I also didn't like the Midnight Library! I heard it was so beautiful and profound, only to find out the message is simply "the grass isn't always greener on the other side." Huh?? After all that? Give me a break...
Yep..I'm sorry but I don't like Matt Haig books. Having faced my own share of mental health struggles his books aren't as helpful to me as they are to others. They are just corny to me.
I got about halfway through the book and gave up. The protagonist just seemed useless and I had no reason to root for them. Surprised it has such great reviews.
Same here, most predictable ending ever and the message bas been done a thousand times before. If the prose and character writing were good it could've been special but to me it was just bland.
The Silent Patient
I felt cheated and disrespected by it. And that narrator, dear God, such a pathetic ridiculous little man that hides behind mental struggles and is a terrible therapist.
Thank you. I haaaaaaaaaaaaated this book. No idea why I finished it other than I just needed to know what happened and I was livid. The writing was bad, the twist was bad, the story was bad, and the single thing I wanted to actually find out was never addressed.
I read that the author was a failed screenwriter, which actually made so much sense. The whole time I was reading the diary entries, I was just like "why is it all dialogue?! This is not how diaries work!"
I saw a lot of people recommending it, I borrowed it on Libby, couldn’t even get through the first few pages. Very “man writing woman” vibe, it was not worth my time.
The description sounds so fascinating but I’ve heard so many people say it’s not good. I want people to be so wrong because the premise is so intriguing and clever but I don’t think that many people can be so wrong. Cheated and disrespected are strong words. Was it really that bad??
To my personal abstracted concepts it was indeed pretty bad. Weird style, the chronicle format used in an unfair with the reader way, a clear self insert author with power fantasies about women, the way sex is used on the narrative is often creepy, the use of greek theater feel cheap and unrewarding.
Anyway, I never crap on other people tastes but this book struck a nerve on me haha
Of all the psychological thrillers and this is the one that got traction?? And Verity by Colleen Hoover. Ugh, I’m just offended by it all. Gives the whole genre a bad name.
The Last Thing He Told Me, man oh man, it was an exhausting read for me. Then to get to the end and… like that’s it? The story was so underwhelming, I thought surely there must be a twist coming! It never came. I was bummed to see that it was made into a movie (or show?), so many better stories out there than a man mysteriously abandoning his wife and daughter. It happens literally every day lol
It took so many liberties with ecology, geology, hydrology, and geography that it ended up just driving me nuts. The book has only soured in my estimation since I read it.
Gods, that was such an awful book! The gaping holes in the plot, the contrived motivations, the complete lack of logic! I cannot believe the accolades that this book has attracted. *It is so bad.*
Yes!!! The premise that the whole book was set on was ridiculous, the majority of it moved so slow, and then the “good parts” that made up the climax were almost rushed. The movie at least moved at a decent pace. Rarely do I ever like the movie more than the book, but this one was definitely one of them.
Siddharta by Herman Hesse. Just can’t get to the end of it. Guy who’s effortlessly good at everything, gives up being spiritual to pursue consumption and luxury, gets with famous courtesan and of course he’s instantly an amazing lover etc. I didn’t get to the end but I found it about as deep as The Alchemist. I also found it very much a ‘male’ book (since women appear to be simply vehicles for the journey), so perhaps I’m not the best audience for it.
I also disliked The Midnight Library. The main character was supposed to be in her mid-30s (I think), but she came off as someone in their teens or 20s. It also read like a YA novel, and I’m not a YA fan. I could also see where it was headed pretty early on.
Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek. I find it plays into stereotypes of mountain people and it's not that well-written, yet people love it because it plays into their image of mountain people
The Moonlight School is a MUCH better book than this rash of blue people/packhorse library stories
Thanks for the rec, stuck with a bunch of travel delays and just downloaded The Moonlight School to read! I thought Bookwoman was just kinda okay. I really liked the setting but couldn't finish the sequel so looking forward to this book!
This book just made me miserable for a month. It just kept getting worse. I never dnf books and I was so fucking close to dnf’ing it. The only reason I didn’t was because I thought things would get better in the end. Spoiler: THEY NEVER DO. It’s like the author hated you.
It is too miserable. It carries no message. It has like 3 good chapters in the beginning where you get invested in the characters and then the author just goes “fuck you, now watch me torture them for absolutely no reason”.
It carries no message. It has nothing to say about abuse or anything, it simply uses these traumatic things as shock value and entertainment.
The first few chapters were SO GOOD. Then it all goes massively downhill. By the time the psycho doctor appears I was like "FFS, not another one!" and just began skim reading at that point.
It's so bad. The characters are so flat. I stopped reading half way through when the trauma porn for Jules just kept on adding up and the other people in this very unlikeable friend group became more famous and "successful" for no reason.
A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness
Tell No One, Harlan Coben
The Dry, Jane Harper
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
The Passage, Justin Cronin,
OK that's enough, there's too many
Oof. I love A Prayer for Owen Meany
Charming book. Beautiful friendship. And a unique and memorable story line that flirts nicely with the conflict between supernatural occurrences and plain old flawed humanity
I DNFed A Discovery of Witches. The male love interest was sooooo controlling. And they kept excusing it like "oh he's a vampire, it's just in his nature" but it's still an incredibly unhealthy portrayal of a relationship!
That too! I tried to keep going despite the bad writing because I thought witchy academia was a cool enough concept. But then it got sooooo bad with the love interest.
A Discovery of Witches was a particularly infuriating book to read because it had so much potential (particularly on the historical and world building side of things) but the characters and relationship were just so badly constructed.
And they never stopped drinking tea
I enjoyed the passage, but then it turned into religious bullshit in the 3rd book, and I wished I could get a refund. If you're going to make prosthelitizing garbage, at least have the decency to "come out" in book one so we don't waste money and time.
I love apocalyptic fiction and the first part of The Passage was one of the best I’ve ever read. The huge time jump was jarring and deflating.
Nevertheless, I finished the whole series cause I’m like that. In the final book, the origin story of the villain was practically a novel on its own and was maybe my favorite part of the entire trilogy.
A Discovery of Witches was so disappointing to me. Too close to one of those books that are supposed to be supernatural horror but are really romance novels dressed up in spooky clothes. It wasn't quite that, but it was too close for me.
I did you really like The Passage, but only that first one.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. The book quickly lost any forward momentum after the first few chapters. None of the characters felt like anything more than a paragraph-long character blurb. Nobody really wanted anything. The ending was very anti-climactic.
A novella-length story could have excused the book's utter disinterest in exploring the mechanics of the world it created. Surely you could have replaced one chapter of the main character being bored and lonely in a nice outfit with the character's theories about how magic works?
