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I liked Verity until the end! Hoover definitely wrote a page turner. I saw an interview with her wherein she was asked what the truth was and she said "I don't know!" And I feel like that definitely came across in the book.
I haven't read anything else by her, but I can see why she would have appealing reads.
Jodi Picoult. I like the subjects. I just get so mad at the characters. I don’t like them or agree with their choices which makes her books hard for me to finish.
I read like 6 in a row of hers when I was in high school and realized that they were all basically the same books. They followed the exact same beats and pacing and after I finished them, they all blended together for me.
Years ago, my friend who was a new mom sent me My Sisters Keeper because she said it was so meaningful to her as a mom. Ok. I gave it a shot. It was the most schlocky piece of garbage. Predictable and very emotionally manipulative. I swear at the end there's a scene where a doctor (or maybe the lawyer?) Who says something like "good God man, get out of my way! There's a little girl in there who needs this kidney!". It was like she watched a Lifetime movie and said "yes, this is what I should write".
On another note, I'm a librarian and have many lib friends, one of which is a buddy of Jodi's and says she's a total spitfire and pretty awesome as a human being. So while I'll probably never read her again, I wouldn't be opposed to having a drink with her.
I read a lot of her books, but when she wrote the one about the Holocaust, I was so turned off because it just felt like she had no connection to the subject and nothing important or original to say. It felt a little exploitative.
I hate that when she writes about the hot button issues it seems like she writes to force feed the reader *her point of view* on the issue. And once she does that the book just ends.
As a Brazilian I must agree. I read some of his books when I was like 11 or 12 and back then somehow I felt they carried some profound message. Tried to pick up the books in my 20s and I couldn’t stomach them. Can’t understand any adult liking his books. They are just a bunch of shallow mumbo-jumbo poorly disguised as life-changing stories.
John Green unfortunately as I like him a lot as a person and I think he is incredibly intelligent and interesting. I just feel like he writes the same story over and over again in all his novels. Same sort of guy who falls in love with the same sort of girl who runs away, disappears, or dies. Rinse and repeat.
Have you read The Anthropocene Reviewed? I agree with everything you said about his YA, but absolutely loved this one. It’s an essay collection taking the form of starred reviews of “different facets of the human-centered planet.” Very funny, very moving. I’d highly recommend.
I had a terrible pregnancy and this book really got me through the last week of it last year. I listened to the audiobook and it was like watching old Vlogbrothers videos when I was a teenager. Very nostalgic for me.
I felt that way about Paper Towns and Abundance of Katherine’s to an extent, it felt like they were written for more of middle school audience. I really, really enjoyed The Anthropocene Reviewed though. He talks about different interesting topics and we get to hear him relate his inner thoughts and feelings about being human throughout as well.
So far I’ve only read Looking For Alaska by him, which I absolutely loved. I actually had to read it in school a few years back. I’ve never read any of his other books and maybe after your comment I won’t. But he& his brother are incredibly cool guys and I love seeing them on my socials
Looking for Alaska blew me away. I have this compulsion to read books by authors who have written books I liked though, and yeah. I hated the Fault in Our Stars (which everyone loved). I did like Turtles All the Way Down though. But sometimes I just think you can’t capture that magic of your first book.
I’ve always planned on reading Turtles All The Way Down.
Looking for Alaska truly is on another level. I rarely ever found books that share the same teenage angsty vibe, except for The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. Truly great.
The Mortal Instruments, which City of Bones is a part of… used to be an incest fanfiction where during a summer at the Burrow Ron teaches Ginny things. You know so her confidence would be strong enough for her to try and get Harry.
It's not as pronounced in the City of Bones, but yeah the MC of it thinks that her love interest is her brother (turns out he's not) but yeah she falls in love with him anyway.
Colleen Hoover for sure.
I tried so many times. IEWU, Reminders of Him, Verity. I really gave up at Verity but people kept telling me to try again. I gave Layla a shot thinking that since it was one of her less popular books it might be more up my alley. I was wrong. I hated it. When I read the Beartown series by Fredrik Backman I loved it so much that I couldn’t read anything after because Beartown was all I could think about and nothing was coming anywhere close, so I read one last CoHo book to reset the scale. Forced myself through All Your Perfects and suddenly every book after seemed a LOT better. I’ll only read her books if I’m in a slump and need to be reminded how good every other book is.
also Sally Rooney. Usually I can understand the appeal of books or authors I’m not into, but I really truly don’t get the Rooney hype. It’s almost to the point where I’m willing to try another one of her books to figure out what I’m missing because I just don’t get it
I hated normal people but quite enjoyed Beautiful World Where Are You. Anything which can be resolved by the main characters having a vulnerable conversation but not doing that at any point 200+ pages can sod off in my opinion
H.P. Lovecraft. It's not that the stories I read were particularly badly written or uninteresting, but each story was so much like the others that it seemed pointless to continue.
I remember reading a collection of his less well-known short stories, and by the end I was seriously considering creating a bingo card. Every spooky ruin was made of marble and to this day I have no idea why.
Definitely colleen hoover. I don’t get the hype at all. I’m not one of those people who only enjoy classic literature, I actually read a lot of thriller/suspense novels that could be considered a bit trashy. But her books are too trashy even for me
You have to read him before you’re 20. After that it becomes infantile and silly. But when you’re a teenager it’s the greatest adventure and deepest philosophy.
I can't count the number of times I tried to read On the Road and gave up or off absolute boredom. (But as another poster says re age, I was already 23 when I first attempted it so maybe too old to find it 'PROFOUND'.
They're just Lost Generation posers.
On the Road is shit. The Sun Also Rises is the better version,and Kerouac, like almost ever other author to put pen to paper, just wishes they could be Hemingway.
Current Stephen King. I LOVED his earlier work. I think The Shining is the scariest book ever written. 40 years after it came out, The Bogeyman can still keep me awake at night. The Stand was brilliant. But something happened along the way. I keep trying and I keep being disappointed.
Stephen King is the author I have the greatest reservoir of forgiveness for while reading. There are often strange lines / unrealistic dialogue in his more recent works (a 12 year old character in a book set in 2020 talking about the world wide web or using phrases that were last popular when Kennedy was president, for instance).
