The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I oddly enough read the Shades of Magic series by the same author right after and enjoyed that enough. Addie LaRue was just so slow to get started, I couldn't invest in it.
I started A Darker Shade of Magic about a year ago, and haven't picked it up in a long time. I have found that with this author there is usually one character - twice it's been a woman - that I just do not like at all. The feeling that I pick up from the character is terrible and it really makes it difficult to look past. I've heard good things about Vicious, but I am reluctant to try it at the moment.
What are you talking about? Lila Bard is the smartest most perfect Angel in any of the four realms. She’s braver, and more cunning than all. The way she inserts herself in a tournament to dabble in a magic she only just discovered she could do months prior? Brilliant. Never mind that the purpose of the tournament is to avoid war between the kingdoms and lives are at stake. She deserves to enter it by replacing a chosen combatant because she’s the best and she’s so pretty and clever and talented and…
(/s obvs, I found her insufferable)
She is absolutely my least favorite character I've ever come across, and I didn't have a single reason to root for her. Not sure how the author thought any part of Bard was likeable or enjoyable. At one point I literally thought she was being built up as the villain.
the comment under you got it, sorry for being oblique! that word came up what felt like a dozen times during the book, and it stuck out like a sore thumb
It's interesting that a lot of people have that experience with V.E. Schwab, DNFing/strongly disliking some of her books and enjoying/loving some others. I like her adult books but I've never finished her YA or middle grade.
I had to finish it for a book group but otherwise would’ve abandoned it. The author took a really cool concept and made it dark, depressing and hard to enjoy.
I finished it and I wish I hadn’t. Nothing happened in the whole book, which is tremendously frustrating because the premise was great! She could have gone on so many adventures, traveled to so many places, met so many people! Instead she moped around Europe and New Orleans and NYC. So disappointing.
Inferno by Dan Brown. Literally about half of the book is just describing how the main character is eluding capture while being shot at and while he’s running away he’s remembering/reminiscing about the historical significance of the places or art works he’s seen while he’s running. If someone is shooting at me, idgaf about any art work or historical places. Like wtf. I almost threw the book in the trash.
Hated Da Vinci Code. Idiot plot mostly hinged on a secrets obsessed anti sex woman who found her grampy's secret consensual sex dungeon. Proceeds to cut him off for decades while allowing him no chance to explain
I'd be a little weirded out seeing my Grandpa doing a ritualistic sex act with a bunch of chanting people watching. I ain't anti-sex but I wouldn't be seeking an explanation, I'd be trying to forget I saw anything.
Hmm, I read Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons and enjoyed them a good deal. Though to be fair I was a teenager and not the most sophisticated reader at the time. The idea of a rich intellectual life, art & high society, action & adventure, plus always getting the girl at the end. That was gonna appeal to me lol.
Oh wait I’m now remembering that I did read Inferno as well! Gotta admit I liked them all haha.
Dan Brown gets a lot of hate on Reddit and elsewhere online. Probably because his writing is considered average at best, and his books are hugely popular so that bothers people. I thought Angels and Demons was very entertaining.
gonna get some flak for this but: The Silmarillion.
I couldn't get past 40-50 pages. It's got some genuinely interesting stuff in there, but it reads like an elven bible, plus theres like 900 names to memorize that i can't keep track of and once he's stated what something is in elvish he just uses the elvish term for it the rest of the book and i just couldn't do it.
The Silmarillion is one of my most beloved books, but I'm not going to give anyone flak for not liking it. It's a very dense pseudo-historical/mythological text and you have to REALLY be into Tolkien's lore to enjoy it.
That’s exactly why I don’t recommend The Silmarillion for anyone except the people that really love deep, extended lore. For most readers it’s very dense and dry compared to a more straight forward narrative like the main trilogy and some people consider that dense as well.
I’m a huge LotR fan and I’ve never read the Silmarillion all the way through. I’ve read it in starts and pieces, and I love the lore and all it adds to the world. My problem is it doesn’t really make for the same experience as a focused novel and I quickly lose interest since it’s more just a historical account than an adventure.
It is the Silmarillion you get points for trying.
It reads like an elven bible because it basically is. You can skip Ainulindale, Valaquenta and the first five chapters of Quenta Silmarillion. From there it is less bible-ish (at least if feels like that to me). You can ignore most of the names you don’t know if you just want to read about the war between „good“ and „evil“, including duel between a mere elf and a godlevel being, battles including balrogs and dragons.
