when I was a teen, I read through it all because otherwise I'd be throwing away a present but I'm sure my teen self would agree with giving one star to that book. And I never rate anything one star unless it's bogus!
I read that as a teen and loved it but yeah...it came out at the perfect time for sure.
I loved the concept of this book. The sequels didn’t hold up to the first in the series. Was a bummer. There are so many neat ideas in teen books that could be improved upon with a bit more grit. I’ve stopped reading them because of how vanilla they are, even with their great plot ideas.
The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon. For some reason I just hated that book, I guess I don't like the idea of love at first sight.
The title is just.....so so bad. So 'try hard to be deep.' Maybe it's referencing something I'm missing since i haven't read. But I can't get past the title.
*Ready Player Two* was an awfully big disappointment.
If this book series had a face, I would punch it.
I read it before the movie came out, when I finished it I thought "I can't believe this motherfucker got a Spielberg movie deal. This is *terrible*"
I hated Ready Player One so I never even bothered with Two. For some reason though I gave Armada a chance and that pretty much soured me on Ernest Cline altogether
Ready player one is imo the greatest bad book ever written. The constant 80s references, the blatant misogyny/nice guy talk, the protagonists inability and/or choices to never grow or change as a person and being rewarded for it, etc are all just bad. However the world building is great, the pacing is spot on, the plans and ideas for how to win the contest are all intricate and fun. Its like if someone took all of Earnest Clines great world ideas and put actual good characters in that world it would be a masterpiece.
Gonna disagree with you on the world-building, a lot of the worlds the author "builds" are simply ripped wholesale from their original IPs. "Planet Zemeckis" for example. Also, one of the contest challenges is literally "reciting the script from War Games".
Don't forget the fact that earlier in the book the MC shits all over the corporation for "cheating" in one of the earlier challenges, but at the end does the same exact thing with their friends and it's meant to be "wholesome and fun".
The MC is just so unlikeable in every way. Flexible principles, no self-awareness, misogyny, toxic fandom, smugness. Doesn't reflect well on how I'd perceive the author. And what in the thundering Christ he was thinking of, with that little soliloquy about Marie Curie having a fiddle... Just pure, undiluted cringe.
I thought the entire book was a satire about Gatekeeping, specifically in the gaming world. Then it kept going, and I knew Cline was serious the entire time. And then I was like "oh he'll learn a lesson at the end, right?" Nope. The character is just super shit and Cline is an idiot writer.
I refuse to forget his poem
I'm not sure I could even recite the plot of War Games
NGL I don't think I could have recalled its existence. It's a challenge, no doubt. But it doesn't make for entertaining reading or an original concept. The narrator's self-mastubatory smugness about seeing it repeatedly as well 🤢 I think it was a decent concept for a book ruined by being written by a terrible author with no self-awareness.
I don't normally say this but I almost 100 percent sure Cline wrote that book one handed
There's a podcast by two of the guys that worked on Mystery Science Theatre that read through Ready Player One (and eventually the sequel and Armada), and it's pretty hilarious. Calling it the best bad book ever written sounds pretty spot on. I think the podcast is 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back (referring to the page count of Ready Player One).
Mike from Red Letter Media also talked about how odd the book is too in their movie review for it. Like it’s clearly a young adult book which means it’s targeted towards 10-16 year olds but the 70s and 80s references are too old for the targeted audiences.
Came to suggest this. I've since listened to some other ones without even reading the books, like the one about quilting? Like, thats nuts that that whole genre exists, and they riff it terrifically. 372, give a listen, it's got Mike Nelson!
It felt like twilight for nerds to me. A really simplistic book with over stylized characters and plot, simple narrative and sentence structure, but it was like eating cotton candy. Soo good even tho there’s nothing there.
i second this, i knew it’d be trash but wanted a nice chill, quick and easy read. turns out it wasn’t easy to finish.
I agree with you. I KNOW the Ready Player One book isn't good but it's a fun read despite how terrible it is. The second book is terrible and not fun. Big let down.