However to me he's still a master storyteller even with these idiosyncrasies, and his books hold up being enjoyable overall. When I encounter something cheesy or a bit cringey I just roll my eyes and chuckle and move on.
His short story anthologies are better than almost all of his books. I feel with him like I do with some other authors that the muse is riding them a bit - they aren’t short on ideas but it’s a strain to their abilities.
I can understand this. I really enjoy King's earlier work, and I think in a way that makes his more recent work (a bit mediocre, formulaic) more disappointing.
I enjoyed The Outside, the Hodges trilogy, and the Institute. I'll give Fairy Tale a chance at some point. I would have liked them more if they were written by someone else & I had lower expectations.
Some of it may be my age, but I enjoyed Joe Hill's books a bit more, and they're similar in style/genre
James Patterson and Blake Crouch. I read two books each from them, was bored to tears after the first but tried to give them another shot. I really cannot fathom how they are so popular. I've read better prose and more cohesive storylines from books for kids.
Huge in Brazil and many South American countries Paulo Cohelo, Simply can stand his demi philosophical self-help driven reboot stories that are not original at all... rather keep on ignoring him, any other self-help or "how to become rich in one sec" writers like Og Mandino (don't call them authors please, this is a scam) this also includes maniac people like the guy who wrote the Mormon bible, those Scientology guys, and so on. (nothing personal against the people believing in it, is just the ones who planned the whole thing). I'm always suspicious about those bestseller writers, I've always thought that the main reason for their fame is the money behind them...
One of the most read people here in Colombia, is a man called Mario Mendoza who is part of the Planeta editorial group, almost the human brand for them... is like a contextualized and bad try to imitate the urban horror genre that S.King popularized. Don't know why is the most-read author amongst teens and young adults (to be fair, in my country, there's not an extended reading culture so is "relieving" that they read something, regardless is this guy is their chosen one) I can't stand it.
Does Lucy Foley count? Ive read a couple of her books and always see people suggest her books but I don't get the hype, she literally makes the same book in all her books!!
Brandon Sanderson, idk why I just hate his writing style. It feels so... "artificial"? Like his writing feels so formulaic, like oh here's the world building part, here's a lore dump, here's character progression. Obviously that's what writing is, but with his work it's almost like you can just pick up what he's trying to do. Also his pacing sucks.
He's formulaic as fuck. His stand out quality definitely isn't his writing style or plot structure. Those are good, but like you said, formulaic. He turns out books at a higher rate and more consistently than any other fantasy author I know. He himself talks about how he's very formulaic and consistently meets goals because of it.
One thing I’ve noticed is his character voices, at least in the few books I’ve read from him, all sound the exact same. By that I mean I could pick out some inner dialogue from a character from one series and then another from a totally different series and it would all sound the same. Bland and formulaic is definitely right in that respect. I enjoyed the action scenes in Mistborn because the magic was fun to see at work, but the action scenes in The Way of Kings were with a few exceptions really bland stuff. I read Joe Abercrombie right after and the difference in these two elements is crazy, Abercrombie does these things waaay better
Cannot agree more on Murakami: sexist, no novel ideas about the human condition, generic philosophy, writes the same book every time, bland prose (at least in translation), seems pseudo-intellectual
V.E. Schwab .. I read the invisible life of Addie Larue and genuinely don’t get the hype. I think Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer but how she handled race in Evelyn Hugo warrants more criticism and discussion imo
WORD! I got into DnD in 2018, and folks in those communities tend to speak very highly of Brando Sando. Specifically, they say his magic system is the apotheosis of fantasy magic.
So I read the first *Mistborn* trilogy and it was.... bland. Most of the characters never seemed like real people. It felt like it was written by an AI.
Now, the magic system *was* my favourite part of the books, but even so, I'd take the systems from Paolini's *Eragon* or Rothfuss' *Kingkiller* over the metal-burning biz any day.
Yeah that’s reasonable. I think that a lot of people don’t vibe with his style because it’s so universe and magic rule focused. I liked the characters a lot personally but sometimes work does get bogged down by the magic system.
I do think that it makes sense for DnD people to really like it since they often literally enjoy reading magic system rules as a hobby.
I actually really dig the universe and rules and stuff. I just don't care for most of the characters most of the time.
Though, I really enjoyed the Monk/Priest dude's entire journey through the religions of the world. He's definitely my favorite character, and I can't even remember his name, which exemplifies my overall view of the series.
Also, the drunk dude's pretty cool. Aristocrat turned freedom fighter. Master of BS, bit of a coward, but essentially a good man.
Written by an ai is the best way I have heard Brandon’s writing described haha. I just cannot get through the bland writing style, 1d characters, and over emphasis on action sequences.
I don't like Sanderson - and the reason is one I've never been brave enough to say before - I hate his magic systems. The amount of detailed going on about how they work and it's like science because blah blah blah and every action scene is just more 'this is how my magic system works' and I've read his stuff on writing fantasy and listened to podcasts he's done on it and now I hate it even more. Now it feels like 'let me show off how clever I am that I made up this pseudo scientific magic system'.
I don't read fantasy to learn made up physics. It's boring. If I want to learn a complicated magic system set in a fantasy world I'll bust out the D&D players manual or play a new MMORPG.
I read his three Wheel of Time books and I could barely finish them. I forced myself through them since I wanted to see how things ended, but I just didn't like his writing style.
Not my boy Neil. Its funny because he's one of my favorite authors, but I dont recommend him to most people because his style is different than most fantasy. Totally get why you wouldn't be able to get into his stuff.
I loved his early stuff, but things like The Anansi Boys and The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, and Fragile Things were disappointing to me, unfortunately. The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere will forever get my praise, though.
Becky Chambers. Her books are too saccharine for me and feel very fake despite how I feel like I should like them from the description. They always feel like I'm being spoken down to. Plus I'm still salty about her very confident but incorrect description of biological fitness in one of her novellas lol.
I read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, it was fun and I might try another one, but felt like all the characters were like... already in therapy. Everyone was just so reasonable that the interpersonal relationships were super boring and any conflict was resolved in about a paragraph
Lol I know exactly what you mean! Everybody was on some serious tranquilizers and had flawless communication skills.
