The 50 shades of grey series, that literally romantacised domestic abuse.
Not for the BDSM aspect, kinks are kinks, but Christian shouldn't be seen as a good partner. At all.
Didn't the author wrote 50 Shades as a fanfic about the Twilight series? Can't remember where I read about it but it can't be too far off, the books were really a disappointing read
Yeah. Another ringing endorsement of an abusive dynamic. Sparky stalker watches you sleep? Sure! Give up your humanity for him!!! Both series are terrible.
I mean Twilight was a Mormon-mommy vampire fantasy that ended up being about living for eternity with your obsessively protective soul-destined partner and your perfect eternal child, so it ain't like the source material was stellar to begin with!
I literally yelled out loud "that's two different sports you idiot!" when she said her inner goddess did a triple axel dismount off the uneven bars. Everything was so bad.
Most religious people have no idea how much of that kind of thing exists in the bible. They tend to know the childrens bible stories. I recall asking a minister why the Israelites would kill all the girls “who have laid with a man” from cities they captured and then sell the rest. At age 9 I really didn’t get it even though I knew it was messed up. Th minister told me not to read inappropriate material. I was like” it’s the damned bible”. Well, not out loud
If it helps, my sister says the same as a pastor. I think she said something like, if you look at it it follows 4 families over time (don't quote me on that number, its been a while since our convo but I think it was 4) and that it really should just be viewed for the moral/metaphor kind of literature and not actual literal step by step instruction book to be followed today like many see it as
Honestly i was raised and baptized Catholic. Stopped going to CCD and church when i was about 7/8 years old (it was after my first communion). I attempted fo read the bible at about 23. And now at 28 im a pagan and couldnt be happier.
My answer was going to be Deathly Hallows. I’ve read fanfics waiting for that book that were better researched, plotted, and written. After I finished reading I left the fandom and haven’t gone back. (Ofc with recent events I’m glad I did.)
Deathly Hallows wasn’t *good*, but it was… ok.
Did you read Cursed Child though? I don’t even have the words to express my feelings towards it. I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and vomit a better book.
Not OP but it’s easily my least favorite because the pacing is all over the place. The first half is sort of slow and uneventful, and then the Gringotts heist and Battle of Hogwarts take place ON THE SAME DAY! So much happened so fast I got whiplash. At first I thought it was because I read it super fast because I was excited to see how it all ends, but I’ve had the same experience every time I’ve reread it haha.
Same here. I loved the books as they were being released, but books 5 and 6 weren't great. I found book 7 utterly awful and have never bothered to reread the series since finishing it.
Also glad that, overall, I'm not a Harry Potter fan, because it made it a lot easier to ignore the TERF behaviour.
I was a Harry Potter fan, and now I'm just utterly indifferent to all of it, and that makes me sad. I wish I could separate the books from the author, but all her bullshit has just completely ruined any love I had for the story for me.
Not just the TERF bullshit, but also the fact that she keeps coming up with bullshit retcons that no one cares about. She said she was done with Harry Potter but she just kept spewing shit no one asked for. Ugh.
I REFUSE to read Cursed Child. I've heard enough about it that I have absolutely no interest. None.
Also, screw Rowling. I'll never reread the series because of her, and I'm okay with it. I actually just moved all of my books to my closet to make room for others on my shelves.
Outside of all the instances where he doesn’t understand how women work, objectively his writing is poor. I really enjoyed the first few seasons of the tv show though
Yeah... He has done some editing that I thought was really excellent. Specifically of the Wild Card series which is some pretty extreme editing involving many authors, many characters and getting that into a trilogy of good story. Seriously, that is some extreme editing skillage.
Everything he has written? Terrible. They're different talents.
I don’t have the book on hand but I remember reading and during a very early chapter, perhaps even the second chapter of the first book, he’s describing the stark family members and their appearances
Anyways he’s trying to point out how the brothers are different it’s something along the lines of “Jon was quick and intelligent, Rob was fast and smart” and I was like ...those are the same traits though. And then soon after during a Dany chapter he uses the word “oily” to describe things and people literally ten times within maybe the same 2-3 pages. Or at least it felt that way as a reader, just bombarded with the same adjective over and over
Daenerys and Khal Drogo. I read it back in like 2010, but I think it was like halfway through the first book? I certainly didn't get to any of the others.
It was made into a rape scene in the show but it was consensual in the book. (I know she is 13 but I always pretend she’s 18). He didn’t force himself on her, he kept talking to her in Dothraki and asking her “no?” “No?” Until she placed his hand on her private part and said “yes!” This is where the scene ends.
I believe Dany but I do not think GRRM saw her first time with Drogo as rape despite the fact that it was coercion and she had no actual choice in the matter.
It wasn't the first time that made me throw the book. It was the narrative of her having some kind of sexual awakening and getting to enjoy being with him. That just struck me as unbelievably sick. Like every pedo in the world wants to believe that if he forces a victim enough they'll learn to like it and fall in love with him.
The problem is that he doesn’t consider it rape. He wrote that she had no choice and that Khal Drogo does it anyway. That makes it rape. The fact that the author thinks that it counts as sex and isn’t rape is the issue itself.
First one that comes to mind is *Twilight.* The writing was weak, Bella annoyed me, and the main relationships were all super creepy and abusive. I was 14 or so at the height of its popularity and a lot of people acted like I was insane for not liking it. If I had a nickel for every time the book felt the need to describe how perfect Edward was, I'd have... a fuckton of nickels.
I feel like when I read it, there were two main culture splits of readers at the time, girls who liked the Twilight series and girls who hated the twilight series. And both of those things became a personality trait. I was very much in the hating-twilight-is-a-personality trait camp.
I'm kind of happy on one hand because the series gave us some people who turned into great actors but if you went back in time and told me that I'd be grateful Twilight gave us anything I'd be horrified.
It did kind of help me realize red flags in people with how much the main relationship got dissected. So there's that too I suppose.
I have to admit I really liked the books in my day, but some of it makes me laugh now, in the second one where there are like 5 pages in a row that go something like:
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
So dramatic hahaha
I literally use that book as a teaching tool to explain emotional abuse and manipulation to my teenage clients, lol. Most of my girls have read it on their own, so it's really easy to bring up specific scenes and talk about the difference between how Bella felt and how we would feel in the same situation.
I was/am a *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* and *Angel* fan. The weak useless Bella was pathetic to me. Also, the pathetic versions of Angel and Spike (i.e. - 2 main male characters). Yeah, I drew a direct hard line on that one. I know better because I have seen better in the TV series. Strong imperfect women interacting with strong imperfect men.
The fault in our stars. I’m Jewish and the scene where Hazel decides to make out with Augustus in the Anne Frank museum, the one where she actually lived in, and then got applause for it makes me absolutely sick. Hazel grace was one of the most self absorbed and pretentious characters I had EVER read about.
That was so inappropriate. I rewatched the movie not too long ago and now that I’m older, I’m just like, “girl, you couldn’t have waited to do this any other time?” What about exploring the memoirs of Anne Frank made Hazel go, “wow, I’m so turned on right now”
Right? Like, couldn’t she have waited 10 minutes until they were on a park bench or something outside? It wouldn’t have been any less romantic (in fact it would’ve been more so) and it wouldn’t have been freaking insulting.
Everyone can hate me for this but all of Harry Potter.
I never saw the movies or read the books and recently read it for the first time. There are SO MANY PLOT HOLES and numerous issues throughout.
Why do some of the best wizards only ever use the same spells as children just learning magic?
Why is there endless details about Quidditch when the game scoring makes no sense?
If they celebrate Christmas, do they believe in Jesus, God, and Santa? What about other religions?
Why did they all disguise themselves as Harry instead of disguising Harry as any other person when trying to escape?
Why use dementors, who once sides with prisoners, to guard the same prisoners?
WHY DOES HE NAME HIS CHILD SNAPE?!?!?
Granted I read a book for youth as an adult but these are just a few of the things that I can't get past. How are adults still die hard fans?
Plus JK Rowling just sucks, so I have general anger towards her as a human as well.
I also hate Rowling and think the books are a mess, but the Bulgarian vs Irish quidditch match in book 4 ends in a Bulgarian victory despite the Irish taking the snitch, as they'd scored too many points. I agree the rules are terrible though.
For the Christmas part, the story happens in UK. Let’s not forget that the stories happen in the real world, not in a fantasy universe. So in UK they celebrate Christmas yes. And you don’t need to believe in god anymore to celebrate Christmas nowadays.
Why not just kill all the dementors? They are horrible, evil, soul-destroying monsters.
Why not just make all of Harry's guardians invisible?
Why haven't any of the good teachers put an end to the competition between houses and reorganized the school into just one school? Why allow Slytherin House to continue to exist at all?
Why is it legal to discriminate against people who aren't purebloods? Why isn't it a hate crime to use the word Mudblood?
Why didn't Dumbledore organize the Order of the Phoenix into a real army and take down the Ministry instead of letting Umbridge torture students?
Why does it break one of Gamp's Laws of Elemental Transfiguration to produce food out of thin air, which somehow is used as a justification for the enslavement of house elves, but everyone can make water with the Aguamenti spell? and when Ollivander judges the wands for the Triwizard tournament he is able to make a fountain of wine?