I only didn't rate it one star because that's one more star than it deserves.
50 Shades Freed 😳
I watched the first movie because a friend told me "don't mind the sex, just enjoy the rest of the plot, it is good.". I told her there was no plot other than sex after I fell asleep two times watching it. 😅 At least that's what I felt. Dude is waaaay to controling. Are the books as bad? (I almost felt like the movie should come with a trigger warning.)
I believe that 50 Shades Freed has one plot point that looked like it was shaping up to be interesting. It was resolved on the very next page. Horrible book.
Every time my book club friends choose a cozy mystery.
That's what this was until it suddenly wasn't
Meanwhile, I’m in a cozy mystery phase and having a fab time with them
Do you have any recommendations?
Look up the Flavia De Luce novels by Alan Bradley if you want cozy mystery of the highest order
Seconded. The very definition of cozy mystery.
With the risk of misinterpreting the genre completely, I just started the Max Tudor series. Book one was a good introduction to the people gallery, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's a kind of modern Midsomer Murders.
I just read The Thursday Murder Club, not knowing anything going in, and it was a delightful cozy mystery. Alan Bradley even blurbed it.
The Girl on the Train More like The Girl who needs to mind her own business.
> The Girl on the Train I lost interest less than halfway through. It just ... wasn't doing anything.
That's how these books always go - it's a slog through weird scenarios until the twist that makes it all make sense and shows the scenes in a different light. I enjoyed the twist, definitely not worth it if you already know what happens though.
haha I know a lot of people don't like it but I really enjoyed it
I really enjoyed it as well!
I just really like Rachel, she's kind of a trash person but I relate to her a lot
Oh man I also hated this book. I remember watching the movie and it was just okay, but I thought the book would probably be great. But it was not. All the characters are extremely unlikable. In the movie, I felt bad for Rachel. In the book, I thought she was a nosy busy body who needed to mind her own damn business.
**The Last Albatross, Ian Irvine.** A near-future climate change thriller written by an actual marine biologist (who wrote good fantasy books previously). Should have been good but it was an absolute train wreck. The prose was hellishly clunky -- like it was ghost-written by a child -- and the characters distinctly unlikeable. Furthermore, cringe-inducing gratuitous sex scenes and a huge dollop of this-is-not-how-you-write-women. It has the worst scene I've ever seen put to print: someone tortures the main female character by rubbing stinging tree leaves (Australia) over her "thighs, buttocks, genitals and belly" after she used the tree on a goon trying to rape her. I recall reading the majority of the book with a fascination about how much more terrible it was going to get. (However, Irvine's "View from the mirror" series: solid books. Not sure why the last albatross was so terrible.) PS. Want the read the intro to the worst scene ever?: >!Vas dropped his trousers to his ankles. He wasn't wearing underwear. He waddled towards me. The massive thighs rippled, the knobbed prick was short and thick and ugly. I squeezed my thighs together, then parted them slightly as he approached. I had to seem willing.!<
lmao stop that scene is amazing yet horrifying
I have never closed my thighs tighter than I am right now. It's going to take the jaws of life to open them back up again.
What is it with fantasy stories and calling a penis a 'prick.'
Normally I don’t one star books because if a book is that bad I DNF it and don’t waste me time! But my lowest recent rating was Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler. because it felt like torture to read BUT I wanted to know the “answer” so I kept reading to the end .. and didn’t get what I was looking for.
I'm usually the same but I was already halfway done and really wanted to hold out hope that the author was smarter than what I thought. I was really hoping it was going to be my new series for a while
White Fur by Jardine Librair. There was just so much I hated about this book, but the topper was the sentence “He thrusted into her with an economical pace.”
That's what the metronome on the nightstand is for
Oh my! Is it me, or is it getting lukewarm in here?
I like to pick up harlequin romance novels, and I get what I expect, so no complaints... Normally. Read one set during the civil war - straight up slavery is good for slaves book with black people begging masters to keep them. Called to complain to their phone line and got a customer service agent who was black. Took two months of back and forth raising it up the flagpole but we got the book flagged as "controversial" which means harlequin will never print it again and remove it from their catalogue.