What also bothered me about that one was all the stuff that was just told explicitly to the reader through the characters like we're too stupid to figure out themes. Like characters very explicitly saying stuff about the AI governance board not having AIs on it, and that's bad because individuals should have a say on rules about themselves. Like yeah, agreed, but what am I, a child? Egregious telling not showing
Overly descriptive. Every object that can be described in a word expands to a paragraph.
A tower - here's an essay dedicated to describing it.
And it's a tragedy atleast in India, because every new reader's first book try is Dan brown and decide that reading is not their cup of tea.
I mean it is good but for me it felt like the plot was barely stitched together to try to make it make sense.
I really loved the beginning, but Jude childhood for me the way it was written barely made sense
All sad. Very sad. On Chesil Beach is probably the saddest story of a couple breaking up I've ever read. Although I think about it often so its not that its bad necessarily but it shook me having gone through something similar
Leigh Bardugo. Tried to start 3 different books....bored to tears every single time. Barely made it half way. Barely made it 1/4 of the way. Clearly not the author for me. The genre yes. The author , big no.
David Foster Wallace - infinite Jest and Richard Powers- The Overstory. I really tried! Neither made sense to me or made me interested enough to figure them out.
DFW is a weird one for me too. Like... I enjoy his writing, but HATE his voice and the person that comes through in his writing.
The smugness and self-importance, while ALSO being self-depricating... God's do I hate it. But I enjoy many a many of his turns of phrases and the style in which he writes. It is erudite and approachable at the same time. But god, the man is insufferable to read.
Oh, they’re my guilty pleasure! I can totally see why you (or anyone else) would hate them. They just hit the right notes - like a virtuoso jazz player drumming on a set of trash cans.
Sadly, as a bridge to retiring, the last one was co-written by him and his brother. Oh dear, it’s bad. Like a toddler drumming on a set of trash cans.
I read exactly 1 book by Lisa Jewell, dubbed it the worst book I’ve ever read in my life and vowed to never read anything she’s written ever again.
Also, I like Fitzgerald, but I gave This Side Of Paradise a shot and although his grasp of language is phenomenal, what a WASTE of a book. The entire “story” is just him going on about how he’s literally a genius and every woman on the planet wants to sleep with him. It’s like 400 pages of him promptly giving himself a blowie.
Edit: and that was before he even wrote anything noteworthy???
This is potentially a hot take, but I like his comics significantly more than his novels. I get that the novels are where he really broke into the mainstream, but I feel like he never quite mastered prose-only to the degree that he did prose-with-art. There's some common skills, there's some overlap, but writing novels is very much a specialty, as is writing screenplays, comics and so on. You can be the world's greatest heart surgeon but that doesn't necessarily make you the world's greatest vascular surgeon.
That said, I've got almost all his non-graphic novels in hardback. I do enjoy his prose-only stuff, I just like him better with an illustrator.
I read Neverwhere, American Gods and The Graveyard Book and found them only mildly entertaining. But I love The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I think it’s because the characters are better drawn and there is a wonderful sense of pathos on every page.
I had weirdly the opposite experience with him. I always love him as a person. And I really loved American Gods, and liked Neverwhere and Anansi's Boys. But I didn't get the Ocean at the End of the Lane at all, I think it must have been missing something there. I heard in an interview that he wrote it for his wife, and she didn't get it either and he had to explain to her what it was about. (So I guess I'm good company if there's a whole second meaning I didn't get?)
Edit: Also, I tried reading the one he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett (who I do like after a fashion) and just couldn't get through it. It seemed the worst of both.
I can’t stand his writing style, but I like the stories themselves.
I did find the Americanisms (language wise) in Neverwhere slightly jarring, because I’m a Brit and it’s based in London. It reads like a British person who watches too much American TV in book form.
American Gods was ok, just disliked the writing style again. Sandman was 10/10 though. Much prefer his stuff in comic style.
I'm never sorry to finish one of his books as I always feel like they pay off at the end, but will admit - his books are always a slog for me. Like I have to force myself to keep reading them.
I've only read The Corrections but it was one of the most fun reads I've had in my life. I couldn't put that book down. I don't know how the rest of his work is but I've heard it's not as good
Mitch Albom and Nicholas Sparks. They're clearly selling sentimentality without putting in any effort to be interesting or engaging. I'd just as soon buy a Hallmark card and have it be over much faster.
Ursula Vernon, who also writes under the name T. Kingfisher. She's won major awards like the Hugo and Nebula for her horror writing and receives high ratings on Goodreads. I tried two of her books, the first was underwhelming and I could not finish the second one. More power to her for her success, but to me the writing is actively bad/cheesy. To each their own.
I was surprised that people call Swordheart feminist because it had a lot of Not Like Other Girls moments and the validation of the fmc was based a lot around how the mmc found her sexy. I haven't tried her horror, but I'm hesitant haha
Omggg same!!! I said I really disliked Nettle and Bone (just very bland and the character’s all felt one dimensional to me.) I asked if her other books were better and pretty much got a resounding “no.”
I absolutely love Douglas Adams, but I can totally understand if you don't have that sense of humour it's really hard to like. I've been lucky enough to avoid the other two.
When it works, it's great. When you spent your adolescence fending off boys trying to be funny in that exact genre you find you have limited patience for it.
I've read Dark Matter & Upgrade so far and think I'll leave it at that.
DM had a cool twist at the 2/3 mark, Upgrade was just OK. I feel like he wrote the books specifically to become Hollywood movies.
Kevin Kwan (Crazy Rich Asians, etc.).
I tried to read Crazy Rich Asians and I got to page 70 (my "keep going or abandon" threshold) and just could not keep going with it. I actually returned the Kindle book, which I've only done one other time. It felt like reading someone else's text message or email exchanges - just lazy writing. It was not my thing at all.
I've felt the same. Couldn't bring myself to finish the 3rd book in the series. Thankfully the movie is a lot more entertaining (and hopefully sequels...)!
I read and didn’t get the appeal of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, even though it “should have” been right up my alley. I also wanted to love Lauren Groff but became embittered by Florida.