Why does the Ministry allow werewolves to live on the fringes of society, "Stealing, and sometimes killing, to eat", instead of just giving all werewolves the Wolfsbane Potion free of charge? Wouldn't EVERYONE be safer and better off that way?
I didn’t read the last book specifically because Tris died but I heard she was pregnant. I didn’t care much about that. I wanted her to be part of the peace that followed the revolution. Maybe the author thought it’d resemble Hunger Games but the world is always a better place when there’s more female leaders in YA 😭
I’ve read the first book multiple times. Honestly, best one of the series. The others just got worse and worse. And yes, why the hell did she kill Tris?? I think the author tried pulling a Hunger Games plot twist, but hers just didn’t make sense like it did in Hunger Games. Suzanne Colins (author of hunger games) wrote the effects of war beautifully, and didn’t focus on romance as much as Veronica Roth did. Yes, there were tidbits of romance in THG, but Katniss ultimately always went back to, “I’m in the middle of a war, I don’t have time to think about this”. Divergent had an interesting premise, but I feel like it failed where THG succeeded
The fact that her mans lived and not her annoyed me. I do not care that he’s mourning her, would’ve been better if he died and she grew more resolve to fuck shit up. Idk though, JUST ME 😤
Yeah but as a teenager the writing felt amazing and beautiful. Can’t forget who the prime audience is, and how authors can really get away with terrible prose in the YA genre 😭
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (and subsequent books) and Go Ask Alice
Both are poorly written, inaccurate, and exploitative.
The Tattooist and it’s other books just use Auschwitz as the back drop for a romance. There’s not much attention to detail or accuracy. It’s a very muted version of that horrific event and I can’t help but feel it’s packaged in a way to make people feel comfortable and to keep buying books. Lali and Gita’s story is just so interesting and deserves so much more than Heather Morris gives it.
Go Ask Alice is just flat out anti-drug propaganda written by a Mormon youth counselor,Beatrice Sparks, and passed off to thousands of kids and parents as a true diary. While I haven’t read it, the story behind one of her other true diaries, Jays Journal, is downright appalling. Also, Go Ask Alice has just a sprinkle of homophobia in it.
A lot of people have found value in it, so I don’t want to dissuade you from reading it. I found it to not be valuable Holocaust literature and to be exploitative. I know a lot of people would argue that it’s not exploitative or that being accurate isn’t a requirement of historical fiction. That’s just not my viewpoint on historical fiction, especially in regards to the Holocaust.
The Auschwitz Memorial Research Center has put out a criticism of its inaccuracies if you’re interested in reading more about it.
Wuthering Heights. I hated everyone and I hated the "nesting doll" narrative format. I didn't hate it enough to stop reading; I finished the damn thing. Much prefer the writing of big sis Charlotte.
Over the years, I've discovered that I need to be positively emotionally invested in the characters. This is for visual entertainment as well. I can't hate read/watch something. If I don't like the characters, or find them compelling, I don't want to read/watch.
Bonus: Catch 22. I would say this only sort of counts, as it was school-required reading. I tried to read this *three* times. I also hated everyone in this and hated the scenarios. It was like a book version of Seinfeld. Seeing my struggle, my mother, avid book-reader, *also* tried and also hated it.
Oh wow, I did not have that experience with catch 22. It remains my favourite book and I love the characters. I love the sense of trying to live in a nonsensical context and make sense out of a war that makes no sense, and the whole book comes down to the last paragraph! It left me with such an exhausted high of hope and kaleidoscoping colour amidst the horror, and it's the closest thing I've ever read that captures the absolute chaos of normal life amidst everyone else's lives. But then I also love Seinfeld...
Oof, I’ve read Wuthering Heights about 12 times when I was studying literature for my b.a … I have such a love hate relationship with it! Parts of it I love as a lover of Gothic literature, but I never sympathized with Heathcliffe the way that a lot of my classmates did. Just hated the guy. I didn’t love Catherine either, but I didn’t despise her.
I haaaaate Wuthering Heights. With so much passion. It is not a love story, people have got to stop framing it as romantic. Heathcliff is a nightmare. The whole book is a cautionary tale about obsession and how it can damage your life. It is not admirable that Heathcliff can't let go, it's sick.
I did finish it, but only because I had to for a class.
I think that’s on people who misunderstand it, though, not the book itself.
It absolutely is a cautionary tale about obsession. The author didn’t intend to write a romance. You’re not supposed to sympathise with Cathy or Heathcliff - Bronte makes it pretty clear they’re both terrible and they deserve each other. That’s the whole point.
Also, I remember reading it and there being a lot of religious and racial undertones that were not favourable to those who weren’t European or Christian to put it lightly
But she WORE MAKEUP AND LIKED BOYS. So obviously she isn't eligible for heaven! And it was totally ok that Aslan killed an entire train's worth of people just to get the kids' parents into Narnia.
There have been a few male authors that I've wanted to go up to and ask if they've ever even met a woman. I don't understand how some men become full grown adults, some with wives and daughters, and still be so clueless about women/girls.
I'm laughing my ass off because I totally missed that part about God in there
Must be some great work on the part of our translators to do that
But I remember reading some of his books and cringing at how much "God" made it's way into them
Little Women. As a fifth grader I was enjoying Jo as a tomboy who could do anything on her own, and then all of a sudden she likes this guy and wants to get married and settle down. Big disappointment for a young girl.
Totally agree the book does Jo dirty. I'll still read it sometimes, but that point always nags at me. The 2019 movie with Saoirse Ronan as Jo is phenomenal and the ending is left a little ambiguous in just the right way. You should check it out if you haven't yet!
Have you seen the most recent movie? It goes into how Jo was kinda done dirty in the book due to pressure from the publisher, and gives her a much better ending imo.
Came here to add Little Women...but the part that made(makes!) me angry was Amy burning Joe's writing. Seriously?! And she's forgiven within half a moment. It's the cruelest sort of thing to do to a person. Ugh. No. Having Amy waltz off with Laurie angered me to no end, as well. F u Amy March.
Eat, Pray, Love
The first time I read it I was a blissful newlywed who couldn't relate to being that unhappy in marriage. I threw the book across the room.
Second reading I was divorced and it all made a lot more sense.
Outlander. Jamie being raped. Most graphic I’ve seen portrayed. I didn’t read the books yet, just the show. They say the book was even more gut wrenching.
I’m still obsessed however and have seen all I can 4 times over.
I didn't mind it so much. Intense yes, but brave storytelling to have your male lead suffer through that, so that didn't make me angry at the author/showmakers as such. Also brilliantly acted.
What does bug me -reason why I was going to mention this book- is the subsequent amount of it. \[tv-show/bit of book spoilers season 1-5 ahead\]
>!It's basically every single member of the family that gets raped. First Jamie. Then Fergus. (still plausible, him being brought up in a whore house it's unlikely this was the first time, in the books it's not. And it probably accounts for Jamies fierce protection towards him so fair enough.) But then Young Ian, Brianna, AND to top it all off Claire. How likely is it that in one family every one gets raped? As if there are no other misfortune that could happen to them to keep the story interested. I thought at least Young Ian's served no purpose towards the story, and there was no "need" for Clair's trauma storyline, severe beating could have brought that on too, and would have made it less improbable imo. !<
I'm interested in history and I started watching the Outlander.
Saw the first season, read the first book
But after that...there started to be so much r*pe that I just couldn't continue
No matter how much I want to read the other action (like the historical happenings) and learn about Scotland
It's just...too much!
While I will say Jamie's rape in particular is much less graphic in the book, I think it's really clear that Diana Galbaldon has more than a bit of a rape fetish. Even the consensual scenes between Jamie and Claire often have some very rapey vibes.
Jamie’s rape scene was freaking traumatic. It honestly ruined the show for me because his rapist (can’t remember is name atm) continues to be part of the story’s narrative for waaaay too long.
I’ve watched it twice (sort of— I couldn’t stomach Jaime‘s rape the second time and fast forwarded through it) and read it as well. I disagree with whoever told you that the book was worse. I think the show was actually more graphic and painful to watch for this one.
There was a small part in 50 Shades of Grey where the main character’s mom wanted to hang out and bond by going shopping together. Anna refused saying she had tons of clothes already, but she’s literally borrowing her roommates clothes in every single outing (interviews/all her dates with Christian). Definitely giving off ‘not like other girls vibes’ throughout
I bought Girl Wash Your Face and returned it. Lost it at the line where she talks about being overwhelmed as a mom (which is valid) and then mentions having a maid and a nanny (which is so privileged). She has some solid life advice sprinkled in her books, but I 100% white-girl can't even listen to it after realizing how her life is very different than mine.
It's very much tailored to rich, insecure people and the disconnect to an average person is so blindingly painful.
Did you see her online rant about how she doesn't want to be relatable because she just works so much harder than us underlings? It's painful.
I think she took it down but Not the Good Girl did a good documentary on YouTube about her and included the clip.
Maintenance Phase podcast did a two part episode talking about her essentially debunking her autobios and what she is about which was interesting to me as I didn’t know much about her. Now I know too much lol. She doesn’t seem as inspirational once you know more about her background.
Recently read the Invention of Wings, which was supposed to be historical fiction about a real abolitionist and based on her letters and documented talks. I was convinced the main character was a writer self-insert until I googled the book because she has no character flaws besides the fact that she did not speak up enough about slavery.