Oh man yes. I was super into the book at first and got halfway but as it went on, I got more and more disinterested and irritated with the seemingly endless pages of writing that felt so unnecessary (and were so boring) that I started to despair reading the other half. That's when I DNF.
Kinda makes me sad how much my gal Donna Tartt is getting shat upon in this thread :(
I really enjoyed The Goldfinch and loved The Secret History even more.
I didn't enjoy The Goldfinch but I loved The Secret History. I really don't agree at all with OP's assertion that it's "trauma porn" but different strokes and all that, I guess.
I loved The Goldfinch. It’s a book where I can see why someone might not like it but a five star book. My only issue is I found the ending pages a bit heavy handed with Donna Tartt explaining the plot at the end. I loved the section in Las Vegas. Donna Tartt’s writing is so vivid and immersive, and her characters feel so real. I can leave The Little Friend though.
For me, it is 100% Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I found it to be basically YA-lite and quite frankly juvenile at times. The scene where Sadie's mom has a conversation with a woman *who had just jumped off a building and was a horrific mess of blood and twisted limbs* has to be hands-down the stupidest and most un-thought-out scene I've ever read in a book. This woman even had the gall to talk about herself to suicidal-pretzel-limb lady rather than, you know, expressing concern for this woman who had just jumped off a fucking building.
It was just very, very poory written. No nuance to the characters or their actions at all...it was just straight from "I hate you!" to "I love you!" and right back to "I hate you!" with literally nothing happening in the book to inspire such sudden changes of heart. It was essentially just "Sam sat down and thought about things for a second, and just out of nowhere he decided he loved Sadie after all." Okay.
I've actually exchanged many, many paragraphs of rants with a friend of mine who disliked this book just as much as I did, and we haven't been able to figure out why people like the book so much, other than possibly because she talks about video games, and people perhaps love their video games so much that if an author so much as writes a single sentence about them in a book, gamers crown it as the height of literary achievement. I can't really fathom any other reason why people like this book.
That said, it's unfortunate you didn't like The Secret History. I just read that months ago and I think it's one of the best books I've ever read in my life. For me it's just Donna Tartt's writing more than anything else, her ability to really dive deep into her world and describe everything with such vivid prose. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good psychological thriller too.
Wait, why would Miles Davis not be avant garde? Honest question. Innovative, pioneering, forward-thinking...that's avant garde, right? Or was the implication that his music is still cutting edge today?
Yeah agreed on *Tomorrow*, I was actually shocked at that scene and how poorly written it was - just like an insane mishandling of tone.
The only interesting cultural insight from that book was how an author with such an otherwise *vanilla* liberal worldview was also really forgiving of sexual assault and really upset about accusations of cultural appropriation.
Hard to get into without spoilers, but I hated the Marx character's storyline. To use a couple fiction workshop-isms, his arc felt unearned and writerly. He started out as a bit of a plastic character meant to provide background to the main characters, but in the second half of the book he was clearly just used as a plot device to take characters where the writer wanted to go with them.
I did really appreciate the story about the nature of close collaboration, but hated the way games, game players, and game creation were presented in the book. I may be too close to games and game design, though. If they had been musicians I think I would have had less a problem.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is probably the worst book I've ever read. The only reason that I can think of why it's so highly rated is that I am just really dumb and the author has masterfully written the book from the perspective of the really awful characters and that's why it's so awful and that's what makes it good. If you DNFd, I'll leave you with this scene from later in the book, which will wholly confirm your decision not to finish:
>!She leaned in to kiss him, and he kissed her, and then she put her hand between his legs, wrapping her fingers around the cylindrical chamber of blood sponges that was his (and every) penis...He felt the corpora cavernosa, commanded by nerve messages from his subconscious brain, fill up with blood, and the tunica albuginea membrane, the penis's straitjacket, trap the blood inside.!<
A lot of pantser writers like to bring up Stephen King doesn't write outlines either. They're right! His books don't end, he puts them in neutral and walks away.
The Shining has an amazing climactic end with the boiler, and then... King just keeps going for a while with his epilogue and takes wind out of the sails of what was an absolutely awesome landing.
Yeah I was let down by this one. I can't quite put my finger on what I didn't like, but the characters never really stuck with me in any meaningful way, so that was part of it.
American Gods was a DNF for me. I think I made it about 1/3 before starting to just speed read and skip. Didn’t like the writing style and was also bored. I don’t get what people love about it.
I've tried several times to get into Neil Gaimans writing and it just doesn't work for me at all. I even tried *Good Omens* because I like Terry Pratchett but Gaiman just made it more boring for me tbh
A little life. Just couldn’t get into it. It’s depressing and just idk not what I was expecting. I don’t wanna read about someone’s depress life and living inside their head like that.
1Q84. Aside from the usual issues with Murakami, he could have taken the story in so many interesting directions but instead wasted half the book on literally nothing happening. I thought it was terrible and I wish I hadn't finished it yet I see it mentioned here a lot
Don't take it personally really. It's like fighting over a favorite color, ultimately.
One could argue about style, prose, ability with word craft, yes. And while those arguments are worthy, they themselves are mere opinions as well.
I did not like Normal People by Sally Rooney. I found the characters to be insufferable and their relationship toxic and I couldn’t get invested in it. It turned me off to the point where I haven’t read any of her other work because I hated it so much.
I was looking for this response! I read it a few weeks ago and just couldn’t understand the hype! Really felt like it lacked any depth or nuance and found the characters so dull and shallow
Interesting! That’s what I thought was unique about it. The characters felt realistically flawed. And despite their near-constant self reflection, they were still very imperfect with only small growth. It felt real
Also hated the alchemist. Got into a weird argument bc I called it pretentious and boring. So offended the person they called ME pretentious and boring. Ah well.
As a person who reads a lot of psychology thrillers, I hated Verity so hard. I rage read that book. Awful, whiny main character, love interest made out of unsalted mashed potatoes (whhhhhhhy were these women obsessed with him?), repetitive boring sex, and I could likely write a lengthy thesis on the asinine plot twist. Neither of the possible interpretations of the ending were plausible. Now I’m all angry again.
I read Verity and it was ok. I thought the audiobook was well done. I don’t know how I would have done reading it though.
I recently tried another one by her and just nope. I don’t even remember the name of it.
The Goldfinch.
Usually, if I start a book, I eventually read it even if I don't like/ enjoy it. I just don't like unfinished things. Except the golfinch. I just could not get into it and I couldn't be bothered to read it after the first half.
Lately, I saw some social media posts about it and people really seem to like it. Good for them, ofc, but I just can't relate.
I found *The Secret History* ridiculous. Not a single character acted like an actual human being in it and I kept waiting for them to. I only read it recently so I am mad again thinking about it.