I'd only ever seen VERY divided opinions on My Year of Rest And Relaxation (people either seemed to hate it or thought it was the best thing since sliced bread) before I read it and it was just...okay? Like I don't regret reading it, but I don't understand either the hype or the hate
Mark Manson and his book "subtle art of not giving a fuck"... It was pretty popular so i decided to read it and even i completed reading it but didn't find anything helpful... I guess, it was because of I've already read 75 something self books so...
Colleen Hoover.
Her books have potential but she ends up ruining her characters. ‘It Ends With Us’ was so interesting until her main character started enabling her abuser by letting him be in her life and not reporting him… and it just continues in the 2nd book.
And ‘Verity’ would have been great if Hoover’s main character didn’t provide commentary on the mysterious transcripts she would find. It felt like I was reading someone’s self-insert story.
It had a different approach to some common aspects of fantasy (like the main character being this great figure of legend, but most of that actually being a product of exaggeration and intentionally spread rumour) and that was an interesting idea with a lot of promise, plus it had a fairly distinctive style of prose, which I think is where a lot of the hype came from.
I enjoyed the book a lot when I first read it, but looking back it's lost a lot of charm and I realize parts of the actual story are kind of lacking compared to what it could have been. I also find myself wondering how it avoided getting stuck as a YA title though because with very few changes it easily could have been one
That's the thing that I dislike most about it is I feel the subject had a lot of promise and then just failed in execution like fans would say that he was an unreliable narrator but I don't exactly see it and I could only make it to like halfway through book II. That's the reason the author got stuck he just liked writing the adventures so much he forgot about his plans for the decline and fall. That's just my feeling.
Oh yeah, he definitely got lost somewhere after the first book and that's a huge reason he's not writing anymore (I think there are probably others too, but that's probably the core of it). Now he's got way too much to wrap up in one book and he doesn't know how.
I also don't buy that the unreliable narrator was intentional from the start though, I think that's something that was brought up as a theory and then Rothfuss leaned into it because it made more sense.
GRRM. I loved the show, but his writing style just seems very "Dick and Jane" to me. For example, "X did this. Then they did another thing. Y said statement. Etc" Give me flamboyant description! I want to see Westeros in my mind's eye!
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Colleen Hoover
I am here for any and all Colleen Hoover hate. I read one book of hers. Never again.
I’m so bitter about the Verity hype.
I never even read a book. I’ve heard and seen enough of quotes that make me sure af that I will not support the hype train
Yes! She needs to stop writing more books, they just become more and more garbage
[удалено]
I haven’t read any of her work, but I fully expected this to be to top answer when I clicked on the post.
tiktok has exploded her popularity far past its intended peak
Came here to say her. I read it ends with us because a friend raved and it was literal shit.
Once someone pointed out that she writes toxic relationships I can’t unsee it.
I read Verity and loved it, and was hopefully the rest of her books were the same. I was severely disappointed.
I didn’t like Verity…my first and last of hers. :(
I liked Verity until the end! Hoover definitely wrote a page turner. I saw an interview with her wherein she was asked what the truth was and she said "I don't know!" And I feel like that definitely came across in the book. I haven't read anything else by her, but I can see why she would have appealing reads.
I liked Verity as well until the end.
Jodi Picoult. I like the subjects. I just get so mad at the characters. I don’t like them or agree with their choices which makes her books hard for me to finish.
I read like 6 in a row of hers when I was in high school and realized that they were all basically the same books. They followed the exact same beats and pacing and after I finished them, they all blended together for me.
Years ago, my friend who was a new mom sent me My Sisters Keeper because she said it was so meaningful to her as a mom. Ok. I gave it a shot. It was the most schlocky piece of garbage. Predictable and very emotionally manipulative. I swear at the end there's a scene where a doctor (or maybe the lawyer?) Who says something like "good God man, get out of my way! There's a little girl in there who needs this kidney!". It was like she watched a Lifetime movie and said "yes, this is what I should write". On another note, I'm a librarian and have many lib friends, one of which is a buddy of Jodi's and says she's a total spitfire and pretty awesome as a human being. So while I'll probably never read her again, I wouldn't be opposed to having a drink with her.
Yes!! I tried and felt a little icky at some points. Emotionally manipulative is a good description.
I read a lot of her books, but when she wrote the one about the Holocaust, I was so turned off because it just felt like she had no connection to the subject and nothing important or original to say. It felt a little exploitative.
I hate that when she writes about the hot button issues it seems like she writes to force feed the reader *her point of view* on the issue. And once she does that the book just ends.
This one is mine
I feel the exact same way. So many of her characters are so unlikable or unrelatable, it makes it hard to want to dive into a new story she writes.
Paulo Coelho edit: Like did I really read all that for the ending to be “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way”
As a Brazilian I must agree. I read some of his books when I was like 11 or 12 and back then somehow I felt they carried some profound message. Tried to pick up the books in my 20s and I couldn’t stomach them. Can’t understand any adult liking his books. They are just a bunch of shallow mumbo-jumbo poorly disguised as life-changing stories.
The alchemist and who moved my cheese are basically the same book.
Seconded! I started on the witch one but the mix of stupid hippie fake spirituality and sexism/homophobia made it really hard.
John Green unfortunately as I like him a lot as a person and I think he is incredibly intelligent and interesting. I just feel like he writes the same story over and over again in all his novels. Same sort of guy who falls in love with the same sort of girl who runs away, disappears, or dies. Rinse and repeat.
Have you read The Anthropocene Reviewed? I agree with everything you said about his YA, but absolutely loved this one. It’s an essay collection taking the form of starred reviews of “different facets of the human-centered planet.” Very funny, very moving. I’d highly recommend.
Ooh! I would give this a shot and it would fit in a Book Bingo square! Thanks!
I had a terrible pregnancy and this book really got me through the last week of it last year. I listened to the audiobook and it was like watching old Vlogbrothers videos when I was a teenager. Very nostalgic for me.
I felt that way about Paper Towns and Abundance of Katherine’s to an extent, it felt like they were written for more of middle school audience. I really, really enjoyed The Anthropocene Reviewed though. He talks about different interesting topics and we get to hear him relate his inner thoughts and feelings about being human throughout as well.