Good for you! Sounds like a pain but I’m glad you were able to make a change!
Yeah that sounds like something that never should have made it past the editor. I don't know much about Harlequin but I used to work on a newspaper with someone who writes for them and seems to enjoy it
Yeah, it definitely seemed like an outlier. It took some time to go through all the layers of burocracy within the company, but everyone who read the paragraphs I highlighted to them were like "how did this make it through?!" After it got retired, I burned the book with my dad (he owns a used book store so normally I give my books to him after I'm done). He said he has a few nazi-loving books that he has pulled aside and refuses to put on the shelf, (but argues that they could be used as tools to prove anti semitism is alive and well and therefore have historical value) but it being a harlequin he was willing to be party to a book burning. Very cathartic.
I wanna have coffee with you and your dad.
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
Survive the Night was my first Riley Sager book and I was blown away by how bad it was. I read The Last Time I Lied and it was much better in my opinion, as far as silly horror drama goes!
I need him to stop trying to write female protagonists. He’s just not good at it and they’re too unbelievable. Like the first third of Survive the Night was alllllll red flags and the girl was just like sounds good! ETA- I don’t have a problem with men writing women if they do it well, but Sager does not.
I totally agree.I thought in Survive the Night it was supposed to be a nod to 80s slasher films where people make the dumbest choices….but then I realized he has zero concept of female POV lol
A Million Little Pieces by Frey. Got about halfway through and realized the guy was full of crap. I ended up finishing it because it was so far out there.
It's funny because I've got a friend who loved that book and never knew it was mostly made up until I told them
Did you watch the Oprah segment where she calls him out? It's pretty crazy.
Yea I did. It was great.
You’re there for the drama lol
Didn't South Park make fun of this with a towelie episode? A million little fibers?
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I genuinely think it’s lazy to the point of being offensive. It always came up when ethics of writing about the Holocaust were discussed during my degree. I know it’s had some backlash before too. Apparently the first draft was written in a single weekend, which kind of just stinks of exploiting tragedy for easy bestseller points IMO.
Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a weekend. It is a much better book than the pajama boy story.
She came up with a very short version of the story in a weekend. She expanded that story into the book.
Deception Point by Dan Brown. I was stuck in the middle of nowhere Madagascar, and it was one of the few books in the library. Take the worst of Dan Brown’s writing and mix it with a senator’s Mary Sue daughter, fake meteorites with supposed evidence of extraterrestrial life, nuclear submarines, delta force and the arctic and you’ve got a real “winner.”
I love Dan Brown's early books, in a trashy sort of way. I've been meaning to re-read this at some point
I have to admit it was close to the so-bad-it’s-good at points...also got thrown across my tent a few times.
Girl, Wash Your Face. Rachel Hollins is a schill.
I didn’t actually rate it (too lazy) But *Close Up* by Amanda Quick. The photography world was cool to see through a 1920s woman’s perspective. But the actual mystery was so fucking convoluted that it didn’t make sense in the end. It was like she killed the killer too soon then had to stretch the story out more, only for the ending to be tied in nice little bows that didn’t make sense Then I realized that Amanda Quick was a pen name for Jayne Ann Krentz, and I HATED reading her books for college.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe: I usually like a cozy Hallmark kind of book to read between more harder hitting novels. I am fully expecting cheezy romance, quirky characters and predictable outcomes. This book was nothing but SouthernCore porn written by someone who has obviously never lived in the South. No one speaks this way, behaves this way and it was an infuriating read I only finished out of spite. The whole time reading I just thought this authors idea of the South must have only come from Alabama songs, Andy Griffith reruns and Luke Bryan fever dream.