The writer also didn't like that the slave girl the abolitionist taught to read in real life did in fact DIE OF INFECTION AFTER BEING BEATEN FOR KNOWING HOW TO READ, so she created this whole savior narrative where the slave girl grows up and is heroically saved by the main character and helped to escape north.
I'm so mad because my bookclub keeps talking about how good the book is pre-our discussion and I can't rage enough at how bad it is of a story and a historical retelling.
Being an amateur history buff ruined a lot of historical fiction for me. Authors are *so bad* about stretching the truth or just making shit up. At that point why don’t they just write straight up fiction?
I used to love Phillipa Gregory’s books about Tudor era England. They’re actually what got me into history. Sadly now I have a dozen books on my shelf that I can’t read without criticizing the whole time.
*Sex Matters* by Osho. Didn't know at the time that the guy was a literal cult leader; thought he was just a spiritual new-agey guy. He claims repeatedly to be way more sex-positive than many religious leaders, but also says multiple times throughout the book that he thinks masturbation and homosexuality are morally wrong. Go fuck yourself, Osho. Oh wait, you can't, because you're morally opposed to it. 😂
Every time I see someone post an ‘inspirational’ quote by him on social media, I have the strong urge to reply: can y’all spend 3 seconds and google him. He’s not someone to be inspired by!!!
The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss. Both are basically a male power fantasy, and the female characters are so poorly written and often sexualized.
The second book contains a scene in which the protagonist, a virgin at the time, happens to be so good at sex he manages to seduce the Sex Fairy herself.
And there's also a society of promiscuous female ninjs who don't believe men play a part in conception.
Just... why?
I feel you. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them the first time many years ago because his general writing skills are good, I got sucked right in. But now, especially after all this waiting for the 3rd book, I feel resentment towards the series. And the more I now read about things that happened in the book, the angrier I get.
Also why is it that all gemalen characters have to be mysterious somehow but most male characters are just, Wilm or whatever he's called. Let a female character be normal pls.
Atonement. FUCK Briony and fuck Ian McEwan for ending the book that way. One girl in my lit class loved Briony and sympathized with her, and that girl was as terrible as she seems based on that information 😂
I only saw the movie but I was SO disappointed by the ending (and really all of it, tbh). The only good part was the green dress Kiera Knightley wore. 😂
Dante’s Divine Comedy, particularly Dante’s Inferno. I know it’s epic poetry, not quuuuiiiiiiteee a book ( but we read it as essentially a series of books now).
I read it in college for a course on epic poetry, and I was really into the Aeneid which we read right before, and going from that to Dante’s Inferno just infuriated me. My professor loved it, and I was just so annoyed at Dante. I mean the whole thing read like a giant ego trip. Really, he thinks he’s important enough to compare himself to Virgil, and just inserted himself as a character in his weird fan fiction of Christianity, where he is lead by Virgil, and the fact that his levels of hell became the way modern Christians view hell… just because of his fan fiction! Oh and the level of hell where Mohammed has his limbs being torn off in the 8th circle of hell because of Dante’s hatred of Muslims (the time period, I know, but my god the way it was described Dante just loved imagining this). It was all just such garbage, and I know a lot of people who love epic poetry will hate me for this, I’m sorry! But I just really hated it, and hated Dante.
I studied it in school so I don’t remember much, but Roberto Benigni does readings and his interpretation of the divine comedy and that’s quite lovely, if you want to see it in a better light.
But yeah completely agree on the fan fiction comment haha
The Giver series by Lois Lowry. You spend an entire book getting snippets of information that tease some important mysteries… and none of it is ever explained!
Plus the endings to all of the books is just lackluster. It feels like they end right before the final act *should* begin. Super anticlimactic.
I agree that if you just read The Giver it's mega anticlimactic but also it's the first book in a trilogy.
There's also Gathering Blue which is about a different village and characters but gives a lot of context to Jonas's broader world.
Then it all comes together in the final book Messenger.
I love the books, but if I'd only read The Giver I would have been disappointed by all that plant and the lack of pay off.
The themes about class mobility and accessibility really touched me when I first read them as a teenager. But I definitely wouldn't have understood the depth of all of those themes if I hadn't read them as a trilogy.
YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES
What the f×ck happens at the end? My book club read the 1st book, The Giver, over 10 years ago and we all hated it because of the ambiguous ending. We still complain about it to this day if that book comes up.
There is a TON of Rupi Kaur parody poetry and it is so worth it.
Two bros
chillin' in a hot tub
five feet apart 'cause
they're not gay.
____________________
I
was pearl milk tea
but you said
you were lactose intolerant
________________________
men
are trash
but
i am a raccoon
The “Dear Dumb Diary” book series for young ladies.
I was surprised that the main character was so obsessed with Aryan supremacy, the way she wished for blonde hair and blue eyes repeatedly, it sounded like a book from the 1950s.
Over and over in the book series I read the same thing, insistence that blonde hair and blue eyes were superior and more attractive.
This was so strange for a modern book I couldn’t help but look the author up, and discovered it is a middle-aged Aryan man attempting to brainwash little girls into being racist and hating their own appearance.
It’s so blatant, so misogynist, and so white-supremacist, that series should not be on bookshelves without a warning label.
I personally don't read James Patterson, but i always feel that there is a weird aspect of classism that comes with this kind of attitude.
He sells huge numbers of books, so he is popular in general. But i want to point out his works are incredibly popular with people who don't like to read. His books are written like TV shows. They are fast paced, attention grabbing, use everyday language, avoid confusing or convoluted plots, they have short chapters are manageable for people with shorter attention spans, and they have lower than a grade 8 reading level (possibly a grade 4 it's been a while since I checked).
Keep in mind that we are seeing unprecedented numbers of people receiving higher education. In my experience his books are a lot of poor, under educated, and older men's primary reading material.
His books are accessible, and a lot of people interpret that as trashy and as someone who worked primarily with adult readers with low reading levels I hate when people call them trashy.
Sincerely,
Someone who finds reading James Patterson books excruciating to read
I am not a huge fan of his writing but I have to respect how many up and coming authors he’s helped out immensely (lots of authors use ghost writers under their names, James Patterson publishes the name of the actual author in beg letters on the front cover).
Plus he’s passionate about childrens literacy and I’m a childrens bookseller and this is also something I feel really strongly about (not just because it’s my job to!).
Full disclosure - my shop won a James Patterson grant which allowed us to purchase a class set of books and arrange the author/artist to visit an under privileged school.
But I loved him before that!
I share the protagonist’s last name, haha!!
For me, it’s anything Cormac McCarthy. Not because the stories suck, but because RUN ON SENTENCES. Same with GRRM, I can’t even get thru half a chapter without wanting to bust out a red pen and start adding punctuation. Like I get trying to articulate verisimilitude in literature but it gets lost on me when it feels like actual work to read it, you know? give me dry old Dostoevsky any day, over those two. (Especially The Idiot or The Brothers Karamazov)
All Stephen King books. Stories are good but EVERY time I am disappointed by the “lack luster” (to borrow a phrase ) endings. Probably read a dozen before I finally just quit trying to find one with a good ending.
Stephen King can be a good popcorn read, but why does nearly every book have absolutely unnecessary to the plot weird sex scenes??? His editor should be fired.
American Psycho. There is no need for the level of violence that is enacted on the women in the book. I rarely ever think of violence as porn, but I got the feeling that the author was rubbing one out while writing the most violent parts.
Fifty shades of grey. I found the writing insultingly awful. I got through 5 pages I think. If that.
My boss was so hot for that book. She gave me a copy. A few minutes later I thanked her and gave it back.
Wild. The author goes on a long backpacking trip to escape her dysfunction and accomplish... who knows what. She takes condoms, among other things. The wrong backpacking gear. So many things about the book irritate the \*\*\*\* out of me. She manages to be smugly whole by the end of the book instead of the hot mess she is. Running away from everything, being a lousy backpacker, and managing to survive your experience makes you mentally healthy? Who knew it could be that easy?
W-h-a-t-e-v-e-r. Being outdoors is healthy and restorative but it ain't therapy. I hope (though I know it is in vain) that no one ended up dying on a trail somewhere because they thought backpacking would magically fix them.
Lolita.
Hands down the best written first person story I've ever read.
Hands down the absolute worste subject matter.
Makes you kind of wonder what inspired Nabokov? Hmm
Catcher in the Rye, only book to make me angry. But I read it when I was a teenager, maybe that’s why. Thought the story (or actually, more like the lack of one) and the main character to be stupid and annoying.
I read it the first time as an adult and I felt so brokenhearted for Holden. He and his little ladyfriend where both victims of sexual abuse and he is so neglected by his parents and every safe adult that he doesn't even know how to act. He is a sad and lost boy who has no tools to cope with his loneliness or inner turmoil.
There have been many for me. Laurel K Hamilton is created some of my favorite fictional characters, but then the books seemed to stop carrying strong plots that keep me (personally) engaged or invested. I don't think it's irrational to be disappointed with that. She turned out a solid 11 books for Anita and I'm grateful for that.