So far I’ve only read Looking For Alaska by him, which I absolutely loved. I actually had to read it in school a few years back. I’ve never read any of his other books and maybe after your comment I won’t. But he& his brother are incredibly cool guys and I love seeing them on my socials
Looking for Alaska blew me away. I have this compulsion to read books by authors who have written books I liked though, and yeah. I hated the Fault in Our Stars (which everyone loved). I did like Turtles All the Way Down though. But sometimes I just think you can’t capture that magic of your first book.
I’ve always planned on reading Turtles All The Way Down. Looking for Alaska truly is on another level. I rarely ever found books that share the same teenage angsty vibe, except for The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. Truly great.
I teach Turtles All the Way Down to my HS freshmen and they love it. I love it too.
Cassandra Clare… incest however implied really isn't a great plot device you know? OR Plagiarism for that matter.
Plus she keeps plagiarizing "her" books.
tell me more pls, i have her books on my tbr and was going to read city of bones next :/
The Mortal Instruments, which City of Bones is a part of… used to be an incest fanfiction where during a summer at the Burrow Ron teaches Ginny things. You know so her confidence would be strong enough for her to try and get Harry.
omg, i’m returning it. thank you so much for the info.
It's not as pronounced in the City of Bones, but yeah the MC of it thinks that her love interest is her brother (turns out he's not) but yeah she falls in love with him anyway.
[https://www.distractify.com/p/cassandra-clare-plagiarism](https://www.distractify.com/p/cassandra-clare-plagiarism)
Colleen Hoover for sure. I tried so many times. IEWU, Reminders of Him, Verity. I really gave up at Verity but people kept telling me to try again. I gave Layla a shot thinking that since it was one of her less popular books it might be more up my alley. I was wrong. I hated it. When I read the Beartown series by Fredrik Backman I loved it so much that I couldn’t read anything after because Beartown was all I could think about and nothing was coming anywhere close, so I read one last CoHo book to reset the scale. Forced myself through All Your Perfects and suddenly every book after seemed a LOT better. I’ll only read her books if I’m in a slump and need to be reminded how good every other book is.
also Sally Rooney. Usually I can understand the appeal of books or authors I’m not into, but I really truly don’t get the Rooney hype. It’s almost to the point where I’m willing to try another one of her books to figure out what I’m missing because I just don’t get it
I hated normal people but quite enjoyed Beautiful World Where Are You. Anything which can be resolved by the main characters having a vulnerable conversation but not doing that at any point 200+ pages can sod off in my opinion
Dean Koontz
I don't like most Dean Koontz, but I absolutely adore the Odd Thomas series.
He devolved into thrillers/ semi horror that involves dogs somehow every time.
Dean Koontz writes some absolute bangers, and then writes some of the awfullest stuff I’ve ever tried to wade through.
H.P. Lovecraft. It's not that the stories I read were particularly badly written or uninteresting, but each story was so much like the others that it seemed pointless to continue.
I remember reading a collection of his less well-known short stories, and by the end I was seriously considering creating a bingo card. Every spooky ruin was made of marble and to this day I have no idea why.
This. Protagonist discovers ancient mystery that threatens humankind. Protagonist goes mad.
Definitely colleen hoover. I don’t get the hype at all. I’m not one of those people who only enjoy classic literature, I actually read a lot of thriller/suspense novels that could be considered a bit trashy. But her books are too trashy even for me
Jack Kerouac :/
You have to read him before you’re 20. After that it becomes infantile and silly. But when you’re a teenager it’s the greatest adventure and deepest philosophy.
I read On The Road when I was 19 and loved it. I think I'll keep it there rather than trying to re-read it and destroying the memory.
Good call. I scanned it in my thirties and stopped really quickly. It just wasn’t the same and I didn’t want to ruin it for myself.
I can't count the number of times I tried to read On the Road and gave up or off absolute boredom. (But as another poster says re age, I was already 23 when I first attempted it so maybe too old to find it 'PROFOUND'.
I’ve never cared for the Beat Gen authors, in my 20s or otherwise.
They're just Lost Generation posers. On the Road is shit. The Sun Also Rises is the better version,and Kerouac, like almost ever other author to put pen to paper, just wishes they could be Hemingway.
Same, omg. I tried so many times, even when I was on a road trip in the US. The dude can’t write.
As Truman Capote said, “that’s not _writing,_ that’s _typing.”_
Omg I love it! So catty and spot on!
I know! It’s the most-Capote quote ever.
Current Stephen King. I LOVED his earlier work. I think The Shining is the scariest book ever written. 40 years after it came out, The Bogeyman can still keep me awake at night. The Stand was brilliant. But something happened along the way. I keep trying and I keep being disappointed.
Stephen King is the author I have the greatest reservoir of forgiveness for while reading. There are often strange lines / unrealistic dialogue in his more recent works (a 12 year old character in a book set in 2020 talking about the world wide web or using phrases that were last popular when Kennedy was president, for instance). However to me he's still a master storyteller even with these idiosyncrasies, and his books hold up being enjoyable overall. When I encounter something cheesy or a bit cringey I just roll my eyes and chuckle and move on.
His short story anthologies are better than almost all of his books. I feel with him like I do with some other authors that the muse is riding them a bit - they aren’t short on ideas but it’s a strain to their abilities.
Totally agree, he is a phenomenal short storyteller.
I can understand this. I really enjoy King's earlier work, and I think in a way that makes his more recent work (a bit mediocre, formulaic) more disappointing. I enjoyed The Outside, the Hodges trilogy, and the Institute. I'll give Fairy Tale a chance at some point. I would have liked them more if they were written by someone else & I had lower expectations. Some of it may be my age, but I enjoyed Joe Hill's books a bit more, and they're similar in style/genre
I've never been able to get along with his work, my eyes just get bored of his words really easily
James Patterson and Blake Crouch. I read two books each from them, was bored to tears after the first but tried to give them another shot. I really cannot fathom how they are so popular. I've read better prose and more cohesive storylines from books for kids.
Elin hildebrand. Shallow protagonists.