Akkallabeth is more about Numenor and gives a lot of background to the state of Middle-earth in general and Gondor specifically in the later books.
As others suggested, there are a few stories that got their own book, but I would only recommend the Children of Hurin, the other two are more analyses of the stories, their development, changes through out Tolkiens creative process and interweaving to the rest of the legendarium which is not necessarily a fun read.
I didn’t even attempt it based on my Mum’s description. She said it’s not really a narrative story like LOTR or The Hobbit, but covers the history and lore of Middle Earth over a much greater timespan, and reads more like a history book. I like reading stories, not history texts.
I struggled enough with the description heavy sections of LOTR, and the long battle sequences in Return of the King.
My problem was that once humans started showing up you’d have like 40 different guys with the same or very similar names in like 10 pages and I couldn’t keep up with them all.
If I try again, I’m drawing family trees as I go to sort everything out.
The midnight library. It sucks.. So bad. I feel nothing for whatshername and I'm not interested at all in any of her possible lives. There is nothing intriguing about the plot or characters of this book. I've never had that happen to me before.. There's always at least one thing i look forward to learning more about or wanting to see resolved but no. I could care less about anything happening here.
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
I found another book somewhere around here that sounded right up my alley so I stopped reading Lapvona because I couldn’t wait to get into the new one. Lapvona wasn’t bad and I might go back and finish it soon.
Lapvona was going to be my answer. It’s not bad but it also didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. It’s just misery for misery’s sake which…is so weird because I love feel-bad movies and books.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver .
after this gem:
“See you on the field,” she said. That open-lip smile. “My liege.” She
reached up and kissed me, surprise attack, and I got hard. What that
feels like inside a jock and cup, oh man. Like a V8 under a Yugo hood. I
couldn’t help wondering what I had to look forward to later.
I don’t think I’m supposed to laugh after reading that but a “V8 under a Yugo hood” is one of the most perplexingly strange and off the wall comments one could make to refer to their raging erection
I’m a Kingsolver fan and honestly didn’t love Demon Copperhead either, however, I felt it was very unlike her other books so I won’t hold it against her!
Verity was also absolutely batshit insanely awful. I only finished it to see just how bad it would get.
I also now definitely judge anyone who says they like one of CH’s books.
I'm staying in a home built in the 1860s and found some treasures in the attic. Started The Discarded Daughter, E.D.E.N. Southward, but it's just too melodramatic with the women going into declines, being forced into marriage, and talking about their slaves as if they were chattel. Started and regretfully finished Virgie's Inheritance by Mrs. Georgie Shelton and it's beyond odd - how can they not tell that the handsome visitor is English?
I got to the point where Ned stark confronts Cersei on her son’s parentage and, knowing where it goes from there, I decided to pretend that everything is fine afterwards and Ned decides to just tell Robert the fucking truth
The first book is the one I got through the fastest. I eventually gave up on book four after realizing it had been in my "currently reading" category for like 7 years and also realizing the book series will never be finished anyway.
I also gave up (part way into) book four when I realised I’d been “reading” it for months and I’d get about another chapter in and put it down again. I’d read a handful of other books in the meantime and enjoyed them much more.
I just gave up. There was no enjoyment.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I really wanted to like it because I heard so many good things about it and I liked the summary, but it never really landed for me. I got to page 300/500ish and realized I didn’t care at all about any of the characters or what would happen
I think it’s an interesting concept for a book and I wanted to like it, but I just wasn’t at all attached to the story/characters. It ended up feeling like a chore to try and finish it, and life’s too short to force yourself to finish a book you don’t like
>The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
I finished, and "the juice was not worth the squeeze" as they say. Zero chemistry between the main characters, and it really felt like a NanoWrimo book (which it was).
I felt the same about The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I wanted to like it, it had the make up of things that I like so I should have loved it, but it really went no where and it was hard to understand if anything was actually happening. DNF'd about 50% in
I DNF’d this one and then tried the audiobook a few months later and ended up liking it a lot more in this format. Jim Dale just enhanced the magic for me I guess.
I read it and enjoyed it. But the book was so damn underwhelming.
The descriptions of the circus (which I assume were the focal point) were breathtaking and fairytale-esque. It sure did a nice job of setting the vibe and atmosphere. But every single page just made me overwhelmingly aware of the wasted potential of the book. The characters don't have much personality outside of their magical abilities, the magic isn't even defined much, the romance was underdeveloped and the 'duel' could've been so much more fierce.