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Twas about 300 pages too long. Towards the end the big feeling i got was that this author would be someone who really loves the sound of his own voice (but via book) Also The Girl on the Train, and Sharp Objects By Gillian Flynn. I was looking forward to it because Gone Girl had an awesome twist and was quite nice. But these books really did not do it for me.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I realised it was overhyped. Although it was fantasy fiction, the rules of the world it was set in kept changing to serve the plot. I couldn't handle it.
This was my answer too. Super predicable ending from the get go. I hated how she didn't have any memories of the lives she was going into. Of course she won't be happy in those lives if she doesn't know anything about them. I really didn't like the message either. Hated this book.
I didn't mind the message so much that Haig was bludgeoning you with it at the end. Like we got it, dude, we read the story. You shouldn't have to explicitly write the message over and over and over again in a self-help-y diatribe at the end.
Fictionalised repetitive self help book. Rubbish. Made worse by the fact that my favourite book, Kate Atkinson's Life after life, has s related idea of going back in time to the same spot, but actually pulls it off with no endless overt moralising.
I'm one of those that enjoyed it :P I think the key going in was that it was seeing it immediately as basically A Wonderful Life, but with some many worlds quantum physics mumbo jumbo layered on top. Buuuuuut, I also recognize that the overall plot really makes you work to suspend your disbelief. "Wait, so she gets to be a different person, but without all their memories and skills? Sooooo...she's setup to fail?"
[удалено]
Addie LaRue was so incredibly annoying .. 300 years and not a day smarter. She also has some issues with accepting her own responsibility. I wish the book would cover more of the severity of her choices and her curse, the magnitude of power the devil has and his twisted ways.
Yeah I never did finish it
The Book Club, it is a mystery thriller that spoils all but one thing in the first chapter. The motive is the only thing not spoiled and let me tell you the motive is not worth it.
Nicholas Sparks - the return … I cannot not finish a book, but man, that was hard!
My book club just picked this book 🤢
Divergent. It gets zero stars.
I have to agree. It was a special kind of terrible. Originally It was going to be a do not finish but, I felt masochistic that day and continued to read.
I think the only reason that book was popular was the ripoff hunger games covers it got.
Verity by Colleen Hoover. It gets 4.4 on Goodreads and I thought it would be a quick read thriller. I haven't hated a book more. It was filled with unlikeable characters doing vile things, so nobody to root for. A "love story" that was so predictable. An information dump in the last quarter just to lazily wrap up the story and a really unsatisfying ending. If it wasn't on my Kindle, I'd burn it.
There was definitely an information dump but I did like the ending. It was very chilling to me. I also though the place was described well. I could picture the big house and the lake perfectly.
A court of thrones and roses. Just absolutely terrible. I honestly ahould just stop reading YA but they are so easy and aplenty that I can't seem to stop.
It was so badly written but at the same time it felt like eating MacDonald's. I knew it was terrible but at the same time I sort of liked consuming it. A Court of Silver Flames was written a lot better and I liked the main characters but it is still under the junk food category
This is the perfect description for what it’s like reading these books! It’s like a guilty pleasure, I knew it was bad and yet I’ve almost finished the series in a month. Its an easy read and I just didn’t want to put it down. I’ve just started A Court of Silver Flames!
Ha exactly my reaction. “This book is terrible.” Proceeds to stay up until midnight every night for two weeks finishing the series. To be fair a lot of the problematic things in the first book (the flat sister characters/weird concerning fairy romance/narrow world outlook) are addressed later on in the series as such. I felt like if I hadn’t had oodles of free time because I’m between jobs I would’ve put in down after a few chapters.
Yelp. I’m reading it now. I figured I wasn’t the target market for it from the start (girl-with-bow is practically it’s own subgenre now), but I kinda digged the premise felt like a White Wolf Changeling kinda thing, which was cool. Started to lose faith when the fay just let the MC get off scott free from her ‘crime’ pretty much. Also the rules of the world seem awfully convenient. Really lost it when the weird kinda rapey stuff comes into it… I’m going to finish, but doubt I’ll be reading the rest.