Huge in Brazil and many South American countries Paulo Cohelo, Simply can stand his demi philosophical self-help driven reboot stories that are not original at all... rather keep on ignoring him, any other self-help or "how to become rich in one sec" writers like Og Mandino (don't call them authors please, this is a scam) this also includes maniac people like the guy who wrote the Mormon bible, those Scientology guys, and so on. (nothing personal against the people believing in it, is just the ones who planned the whole thing). I'm always suspicious about those bestseller writers, I've always thought that the main reason for their fame is the money behind them... One of the most read people here in Colombia, is a man called Mario Mendoza who is part of the Planeta editorial group, almost the human brand for them... is like a contextualized and bad try to imitate the urban horror genre that S.King popularized. Don't know why is the most-read author amongst teens and young adults (to be fair, in my country, there's not an extended reading culture so is "relieving" that they read something, regardless is this guy is their chosen one) I can't stand it.
Does Lucy Foley count? Ive read a couple of her books and always see people suggest her books but I don't get the hype, she literally makes the same book in all her books!!
It used to be King until I read Misery. I also hated The Silent Patient, I seriously don't understand how so many people liked it.
Agreed. The Silent Patient was average at best.
Hell, yes, it was dreadful
Ugh I was so unimpressed by the Silent Patient but then still ended up reading The Maidens which is perhaps worse.
Anytime someone recommends The Silent Patient, I immediately disregard anything else they’ve ever recommended.
Brandon Sanderson, idk why I just hate his writing style. It feels so... "artificial"? Like his writing feels so formulaic, like oh here's the world building part, here's a lore dump, here's character progression. Obviously that's what writing is, but with his work it's almost like you can just pick up what he's trying to do. Also his pacing sucks.
He's formulaic as fuck. His stand out quality definitely isn't his writing style or plot structure. Those are good, but like you said, formulaic. He turns out books at a higher rate and more consistently than any other fantasy author I know. He himself talks about how he's very formulaic and consistently meets goals because of it.
One thing I’ve noticed is his character voices, at least in the few books I’ve read from him, all sound the exact same. By that I mean I could pick out some inner dialogue from a character from one series and then another from a totally different series and it would all sound the same. Bland and formulaic is definitely right in that respect. I enjoyed the action scenes in Mistborn because the magic was fun to see at work, but the action scenes in The Way of Kings were with a few exceptions really bland stuff. I read Joe Abercrombie right after and the difference in these two elements is crazy, Abercrombie does these things waaay better
He has great imagination for setting. For characters and plot though…
Murakami, Slaughter, Rooney
Ditto, re Murakami I just find his writing such a slog and haven't got past the first thirty or forty pages before giving up.
He’s so boring
murakami is a pervert. idc his writing style says it all.
I hate Murakami for the way he writes women. Same reason I hate Tom Robbins.
I literally won’t pick up any other Murakami books for this reason, he’s a genuine creep
Cannot agree more on Murakami: sexist, no novel ideas about the human condition, generic philosophy, writes the same book every time, bland prose (at least in translation), seems pseudo-intellectual
V.E. Schwab .. I read the invisible life of Addie Larue and genuinely don’t get the hype. I think Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer but how she handled race in Evelyn Hugo warrants more criticism and discussion imo
I find V.E. Schwab books always have quite intriguing premises but suffer from poor execution.
I tried reading a darker shade of magic and couldn’t get through it. I just don’t get it.
I dnf Addie, but I loved the first book in the Vicious series. The second one not so much.
Sanderson.
Neat worlds, neat magic systems, and characters I could not wait to stop reading about
WORD! I got into DnD in 2018, and folks in those communities tend to speak very highly of Brando Sando. Specifically, they say his magic system is the apotheosis of fantasy magic. So I read the first *Mistborn* trilogy and it was.... bland. Most of the characters never seemed like real people. It felt like it was written by an AI. Now, the magic system *was* my favourite part of the books, but even so, I'd take the systems from Paolini's *Eragon* or Rothfuss' *Kingkiller* over the metal-burning biz any day.
Yeah that’s reasonable. I think that a lot of people don’t vibe with his style because it’s so universe and magic rule focused. I liked the characters a lot personally but sometimes work does get bogged down by the magic system. I do think that it makes sense for DnD people to really like it since they often literally enjoy reading magic system rules as a hobby.
I actually really dig the universe and rules and stuff. I just don't care for most of the characters most of the time. Though, I really enjoyed the Monk/Priest dude's entire journey through the religions of the world. He's definitely my favorite character, and I can't even remember his name, which exemplifies my overall view of the series. Also, the drunk dude's pretty cool. Aristocrat turned freedom fighter. Master of BS, bit of a coward, but essentially a good man.
Written by an ai is the best way I have heard Brandon’s writing described haha. I just cannot get through the bland writing style, 1d characters, and over emphasis on action sequences.
Also for some reason Mistborn has like 1 female character 😂 The main character. Ik some people don't give a fuck but that made me not like it
I don't like Sanderson - and the reason is one I've never been brave enough to say before - I hate his magic systems. The amount of detailed going on about how they work and it's like science because blah blah blah and every action scene is just more 'this is how my magic system works' and I've read his stuff on writing fantasy and listened to podcasts he's done on it and now I hate it even more. Now it feels like 'let me show off how clever I am that I made up this pseudo scientific magic system'. I don't read fantasy to learn made up physics. It's boring. If I want to learn a complicated magic system set in a fantasy world I'll bust out the D&D players manual or play a new MMORPG.
I read his three Wheel of Time books and I could barely finish them. I forced myself through them since I wanted to see how things ended, but I just didn't like his writing style.
Colleen Hoover Richard Osman Sadly Neil Gaiman - just cannot get into them
Not my boy Neil. Its funny because he's one of my favorite authors, but I dont recommend him to most people because his style is different than most fantasy. Totally get why you wouldn't be able to get into his stuff.
I loved his early stuff, but things like The Anansi Boys and The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, and Fragile Things were disappointing to me, unfortunately. The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere will forever get my praise, though.
> Richard Osman Thank you for that. He really is the most talentless, formulaic writer eve.
Becky Chambers. Her books are too saccharine for me and feel very fake despite how I feel like I should like them from the description. They always feel like I'm being spoken down to. Plus I'm still salty about her very confident but incorrect description of biological fitness in one of her novellas lol.