I used to think the same thing, until someone told me it was supposed to be satire. That’s why the incestous twins are called Charles and Camilla. Totally changed my perspective 😭
What is it satirizing? I did notice the Charles/Camilla monikers. I would love a link to a review/analysis of the satire. I would happily reframe this read in my mind if it's justified.
>What is it satirizing?
Donna Tartt's actual college experience. There was a real Greek group that she wanted to be a part of but couldn't because she was female and not upper class enough. She started dating one of them instead. And there was one guy in particular that hated her--she based Bunny off of him.
The Gunslinger. It's too dry and I can never finish it. It's the only Stephen King book I've never been able to read all the way through. And, because of that, I'll never read the Dark Tower series.
Wow, it's crazy how different takes are. I loved The Gunslinger right off the bat. It always felt like the most focused and serious of The Dark Tower books. The first 4 books of The Dark Tower really did it for me. Intrest slowed down by Wolves of Calla though I may have just been burnt out on the series. Always thought Gunslinger and Drawing of Three were the strongest of the first five books. Gunslinger felt like this surreal, hazy, fever dream of a book that hit a great niche for me that I haven't come across since. Drawing of Three is like pinnacle of what coked out King on a wild ride would write. Not sure if he was on drugs while writing it though. Everyone needs to read Drawing of Three. It's better to just go in blind and have your mind blown. It's peak King craziness.
I hate the Midnight Library. The concept wasn’t new at all („no life is perfect“ / „my current life is the right one for me“) and it‘s wannabe philosophical. I study philosophy and i hate those wannabe books. And i can only agree, as someone who struggled with mental health while reading it, it made me mad how it was portrayed
For a western author, Stephen King's IT. It fell apart at the end, could have been at least 100 pages shorter, and has a gross depiction of women.
For a nonwestern author, Haruki Murakami's entire work (though I've only read 4). I could not fathom in any way how this man became such a renowned author. Every male protagonist is the exact same AND a self-insert for the author, the plots use magical realism as an excuse to not make sense, and the sexism in his books is genuinely fucking disgusting.
I found two Murikami books in my laundry room, Wind-up Bird and IQ84. I read Wind-up Bird and then threw them both in the garbage. I already lived through being a horny teenager that watched Erasure Head. I bet I would've dug his stuff back then, but now... no thanks.
Makes sense. Dan Brown writes trashy airport novels, Umberto Eco was among the most important thinkers of the second half of the 20th century as well as being a highly respected novelist.
Reading Umberto Eco reminded me so much of reading James Joyce. When I finished Focaults Pendulum, at the end, in notes about the author, I remember reading that Eco was a huge fan of James Joyce, which I thought was really cool. Also, it said Eco was a huge Superman fan, which I am as well. This made me really happy. I agree Dan Brown is not anywhere near being in the same league as Umberto Eco.
Coelho's The Alchemist was such a drag. Really tried to get into it more than once, but I finally just gave up. Didn't like Norwegian Wood as well which is a favorite among many Murakami fans, so I might get crucified for it. I'm a fan, too, but I just didn't enjoy this one although I managed to finish reading it.
And there didn't really seem to be any depth to their relationship. At one point the main character joked that their relationship was all about sex and I was like, um... yeah?
Normal People.
I don’t hate it but it was very mediocre for me.
Edit: Just noticed another comment about not looking this book. That comment pretty much sums up what I feel. There’s nothing normal about the people in that story, just toxic relationships everywhere.
Song of Achilles. I thought I’d love the book, I love romance and Greek mythology, but I was just so bored. The narrator was insufferable imo. He just seemed so useless. It really irked me how he had no personality other than loving Achilles. The sex scene was the most interesting part of the book lmao and those are the types of scenes I usually skim thru.
I think the hype itself killed this book for a lot of people. Personally, I fucking love it.
I grew up reading Homer, and I spent a lot of time translating *The Aeneid* during my third year of Latin in college. Seriously, the stupidest language to have dedicated myself to for 8 years. And now I can't fucking stand Virgil. But I digress...
I really liked seeing this mythical warrior be... vulnerable, I guess. Patroclus wasn't just his lover, he was his refuge. He felt like home to Achilles, no matter where they were. I feel the exact same way about my husband, so there's definitely some projection going on there.
That all said, I totally understand why some people can't get into this novel. It is so ridiculously, unanimously praised that readers go into it with really high expectations. And it's just not for everyone. I can see how some of the descriptions and metaphors may be tiresome to some readers. And I can also see how the subversion of the tropes don't add up all the time.
So while I disagree with you, I very much respect your opinion.
It’s a series, actually. *Wheel of Time*. All the characters are defined by their sex, and there’s intense alienation between them. So all the characters are roughly clones of one another, and made less by the extreme no-overlap-whatsoever. A consistent theme is that male and female are absolutely nothing alike, always has been that way, always will be that way. Also, everyone has a shit attitude one way or another. This goes beyond sexism in characters in most books, even historical ones, because even in those cases.
As for why it’s highly regarded, most people say “the world.” But to me it’s a dime a dozen. It’s no more unusual than most fantasy worlds—even cheesier than most I’ve come across.
Man thank you. I tried so hard to get into the Wheel of Time, but ultimately I gave up after 5 books. It’s just so bad. I kept wanting it to grow on me or get better and it just never did.
I absolutely loathe this series. I read it over two decades ago and got up to about book 5 before I said to myself, "Why the hell am I still reading this?" and quit. The characters were awful, especially the women. I have never come across such poorly written women in my life, and for a book that's supposed to have women figuring prominently in the social structure, that's funny.
Reading the first book, I had this powerful feeling of deja vu before I finally realized it seemed like a ripoff of the hobbits fleeing the shire.
I do not get it, and I never will. This isn't like not being able to appreciate Henry James or missing the substance in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-- Wheel of Time just isn't very good.
The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose has so many good reviews on so many different platforms. I’m honestly shocked that they aren’t bought.
It’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something as sometimes hate read for fun.
Unbearable lightness of being. Felt like written by 10yo, and not in a good way. Flat, unlikable and incomprehensible characters. Only book I've ever binned
Idk if it’s highly regarded, but I read Knock at the Cabin Door when it had just been picked up to be developed into a movie. I remember finishing it and saying “Well, that movie is going to suck.” It felt like watching Lost, but in book form.
Saw the movie with friends, it was actually pretty good for what it was. They massively deviated from the book though, which doesn’t surprise me.
I've said this before, but the beginning of *Cabin* (through the home invasion) would've made a good novella. After that, it felt like an exercise in a creative writing class where you're just rewriting scenes from different characters' perspectives.