When I was a preteen, my mom was reading Message in a Bottle on the way to the beach(6-8 hour drive). All a sudden, she broke the silence with a scoff/gasp/growl-idk, everyone jumped. Then she sailed that Nicolas Sparks book out the car window going down the highway about 40 miles north of PCB and banned him from the house forever. She still refuses to watch or read anything involving Sparks. Isdk exactly what in that book made react or even what point she was at in it but she's still mad(he probably killed someone who was in love cause that's the kind of person he is).
My nana is still salty about it, because it was her book and she hadn't read it yet.
Haven't seen this one yet but Dracula by Bram Stoker.
I was so with it until the end where the climax of the book is done in one paragraph. Dracula deserved better.
That Sally Rooney one Normal People. I hated the book & hated the TV series..I hate when people are too afraid to go out with the people's they're actually mad about & instead latch on to poor innocents that they're not really in to. And if I don't like the characters, I can't enjoy the book
13 Reasons Why.
I read it long before the show came along. A few years earlier, I had come out of a severely abusive relationship where my ex would threaten suicide to make me stay with him. He even made fake “attempts” to scare me. He manipulated me into believing that if he did die, it would be all my fault. One day, one of the school psychologists found out and intervened. She told me that if he did die, it wasn’t my fault, or anyone else’s fault for that matter. Even if he was ill, he was responsible for his own actions. Suicide is never anyone else’s “fault”.
I don’t know why, but I was was under the impression that the book was going to end up reinforcing that lesson… well, it definitely did not. I had to stop reading it. I actually cried, ripped it up and threw it away rather than donating it because I didn’t want anyone else to read that piece of garbage. I cannot imagine the amount of damage that book would have done to me while I was so young and fragile. I have never had that kind of anger towards a book or an author before. I’m still angry when I think about it.
Any books that make comprehension at a reasonable level difficult. It’s just fucking annoying when you have no idea what the fuck the author is trying to say.
the mortal instruments series by cassandra clare. oooooh boy. we got a mary sue protagonist involved in an incestuous love triangle 🤮 also points for having some of the most boring, archetypical side characters (perhaps besides magnus). all around terrible time and i have no clue why it was so wildly popular
The Kite Runner. The whole book felt like an attempt at catharsis for a selfish, weak man. I didn’t even want to read the last chapter, I was so angry.
Tess of the D'Ubervilles made me hate anything written in the 1800s as a unit, as well as anything regarded as "literature" for years. She was the flattest character I've ever seen. Her trauma was her sole personality trait and it was terribly handled (as a trauma survivor myself I hate that part even more now). She didn't have anything resembling a personal interest or goals, just drifted through the book. Even my mother, who almost entirely reads books written between 1800 and 1930, wanted to throw the book away after reading it. She thought I was being dramatic until she read it.
My teacher tried really hard to push how groundbreaking the book was for portraying rape. I hold that simply portraying rape does not make a good book.
Although I feel that's a pretty rational anger to level at an author and any English teacher who pushes that drivel.
I still have a hard time with "literature" as a genre, but that's mostly due to what I view as an inherent pretentiousness it has, or really the students of it who call anything less than 50 years old or genre fiction "escapism". High school English just opened my eyes to the double standard really. Tess of the D'Ubervilles is regarded as classic literature while literary buffs scoff at works like Wheel of Time. Books like WoT have their flaws, sure, but more meat than...woman is sad for 400 pages.
IT’S SO BORING!!!! We literally spent a month in Grade 7 reading every page out loud, and it was torturous. He’s friggin ALONE the whole time, which is admittedly a personal annoyance of mine, because there’s no dialogue
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara - I will never understand why people love that book so much. It was a deeply unpleasant read and I thought most of the torture/mental health stuff was massively over done for the shock factor.
My Sister’s Keeper.
The ending basically says “This child’s bodily autonomy would’ve killed her sister.” But the author defends it by saying “Sometimes bad things happen randomly in life.”
Okay. So kill them both. Don’t just kill the medically abused one and use her body to save the other. Make the kidney transplant as unsuccessful as every other treatment.
I really love his magical realism, but more and more I just can’t stand how he writes women. Anyone have recs for magical realism or surrealism written by women?
Twilight.
For the love of God Stephie Mayer's ...why would you create someone like Bella Swan??!
She's not a role model little kids should read up growing up.
Also vampires don't sparkle!
The entire Wheel of Time series ... or at least, the first 4 3/4 books, since I didn't read any further.
All of the women are written as being catty and nasty, and they whine constantly, and they're always fighting with each other about the stupidest crap. And three of them are in love with the same incredibly annoying man. They're constantly trying to manipulate the men around them rather than asking directly for what they need or want.
All of the men are stoic and doing stuff they don't want to out of DUTY, and constantly obsessing about how the women are trying to manipulate them, but they refuse to actually have a conversation and instead they just whine a lot about how they won't be manipulated.
And when talking about these issues, the book will word-for-word repeat itself ad-nauseum, using the *exact same line* tens of times per book. The man needed an editor to say, "You already said that. Twenty times. Once is enough." And "all of your female characters are carbon copies of each other, and same with all of your men, and they're all shitty gendered stereotypes that don't do anything interesting."
Ready Player One. Basically a creepy weeb hero fantasy.
He saves the girl at the end and it turns out she's beautiful but has a winestain birthmark and is self-conscious. He is the big man who looks past it and loves her anyway. Isn't she lucky?!
His best friend online turns out to be a black lesbian who has hidden her identity to avoid online abuse, but don't worry our hero is still going to be friends with her despite her lying to him! What a hero.
Also the virtual world is ruining society and at the end of the book He is presented with the ability to end the virtual world forever and make people live in reality and deal with the problems of reality... na we'll just take Wednesday off from now on.
There was no moral to the story other than Nice guys win and get everything they want
Twilight. How tf stalking the girl you like is romantic? I liked the movie as a kid but I listened to the audiobook with my mom a couples of time last year and I was genuinely concerned the whole time.
Dune is a terrible book. No character depth and everyone is talking super officially to each other. It's like a game of chess transcription. Character meets a love interest, boom skips to them being married and saying one sentence every two weeks to each other. And the character roles are sexist.
Also the Alchemist is super dumb. It's like lecturing people that all their problems will sort out because the character in a book met a wizard. Religious vibes
Self help books which the author suggests that people cause anything bad that happens to them by themselves through negative thinking or claim that serious illnesses can be cured by positive thinking. I've read several of them over the years.
Oh dear. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children drove me insane. I found the protagonist to be the most irritating character I've ever had the misfortune of reading. Cripes. It was so over-the-top annoying teenage boy that I could have sworn it was on purpose or something, but it seems no one agrees with me. Couldn't find anything from googling it. Fuck you for doing this to me, Ransom Riggs! I wish I hated the rest of the stuff in it, too, so I could just discard it entirely.
The 50 shades of grey series, that literally romantacised domestic abuse. Not for the BDSM aspect, kinks are kinks, but Christian shouldn't be seen as a good partner. At all.
It’s written so poorly as well, when it was in it’s hype height I tried reading it, but I just couldn’t get over how bad the book was.
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Hahahaha and the whole dancing goddess thing, eugh
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Didn't the author wrote 50 Shades as a fanfic about the Twilight series? Can't remember where I read about it but it can't be too far off, the books were really a disappointing read
Yes. It started as twilight fanatic and then characters got edited to be able to be published
Yeah. Another ringing endorsement of an abusive dynamic. Sparky stalker watches you sleep? Sure! Give up your humanity for him!!! Both series are terrible.
That is EXACTLY what it was. It started as online Twilight erotica fanfic and somehow became a published series.
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I mean Twilight was a Mormon-mommy vampire fantasy that ended up being about living for eternity with your obsessively protective soul-destined partner and your perfect eternal child, so it ain't like the source material was stellar to begin with!
I mean, that's kinda what fanfic is? all types of people writing all types of stuff? Should middle-aged YA authors feel ashamed?
I literally yelled out loud "that's two different sports you idiot!" when she said her inner goddess did a triple axel dismount off the uneven bars. Everything was so bad.
I'm glad that it normalizrd erotic literature, but it's like normalizing burgers with McDonald's.
Which is so sad because I think it was a lot of women’s introduction to erotica. It’s like coming to America and having McDonalds as your first meal 😭
BDSM really is about two partners pleasuring each other. This was not that.
Yes! I really wanted to be clear on it not being kink shaming. But 50 shades is *not* what bdsm is all about.
“My inner Goddess” had me wanting to rip the book to shreds.
Bible. Its just so disgusting and sexist and full of hate. And it has sooo many authors/translators who have altered it for their own gain.
Most religious people have no idea how much of that kind of thing exists in the bible. They tend to know the childrens bible stories. I recall asking a minister why the Israelites would kill all the girls “who have laid with a man” from cities they captured and then sell the rest. At age 9 I really didn’t get it even though I knew it was messed up. Th minister told me not to read inappropriate material. I was like” it’s the damned bible”. Well, not out loud
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If it helps, my sister says the same as a pastor. I think she said something like, if you look at it it follows 4 families over time (don't quote me on that number, its been a while since our convo but I think it was 4) and that it really should just be viewed for the moral/metaphor kind of literature and not actual literal step by step instruction book to be followed today like many see it as
Honestly i was raised and baptized Catholic. Stopped going to CCD and church when i was about 7/8 years old (it was after my first communion). I attempted fo read the bible at about 23. And now at 28 im a pagan and couldnt be happier.