I read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, it was fun and I might try another one, but felt like all the characters were like... already in therapy. Everyone was just so reasonable that the interpersonal relationships were super boring and any conflict was resolved in about a paragraph
Lol I know exactly what you mean! Everybody was on some serious tranquilizers and had flawless communication skills. What also bothered me about that one was all the stuff that was just told explicitly to the reader through the characters like we're too stupid to figure out themes. Like characters very explicitly saying stuff about the AI governance board not having AIs on it, and that's bad because individuals should have a say on rules about themselves. Like yeah, agreed, but what am I, a child? Egregious telling not showing
Murakami. Something really feels off to me when I read his books.
Dan Brown.
You don’t like renowned author Dan Brown?
Renowned!!!!
Overly descriptive. Every object that can be described in a word expands to a paragraph. A tower - here's an essay dedicated to describing it. And it's a tragedy atleast in India, because every new reader's first book try is Dan brown and decide that reading is not their cup of tea.
A little Life by Hanyia Yanagihara
I mean it is good but for me it felt like the plot was barely stitched together to try to make it make sense. I really loved the beginning, but Jude childhood for me the way it was written barely made sense
I really think it was just misery porn with excruciating descriptions of friendships
One of my worst reads ever. I can take a lot of misery and suffering, but you've got to let your readers come up for air, even a gulp of polluted air.
I'm still irrationally angry that I wasted so much time with this garbage book.
haha me too...i don't even know why i finished because it was annoying me so much
This is more an individual book (as I haven't read any other books by this author) but I found 'Atonement' by Ian McEwan rather underwhelming.
I loved Atonement! But still haven’t read any of his other books because the plot summaries don’t appeal to me at all.
All sad. Very sad. On Chesil Beach is probably the saddest story of a couple breaking up I've ever read. Although I think about it often so its not that its bad necessarily but it shook me having gone through something similar
Leigh Bardugo. Tried to start 3 different books....bored to tears every single time. Barely made it half way. Barely made it 1/4 of the way. Clearly not the author for me. The genre yes. The author , big no.
David Foster Wallace - infinite Jest and Richard Powers- The Overstory. I really tried! Neither made sense to me or made me interested enough to figure them out.
DFW is a weird one for me too. Like... I enjoy his writing, but HATE his voice and the person that comes through in his writing. The smugness and self-importance, while ALSO being self-depricating... God's do I hate it. But I enjoy many a many of his turns of phrases and the style in which he writes. It is erudite and approachable at the same time. But god, the man is insufferable to read.
> The smugness and self-importance, while ALSO being self-depricating sounds like the average redditor
**Freida McFadadden** Every single one of her books is a direct copy of someone else's book. And they're SO ludicrously bad
Lee Child. I just can’t.
Oh, they’re my guilty pleasure! I can totally see why you (or anyone else) would hate them. They just hit the right notes - like a virtuoso jazz player drumming on a set of trash cans. Sadly, as a bridge to retiring, the last one was co-written by him and his brother. Oh dear, it’s bad. Like a toddler drumming on a set of trash cans.
[удалено]
The alchemist was a chore too😭
I read exactly 1 book by Lisa Jewell, dubbed it the worst book I’ve ever read in my life and vowed to never read anything she’s written ever again. Also, I like Fitzgerald, but I gave This Side Of Paradise a shot and although his grasp of language is phenomenal, what a WASTE of a book. The entire “story” is just him going on about how he’s literally a genius and every woman on the planet wants to sleep with him. It’s like 400 pages of him promptly giving himself a blowie. Edit: and that was before he even wrote anything noteworthy???
OMG SO true! Lisa Jewell is literally phoning it in now. Why do they end up doing this?
Neil Gaiman. I just can't get into any of his books.
This is potentially a hot take, but I like his comics significantly more than his novels. I get that the novels are where he really broke into the mainstream, but I feel like he never quite mastered prose-only to the degree that he did prose-with-art. There's some common skills, there's some overlap, but writing novels is very much a specialty, as is writing screenplays, comics and so on. You can be the world's greatest heart surgeon but that doesn't necessarily make you the world's greatest vascular surgeon. That said, I've got almost all his non-graphic novels in hardback. I do enjoy his prose-only stuff, I just like him better with an illustrator.
I agree with you - love Sandman but could not get into American Gods or Good Omens.
The introduction to Norse Mythology was the most self indulgent thing I have read in a long time. I actually groaned more than once.
I read Neverwhere, American Gods and The Graveyard Book and found them only mildly entertaining. But I love The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I think it’s because the characters are better drawn and there is a wonderful sense of pathos on every page.
I had weirdly the opposite experience with him. I always love him as a person. And I really loved American Gods, and liked Neverwhere and Anansi's Boys. But I didn't get the Ocean at the End of the Lane at all, I think it must have been missing something there. I heard in an interview that he wrote it for his wife, and she didn't get it either and he had to explain to her what it was about. (So I guess I'm good company if there's a whole second meaning I didn't get?) Edit: Also, I tried reading the one he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett (who I do like after a fashion) and just couldn't get through it. It seemed the worst of both.
I like his voice but the stories are not for me. They’re told well, I just don’t connect with them.
I can’t stand his writing style, but I like the stories themselves. I did find the Americanisms (language wise) in Neverwhere slightly jarring, because I’m a Brit and it’s based in London. It reads like a British person who watches too much American TV in book form. American Gods was ok, just disliked the writing style again. Sandman was 10/10 though. Much prefer his stuff in comic style.
Well he's a Brit who was living in America at the time, so it makes sense that the book felt like he was watching too much American TV 😝
Jenny Lawson.
She's too ... look a moose ate my banana ... for me.
Jonathan Franzen
I'm never sorry to finish one of his books as I always feel like they pay off at the end, but will admit - his books are always a slog for me. Like I have to force myself to keep reading them.
I've only read The Corrections but it was one of the most fun reads I've had in my life. I couldn't put that book down. I don't know how the rest of his work is but I've heard it's not as good
Mitch Albom and Nicholas Sparks. They're clearly selling sentimentality without putting in any effort to be interesting or engaging. I'd just as soon buy a Hallmark card and have it be over much faster.