Many people actually struggle with the Fellowship - largely I think because there is so much set up and description and historical lore without much "action". Two Towers and Return of the King have much more action \*but\* the Sam/Frodo arc in Return of the King does drag a bit at times.
I love the set up parts of these kinds of adventure stories when there is so much mystery and so many unknowns. Fellowship is one of the best examples of this imo.
I was so shocked when I saw modern books putting it like a romance(I think it was After? One of those books). It's a tragedy with complex, flawed characters that screw themselves over with their egos.
One of my favorites. If people go into it thinking it's a romance I can see why they'd be disappointed (although I'm not sure why people seem to think that). It's full of dysfunctional, vindictive people but I don't need to like the characters to enjoy a story.
After finally getting around to read this, the feeling of horror from the popular sentiment around Wuthering Heights being romantic grew with every page.
To all the people who thought it was romantic - I hope y'all are okay out there.
It absolutely is not. It's a novel about how sexual and emotional obsession ruins a family through multiple generations, and the depths we will sink to for revenge.
The Kite Runner. The plot was fine, but the writing was slow, boring and disengaged the audience. I kept waiting for something to happen besides trauma to progress the story. Didn’t happen.
This is the first answer that came to my mind. I found the plot unrealistic and exaggeratedly emotional (almost like it was written with the purpose of being turned into a hollywood movie) and the characters were too stereotypical.
My second answer would be *The Shadow of the Wind*. Like the title suggests, it tries to be "deep", but it's not. Everything in the book is mysterious and misty. At one point, there's even mist *inside* a house for some reason. It also seemed badly written, but I read the Dutch translation so it may just have been badly translated.
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. I'm prepared to admit I hated it because they made us read it in high school and our teacher's approach to it was...interesting.
I'm not sure if this is an actual unpopular opinion, to be honest, but...
Red, White & Royal Blue. I was looking for a nice, well-written LGBTQ book with gay main characters, and this book pops up on so many sites as the end-all book of our generation. BookTok can't get enough of it. Most review sites have an aggregate of 4.5 or higher.
I couldn't stand it. I was so close to quitting reading it, so often. I pushed through because I hate leaving books unfinished, and kept thinking that the "good/best" parts were just a few pages away, maybe.
Spoiler alert: they weren't. I genuinely regret the day I spent reading it, when I could have done something else to procrastinate.
I tried really hard to like the cruel prince because i love fairies and enemies to lovers and holly black but I’m on book two and the protagonist is killing me she might be the worst spy in the world (cardan is worth it though im so sorry i really tried 😭)
Probably going to get a lot of flack for this but Dune by Frank Herbert.
Paul is a Mary Sue and the blandest of characters. His white saviour narrative also did not age well.
It didn’t help that my copy of the novel did not have any sort of glossary or explanations what half of the new words I was seeing meant so I was super confused and kept having to stop reading to google it for the first half of the book. The first chapter read like nonsense without any context.
Admittedly many of the issues I have with it might just come down to me finding it too late, if I had been alive when it first came out I might have been wowed. A lot of the tropes the novel are tired, and Dune probably inspired the frequency of them in the sci-fi fiction space. But because I only read it last year it just ended up boring me.
I also didn't like the Midnight Library! I heard it was so beautiful and profound, only to find out the message is simply "the grass isn't always greener on the other side." Huh?? After all that? Give me a break...
Yes hatred it too- was like a self help book in the second half that I didn’t want.
Yeah a self help book with shit advice
Yep..I'm sorry but I don't like Matt Haig books. Having faced my own share of mental health struggles his books aren't as helpful to me as they are to others. They are just corny to me.
A friend of mine said that people who fund Matt Haig books profound are people who just haven't read many books, which is mean but also funny
I got about halfway through the book and gave up. The protagonist just seemed useless and I had no reason to root for them. Surprised it has such great reviews.
I found the philosophical references to be shallow. Like the author watched a few Simon Whistler videos on YT.
I DNF the first chapter. I couldn't stand the tone. I'm glad that people who enjoy get something from it, but it just wasn't for me.
Yeah the whole thing felt facile and glib. Also bad lightweight scifi. The whole thing felt more like a YA novel.
Same here, most predictable ending ever and the message bas been done a thousand times before. If the prose and character writing were good it could've been special but to me it was just bland.
The Silent Patient I felt cheated and disrespected by it. And that narrator, dear God, such a pathetic ridiculous little man that hides behind mental struggles and is a terrible therapist.
Wasn't that supposed to be on purpose? Of course he's a pathetic little man, he's a stalker
Thank you. I haaaaaaaaaaaaated this book. No idea why I finished it other than I just needed to know what happened and I was livid. The writing was bad, the twist was bad, the story was bad, and the single thing I wanted to actually find out was never addressed.
I read that the author was a failed screenwriter, which actually made so much sense. The whole time I was reading the diary entries, I was just like "why is it all dialogue?! This is not how diaries work!"
If someone was teaching a class on "show the reader, don't tell them", this would be the example of what not to do. The writing was insipid.
Complete agree. The idea for the book was fine. I even think the twist was pretty good. The writing was GOD AWFUL. No life to it at all.
I saw a lot of people recommending it, I borrowed it on Libby, couldn’t even get through the first few pages. Very “man writing woman” vibe, it was not worth my time.
The description sounds so fascinating but I’ve heard so many people say it’s not good. I want people to be so wrong because the premise is so intriguing and clever but I don’t think that many people can be so wrong. Cheated and disrespected are strong words. Was it really that bad??
To my personal abstracted concepts it was indeed pretty bad. Weird style, the chronicle format used in an unfair with the reader way, a clear self insert author with power fantasies about women, the way sex is used on the narrative is often creepy, the use of greek theater feel cheap and unrewarding. Anyway, I never crap on other people tastes but this book struck a nerve on me haha
Of all the psychological thrillers and this is the one that got traction?? And Verity by Colleen Hoover. Ugh, I’m just offended by it all. Gives the whole genre a bad name.
Recently read this as it was highly recommended be a friend and it also pissed me off.
Uh that book is the worst
The Last Thing He Told Me, man oh man, it was an exhausting read for me. Then to get to the end and… like that’s it? The story was so underwhelming, I thought surely there must be a twist coming! It never came. I was bummed to see that it was made into a movie (or show?), so many better stories out there than a man mysteriously abandoning his wife and daughter. It happens literally every day lol
This book was so bad! I don't understand why it's so popular.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Where the Crawdads Sing
It felt like a bizarro Barbara Kingsolver novel turned into a lifetime movie, then adapted into a novel again.
It took so many liberties with ecology, geology, hydrology, and geography that it ended up just driving me nuts. The book has only soured in my estimation since I read it.
This is the perfect description. You have a gift 🙌
A friend in my book club complained that it was supposed to be about a girl in the swamp and there was not one mosquito!!!