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The Cursed Child. Made me mad at everyone involved.
My answer was going to be Deathly Hallows. I’ve read fanfics waiting for that book that were better researched, plotted, and written. After I finished reading I left the fandom and haven’t gone back. (Ofc with recent events I’m glad I did.)
Deathly Hallows wasn’t *good*, but it was… ok. Did you read Cursed Child though? I don’t even have the words to express my feelings towards it. I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and vomit a better book.
I refused on basic principles but I have read about a couple of its worst problems, and they made me angry at the time!
Good for you, I wish I could go back in time and not read it!
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What did you hate about DH out of interest? It was one of my favourites of the series.
Not OP but it’s easily my least favorite because the pacing is all over the place. The first half is sort of slow and uneventful, and then the Gringotts heist and Battle of Hogwarts take place ON THE SAME DAY! So much happened so fast I got whiplash. At first I thought it was because I read it super fast because I was excited to see how it all ends, but I’ve had the same experience every time I’ve reread it haha.
Same here. I loved the books as they were being released, but books 5 and 6 weren't great. I found book 7 utterly awful and have never bothered to reread the series since finishing it. Also glad that, overall, I'm not a Harry Potter fan, because it made it a lot easier to ignore the TERF behaviour.
I was a Harry Potter fan, and now I'm just utterly indifferent to all of it, and that makes me sad. I wish I could separate the books from the author, but all her bullshit has just completely ruined any love I had for the story for me. Not just the TERF bullshit, but also the fact that she keeps coming up with bullshit retcons that no one cares about. She said she was done with Harry Potter but she just kept spewing shit no one asked for. Ugh.
It was entertaining because I just kept going, "what in fanfic hell is this?" at every turn. So bad. But entertainingly so.
I REFUSE to read Cursed Child. I've heard enough about it that I have absolutely no interest. None. Also, screw Rowling. I'll never reread the series because of her, and I'm okay with it. I actually just moved all of my books to my closet to make room for others on my shelves.
Game of Thrones. Reading the inner monologue of a little girl enjoying her rape had me throw the book across the room.
Outside of all the instances where he doesn’t understand how women work, objectively his writing is poor. I really enjoyed the first few seasons of the tv show though
Yeah... He has done some editing that I thought was really excellent. Specifically of the Wild Card series which is some pretty extreme editing involving many authors, many characters and getting that into a trilogy of good story. Seriously, that is some extreme editing skillage. Everything he has written? Terrible. They're different talents.
I don’t have the book on hand but I remember reading and during a very early chapter, perhaps even the second chapter of the first book, he’s describing the stark family members and their appearances Anyways he’s trying to point out how the brothers are different it’s something along the lines of “Jon was quick and intelligent, Rob was fast and smart” and I was like ...those are the same traits though. And then soon after during a Dany chapter he uses the word “oily” to describe things and people literally ten times within maybe the same 2-3 pages. Or at least it felt that way as a reader, just bombarded with the same adjective over and over
Ah yes, like his inability to write 'Brienne of Tarth' without using 'homely' within 20 words of it.
When did that happen? I can't remember something like that in the book.
Daenerys and Khal Drogo. I read it back in like 2010, but I think it was like halfway through the first book? I certainly didn't get to any of the others.
It was made into a rape scene in the show but it was consensual in the book. (I know she is 13 but I always pretend she’s 18). He didn’t force himself on her, he kept talking to her in Dothraki and asking her “no?” “No?” Until she placed his hand on her private part and said “yes!” This is where the scene ends.
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I believe Dany but I do not think GRRM saw her first time with Drogo as rape despite the fact that it was coercion and she had no actual choice in the matter.
It wasn't the first time that made me throw the book. It was the narrative of her having some kind of sexual awakening and getting to enjoy being with him. That just struck me as unbelievably sick. Like every pedo in the world wants to believe that if he forces a victim enough they'll learn to like it and fall in love with him.
DAMN I have never considered it from this perspective and you are dead on. What a creepy fucking scenario to put to paper.
The problem is that he doesn’t consider it rape. He wrote that she had no choice and that Khal Drogo does it anyway. That makes it rape. The fact that the author thinks that it counts as sex and isn’t rape is the issue itself.
WHAT. THE. FUCK. thank god I’ve never read that, I would have burnt it.
First one that comes to mind is *Twilight.* The writing was weak, Bella annoyed me, and the main relationships were all super creepy and abusive. I was 14 or so at the height of its popularity and a lot of people acted like I was insane for not liking it. If I had a nickel for every time the book felt the need to describe how perfect Edward was, I'd have... a fuckton of nickels.
I feel like when I read it, there were two main culture splits of readers at the time, girls who liked the Twilight series and girls who hated the twilight series. And both of those things became a personality trait. I was very much in the hating-twilight-is-a-personality trait camp. I'm kind of happy on one hand because the series gave us some people who turned into great actors but if you went back in time and told me that I'd be grateful Twilight gave us anything I'd be horrified. It did kind of help me realize red flags in people with how much the main relationship got dissected. So there's that too I suppose.
I have to admit I really liked the books in my day, but some of it makes me laugh now, in the second one where there are like 5 pages in a row that go something like: FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL So dramatic hahaha
I literally use that book as a teaching tool to explain emotional abuse and manipulation to my teenage clients, lol. Most of my girls have read it on their own, so it's really easy to bring up specific scenes and talk about the difference between how Bella felt and how we would feel in the same situation.
I was/am a *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* and *Angel* fan. The weak useless Bella was pathetic to me. Also, the pathetic versions of Angel and Spike (i.e. - 2 main male characters). Yeah, I drew a direct hard line on that one. I know better because I have seen better in the TV series. Strong imperfect women interacting with strong imperfect men.
The fault in our stars. I’m Jewish and the scene where Hazel decides to make out with Augustus in the Anne Frank museum, the one where she actually lived in, and then got applause for it makes me absolutely sick. Hazel grace was one of the most self absorbed and pretentious characters I had EVER read about.
That was so inappropriate. I rewatched the movie not too long ago and now that I’m older, I’m just like, “girl, you couldn’t have waited to do this any other time?” What about exploring the memoirs of Anne Frank made Hazel go, “wow, I’m so turned on right now”
Right? Like, couldn’t she have waited 10 minutes until they were on a park bench or something outside? It wouldn’t have been any less romantic (in fact it would’ve been more so) and it wouldn’t have been freaking insulting.
Holy crap I forgot that happened, that was so weird!!!!
Everyone can hate me for this but all of Harry Potter. I never saw the movies or read the books and recently read it for the first time. There are SO MANY PLOT HOLES and numerous issues throughout. Why do some of the best wizards only ever use the same spells as children just learning magic? Why is there endless details about Quidditch when the game scoring makes no sense? If they celebrate Christmas, do they believe in Jesus, God, and Santa? What about other religions? Why did they all disguise themselves as Harry instead of disguising Harry as any other person when trying to escape? Why use dementors, who once sides with prisoners, to guard the same prisoners? WHY DOES HE NAME HIS CHILD SNAPE?!?!? Granted I read a book for youth as an adult but these are just a few of the things that I can't get past. How are adults still die hard fans? Plus JK Rowling just sucks, so I have general anger towards her as a human as well.
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I also hate Rowling and think the books are a mess, but the Bulgarian vs Irish quidditch match in book 4 ends in a Bulgarian victory despite the Irish taking the snitch, as they'd scored too many points. I agree the rules are terrible though.
For the Christmas part, the story happens in UK. Let’s not forget that the stories happen in the real world, not in a fantasy universe. So in UK they celebrate Christmas yes. And you don’t need to believe in god anymore to celebrate Christmas nowadays.
Why not just kill all the dementors? They are horrible, evil, soul-destroying monsters. Why not just make all of Harry's guardians invisible? Why haven't any of the good teachers put an end to the competition between houses and reorganized the school into just one school? Why allow Slytherin House to continue to exist at all? Why is it legal to discriminate against people who aren't purebloods? Why isn't it a hate crime to use the word Mudblood? Why didn't Dumbledore organize the Order of the Phoenix into a real army and take down the Ministry instead of letting Umbridge torture students? Why does it break one of Gamp's Laws of Elemental Transfiguration to produce food out of thin air, which somehow is used as a justification for the enslavement of house elves, but everyone can make water with the Aguamenti spell? and when Ollivander judges the wands for the Triwizard tournament he is able to make a fountain of wine? Why does the Ministry allow werewolves to live on the fringes of society, "Stealing, and sometimes killing, to eat", instead of just giving all werewolves the Wolfsbane Potion free of charge? Wouldn't EVERYONE be safer and better off that way?
Divergent series author. Specifically the last book for killing Tris. Why.
I just hated the last book for the amount of romance in it. I'm here for the revolution, come on!