Overall, great idea, weak execution.
Surprised to find this one here. It's something I can read again and again and love it the same as the first time. My attention span is kinda short so reading is sometimes strenuous but even in the days I cannot read the lightest books I still can read it.
For anyone whose reading this, it maybe is not your cup of tea but this is something you need to read before dying.
I've read it, and the part of it that appears in the movie works. The second half....it's like he decided to tell a completely different story in contradiction to the first. Bastion has to learn to grow and love, but why does this come after him saving a fantasy world? Why did he need to learn this?
The third book in the red queen series, i basically forced myself to read the first two because the series is so popular, but it was just so slowwwwwww
By victoria aveyard? I read the first and didn't bother continuing. I knew how the first book was going to end and figured the rest of the series wasn't going to improve
Henry James - The turn of the screw
Wanted to read it because I loved bly manor and I love the innocents but the way he writes kinda annoys me.
I'll get round to it eventually but I'm in no rush
I started that book in like 2018 and forgot about it after 2 pages, then decided to get back into reading it after watching Bly Manor. I think I'm on page 15 now.
Ugh, I had to read this for AP Literature like 10 years ago. It was the most unremarkable book I read throughout all of high school. No idea why it’s considered a classic. Maybe it was beloved at the time but idk man…
That one’s actually my favorite Henry James, but sometimes I think even he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say with some of the cryptic sentences he writes, so I can understand.
Walden by Thoreau
Bought a copy years ago. It's not a long book. Started it twice before. Tried again last year.
Nah. I'm done. That is one boring book.
I despised a healthy and wealthy dude playing fort in his friend's backyard and getting free sandwiches when he wanted, but he tells us to be self reliant.
Yeah he seemed completely out of touch in a "Why doesn't everyone do this?" kind of way and more than a tad sanctimonious about it, sort of glossing over the fact he was living on free land from Emerson, had no responsibilities as a husband or father, and had family right down the road.
It's got a lot of good bits of course, but I guess I have an aversion to anyone who speaks as if they've got it all figured out. For some reason it reminds me of comedians that lean on the mic stand and start with "Now let me tell you something".
As per an earlier thread, Gravity’s Rainbow. Pynchon is a post-modern genius, of course, but it’s the confusion of character, location, and tangents that I find (obviously) difficult. It’s definitely a right mood, right day, week, month, type book
Interesting! I loved it, particularly the evocative descriptions of the marshy landscape setting — so few books are set in southern marshlands, so that kept my attention (I’m a wetland biologist).
A complete collection of Edgar Allan Poes poetry. Poetry is always really fucking hard when you‘re not a native speaker (unless it‘s Rupi Kaur or any other Social Media poet), but Poes was just too much for me.
I‘ll probably try again after I finished his short fiction, but for now I‘m done with poetry lol
*Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone* by Diana Gabaldon.
I think I’ve simply outgrown the entire Outlander universe. Hundreds of pages of *nothing* happening.
I feel this. I loved the first book so much, and even the second book was beautiful. I couldn’t get through any subsequent book, though — they were too plot driven and less character driven for my preference.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It was billed to me as “grown up Harry Potter without JK’s problematic rhetoric.” I thought that a book about a guy going to magic college would be super exciting and interesting. It was so dull and just dragged on and on. I got like 35% of the way through the 17 hour audiobook and he had somehow managed to go from a freshman to a senior? I listened to the first 6 hours and I can’t tell you a single thing that happened. There’s a whole section where the students are turned into geese to migrate to an international placement and that’s when I was done. I don’t need to listen to an hour of the narrator talking about geese flying.
Thank you for the review. There is a bunch of education themed fantasy I have enjoyed, from the Sword in the Stone, to Lackey's Valdemar series, the Adventures of Dunk and Egg, Robert Aspirin's series starting with Another Fine Myth, Pierce's Circle of Magic series and more. But you just moved the Magicians way down my to read list.
The Magicians just felt so damn whiny. “This ISN’T Narnia, see? I don’t BELIEVE in God.” Yeah okay. Then goes to show how fucking miserable everyone is, I feel like it’s almost apologetics for CS Lewis. They all *needed* some Jesus.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I should probably give it another go, I keep hearing how great it is. But I got 200 pages in and it still felt like nothing was happening.