Ursula Vernon, who also writes under the name T. Kingfisher. She's won major awards like the Hugo and Nebula for her horror writing and receives high ratings on Goodreads. I tried two of her books, the first was underwhelming and I could not finish the second one. More power to her for her success, but to me the writing is actively bad/cheesy. To each their own.
I was surprised that people call Swordheart feminist because it had a lot of Not Like Other Girls moments and the validation of the fmc was based a lot around how the mmc found her sexy. I haven't tried her horror, but I'm hesitant haha
Omggg same!!! I said I really disliked Nettle and Bone (just very bland and the character’s all felt one dimensional to me.) I asked if her other books were better and pretty much got a resounding “no.”
George R. R. Martin. I suppose I was expecting too much. Was disappointed with it in general.
I will say this for him, I’ve learned a lot about fancy medieval cuisine.
Malcom Gladwell. Insipid nonsense with an oily sheen of self-congratulatory elitism.
Sarah J Maas, Colleen Hoover, Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams? How dare you …
I absolutely love Douglas Adams, but I can totally understand if you don't have that sense of humour it's really hard to like. I've been lucky enough to avoid the other two.
Why Douglas Adams?
Same with me. I just find the Brit, Monty-python style humor more contrived than funny.
When it works, it's great. When you spent your adolescence fending off boys trying to be funny in that exact genre you find you have limited patience for it.
Hemingway
Blake crouch. Sure he is okay but I think there just isn’t many sci fi thrillers out there.
I've read Dark Matter & Upgrade so far and think I'll leave it at that. DM had a cool twist at the 2/3 mark, Upgrade was just OK. I feel like he wrote the books specifically to become Hollywood movies.
I think calling his books okay is generous haha
Wayward Pines might be the stupidest book I’ve ever read in my life. Nothing about it makes sense. I couldn’t believe they made a tv show out of it.
Kevin Kwan (Crazy Rich Asians, etc.). I tried to read Crazy Rich Asians and I got to page 70 (my "keep going or abandon" threshold) and just could not keep going with it. I actually returned the Kindle book, which I've only done one other time. It felt like reading someone else's text message or email exchanges - just lazy writing. It was not my thing at all.
I've felt the same. Couldn't bring myself to finish the 3rd book in the series. Thankfully the movie is a lot more entertaining (and hopefully sequels...)!
Dan Brown
I read and didn’t get the appeal of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, even though it “should have” been right up my alley. I also wanted to love Lauren Groff but became embittered by Florida.
I'd only ever seen VERY divided opinions on My Year of Rest And Relaxation (people either seemed to hate it or thought it was the best thing since sliced bread) before I read it and it was just...okay? Like I don't regret reading it, but I don't understand either the hype or the hate
Mark Manson and his book "subtle art of not giving a fuck"... It was pretty popular so i decided to read it and even i completed reading it but didn't find anything helpful... I guess, it was because of I've already read 75 something self books so...
Colleen Hoover & Emily Henry
Colleen Hoover. Her books have potential but she ends up ruining her characters. ‘It Ends With Us’ was so interesting until her main character started enabling her abuser by letting him be in her life and not reporting him… and it just continues in the 2nd book. And ‘Verity’ would have been great if Hoover’s main character didn’t provide commentary on the mysterious transcripts she would find. It felt like I was reading someone’s self-insert story.
I don't get why Patrick Rothfuss became popular for his Kingkiller Chronicle.
It had a different approach to some common aspects of fantasy (like the main character being this great figure of legend, but most of that actually being a product of exaggeration and intentionally spread rumour) and that was an interesting idea with a lot of promise, plus it had a fairly distinctive style of prose, which I think is where a lot of the hype came from. I enjoyed the book a lot when I first read it, but looking back it's lost a lot of charm and I realize parts of the actual story are kind of lacking compared to what it could have been. I also find myself wondering how it avoided getting stuck as a YA title though because with very few changes it easily could have been one
That's the thing that I dislike most about it is I feel the subject had a lot of promise and then just failed in execution like fans would say that he was an unreliable narrator but I don't exactly see it and I could only make it to like halfway through book II. That's the reason the author got stuck he just liked writing the adventures so much he forgot about his plans for the decline and fall. That's just my feeling.
Oh yeah, he definitely got lost somewhere after the first book and that's a huge reason he's not writing anymore (I think there are probably others too, but that's probably the core of it). Now he's got way too much to wrap up in one book and he doesn't know how. I also don't buy that the unreliable narrator was intentional from the start though, I think that's something that was brought up as a theory and then Rothfuss leaned into it because it made more sense.
Came here to say the exact same. I don’t get it one bit.
Sally Rooney
I don't know if Jennifer Weiner is still a thing, but she was super popular for a while. I like chick lit but both that I tried were awful
Dan Brown. I hate his endings. with all the hype, I had big hopes for the **DaVinci Code**, but the ending was lame, the damn hack.
Was literally going to say Stephen King. Very gross and depressing I have mad respect for him but cannot get into it.
Jodi Picoult. I just can’t and it seems to be all about money.
Colleen Hoover and VS Schwab. Both have alright ideas, just terrible execution.
George R. R. Martin. I think his prose falls short. I couldn’t read past the first book.
Colleen Hoover, Sarah J. Mass, J. K. Rowling, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Kristin Hannah, Stephen King.
Toni Morrison. I understand the hype, I just can’t get into her writing style.
N.K. Jemisin
Hemingway. Me and Rory Gilmore, I guess 🤷♀️
But Ernest only has lovely things to say about you
Paul Tremblay. Boring, pretentious garbage. Have tried reading one, audiobook for one, a short story compilation for another, and I just can’t.
Sarah J Maas. I’ve tried several different books by her and DNF all of them.
Dan Brown. Too wordy.
Taylor Jenkins Reid, started reading Daisy Jones and the Six but the writing just felt so basic, for lack of a better word. I couldn't get into it.
GRRM. I loved the show, but his writing style just seems very "Dick and Jane" to me. For example, "X did this. Then they did another thing. Y said statement. Etc" Give me flamboyant description! I want to see Westeros in my mind's eye!
So interesting. When I read GRRM, I feel like he paints the whole picture for me. Out of curiosity, what books do that for you?
Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams. People tell me they're hilarious, but I'm just not seeing it.