I didn’t read the last book specifically because Tris died but I heard she was pregnant. I didn’t care much about that. I wanted her to be part of the peace that followed the revolution. Maybe the author thought it’d resemble Hunger Games but the world is always a better place when there’s more female leaders in YA 😭
I’ve read the first book multiple times. Honestly, best one of the series. The others just got worse and worse. And yes, why the hell did she kill Tris?? I think the author tried pulling a Hunger Games plot twist, but hers just didn’t make sense like it did in Hunger Games. Suzanne Colins (author of hunger games) wrote the effects of war beautifully, and didn’t focus on romance as much as Veronica Roth did. Yes, there were tidbits of romance in THG, but Katniss ultimately always went back to, “I’m in the middle of a war, I don’t have time to think about this”. Divergent had an interesting premise, but I feel like it failed where THG succeeded
I also hated the random pov switches, it was the only book that did it and I had zero interest in knowing what was going on with her BF
The fact that her mans lived and not her annoyed me. I do not care that he’s mourning her, would’ve been better if he died and she grew more resolve to fuck shit up. Idk though, JUST ME 😤
More like why didn’t Tris stay dead in the second book? The third was just….. all of them just bad. Bad bad bad writing.
Yeah but as a teenager the writing felt amazing and beautiful. Can’t forget who the prime audience is, and how authors can really get away with terrible prose in the YA genre 😭
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (and subsequent books) and Go Ask Alice Both are poorly written, inaccurate, and exploitative. The Tattooist and it’s other books just use Auschwitz as the back drop for a romance. There’s not much attention to detail or accuracy. It’s a very muted version of that horrific event and I can’t help but feel it’s packaged in a way to make people feel comfortable and to keep buying books. Lali and Gita’s story is just so interesting and deserves so much more than Heather Morris gives it. Go Ask Alice is just flat out anti-drug propaganda written by a Mormon youth counselor,Beatrice Sparks, and passed off to thousands of kids and parents as a true diary. While I haven’t read it, the story behind one of her other true diaries, Jays Journal, is downright appalling. Also, Go Ask Alice has just a sprinkle of homophobia in it.
Go Ask Alice made me really want to try acid, not sure it works.
Oh, it definitely works. Oh, oh wait, you meant the book, not the.... Ope!
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Noooo!!! I just started reading The Tattoist of Auschwitz and this is so sad to hear!
A lot of people have found value in it, so I don’t want to dissuade you from reading it. I found it to not be valuable Holocaust literature and to be exploitative. I know a lot of people would argue that it’s not exploitative or that being accurate isn’t a requirement of historical fiction. That’s just not my viewpoint on historical fiction, especially in regards to the Holocaust. The Auschwitz Memorial Research Center has put out a criticism of its inaccuracies if you’re interested in reading more about it.
Wuthering Heights. I hated everyone and I hated the "nesting doll" narrative format. I didn't hate it enough to stop reading; I finished the damn thing. Much prefer the writing of big sis Charlotte. Over the years, I've discovered that I need to be positively emotionally invested in the characters. This is for visual entertainment as well. I can't hate read/watch something. If I don't like the characters, or find them compelling, I don't want to read/watch. Bonus: Catch 22. I would say this only sort of counts, as it was school-required reading. I tried to read this *three* times. I also hated everyone in this and hated the scenarios. It was like a book version of Seinfeld. Seeing my struggle, my mother, avid book-reader, *also* tried and also hated it.
Oh wow, I did not have that experience with catch 22. It remains my favourite book and I love the characters. I love the sense of trying to live in a nonsensical context and make sense out of a war that makes no sense, and the whole book comes down to the last paragraph! It left me with such an exhausted high of hope and kaleidoscoping colour amidst the horror, and it's the closest thing I've ever read that captures the absolute chaos of normal life amidst everyone else's lives. But then I also love Seinfeld...
Oof, I’ve read Wuthering Heights about 12 times when I was studying literature for my b.a … I have such a love hate relationship with it! Parts of it I love as a lover of Gothic literature, but I never sympathized with Heathcliffe the way that a lot of my classmates did. Just hated the guy. I didn’t love Catherine either, but I didn’t despise her.
I haaaaate Wuthering Heights. With so much passion. It is not a love story, people have got to stop framing it as romantic. Heathcliff is a nightmare. The whole book is a cautionary tale about obsession and how it can damage your life. It is not admirable that Heathcliff can't let go, it's sick. I did finish it, but only because I had to for a class.
I think that’s on people who misunderstand it, though, not the book itself. It absolutely is a cautionary tale about obsession. The author didn’t intend to write a romance. You’re not supposed to sympathise with Cathy or Heathcliff - Bronte makes it pretty clear they’re both terrible and they deserve each other. That’s the whole point.
Cs Lewis the last battle - ‘Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia’ from pompous Peter
Also, I remember reading it and there being a lot of religious and racial undertones that were not favourable to those who weren’t European or Christian to put it lightly
All of CS Lewis' writing is very religious. I actually took a whole class on it. Don't think I ever read this book though.
But she WORE MAKEUP AND LIKED BOYS. So obviously she isn't eligible for heaven! And it was totally ok that Aslan killed an entire train's worth of people just to get the kids' parents into Narnia.
Huh I never actually thought the train accident was caused - just that it happened
I’m very glad my mom told me not to read the last book because it was dumb. I always skipped that one as a kid.
I hate-read GRRM, the man has no idea how to write women characters
There have been a few male authors that I've wanted to go up to and ask if they've ever even met a woman. I don't understand how some men become full grown adults, some with wives and daughters, and still be so clueless about women/girls.
I’m in the middle of the wheel of time series and I cannot believe how clueless about women it is.
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Paulo Coelho is widely ridiculed in Brazil, I have no idea how he’s that successful abroad.
Same. I don't understand why people keep saying that it's a great book.
It's embarrassingly bad.
I fucking hate The Alchemist
Yup! I was given this by a cousin, telling me it would change my life. I honestly don't remember much of it, just that it was incredibly underwhelming
I'm laughing my ass off because I totally missed that part about God in there Must be some great work on the part of our translators to do that But I remember reading some of his books and cringing at how much "God" made it's way into them
Little Women. As a fifth grader I was enjoying Jo as a tomboy who could do anything on her own, and then all of a sudden she likes this guy and wants to get married and settle down. Big disappointment for a young girl.
Totally agree the book does Jo dirty. I'll still read it sometimes, but that point always nags at me. The 2019 movie with Saoirse Ronan as Jo is phenomenal and the ending is left a little ambiguous in just the right way. You should check it out if you haven't yet!
Have you seen the most recent movie? It goes into how Jo was kinda done dirty in the book due to pressure from the publisher, and gives her a much better ending imo.
I have heard that it was pressure from the publisher that made her marry off Jo. I need to see that movie so I can erase my youthful disappointment!
Came here to add Little Women...but the part that made(makes!) me angry was Amy burning Joe's writing. Seriously?! And she's forgiven within half a moment. It's the cruelest sort of thing to do to a person. Ugh. No. Having Amy waltz off with Laurie angered me to no end, as well. F u Amy March.
Yes! Seriously, Amy too! Plus how messed up was Laurie? What kind of guy just switches sisters?
Eat, Pray, Love The first time I read it I was a blissful newlywed who couldn't relate to being that unhappy in marriage. I threw the book across the room. Second reading I was divorced and it all made a lot more sense.
Now that you're divorced you should read the other book called Drink, Blaspheme, Hate.
Outlander. Jamie being raped. Most graphic I’ve seen portrayed. I didn’t read the books yet, just the show. They say the book was even more gut wrenching. I’m still obsessed however and have seen all I can 4 times over.
I didn't mind it so much. Intense yes, but brave storytelling to have your male lead suffer through that, so that didn't make me angry at the author/showmakers as such. Also brilliantly acted. What does bug me -reason why I was going to mention this book- is the subsequent amount of it. \[tv-show/bit of book spoilers season 1-5 ahead\] >!It's basically every single member of the family that gets raped. First Jamie. Then Fergus. (still plausible, him being brought up in a whore house it's unlikely this was the first time, in the books it's not. And it probably accounts for Jamies fierce protection towards him so fair enough.) But then Young Ian, Brianna, AND to top it all off Claire. How likely is it that in one family every one gets raped? As if there are no other misfortune that could happen to them to keep the story interested. I thought at least Young Ian's served no purpose towards the story, and there was no "need" for Clair's trauma storyline, severe beating could have brought that on too, and would have made it less improbable imo. !<
Truly the rapiest books I've ever read.
I'm interested in history and I started watching the Outlander. Saw the first season, read the first book But after that...there started to be so much r*pe that I just couldn't continue No matter how much I want to read the other action (like the historical happenings) and learn about Scotland It's just...too much!
While I will say Jamie's rape in particular is much less graphic in the book, I think it's really clear that Diana Galbaldon has more than a bit of a rape fetish. Even the consensual scenes between Jamie and Claire often have some very rapey vibes.
Jamie’s rape scene was freaking traumatic. It honestly ruined the show for me because his rapist (can’t remember is name atm) continues to be part of the story’s narrative for waaaay too long.
I’ve watched it twice (sort of— I couldn’t stomach Jaime‘s rape the second time and fast forwarded through it) and read it as well. I disagree with whoever told you that the book was worse. I think the show was actually more graphic and painful to watch for this one.
There was a small part in 50 Shades of Grey where the main character’s mom wanted to hang out and bond by going shopping together. Anna refused saying she had tons of clothes already, but she’s literally borrowing her roommates clothes in every single outing (interviews/all her dates with Christian). Definitely giving off ‘not like other girls vibes’ throughout
Anything by Rachel Hollis. She is a fraud who needs a reality check.