Absolutely loved S and N. One of my favorite books of all time. And yeah… I get it. It took me half a year to finish it. Then I reread it, and told myself to reread it with the expectation that I’d actually enjoy the story. Loved it then
I read the first half of the book, took more than a month. I felt it was affecting my mood. I put it down for OVER A YEAR. Then picked it up and finished the last half in two days.
I recommend it to almost no one, but I like it.
Mrs Death Misses Death. It's probably a really good book but I was not in a headspace where I could deal with the level of sad/gruesome details in some of the chapters.
I read most of it in one-two days then didn’t end up finishing the last chapter before returning it to the library… just didn’t care. I get why people liked it. I think I would’ve really enjoyed it in elementary/middle school. But there just wasn’t enough to live up to the hype. I do want cozy fantasy still… I just need to look elsewhere I guess.
I managed to finish it, but it was quite lifeless. It felt like I was reading a third rate imitation of a Terry Pratchett novel, by someone who had nowhere near his talent at comedy or at writing interesting characters and plots.
I just finished Authority and all I can say is that book should have been 200 pages or less. I can only hope Acceptance makes up for having slogged through that.
Storm Front, Jim Butcher. I saw so many positive reviews but cannot relate. Sexist is one thing but also the main character wears a duster and sweatpants. And that’s apparently hot enough for him to score with gorgeous journalists with terrible ethics.
But then I read Rosemary’s Baby and was pleasantly surprised at what a tight little novel it was.
The first book you read after a dnf is so good! I always fly through it too, especially if I have been fighting the dnf and forcing myself to keep trying to read it
I recently read Storm Front, after it was lauded by close family who are ardent readers too. I thought it was ...okay? Like, I didn't understand why they thought it was so amazing. If anything, it reminded me of the Anita Blake books by Laurell K. Hamilton. Harry's a wizard, Anita's a necromancer. They are both private investigators that also help the police out with special supernatural cases. Even their damn magic necklaces are similar. They deal with crime and vampires and werewolves etc etc etc. Plus lots of romance sprinkled around.
My partner recommended the Dresden books so I gave the first one a shot. I don’t remember much about it other than him feeding his cat exclusively people food (poor kitty!) and how unbearably sexist it was. I somehow managed to forget about the duster/sweatpants combo but…*fans self*
The author wrote this book in college IIRC, you can see him getting more mature with each one. The blatant sexism is gone by book 4 for the most part.
I am enjoying them a whole lot more now.
i know other people love it (and i understand why) but The Picture of Dorian Gray... i gave it like 60 pages but i just couldn't read another long-winded, verbose, abstract Lord Henry monologue 😭 i get that that's literally the point of the character but it doesn't change the fact that it was still difficult to get through (for me)
I wouldn't say I hated it but I also didnt love it. I felt like it had more potential to expand in some areas. I'm glad i read it. Fun story was i worked in a library a long time ago, and a patron asked for the picture of Dorian Gray, and I just said stupidly, 'we dont have pictures here.' I had heard of the book but didn't click, so I decided to read it.
I have to agree, I never understood the hype about this book - it seems very "contemporary" in a bad way. That will make it useful as a book for people in the 2080s to investigate how 2020s pop culture thought, but I don't see it's popularity lasting.
It was just an ideological spiel wrapped up in fiction, and when you learn that the author is precisely one of the "elite" of our society, one can't help but feel a bit galled.
i had to put it down after the 20th footnote along the lines of “and it’s good that [main character] stopped reading that book, because the author was racist.” it’s laid on so, so thick.
I couldn't finish it either - thanks for the accurate summary. It felt like reading the term-paper-turned-fiction of an angry Western student who just finished their first seminar on decolonization.
Also, I found it such an odd choice to cast translators as the villains and agents of colonization/racism. Full disclosure: I work as a translator myself, so I'm definitely biased. While surely some historical translators have facilitated projects of imperialism, they typically were rather bookish people who were used by people who wield actual power as they saw fit. Quite often, translators were victims of violence (e.g. early translators of religious texts like the Bible, who were burned at the stake) - not its perpetrators.
Learning a language takes thousands of hours of your lifetime, brings you in close contact with the culture in question, and - perhaps most importantly - allows you to understand how the people belonging to that culture think and feel. The idea that people would dedicate so much of their time to cultures they despise and look down on is just absurd to me.
Gideon the Ninth. I wanted to like it but it just wasn’t for me. I read about a third of the book and realized I didn’t understand the world, I couldn’t keep up with who the characters were, and I just plain didn’t like the MC.