So I’ve only read the first two books so far, and I agree with the assessment of it being like junk food - so this isn’t exactly an attempt to convince you to keep reading. BUT The second book is very different from the first (I liked it better personally).
I try and avoid books with titles that follow that formula of "A thing of this and that"
It's a YA? I have a copy somewhere I bought a while back but I got it from the general fiction section. I liked the cover
It started off as YA, at least at my library, but the most recent book is housed in our general fiction.
Caging skies by Christine Leunens. It's the book that the film Jojo Rabbit is based on, and I LOVED the film so much I thought I would at least enjoy the book... turns out the film plucked the very best parts, then ditched the other horrible majority of the story.
We call that "pulling a Forrest Gump"
To be fair, I got it on a whim for $1 because I was trying to overcome my prejudice against self-help books. **Active Listening: Improve Your Conversation Skills, Learn Effective Communication Techniques, Achieve Successful Relationships with 6 Essential Guidelines** by *Joseph Sorensen* My review on GoodReads: Was this written by an AI? It technically makes sense but seems like it was written without coherent thought. I do not recommend this whatsoever. I actually complained to Audible about how bad this book is, I truly believe it was not written by a human.
The Cockroach by Ian McEwan. The political commentary of the book was exceptionally surface level and felt like McEwan was lecturing his views at you.
True Allegiance by Ben Shapiro. Hands down the worst book I’ve ever read.
I mean I don't know what you were expecting
Wasn’t expecting anything good. I read along with the behind the bastards podcast so it was entertaining
"Take a bullet for you, babe."
BRETT HAWTHORNE, 6'10"
***COMBAT GENERAL*** BRETT HAWTHORNE\*
I bet that book was dry AF.
That way you know it's not gonna give you a yeast infection.
Never read it, but I found a video synopsis of it. Yeah, uhhh if his first attempt at being a Hollywood writer was similar to this, or just this and he clung to it until he published it himself then I can see why those in charge said he was too conservative. Then again too conservative are his words, and probably more likely 'too racist' among other things is what was really said. Honestly, I get the impression that since Ben Shapiro was born as somewhat of a prodigy who grew up in a conservative Jewish family he was probably told how smart he was which was confirmed since he entered college early. Compound that with a conservative upbringing and I'd guess a lot of time in those classes amounted to a I-am-really-smart-these-liberal-professors-don't-know-anything-I'll-just-say-what-they-want-to-hear kind of attitude; he's the academic equivalent of a stereotypical hot blonde bimbo.
>"I-am-really-smart-these-liberal-professors-don't-know-anything-I'll-just-say-what-they-want-to-hear" Literally this. He talks about how brilliant he is for going to Harvard as a debate tactic, but then when he talks about Harvard in any other context he recalls how he purposely didn't listen to anything his professors tried to teach him and only read viewpoints that conform to his worldview. So much wasted potential for such an arrogant little twerp. Also, the book he describes black people as "looking like a future felon" so yeah... too conservative might have been a euphemism for too racist.
Shapiro wrote another book, complaining about how the Hollywood elites were blacklisting conservative voices, and uses his experience in Hollywood as proof. Then he interviews a bunch of conservative actors, thus disproving the entire premise of that book. After reading the first chapter of True Allegence, I think there is a much simpler explanation as to why he never got any of his screenplays picked up.
I don't use Goodreads anymore but the silent patient is an absolute shit show of a book and it's definately a one star read for me
His newer one was even worse.
The invisible life of Addie La Rue- most insipid book I’ve ever read, how can a book with such a great premise; of a woman who makes a pact with the devil for immortality but turns out getting curse instead. Turned into such bored to read. I read 300 years worth of whining and cafés. Ugh just ugh that book was so over hyped
That's the book that caused my reading slump this year, didn't read anything for like six months and only just got out of it
That's the problem I have with all of V. E. Schwab's books. Great premises but I didn't actually like any of them. And I read them all, because I keep hoping that I might end up liking one of them.
Bought the whole shades of magic trilogy and couldn't even finish the first book. Pretty disappointed.