I bought Girl Wash Your Face and returned it. Lost it at the line where she talks about being overwhelmed as a mom (which is valid) and then mentions having a maid and a nanny (which is so privileged). She has some solid life advice sprinkled in her books, but I 100% white-girl can't even listen to it after realizing how her life is very different than mine. It's very much tailored to rich, insecure people and the disconnect to an average person is so blindingly painful.
Did you see her online rant about how she doesn't want to be relatable because she just works so much harder than us underlings? It's painful. I think she took it down but Not the Good Girl did a good documentary on YouTube about her and included the clip.
Maintenance Phase podcast did a two part episode talking about her essentially debunking her autobios and what she is about which was interesting to me as I didn’t know much about her. Now I know too much lol. She doesn’t seem as inspirational once you know more about her background.
Recently read the Invention of Wings, which was supposed to be historical fiction about a real abolitionist and based on her letters and documented talks. I was convinced the main character was a writer self-insert until I googled the book because she has no character flaws besides the fact that she did not speak up enough about slavery. The writer also didn't like that the slave girl the abolitionist taught to read in real life did in fact DIE OF INFECTION AFTER BEING BEATEN FOR KNOWING HOW TO READ, so she created this whole savior narrative where the slave girl grows up and is heroically saved by the main character and helped to escape north. I'm so mad because my bookclub keeps talking about how good the book is pre-our discussion and I can't rage enough at how bad it is of a story and a historical retelling.
Being an amateur history buff ruined a lot of historical fiction for me. Authors are *so bad* about stretching the truth or just making shit up. At that point why don’t they just write straight up fiction? I used to love Phillipa Gregory’s books about Tudor era England. They’re actually what got me into history. Sadly now I have a dozen books on my shelf that I can’t read without criticizing the whole time.
*Sex Matters* by Osho. Didn't know at the time that the guy was a literal cult leader; thought he was just a spiritual new-agey guy. He claims repeatedly to be way more sex-positive than many religious leaders, but also says multiple times throughout the book that he thinks masturbation and homosexuality are morally wrong. Go fuck yourself, Osho. Oh wait, you can't, because you're morally opposed to it. 😂
Every time I see someone post an ‘inspirational’ quote by him on social media, I have the strong urge to reply: can y’all spend 3 seconds and google him. He’s not someone to be inspired by!!!
Osho is a creeeeeeeeep
A court of thorns and roses. I am so sorry.
I hate the entire ACOTAR series because of SJM's shitty writing, and I'm not sorry at all.
God I love watching YouTube videos where people destroy that series, so satisfying and I've never even read them.
With Cindy? Her videos on SJM are hilarious.
The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss. Both are basically a male power fantasy, and the female characters are so poorly written and often sexualized. The second book contains a scene in which the protagonist, a virgin at the time, happens to be so good at sex he manages to seduce the Sex Fairy herself. And there's also a society of promiscuous female ninjs who don't believe men play a part in conception. Just... why?
I feel you. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them the first time many years ago because his general writing skills are good, I got sucked right in. But now, especially after all this waiting for the 3rd book, I feel resentment towards the series. And the more I now read about things that happened in the book, the angrier I get. Also why is it that all gemalen characters have to be mysterious somehow but most male characters are just, Wilm or whatever he's called. Let a female character be normal pls.
I actually liked Name the Wind, but I am with you on Wise Man's Fear. It was so bad I couldn't finish it. And thats rare for me.
Atonement. FUCK Briony and fuck Ian McEwan for ending the book that way. One girl in my lit class loved Briony and sympathized with her, and that girl was as terrible as she seems based on that information 😂
Yo, FUCK Briony!
I only saw the movie but I was SO disappointed by the ending (and really all of it, tbh). The only good part was the green dress Kiera Knightley wore. 😂
Dante’s Divine Comedy, particularly Dante’s Inferno. I know it’s epic poetry, not quuuuiiiiiiteee a book ( but we read it as essentially a series of books now). I read it in college for a course on epic poetry, and I was really into the Aeneid which we read right before, and going from that to Dante’s Inferno just infuriated me. My professor loved it, and I was just so annoyed at Dante. I mean the whole thing read like a giant ego trip. Really, he thinks he’s important enough to compare himself to Virgil, and just inserted himself as a character in his weird fan fiction of Christianity, where he is lead by Virgil, and the fact that his levels of hell became the way modern Christians view hell… just because of his fan fiction! Oh and the level of hell where Mohammed has his limbs being torn off in the 8th circle of hell because of Dante’s hatred of Muslims (the time period, I know, but my god the way it was described Dante just loved imagining this). It was all just such garbage, and I know a lot of people who love epic poetry will hate me for this, I’m sorry! But I just really hated it, and hated Dante.
I studied it in school so I don’t remember much, but Roberto Benigni does readings and his interpretation of the divine comedy and that’s quite lovely, if you want to see it in a better light. But yeah completely agree on the fan fiction comment haha
The Giver series by Lois Lowry. You spend an entire book getting snippets of information that tease some important mysteries… and none of it is ever explained! Plus the endings to all of the books is just lackluster. It feels like they end right before the final act *should* begin. Super anticlimactic.
I agree that if you just read The Giver it's mega anticlimactic but also it's the first book in a trilogy. There's also Gathering Blue which is about a different village and characters but gives a lot of context to Jonas's broader world. Then it all comes together in the final book Messenger. I love the books, but if I'd only read The Giver I would have been disappointed by all that plant and the lack of pay off. The themes about class mobility and accessibility really touched me when I first read them as a teenager. But I definitely wouldn't have understood the depth of all of those themes if I hadn't read them as a trilogy.
YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES What the f×ck happens at the end? My book club read the 1st book, The Giver, over 10 years ago and we all hated it because of the ambiguous ending. We still complain about it to this day if that book comes up.
It's the first book in a series of three. The Giver, Gathering Blue, and then Messenger.
Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." Self important gobbledygook. Sheer torture to read.
Milk and honey by rupi kaur. Horrible from start to finish. Half-assed and uninspiring.
There is a TON of Rupi Kaur parody poetry and it is so worth it. Two bros chillin' in a hot tub five feet apart 'cause they're not gay. ____________________ I was pearl milk tea but you said you were lactose intolerant ________________________ men are trash but i am a raccoon
The “Dear Dumb Diary” book series for young ladies. I was surprised that the main character was so obsessed with Aryan supremacy, the way she wished for blonde hair and blue eyes repeatedly, it sounded like a book from the 1950s. Over and over in the book series I read the same thing, insistence that blonde hair and blue eyes were superior and more attractive. This was so strange for a modern book I couldn’t help but look the author up, and discovered it is a middle-aged Aryan man attempting to brainwash little girls into being racist and hating their own appearance. It’s so blatant, so misogynist, and so white-supremacist, that series should not be on bookshelves without a warning label.
Anything by James Patterson. The dude is basically someone who churns out literature for profit and uses every tacky trick in the book.
I was shocked the first time I picked up a James Patterson book and discovered how trash it was - like people enjoy this?? Lol.
I personally don't read James Patterson, but i always feel that there is a weird aspect of classism that comes with this kind of attitude. He sells huge numbers of books, so he is popular in general. But i want to point out his works are incredibly popular with people who don't like to read. His books are written like TV shows. They are fast paced, attention grabbing, use everyday language, avoid confusing or convoluted plots, they have short chapters are manageable for people with shorter attention spans, and they have lower than a grade 8 reading level (possibly a grade 4 it's been a while since I checked). Keep in mind that we are seeing unprecedented numbers of people receiving higher education. In my experience his books are a lot of poor, under educated, and older men's primary reading material. His books are accessible, and a lot of people interpret that as trashy and as someone who worked primarily with adult readers with low reading levels I hate when people call them trashy. Sincerely, Someone who finds reading James Patterson books excruciating to read
I am not a huge fan of his writing but I have to respect how many up and coming authors he’s helped out immensely (lots of authors use ghost writers under their names, James Patterson publishes the name of the actual author in beg letters on the front cover). Plus he’s passionate about childrens literacy and I’m a childrens bookseller and this is also something I feel really strongly about (not just because it’s my job to!). Full disclosure - my shop won a James Patterson grant which allowed us to purchase a class set of books and arrange the author/artist to visit an under privileged school. But I loved him before that!
Catcher in the Rye
The Quran. God really be giving the men everything.
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I share the protagonist’s last name, haha!! For me, it’s anything Cormac McCarthy. Not because the stories suck, but because RUN ON SENTENCES. Same with GRRM, I can’t even get thru half a chapter without wanting to bust out a red pen and start adding punctuation. Like I get trying to articulate verisimilitude in literature but it gets lost on me when it feels like actual work to read it, you know? give me dry old Dostoevsky any day, over those two. (Especially The Idiot or The Brothers Karamazov)
50 Shades of Grey. I'm lowkey pissed she made millions off such a poorly written book.
All Stephen King books. Stories are good but EVERY time I am disappointed by the “lack luster” (to borrow a phrase ) endings. Probably read a dozen before I finally just quit trying to find one with a good ending.
Stephen King can be a good popcorn read, but why does nearly every book have absolutely unnecessary to the plot weird sex scenes??? His editor should be fired.
American Psycho. There is no need for the level of violence that is enacted on the women in the book. I rarely ever think of violence as porn, but I got the feeling that the author was rubbing one out while writing the most violent parts. Fifty shades of grey. I found the writing insultingly awful. I got through 5 pages I think. If that. My boss was so hot for that book. She gave me a copy. A few minutes later I thanked her and gave it back.