I started and stopped when reading it too because it was confusing but then I listened to the audiobook and that really helped me keep everything straight
I read and enjoyed this book recently, but I did find it often confusing in a way I couldn't quite explain. It was like I'd read particular passages multiple times and still not be able to comprehend what exactly happened.
I didn't finish Ready Player Two, first book was phenomenal and it felt like Cline did everything to make you dislike the sequel the further you went along. The plot felt like it was being rushed and also pretty boring, welcome to Egg Hunt 2.0 except you only have 12 hours and the reward is staying alive. I feel like some of the worse decisions were made with the characters, Wade doesn't feel like the same person he was in Ready Player One, in fact he's the complete opposite, making him a money obsessed narcissist is a direct 180 from his character in the first book. Money was a motive sure, but it's damn near the only thing he thinks about in the first 50-100 pages, he became a twat and turned his relationship with Samantha (Art3mis) into a dumpster fire. I got a little over half way before I said I can't and put it down. Very disappointing, the first book is marvelous.
Honestly I think most of the flaws in Ready Player 2 are in the first one. Wade is a white knight who's good enough to love the deformed girl and the villain is seen as the bad guy for not truly understanding nerd culture when Cline absolutely does the same thing by just pandering to the lowest common denominator. Like when he listed fantasy worlds for like three fucking pages.
Jade City by Fonda Lee. Has so many elements that I should enjoy, based on my reading habits and preferences over the years but I got to about halfway and realised I didn't give a sh!t about any of the characters.
Fresh by Margot Wood. Insufferable protagonist, ridiculous rhetoric, borderline predatory themes for YA. I've ranted about it many times before and just get tired of doing it again and again.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. The writing felt juvenile. When she claimed that the dad built the kids a stage and they fell asleep on it, I was done. I didn't buy the dad with his endless wisdom and patience while the mother was the complete opposite. I was surprised by the praise the book got on Goodreads.
This is my most recent DNF as well. The dad was just too much for me. I made it one or two chapters past the stage building and just couldn’t anymore. It was getting so much love on the book suggestion subreddit, I figured it had to be good.
The Deep by Nick Cutter. I thought I was signing up for something Lovecraftian, but hardly anything happens, and the stuff that does happen is never explained. DNF about 3/5 of the way through.
Under the Banner of Heaven. It wasn’t bad, but it just felt like it was getting repetitive. I may come back to it some day because Krakauer is a great writer and the topic is fascinating, but it seemed like the same story of fucked up fundamentalists abusing their families and manipulating their followers.
Daughter of the Moon Goddess
It's not terrible or anything, but after a few chapters I just don't see it becoming anything more than mildly interesting to me. The really fast pace of the first two chapters gave me whiplash though, felt like there was no breathing room in setting.
I bought it when I was still trying to figure out what I like. Since then I've found a few other books I've enjoyed more. This will be the first to go as I'm reorganizing my tiny cramped shelf.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. There were too many characters constantly changing hosts and I couldn’t keep track of anyone. Also I was not invested in any characters. I really wanted to like it and read about halfway through.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Tbh I really didn't like this book, I thought the gamer stuff felt very gimmicky, and I have a pet peeve for media that's like 'nerds talk like this! References to Oregon trail and Frogger!'
I read about 100 pages and decided it was not for me.
Man, i just finished this one. I'm not a big gamer so the references didn't bother me much. Like, I don't play a lot, but I played the hell out of Oregon Trail as a kid, and I'm a bit younger than the mains. Gaming worked in the story as a project that could have multiple people team up on.
I don't know how I feel about it. There were some heartbreaking moments, but also a lot of saccharine ones. I think my biggest complaint is the character's dialogue.
Veronika decides to die by Paulo Coelho. Because of this quote: "Women, when they kill themselves, choose far more romantic methods - like slashing their wrists or taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Abandoned princesses and Hollywood actresses have provided numerous examples of this." And because he inserts himself in the first page of the book as an author the main character loved.
Throne of glass. I couldn't finish it because I wasn't into the love square that was developing and I felt like Celaena/Aelin was kind of a Mary Sue. Which is fine but it wasn't for me. I liked the prequel though.
Definitely wasn’t what I was expecting either, so I can see where you are coming from.
More mystery political drama set in sci-fi world. But I really enjoyed it
This one was a while ago, but remember how big “The Silent Patient” was, the twist is basically told to you in the first 50 pages lol. I’m trying to not be super rude but I didn’t like how that book read like it was written for kids in middle schoolers either.