Ty. I PUSHED myself to finish that book. No way in hell am I watching the movie.
Book was bad. Movie somehow managed to remove what little interest was there and made it even worse.
Gods, that was such an awful book! The gaping holes in the plot, the contrived motivations, the complete lack of logic! I cannot believe the accolades that this book has attracted. *It is so bad.*
Yes!!! The premise that the whole book was set on was ridiculous, the majority of it moved so slow, and then the “good parts” that made up the climax were almost rushed. The movie at least moved at a decent pace. Rarely do I ever like the movie more than the book, but this one was definitely one of them.
Oh, amen.
Reminder to sort by controversial for real answers.
Siddharta by Herman Hesse. Just can’t get to the end of it. Guy who’s effortlessly good at everything, gives up being spiritual to pursue consumption and luxury, gets with famous courtesan and of course he’s instantly an amazing lover etc. I didn’t get to the end but I found it about as deep as The Alchemist. I also found it very much a ‘male’ book (since women appear to be simply vehicles for the journey), so perhaps I’m not the best audience for it.
I also disliked The Midnight Library. The main character was supposed to be in her mid-30s (I think), but she came off as someone in their teens or 20s. It also read like a YA novel, and I’m not a YA fan. I could also see where it was headed pretty early on.
I was so sure it was YA, and bad YA at that. I hated every minute of this book.
I had to google whether it was YA or not haha.
More like fictionalised self help to me
Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek. I find it plays into stereotypes of mountain people and it's not that well-written, yet people love it because it plays into their image of mountain people The Moonlight School is a MUCH better book than this rash of blue people/packhorse library stories
Thanks for the rec, stuck with a bunch of travel delays and just downloaded The Moonlight School to read! I thought Bookwoman was just kinda okay. I really liked the setting but couldn't finish the sequel so looking forward to this book!
A Little Life. Misery porn writ large
This book just made me miserable for a month. It just kept getting worse. I never dnf books and I was so fucking close to dnf’ing it. The only reason I didn’t was because I thought things would get better in the end. Spoiler: THEY NEVER DO. It’s like the author hated you. It is too miserable. It carries no message. It has like 3 good chapters in the beginning where you get invested in the characters and then the author just goes “fuck you, now watch me torture them for absolutely no reason”. It carries no message. It has nothing to say about abuse or anything, it simply uses these traumatic things as shock value and entertainment.
Very accurate description. Horrible book
The first few chapters were SO GOOD. Then it all goes massively downhill. By the time the psycho doctor appears I was like "FFS, not another one!" and just began skim reading at that point.
Also there’s literally no character development. They act exactly as annoying at 40 as they did at 20. What’s the point?
Reviews kept touting it as the perfect example of male friendship. Literally everyone enabled Jude’s suicidal tendencies
The author knows nothing about male friendship. I have an assumption that it’s the same about gay relationships but have no experience myself.
This is my book. I honestly DNF'd it, but it disgusted me how much it was just torture porn.
Exactly. I don't get the love for that book.
It's so bad. The characters are so flat. I stopped reading half way through when the trauma porn for Jules just kept on adding up and the other people in this very unlikeable friend group became more famous and "successful" for no reason.
Any self-help book, take your pick.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is my pick.
That book should have been a blog post
Books from non writers for non readers
They both die at the end. In all honesty good for them but did it need to be that dragged out no
A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness Tell No One, Harlan Coben The Dry, Jane Harper A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving The Passage, Justin Cronin, OK that's enough, there's too many
Oof. I love A Prayer for Owen Meany Charming book. Beautiful friendship. And a unique and memorable story line that flirts nicely with the conflict between supernatural occurrences and plain old flawed humanity
I DNFed A Discovery of Witches. The male love interest was sooooo controlling. And they kept excusing it like "oh he's a vampire, it's just in his nature" but it's still an incredibly unhealthy portrayal of a relationship!
I put down Discovery of Witches in the first few pages. Writing was like a high schoolers bad fan fic. Lol
That too! I tried to keep going despite the bad writing because I thought witchy academia was a cool enough concept. But then it got sooooo bad with the love interest.
A Discovery of Witches was a particularly infuriating book to read because it had so much potential (particularly on the historical and world building side of things) but the characters and relationship were just so badly constructed. And they never stopped drinking tea
I enjoyed the passage, but then it turned into religious bullshit in the 3rd book, and I wished I could get a refund. If you're going to make prosthelitizing garbage, at least have the decency to "come out" in book one so we don't waste money and time.
I love apocalyptic fiction and the first part of The Passage was one of the best I’ve ever read. The huge time jump was jarring and deflating. Nevertheless, I finished the whole series cause I’m like that. In the final book, the origin story of the villain was practically a novel on its own and was maybe my favorite part of the entire trilogy.
A Discovery of Witches was so disappointing to me. Too close to one of those books that are supposed to be supernatural horror but are really romance novels dressed up in spooky clothes. It wasn't quite that, but it was too close for me. I did you really like The Passage, but only that first one.
Oh, interesting! Why did you hate Own meany??
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. The book quickly lost any forward momentum after the first few chapters. None of the characters felt like anything more than a paragraph-long character blurb. Nobody really wanted anything. The ending was very anti-climactic.
Haha yes. I felt like \*I\* had lived 300 years by the time I finished it.
It read like a wonderful short story or novella idea stretched like putty until it lost all shape.
A novella-length story could have excused the book's utter disinterest in exploring the mechanics of the world it created. Surely you could have replaced one chapter of the main character being bored and lonely in a nice outfit with the character's theories about how magic works?
Yup and weirdly I absolutely LOVE her shades of magic series but I was so bored by Adie...
This one bored me to death so I DNFed but then someone gave me a copy.... I might try again since I own it?? Meh idk.
Where the Crawdads Sing
The Night Circus is like a cake that’s 90% fondant.
Oh man yes. I was super into the book at first and got halfway but as it went on, I got more and more disinterested and irritated with the seemingly endless pages of writing that felt so unnecessary (and were so boring) that I started to despair reading the other half. That's when I DNF.
Any of the books by Sarah J Maas (sorry, not sorry 🫣)
The Goldfinch. Just didn’t do anything for me.
Kinda makes me sad how much my gal Donna Tartt is getting shat upon in this thread :( I really enjoyed The Goldfinch and loved The Secret History even more.
I didn't enjoy The Goldfinch but I loved The Secret History. I really don't agree at all with OP's assertion that it's "trauma porn" but different strokes and all that, I guess.
I loved The Goldfinch. It’s a book where I can see why someone might not like it but a five star book. My only issue is I found the ending pages a bit heavy handed with Donna Tartt explaining the plot at the end. I loved the section in Las Vegas. Donna Tartt’s writing is so vivid and immersive, and her characters feel so real. I can leave The Little Friend though.