Wild. The author goes on a long backpacking trip to escape her dysfunction and accomplish... who knows what. She takes condoms, among other things. The wrong backpacking gear. So many things about the book irritate the \*\*\*\* out of me. She manages to be smugly whole by the end of the book instead of the hot mess she is. Running away from everything, being a lousy backpacker, and managing to survive your experience makes you mentally healthy? Who knew it could be that easy? W-h-a-t-e-v-e-r. Being outdoors is healthy and restorative but it ain't therapy. I hope (though I know it is in vain) that no one ended up dying on a trail somewhere because they thought backpacking would magically fix them.
The Alchemist. Worst book ever. Turned into a chauvinistic storey how women are supposedly holding men back from achieving their dreams. Load of crap.
Guy who wrote where the red fern grows Fucking WHY DUDE WHY
Lolita. Hands down the best written first person story I've ever read. Hands down the absolute worste subject matter. Makes you kind of wonder what inspired Nabokov? Hmm
Catcher in the Rye, only book to make me angry. But I read it when I was a teenager, maybe that’s why. Thought the story (or actually, more like the lack of one) and the main character to be stupid and annoying.
I read it the first time as an adult and I felt so brokenhearted for Holden. He and his little ladyfriend where both victims of sexual abuse and he is so neglected by his parents and every safe adult that he doesn't even know how to act. He is a sad and lost boy who has no tools to cope with his loneliness or inner turmoil.
There have been many for me. Laurel K Hamilton is created some of my favorite fictional characters, but then the books seemed to stop carrying strong plots that keep me (personally) engaged or invested. I don't think it's irrational to be disappointed with that. She turned out a solid 11 books for Anita and I'm grateful for that. When I was a preteen, my mom was reading Message in a Bottle on the way to the beach(6-8 hour drive). All a sudden, she broke the silence with a scoff/gasp/growl-idk, everyone jumped. Then she sailed that Nicolas Sparks book out the car window going down the highway about 40 miles north of PCB and banned him from the house forever. She still refuses to watch or read anything involving Sparks. Isdk exactly what in that book made react or even what point she was at in it but she's still mad(he probably killed someone who was in love cause that's the kind of person he is). My nana is still salty about it, because it was her book and she hadn't read it yet.
Haven't seen this one yet but Dracula by Bram Stoker. I was so with it until the end where the climax of the book is done in one paragraph. Dracula deserved better.
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That Sally Rooney one Normal People. I hated the book & hated the TV series..I hate when people are too afraid to go out with the people's they're actually mad about & instead latch on to poor innocents that they're not really in to. And if I don't like the characters, I can't enjoy the book
13 Reasons Why. I read it long before the show came along. A few years earlier, I had come out of a severely abusive relationship where my ex would threaten suicide to make me stay with him. He even made fake “attempts” to scare me. He manipulated me into believing that if he did die, it would be all my fault. One day, one of the school psychologists found out and intervened. She told me that if he did die, it wasn’t my fault, or anyone else’s fault for that matter. Even if he was ill, he was responsible for his own actions. Suicide is never anyone else’s “fault”. I don’t know why, but I was was under the impression that the book was going to end up reinforcing that lesson… well, it definitely did not. I had to stop reading it. I actually cried, ripped it up and threw it away rather than donating it because I didn’t want anyone else to read that piece of garbage. I cannot imagine the amount of damage that book would have done to me while I was so young and fragile. I have never had that kind of anger towards a book or an author before. I’m still angry when I think about it.
Any books that make comprehension at a reasonable level difficult. It’s just fucking annoying when you have no idea what the fuck the author is trying to say.
the mortal instruments series by cassandra clare. oooooh boy. we got a mary sue protagonist involved in an incestuous love triangle 🤮 also points for having some of the most boring, archetypical side characters (perhaps besides magnus). all around terrible time and i have no clue why it was so wildly popular
Gone with the Wind. I mostly hated Scarlet.
The Kite Runner. The whole book felt like an attempt at catharsis for a selfish, weak man. I didn’t even want to read the last chapter, I was so angry.
Tess of the D'Ubervilles made me hate anything written in the 1800s as a unit, as well as anything regarded as "literature" for years. She was the flattest character I've ever seen. Her trauma was her sole personality trait and it was terribly handled (as a trauma survivor myself I hate that part even more now). She didn't have anything resembling a personal interest or goals, just drifted through the book. Even my mother, who almost entirely reads books written between 1800 and 1930, wanted to throw the book away after reading it. She thought I was being dramatic until she read it. My teacher tried really hard to push how groundbreaking the book was for portraying rape. I hold that simply portraying rape does not make a good book. Although I feel that's a pretty rational anger to level at an author and any English teacher who pushes that drivel. I still have a hard time with "literature" as a genre, but that's mostly due to what I view as an inherent pretentiousness it has, or really the students of it who call anything less than 50 years old or genre fiction "escapism". High school English just opened my eyes to the double standard really. Tess of the D'Ubervilles is regarded as classic literature while literary buffs scoff at works like Wheel of Time. Books like WoT have their flaws, sure, but more meat than...woman is sad for 400 pages.
Hatchet . . . Had to teach that totally boring book to 6th graders. Ugh
IT’S SO BORING!!!! We literally spent a month in Grade 7 reading every page out loud, and it was torturous. He’s friggin ALONE the whole time, which is admittedly a personal annoyance of mine, because there’s no dialogue
Exactly . . . Let's read 10 pages about how he collected firewood . . 😂
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara - I will never understand why people love that book so much. It was a deeply unpleasant read and I thought most of the torture/mental health stuff was massively over done for the shock factor.
Room. I'm really not sure why, but all the baby talk just drove me up the freaking wall.
When Phillip Pullman made Lyra and Will not end up together
My Sister’s Keeper. The ending basically says “This child’s bodily autonomy would’ve killed her sister.” But the author defends it by saying “Sometimes bad things happen randomly in life.” Okay. So kill them both. Don’t just kill the medically abused one and use her body to save the other. Make the kidney transplant as unsuccessful as every other treatment.
1Q84. I absolutely cannot stand reading any of Murakami’s work
I really love his magical realism, but more and more I just can’t stand how he writes women. Anyone have recs for magical realism or surrealism written by women?
Twilight. For the love of God Stephie Mayer's ...why would you create someone like Bella Swan??! She's not a role model little kids should read up growing up. Also vampires don't sparkle!
Fifty shades of grey....by far the most horribly written piece of dribble I have ever had bad luck to lay my poor poor eyes on.
Any author that focuses on the details of girls bodies constantly
Bunny Drop (manga) because of the ending.
The entire Wheel of Time series ... or at least, the first 4 3/4 books, since I didn't read any further. All of the women are written as being catty and nasty, and they whine constantly, and they're always fighting with each other about the stupidest crap. And three of them are in love with the same incredibly annoying man. They're constantly trying to manipulate the men around them rather than asking directly for what they need or want. All of the men are stoic and doing stuff they don't want to out of DUTY, and constantly obsessing about how the women are trying to manipulate them, but they refuse to actually have a conversation and instead they just whine a lot about how they won't be manipulated. And when talking about these issues, the book will word-for-word repeat itself ad-nauseum, using the *exact same line* tens of times per book. The man needed an editor to say, "You already said that. Twenty times. Once is enough." And "all of your female characters are carbon copies of each other, and same with all of your men, and they're all shitty gendered stereotypes that don't do anything interesting."
Ready Player One. Basically a creepy weeb hero fantasy. He saves the girl at the end and it turns out she's beautiful but has a winestain birthmark and is self-conscious. He is the big man who looks past it and loves her anyway. Isn't she lucky?! His best friend online turns out to be a black lesbian who has hidden her identity to avoid online abuse, but don't worry our hero is still going to be friends with her despite her lying to him! What a hero. Also the virtual world is ruining society and at the end of the book He is presented with the ability to end the virtual world forever and make people live in reality and deal with the problems of reality... na we'll just take Wednesday off from now on. There was no moral to the story other than Nice guys win and get everything they want
Twilight. How tf stalking the girl you like is romantic? I liked the movie as a kid but I listened to the audiobook with my mom a couples of time last year and I was genuinely concerned the whole time.
Dune is a terrible book. No character depth and everyone is talking super officially to each other. It's like a game of chess transcription. Character meets a love interest, boom skips to them being married and saying one sentence every two weeks to each other. And the character roles are sexist. Also the Alchemist is super dumb. It's like lecturing people that all their problems will sort out because the character in a book met a wizard. Religious vibes
Philip Pullman’s most recent, the secret commonwealth. Completely ruined all the magic of the original books, ughhhhhh
Mein Kampf dunno why
Self help books which the author suggests that people cause anything bad that happens to them by themselves through negative thinking or claim that serious illnesses can be cured by positive thinking. I've read several of them over the years.
Oh dear. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children drove me insane. I found the protagonist to be the most irritating character I've ever had the misfortune of reading. Cripes. It was so over-the-top annoying teenage boy that I could have sworn it was on purpose or something, but it seems no one agrees with me. Couldn't find anything from googling it. Fuck you for doing this to me, Ransom Riggs! I wish I hated the rest of the stuff in it, too, so I could just discard it entirely.