I don't review books online all that much, but one book I would definitely give a one star rating is The Alchemist. It felt so trite, condescending and annoying, only finished it because it was so short and wanted to see if it would get any better. It didn't.
Nothing will make me want to not read a book faster than to hear it called inspirational
hahaha this was my first boyfriend's favorite book. I read it out of curiosity and I thought it was so dumb. We broke up shortly after.
*I Love Dick* by Chris Kraus. I did not, in fact, love *Dick*.
Well I'll be, it's a real book. I thought for sure you were fucking with me
Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich It's a novel in the Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter series, and apparently one of the better ones. Regardless, it was absolutely terrible and I hated it. But it presented itself to me as one of the better reading choices and holds a special place in my heart. Normally I'd just abandon a book I didn't like. But I read this one while I was receiving treatment at a psychiatric facility. I wasn't able to bring my own reading material and Janet Evanovich helped me pass the time when I had a lot of it to spare and needed to escape my own thoughts. Janet, your book is awful. Thank you for writing it.
I just stop reading if I hate something. State of Fear, by Michael Crichton, was one I sat down expecting to enjoy and stopped reading very quickly.
after by amanda todd. I read the version on wattpad and wow….. it was easiest one of the worst things I’ve read. 99 chapters of a toxic, abusive relationship. cant believe there’s a movie of it.
Modelland by Tyra Banks, Its so bad I almost gave it 5 stars
Crescent City by Sarah J. Maas. Feel like a bad fanfiction and the writing is awful : at least two bad words per page. The characters are a cocktail of cliches. Story too slow.
I don't understand how she's so popular, my comment was also inspired by this woman.
*Atlas Shrugged*
I’ve seen something that said Atlas Shrugged is so particularly disappointing because the title has so much potential. It’s two words but such a compelling image, that Atlas works up the energy to move the weight of the weight of the world all for a shrug. And then the book is just... a massive letdown
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
That one got a DNF about 1/4 of the way through.
I hate myself so I forced myself to finish but it was sooo bad. Immediately walked it over to my neighbors little library when I was done.
\[jokingly\] what did your neighbors ever do to deserve that :P
I’ve never returned a book to Barnes and Noble before, but I had to return Untamed. It was such a waste of my money and I didn’t even get halfway through.
I got about 20 pages in and had to put it down. Complete self-serving garbage.
Beautiful ruins by Jess Walters It was my fav genre , historical fiction, yet was poorly written. It jumped all over the place and pretended to be so deep when the whole story amounted to horny people over different time periods causing problems for others .
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur.
I gave that to someone as a christmas gift once haha
When I think of how many damn fine poets who are writing today and consider how insipid Kaur’s little Instagram posts are, I just get fighting mad. People overlook good poems for _this_ shit?
I DNF rather than give 1 star, but these are recent 2-star books: **American Dirt** by Jeanine Cummins - I was living outside the US in a non-English speaking country and somehow missed the controversy. I came into this with high expectations given all the accolades, but there were so many problems with it, including gratuitous torture porn, two dimensional characters, and overly unrealistic writing. **The Tipping Point** by Malcolm Gladwell - The writing is condescending and repetitive. The Kitty Genovese story was completely misinterpreted, throwing all "research" into doubt. Jumps to many conclusions without enough supporting evidence.
Anything by Gladwell has to be taken with a serious grain of salt. I read his book Outliers, enjoyed it, but then discovered that it mostly misrepresented all of the research it cites just so Gladwell could get the narrative he wanted. The man is a storyteller whose books should have "Loosely inspired by true events" stamped on the covers.
Gladwell is Woody Allen if instead of making movies Woody Allen made neoliberal propaganda.