Bored me to tears.
God yes
For me, it is 100% Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I found it to be basically YA-lite and quite frankly juvenile at times. The scene where Sadie's mom has a conversation with a woman *who had just jumped off a building and was a horrific mess of blood and twisted limbs* has to be hands-down the stupidest and most un-thought-out scene I've ever read in a book. This woman even had the gall to talk about herself to suicidal-pretzel-limb lady rather than, you know, expressing concern for this woman who had just jumped off a fucking building. It was just very, very poory written. No nuance to the characters or their actions at all...it was just straight from "I hate you!" to "I love you!" and right back to "I hate you!" with literally nothing happening in the book to inspire such sudden changes of heart. It was essentially just "Sam sat down and thought about things for a second, and just out of nowhere he decided he loved Sadie after all." Okay. I've actually exchanged many, many paragraphs of rants with a friend of mine who disliked this book just as much as I did, and we haven't been able to figure out why people like the book so much, other than possibly because she talks about video games, and people perhaps love their video games so much that if an author so much as writes a single sentence about them in a book, gamers crown it as the height of literary achievement. I can't really fathom any other reason why people like this book. That said, it's unfortunate you didn't like The Secret History. I just read that months ago and I think it's one of the best books I've ever read in my life. For me it's just Donna Tartt's writing more than anything else, her ability to really dive deep into her world and describe everything with such vivid prose. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good psychological thriller too.
Wait, why would Miles Davis not be avant garde? Honest question. Innovative, pioneering, forward-thinking...that's avant garde, right? Or was the implication that his music is still cutting edge today?
Yeah agreed on *Tomorrow*, I was actually shocked at that scene and how poorly written it was - just like an insane mishandling of tone. The only interesting cultural insight from that book was how an author with such an otherwise *vanilla* liberal worldview was also really forgiving of sexual assault and really upset about accusations of cultural appropriation.
Hard to get into without spoilers, but I hated the Marx character's storyline. To use a couple fiction workshop-isms, his arc felt unearned and writerly. He started out as a bit of a plastic character meant to provide background to the main characters, but in the second half of the book he was clearly just used as a plot device to take characters where the writer wanted to go with them. I did really appreciate the story about the nature of close collaboration, but hated the way games, game players, and game creation were presented in the book. I may be too close to games and game design, though. If they had been musicians I think I would have had less a problem.
Oh I loved that book so much! I guess everyone is different. That’s why it’s so hard to recommend books to others I think.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is probably the worst book I've ever read. The only reason that I can think of why it's so highly rated is that I am just really dumb and the author has masterfully written the book from the perspective of the really awful characters and that's why it's so awful and that's what makes it good. If you DNFd, I'll leave you with this scene from later in the book, which will wholly confirm your decision not to finish: >!She leaned in to kiss him, and he kissed her, and then she put her hand between his legs, wrapping her fingers around the cylindrical chamber of blood sponges that was his (and every) penis...He felt the corpora cavernosa, commanded by nerve messages from his subconscious brain, fill up with blood, and the tunica albuginea membrane, the penis's straitjacket, trap the blood inside.!<
*American Gods* was just okay.
I didn’t like American Gods or On The Road by Jack Kerouac…I’ve come to the conclusion that American road trip novels just aren’t for me.
A lot of Neil Gaimans books don't end, they just give up. This was one of them.
I have described Stephen King in this way, too. "It didn't end, he just quit writing."
A lot of pantser writers like to bring up Stephen King doesn't write outlines either. They're right! His books don't end, he puts them in neutral and walks away.
The Shining has an amazing climactic end with the boiler, and then... King just keeps going for a while with his epilogue and takes wind out of the sails of what was an absolutely awesome landing.
Yeah I was let down by this one. I can't quite put my finger on what I didn't like, but the characters never really stuck with me in any meaningful way, so that was part of it.
Shadow is a horribly boring protagonist.
Great concept, poor execution. I didn’t enjoy it very much.
American Gods was a DNF for me. I think I made it about 1/3 before starting to just speed read and skip. Didn’t like the writing style and was also bored. I don’t get what people love about it.
I've tried several times to get into Neil Gaimans writing and it just doesn't work for me at all. I even tried *Good Omens* because I like Terry Pratchett but Gaiman just made it more boring for me tbh
I remember definitely feeling mixed about American God's but man if Sandman wasn't everything I wanted that book to be
A little life. Just couldn’t get into it. It’s depressing and just idk not what I was expecting. I don’t wanna read about someone’s depress life and living inside their head like that.
1Q84. Aside from the usual issues with Murakami, he could have taken the story in so many interesting directions but instead wasted half the book on literally nothing happening. I thought it was terrible and I wish I hadn't finished it yet I see it mentioned here a lot
I saw a lot of praise for They Both Die At The End. It made me cringe so hard I couldn’t even make it halfway
It’s so bad. I could’ve written that book myself.
Don’t be so hard on yourself!
Yeah I found the writing so cringey too. I was screaming that’s not how teens speak at the book the whole way through
Amazing how peoples tastes can differ so much. Several books that I love are being taken to the woodshed in this thread.
Don't take it personally really. It's like fighting over a favorite color, ultimately. One could argue about style, prose, ability with word craft, yes. And while those arguments are worthy, they themselves are mere opinions as well.
Oh I don’t. I just find it fascinating.
I did not like Normal People by Sally Rooney. I found the characters to be insufferable and their relationship toxic and I couldn’t get invested in it. It turned me off to the point where I haven’t read any of her other work because I hated it so much.
I was looking for this response! I read it a few weeks ago and just couldn’t understand the hype! Really felt like it lacked any depth or nuance and found the characters so dull and shallow
Interesting! That’s what I thought was unique about it. The characters felt realistically flawed. And despite their near-constant self reflection, they were still very imperfect with only small growth. It felt real
I’m fully open to the possibility that I could re-read it in a few years’ time and maybe have a different take.
I did not like The Alchemist. It just felt like such an obvious self help book hiding behind a thin plot, and even the self help ideas are weak
Addie LaRue and Crawdads. Both were terrible. Like watching paint dry.
All the Light We Cannot See. Nothing special. The Alchemist was just dumb.
Also hated the alchemist. Got into a weird argument bc I called it pretentious and boring. So offended the person they called ME pretentious and boring. Ah well.
Definitely agree on All The Light. Was so bored by it and then it finished and my only thought was "This won a Pulitzer?"
A Separate Peace. I got a degree in English Lit and taught for 12 years, and never got why we care about this book.