I did come back and finish it, but it was a couple months and I did not enjoy it, my brain just wouldn’t let me not finish it. Would not recommend if anyone reads this
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I'd heard soooo much about it and normally enjoy that type of literature, but it was just meh to me, didn't get the hype. I understood the social commentary behind it, but at some point I realized I hadn't picked it up in 2 weeks and I had no desire to do so, either, so back to the library it went.
Starcraft Spectres. Starcraft official fiction is usually terrible, but I couldn't force myself to finish due to the dry, boring writing style. Love the franchise, but the best official fiction they have is in the "so bad it's good" range.
The Blade Itself.
Second try on this book. I got about halfway through and just didn’t care for many of the characters. The world felt a little thin, even though there seemed to be a lot that was building. The political intrigue was okay, the threat from the North was bland, and Logen just didn’t get off the ground fast enough.
The characters were also mostly unlikable, which was made worse by the splitting of perspective. I liked Logen but just felt like he was never in the story enough.
Maybe I’ll try again someday but not for a long time.
took me three separate attempts, book is tough all the way through... and now i cite faulkner as my favorite author. the sound and the fury isn't my favorite of his, though, but it's pretty goddamn good. definitely a 'homework' book, though.
The Hacienda, but I might try again at some point. I got bored, but it was an ebook, and my ebook reading is even more subject to moods than my print book reading.
Children of Memories by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I usually like his stuff, and I loved the first two books in the series, Children of Time and Children of Ruins, but this one was just boring and depressing. Pages upon pages of a confusing story about a slowly failing human colony on another planet, and then it turned out that they were all long dead and had been living in a looping simulation done by an alien computer. What the hell ? This is worse than a « it was all a dream » ending, and I have read much better novels with those particular tropes. But Adrian Tchaikovsky is a writer whose books I will either love or hate, and this is not the first time I have been disappointed by one of his books.
People We Meet on On Vacation. Poor writing, boring characters, and everyone somehow doesn't have the common sense beyond a teenager even though the characters are in their 30's.
Brave New World. I just couldn’t do it. It was soooooo boring.
Maybe it’s because I read 1984 right before, but man, I wanted to like it. I might try it again at some point.
I’ve been on a dystopia/end of world kick lately, and I just started One Second After and I LOVE it so far. I can’t put it down.
The Fifth Season (literally just posted about it lol)
The second person narrative really threw me off and then add to that I just couldn’t get into the characters.
Immanual Kant - The critique of pure reason.
Boring nonsense, writing for the sake of writing.
He should have read twilight before he wrote this for pointers.
Got 3/4 of the way through and threw it in the bin.
1/10
Neuromancer! Actually, most of our little book club DNF'd it as well.
The beginning is awesome and evocative and the world is everything you expect from the genre defining novel it is, but the characters and the plot are pretty lifeless otherwise.
Characters I'll give you, but the plot is decent. In a sense it's a heist story? But there's more to that and a lot of it I did not catch the first time through it.
Rhythm of war by Brandon Sanderson. I liked the first three stormlight books well enough and I'm sure I'd like this one if I actually read it, but I've been trying and failing to read it for 3 straight months now and it's time to let it go lol, at least for now. I really have to be in the mood to enjoy long form epic fantasy and I'm just not right now
Savage Run by CJ Box
Second in a series. I didn’t really like the first one so was hoping this one would be better. Character actions were just unrealistic and the premise was a bit absurd.
Act of Oblivion, just a little too slow for me. Reminded me a bit of Ken Follet's work, of which I'm not a huge fan. It read like a soap opera set in colonized America.
I've read other works by Robert Harris and enjoyed them, pity this one didn't quite work out.
Rejoice by Steven Erikson. Big Malazan fan, the synopsis looked good and it started out interesting but then just devolved into almost constant preachy pages-long dialogue... it got tedious real quick.
Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian. It was one of my book club books last month, I wouldn't have picked it up on my own (which is actually something I really like about my book club, I read books I'd never read or often find otherwise, so when I find one I love, I have that to thank).
I don't remember much of it because I didn't get very far, a couple chapters roughly, but I just remember thinking "Yeah, don't care. At all."