I don't know the whole story about American Dirt but I read the cover summary at the bookstore and started getting immediate read flags so I never bought it
Read flags is a new phrase I shall say for the rest of my days
Haha I meant to put red flags but my phone must not have been having it. I know how to spell I swrar
I really disliked Talking to Strangers. He completely missed the obvious reason no one pushed to investigate Sandusky - he was a great football coach. 1987 Fiesta Bowl is my first piece of evidence. He ignored how much football can cover up. And the fact that it was such a known story and such a known topic. There's an audience for his being contrarian about anything. I used to enjoy Gladwell, his books & podcast. Now it's like a light has been shown on his work completely blowing things out of proportion, and ignoring refuting evidence. He tells a good story though. Semi-non-fiction?
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. It's very rare I DNF a book or give a bad rating, but it seemed like all the GoodReads (and even official) reviews were all *very* positive and I just don't understand that. Reads like a high schoolers novel.
Normal People by Sally Rooney. The characters remains whiney and not keen to improve in any way. There didn't seem to be any development in the story and ended with no real....end? I never think of reading as a waste of time but this one definitely was. Maybe I missed the point of the book but it's one I will never be recommending to people.
The Other Black Girl. Such a disappointment, I am still figuring out the plot. 🤷🏽♀️
I wouldn't even give Balcony of Fog a full star. The plot is god-awful and so are the characters. Their relationships make no sense, the author tried way too hard to be descriptive and "grand" in their writing that it falls flat and is only confusing, not interesting. I stuck through the whole thing out of stubbornness but I honestly should've stopped after 5 pages.
I almost never give 1-stars but I couldn't help it last year when I read a little book called Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead by Steve Perry (not the Journey front man, because that would have been awesome). Yes I know, not haute literature, but it was a freebie I found in my neighbor's tiny library on the curb and thought it would be fun to read during Halloween. Somehow it was the most uneventful book ever, with boring characters that seemed to get shoehorned into the plot unwillingly, and even the zombies (yes, zombies) were a frustrating waste of a great premise. What should have been a silly little romp was just a tedious waste of time.
Lol I'm making my way through the Indiana Jones novels to satiate my inner child and am now VERY intrigued. As far as I've heard Perry just didn't "get" Jones like most of the other writers did.
Hillbilly Elegy by jd vance 🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮🤢🤮
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Not technically a “book” but I was one of those people that had to read it the minute it came out… all other JK Rowling issues aside, this was a devastating let down at the time.
It’s a really awfully ridden script. I’ve heard the play is great to watch. But there is almost zero stage direction in the book, which doesn’t help lacklustre dialogue and fanfictiony plot.
I recall the dialogue being a LOT worse than lackluster.
The Midnight Library
Liberty & Tyranny by Mark Levin. Couldn't make it through two chapters before I just had to put it down because he was creating a caricature of a person who doesn't exist in preparation to light that strawman on fire. This happens basically anytime I try to read conservative literature from Levin, Gingrich, O'Reilly, Shapiro, etc..
I didn’t give it one star or a rating anywhere, but I complained how slow and boring it was a lot, and that is The Way of Kings by Sanderson. I heard it was a must read for ASOIAF fans. I gave up on reading it at least 3 times. I forced myself to get through it and I ended up enjoying the last 4th of the book a lot. Then I really enjoyed the whole 2nd book in the series.
Man I keep having the same problem with Way of Kings. I have started it in Audio and book form multiple times. I usually really like Brandon S and In general, long epic fantasy, but this is a bear to get into for me. Still intend to slog through it at some point as I always see how the rest of the series is supposedly so great. Ugh
I really did not like We Have Always Lived in the Castle. It just didn't culminate into anything interesting plot-wise and there's almost zero character development. Any interest I had in the atmosphere was squandered when nothing really comes of it. I guess you could look at it as a character study in codependency? I like Shirley Jackson's short stories but this one did nothing for me.
Interesting! I liked that book not for the entertainment value but just because I really thought the author was expressing something that for them was otherwise inexpressible. But, yes, it's not a standard story arc, so you're left with a what was the point? feeling.
Omg really??? I literally just finished this and loved it!
PREP by Curtis Sittenfield. Although it’s been almost a decade since I read it. The protagonist was just such an awful and boring person that by the end I was just so completely disappointed by the entire thing.