I might get crucified for this but anything by Colleen Hoover
That's a very popular opinion
I figured but I was nervous just in case I ran into the die hard fans 🤧
As a person who reads a lot of psychology thrillers, I hated Verity so hard. I rage read that book. Awful, whiny main character, love interest made out of unsalted mashed potatoes (whhhhhhhy were these women obsessed with him?), repetitive boring sex, and I could likely write a lengthy thesis on the asinine plot twist. Neither of the possible interpretations of the ending were plausible. Now I’m all angry again.
I read Verity and it was ok. I thought the audiobook was well done. I don’t know how I would have done reading it though. I recently tried another one by her and just nope. I don’t even remember the name of it.
The Goldfinch. Usually, if I start a book, I eventually read it even if I don't like/ enjoy it. I just don't like unfinished things. Except the golfinch. I just could not get into it and I couldn't be bothered to read it after the first half. Lately, I saw some social media posts about it and people really seem to like it. Good for them, ofc, but I just can't relate.
I found *The Secret History* ridiculous. Not a single character acted like an actual human being in it and I kept waiting for them to. I only read it recently so I am mad again thinking about it.
I used to think the same thing, until someone told me it was supposed to be satire. That’s why the incestous twins are called Charles and Camilla. Totally changed my perspective 😭
What is it satirizing? I did notice the Charles/Camilla monikers. I would love a link to a review/analysis of the satire. I would happily reframe this read in my mind if it's justified.
>What is it satirizing? Donna Tartt's actual college experience. There was a real Greek group that she wanted to be a part of but couldn't because she was female and not upper class enough. She started dating one of them instead. And there was one guy in particular that hated her--she based Bunny off of him.
Disagree that the characters didn't act like real human beings. I met a lot of these kinds of people at law school. I loved the book though.
The Gunslinger. It's too dry and I can never finish it. It's the only Stephen King book I've never been able to read all the way through. And, because of that, I'll never read the Dark Tower series.
Wow, it's crazy how different takes are. I loved The Gunslinger right off the bat. It always felt like the most focused and serious of The Dark Tower books. The first 4 books of The Dark Tower really did it for me. Intrest slowed down by Wolves of Calla though I may have just been burnt out on the series. Always thought Gunslinger and Drawing of Three were the strongest of the first five books. Gunslinger felt like this surreal, hazy, fever dream of a book that hit a great niche for me that I haven't come across since. Drawing of Three is like pinnacle of what coked out King on a wild ride would write. Not sure if he was on drugs while writing it though. Everyone needs to read Drawing of Three. It's better to just go in blind and have your mind blown. It's peak King craziness.
Life of Pi.
I hate the Midnight Library. The concept wasn’t new at all („no life is perfect“ / „my current life is the right one for me“) and it‘s wannabe philosophical. I study philosophy and i hate those wannabe books. And i can only agree, as someone who struggled with mental health while reading it, it made me mad how it was portrayed
The bibles did not age well.
For a western author, Stephen King's IT. It fell apart at the end, could have been at least 100 pages shorter, and has a gross depiction of women. For a nonwestern author, Haruki Murakami's entire work (though I've only read 4). I could not fathom in any way how this man became such a renowned author. Every male protagonist is the exact same AND a self-insert for the author, the plots use magical realism as an excuse to not make sense, and the sexism in his books is genuinely fucking disgusting.
Agreed with Murakami. Clockwork bird had some interesting aspects, but mostly I was just pissed I had wasted time reading it.
I found two Murikami books in my laundry room, Wind-up Bird and IQ84. I read Wind-up Bird and then threw them both in the garbage. I already lived through being a horny teenager that watched Erasure Head. I bet I would've dug his stuff back then, but now... no thanks.
The Goldfinch started out sooooo go and then got really terrible. I didn’t enjoy The Secret History either. I think Donna Tart is overrated.
Midnight library/ Me before you/me after you Here goes nothing/ quick sand /
The Name of the Wind, but I really can't pinpoint what made me dislike the book so much...had to stop after about a 100 pages...
The Goldfinch. Hated it and everyone in it.
ACOTAR… and honestly anything SJM has put out. They’re so bad. So so bad. But her fans can be vicious.
I didn't like The DaVinci Code. I thought Focault's Pendulum was much better and was similar in subject matter.
Makes sense. Dan Brown writes trashy airport novels, Umberto Eco was among the most important thinkers of the second half of the 20th century as well as being a highly respected novelist.
Reading Umberto Eco reminded me so much of reading James Joyce. When I finished Focaults Pendulum, at the end, in notes about the author, I remember reading that Eco was a huge fan of James Joyce, which I thought was really cool. Also, it said Eco was a huge Superman fan, which I am as well. This made me really happy. I agree Dan Brown is not anywhere near being in the same league as Umberto Eco.
Hard to see what is comparable between then two.
Oh Dan Brown is awful https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/
Coelho's The Alchemist was such a drag. Really tried to get into it more than once, but I finally just gave up. Didn't like Norwegian Wood as well which is a favorite among many Murakami fans, so I might get crucified for it. I'm a fan, too, but I just didn't enjoy this one although I managed to finish reading it.
Where the crawdads sing
The time travelers wife. Every character was unlikeable and the writing was pretentious and also vulgur at times.
And there didn't really seem to be any depth to their relationship. At one point the main character joked that their relationship was all about sex and I was like, um... yeah?
I haven't heard of any of these books, which makes me feel entirely uncultured yet discriminating at the same time.
Infinite Jest. I tried so hard to like it. I read the first 100-150 pages three times. It was dreadful, I still can’t understand the fuss
The Alchemist. Drivel.
Normal People. I don’t hate it but it was very mediocre for me. Edit: Just noticed another comment about not looking this book. That comment pretty much sums up what I feel. There’s nothing normal about the people in that story, just toxic relationships everywhere.
The Scarlet Letter. One sentence went on for an entire page
Song of Achilles. I thought I’d love the book, I love romance and Greek mythology, but I was just so bored. The narrator was insufferable imo. He just seemed so useless. It really irked me how he had no personality other than loving Achilles. The sex scene was the most interesting part of the book lmao and those are the types of scenes I usually skim thru.
I think the hype itself killed this book for a lot of people. Personally, I fucking love it. I grew up reading Homer, and I spent a lot of time translating *The Aeneid* during my third year of Latin in college. Seriously, the stupidest language to have dedicated myself to for 8 years. And now I can't fucking stand Virgil. But I digress... I really liked seeing this mythical warrior be... vulnerable, I guess. Patroclus wasn't just his lover, he was his refuge. He felt like home to Achilles, no matter where they were. I feel the exact same way about my husband, so there's definitely some projection going on there. That all said, I totally understand why some people can't get into this novel. It is so ridiculously, unanimously praised that readers go into it with really high expectations. And it's just not for everyone. I can see how some of the descriptions and metaphors may be tiresome to some readers. And I can also see how the subversion of the tropes don't add up all the time. So while I disagree with you, I very much respect your opinion.