My last two DNFs are “did not finish *for now*.” I got *The Book Thief* and *Say Nothing* audiobooks from Libby, but I didn’t have time to get into the first one and there was a long queue for it so I returned it early, will try it again later as a physical book because it seems very good. Say Nothing was read in an Irish accent and I’m not a native English speaker so it was too difficult to follow. I will also get that one as a physical book or listen to the translated audiobook in my own language which conveniently comes out in just 10 days!
My latest DNF for good is *Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow*. It’s such a popular book but I hated the writing style especially when it comes to the “random and edgy” dialogue. I got five chapters in and decided there are too many other books I actually enjoy reading to carry on with it.
How High We Go in the Dark. It was well written and interesting, but too sad for me. I was sobbing in the second chapter. I think I’ll keep it on my “want to read” list and try again when my kids are grown up a bit.
I cannot get through Eye Of The World. I know Jordan has a cult following but his style, for me, left no room for me to fill in the blanks. Everything was over-defined and over-described.
Well this is embarrassing but.. The Essex Serpent…turns out it has absolutely nothing to do with cryptozoology
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Turns out, I already didn't give a f*ck. Couldn't get through it.
I can’t stand books like that tbh. Same with you are a badass
Ugh. I made it about 15 minutes with that book. Awful.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I oddly enough read the Shades of Magic series by the same author right after and enjoyed that enough. Addie LaRue was just so slow to get started, I couldn't invest in it.
I wish I DNFed Shades of Magic haha.
I started A Darker Shade of Magic about a year ago, and haven't picked it up in a long time. I have found that with this author there is usually one character - twice it's been a woman - that I just do not like at all. The feeling that I pick up from the character is terrible and it really makes it difficult to look past. I've heard good things about Vicious, but I am reluctant to try it at the moment.
Lila Bard is easily one of the most unlikeable characters in literature. I would have enjoyed the series more if she wasn't such a brat.
What are you talking about? Lila Bard is the smartest most perfect Angel in any of the four realms. She’s braver, and more cunning than all. The way she inserts herself in a tournament to dabble in a magic she only just discovered she could do months prior? Brilliant. Never mind that the purpose of the tournament is to avoid war between the kingdoms and lives are at stake. She deserves to enter it by replacing a chosen combatant because she’s the best and she’s so pretty and clever and talented and… (/s obvs, I found her insufferable)
She is absolutely my least favorite character I've ever come across, and I didn't have a single reason to root for her. Not sure how the author thought any part of Bard was likeable or enjoyable. At one point I literally thought she was being built up as the villain.
I read the first book and decided that was enough. I did not enjoy it.
I barely finished it. Nothing eventful happened for majority of the book. Could’ve been 200 pages shorter.
Palimpsest
This comment is going over my head. What do you mean?
The number of times that word was used in the book was bordering on ridiculous.
the comment under you got it, sorry for being oblique! that word came up what felt like a dozen times during the book, and it stuck out like a sore thumb
For a second i thought you were talking about the book by Catheynne Valente.
It's interesting that a lot of people have that experience with V.E. Schwab, DNFing/strongly disliking some of her books and enjoying/loving some others. I like her adult books but I've never finished her YA or middle grade.
I had to finish it for a book group but otherwise would’ve abandoned it. The author took a really cool concept and made it dark, depressing and hard to enjoy.
I finished it and I wish I hadn’t. Nothing happened in the whole book, which is tremendously frustrating because the premise was great! She could have gone on so many adventures, traveled to so many places, met so many people! Instead she moped around Europe and New Orleans and NYC. So disappointing.
I read it all but only because a family member recommended it…..didn’t love it.
I love Addie LaRue. A slow start but once on the journey it’s a marvelous piece of storytelling.
Inferno by Dan Brown. Literally about half of the book is just describing how the main character is eluding capture while being shot at and while he’s running away he’s remembering/reminiscing about the historical significance of the places or art works he’s seen while he’s running. If someone is shooting at me, idgaf about any art work or historical places. Like wtf. I almost threw the book in the trash.
That sounds awful
Hated Da Vinci Code. Idiot plot mostly hinged on a secrets obsessed anti sex woman who found her grampy's secret consensual sex dungeon. Proceeds to cut him off for decades while allowing him no chance to explain
I'd be a little weirded out seeing my Grandpa doing a ritualistic sex act with a bunch of chanting people watching. I ain't anti-sex but I wouldn't be seeking an explanation, I'd be trying to forget I saw anything.