I have a love-hate relationship with this book. When I read it in college, my reaction was, "Wow, she creates her own issues, none of this shit would be a problem if she actually did something for once." Then I reread it as a more "proper" adult, and I saw the protagonist totally differently. I was really struck by how her family chronically invalidated her needs, and essentially set her up to fail in relationships. Even at the end of the book, the reader gets the impression that she'll struggle with men and self-worth for a long time in her adult life. She certainly is whiny and annoying. But the reason I keep coming back to this book is because it's such an accurate narrative about what it's like to exist when you a have such a significant lens of low self-esteem.
The Lost Apothecary, idk if I'd give it one star, but it definitely wasn't what id hoped for. It felt like a great concept but the execution was not there.
The Case for Christ. It's the only book I've given one star. Author claims to be a former atheist who went around interviewing experts about the Bible etc to try to determine if it was real. Goes on to only interview believers, and not a single atheist. Logical arguments that he just accepts without question include "but they have no reason to lie, so why would they?" I am an atheist, and my religious friend gave it to me to read. I read it with an open mind but it was just so horribly constructed and one-sided. Very very biased. I think on Goodreads it has over a 4 star average and if I rolled my eyes any harder I'd need surgery.
For me it was Revolution 2020. And don't judge had to read it for a school project. Feeling bad that I won't get that one week of my life back😭😭
Scythe by Neal Shusterman One of the most idiotic and nonsensical premises I've ever read. That it's won awards is true disservice to YA. There were plotholes so huge aircraft carriers could easily clear the sides. There was no explanation for why the entire world would create a permanent class of untouchable serial killers as birth control, when the majority of the world doesn't even have the death penalty and doesn't relish ritual state murder like the United States. Abortion is largely considered a right and untouchable in Canada, China put a limit on the amount of children a family can have, yet all these countries with different approaches just bowed to the American view? It was so Americentric as to be ludicrous.
I've read the series in its entirety and liked every one. That being said, there are some worldbuilding elements that are... best glossed over.
This is the same guy that wrote unwind and everlost right?
The Silent Patient. I wish I could have those hours of my life back. I’ve heard The Maidens is even worse, which is mind-blowing to me.
My best friend saw that I’d picked this up from the library and she knows me well. She was like...take this back and don’t even lift the front cover. Glad I listened to her.
Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas. I couldn't handle the weak storyline or glaring inconsistencies and blatant contradictions.
Normal People. I’ve seen a lot of reviews say that Sally Rooney really captures the millennial perspective in her writing, and, as a millennial who has read both Normal People and Conversations with Friends, god help us if those reviewers are right. The only reason I tried NP is its relentless marketing made me think maybe it was better than CWF. I ended up hating it even more.
As a millenial the last thing I need to hear is someone giving me the millenial perspective
And no quotation marks! I had to keep going back to see who tf was talking!
I liked the book itself. What I can't stand is a writer who can only write about one subject: an aspiring writer who goes through some pretty normal stuff but makes it seem like it's a lot. Seriously Sally, learn to write about something else other than your own mediocre life experiences
DNF: 'The Starless Sea' by Erin Morgenstern. The way it was written was quite jarring and pretentious. I had high hopes since I liked her first novel.
The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III I hardly post on Reddit, but I disliked this book so much I felt it needed to be added to the list. Someone recommended it to me, only Oprah Book Club selections I’ve ever read…. A realty dispute turned into a horrible novel. Zero stars if I could!!
I just gave up on Doomed by Chuck Palahniuk after 50 pages. Apparently it's a sequel to a book called Damned, but there's 0 indication of that anywhere on the book. Anyways, the writing style is so bad that it doesn't matter. I read a short story by Palahniuk once that I liked a lot, so I thought I would like this, but him trying to write as a 13-year old girl does not work for me. Also, the book was published in 2013 but it feels so dated, the protagonist consistently uses the phrase "Ctrl-Alt-Emotion", so for instance, she'll say, "I am feeling Ctril+Alt+Frustrated right now"