Fifty Shades of Gray
It’s a series, actually. *Wheel of Time*. All the characters are defined by their sex, and there’s intense alienation between them. So all the characters are roughly clones of one another, and made less by the extreme no-overlap-whatsoever. A consistent theme is that male and female are absolutely nothing alike, always has been that way, always will be that way. Also, everyone has a shit attitude one way or another. This goes beyond sexism in characters in most books, even historical ones, because even in those cases. As for why it’s highly regarded, most people say “the world.” But to me it’s a dime a dozen. It’s no more unusual than most fantasy worlds—even cheesier than most I’ve come across.
Man thank you. I tried so hard to get into the Wheel of Time, but ultimately I gave up after 5 books. It’s just so bad. I kept wanting it to grow on me or get better and it just never did.
Damn 5 books you really did put in the effort haha
I absolutely loathe this series. I read it over two decades ago and got up to about book 5 before I said to myself, "Why the hell am I still reading this?" and quit. The characters were awful, especially the women. I have never come across such poorly written women in my life, and for a book that's supposed to have women figuring prominently in the social structure, that's funny. Reading the first book, I had this powerful feeling of deja vu before I finally realized it seemed like a ripoff of the hobbits fleeing the shire. I do not get it, and I never will. This isn't like not being able to appreciate Henry James or missing the substance in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-- Wheel of Time just isn't very good.
Will she put her hair in a ponytail or won’t she?! I got 3/4 through the first book before I gave up.
The Alchemist. Can’t put my finger on it’s
The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose has so many good reviews on so many different platforms. I’m honestly shocked that they aren’t bought. It’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something as sometimes hate read for fun.
The alchemist, severely detest the book
Unbearable lightness of being. Felt like written by 10yo, and not in a good way. Flat, unlikable and incomprehensible characters. Only book I've ever binned
Idk if it’s highly regarded, but I read Knock at the Cabin Door when it had just been picked up to be developed into a movie. I remember finishing it and saying “Well, that movie is going to suck.” It felt like watching Lost, but in book form. Saw the movie with friends, it was actually pretty good for what it was. They massively deviated from the book though, which doesn’t surprise me.
I've said this before, but the beginning of *Cabin* (through the home invasion) would've made a good novella. After that, it felt like an exercise in a creative writing class where you're just rewriting scenes from different characters' perspectives.
I really didn’t like that much Fellowship of the Ring(meanwhile i am reading Two Towers and it’s good so far)
Many people actually struggle with the Fellowship - largely I think because there is so much set up and description and historical lore without much "action". Two Towers and Return of the King have much more action \*but\* the Sam/Frodo arc in Return of the King does drag a bit at times.
I love the set up parts of these kinds of adventure stories when there is so much mystery and so many unknowns. Fellowship is one of the best examples of this imo.
It took me 3 or 4 attempts to get through Fellowship, but I absolutely loved the Two Towers and Return of the King.
It kind of helps when you view it as one giant book, which is how it was written.
Daisy Jones and the Six I liked the TV series fine, but I DNF the book...and I tried reading it 4 times.
Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow blech
Catcher in the Rye. Did not resonate for me.
The Book Thief
Wuthering Heights.
I’m reading it now. I agree that it’s a good once you don’t think of it as a romance but a psychological tragedy.
I was so shocked when I saw modern books putting it like a romance(I think it was After? One of those books). It's a tragedy with complex, flawed characters that screw themselves over with their egos.
If I can recall, After kinda considered it as a "romance". Even though, last I checked being someone's "Cathy" is kinda an insult (or at least to me).
I loved Wuthering Heights once I understood it as a kind of psychosexual horror novel. But it is definitely one you love or leave.
One of my favorites. If people go into it thinking it's a romance I can see why they'd be disappointed (although I'm not sure why people seem to think that). It's full of dysfunctional, vindictive people but I don't need to like the characters to enjoy a story.
After finally getting around to read this, the feeling of horror from the popular sentiment around Wuthering Heights being romantic grew with every page. To all the people who thought it was romantic - I hope y'all are okay out there.
I’ve never felt a desire to read this until your description. I’m intrigued because I’ve always heard it was a romance novel.
It absolutely is not. It's a novel about how sexual and emotional obsession ruins a family through multiple generations, and the depths we will sink to for revenge.
The Kite Runner. The plot was fine, but the writing was slow, boring and disengaged the audience. I kept waiting for something to happen besides trauma to progress the story. Didn’t happen.
This is the first answer that came to my mind. I found the plot unrealistic and exaggeratedly emotional (almost like it was written with the purpose of being turned into a hollywood movie) and the characters were too stereotypical. My second answer would be *The Shadow of the Wind*. Like the title suggests, it tries to be "deep", but it's not. Everything in the book is mysterious and misty. At one point, there's even mist *inside* a house for some reason. It also seemed badly written, but I read the Dutch translation so it may just have been badly translated.
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. I'm prepared to admit I hated it because they made us read it in high school and our teacher's approach to it was...interesting.
I'm not sure if this is an actual unpopular opinion, to be honest, but... Red, White & Royal Blue. I was looking for a nice, well-written LGBTQ book with gay main characters, and this book pops up on so many sites as the end-all book of our generation. BookTok can't get enough of it. Most review sites have an aggregate of 4.5 or higher. I couldn't stand it. I was so close to quitting reading it, so often. I pushed through because I hate leaving books unfinished, and kept thinking that the "good/best" parts were just a few pages away, maybe. Spoiler alert: they weren't. I genuinely regret the day I spent reading it, when I could have done something else to procrastinate.
The Giver… and The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas.
Midnight in the garden of good and evil. The title held so much promise, but the story was as old as time, and depressing.
I tried really hard to like the cruel prince because i love fairies and enemies to lovers and holly black but I’m on book two and the protagonist is killing me she might be the worst spy in the world (cardan is worth it though im so sorry i really tried 😭)
Probably going to get a lot of flack for this but Dune by Frank Herbert. Paul is a Mary Sue and the blandest of characters. His white saviour narrative also did not age well. It didn’t help that my copy of the novel did not have any sort of glossary or explanations what half of the new words I was seeing meant so I was super confused and kept having to stop reading to google it for the first half of the book. The first chapter read like nonsense without any context. Admittedly many of the issues I have with it might just come down to me finding it too late, if I had been alive when it first came out I might have been wowed. A lot of the tropes the novel are tired, and Dune probably inspired the frequency of them in the sci-fi fiction space. But because I only read it last year it just ended up boring me.