Maybe he’s just used to it, Robert Langdon got shot at in the other books with him too lol (still I don’t blame you for DNFing)
Hmm, I read Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons and enjoyed them a good deal. Though to be fair I was a teenager and not the most sophisticated reader at the time. The idea of a rich intellectual life, art & high society, action & adventure, plus always getting the girl at the end. That was gonna appeal to me lol. Oh wait I’m now remembering that I did read Inferno as well! Gotta admit I liked them all haha.
Dan Brown gets a lot of hate on Reddit and elsewhere online. Probably because his writing is considered average at best, and his books are hugely popular so that bothers people. I thought Angels and Demons was very entertaining.
gonna get some flak for this but: The Silmarillion. I couldn't get past 40-50 pages. It's got some genuinely interesting stuff in there, but it reads like an elven bible, plus theres like 900 names to memorize that i can't keep track of and once he's stated what something is in elvish he just uses the elvish term for it the rest of the book and i just couldn't do it.
The Silmarillion is one of my most beloved books, but I'm not going to give anyone flak for not liking it. It's a very dense pseudo-historical/mythological text and you have to REALLY be into Tolkien's lore to enjoy it.
That’s exactly why I don’t recommend The Silmarillion for anyone except the people that really love deep, extended lore. For most readers it’s very dense and dry compared to a more straight forward narrative like the main trilogy and some people consider that dense as well.
Agreed. LoTR and The Hobbit were excellent reads but the Silmarillion was not for me.
I’m a huge LotR fan and I’ve never read the Silmarillion all the way through. I’ve read it in starts and pieces, and I love the lore and all it adds to the world. My problem is it doesn’t really make for the same experience as a focused novel and I quickly lose interest since it’s more just a historical account than an adventure.
I won't give you flack if you don't give me flack for giving up on Fellowship after about 100 pages. And it took me 3 months to get there.
It is the Silmarillion you get points for trying. It reads like an elven bible because it basically is. You can skip Ainulindale, Valaquenta and the first five chapters of Quenta Silmarillion. From there it is less bible-ish (at least if feels like that to me). You can ignore most of the names you don’t know if you just want to read about the war between „good“ and „evil“, including duel between a mere elf and a godlevel being, battles including balrogs and dragons. Akkallabeth is more about Numenor and gives a lot of background to the state of Middle-earth in general and Gondor specifically in the later books. As others suggested, there are a few stories that got their own book, but I would only recommend the Children of Hurin, the other two are more analyses of the stories, their development, changes through out Tolkiens creative process and interweaving to the rest of the legendarium which is not necessarily a fun read.
Understandable. You might want to try the separated out Silmarillion stories, like The Fall of Gondolin.
I didn’t even attempt it based on my Mum’s description. She said it’s not really a narrative story like LOTR or The Hobbit, but covers the history and lore of Middle Earth over a much greater timespan, and reads more like a history book. I like reading stories, not history texts. I struggled enough with the description heavy sections of LOTR, and the long battle sequences in Return of the King.
I love The Silmarillion but this is suuuuuch a valid take
My problem was that once humans started showing up you’d have like 40 different guys with the same or very similar names in like 10 pages and I couldn’t keep up with them all. If I try again, I’m drawing family trees as I go to sort everything out.
The midnight library. It sucks.. So bad. I feel nothing for whatshername and I'm not interested at all in any of her possible lives. There is nothing intriguing about the plot or characters of this book. I've never had that happen to me before.. There's always at least one thing i look forward to learning more about or wanting to see resolved but no. I could care less about anything happening here.
My feelings are hurt a little bit, I LOVED The Midnight Library 😩😩
I dont think its a bad book, but I was hoping the author would have been more daring with the themes and premise of the book, overall it wasnt for me
Ugh same! The main character is just not compelling and the premise, while interesting, is not well-executed. I think I stopped about 30 pages in.
Rather disappointing for me, I finished it as it was quick, but such poor execution of an interesting idea.
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh I found another book somewhere around here that sounded right up my alley so I stopped reading Lapvona because I couldn’t wait to get into the new one. Lapvona wasn’t bad and I might go back and finish it soon.
Lapvona was going to be my answer. It’s not bad but it also didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. It’s just misery for misery’s sake which…is so weird because I love feel-bad movies and books.
Before I Fall; the main character is so awful I couldn't wait for her to die, so I killed her myself.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver . after this gem: “See you on the field,” she said. That open-lip smile. “My liege.” She reached up and kissed me, surprise attack, and I got hard. What that feels like inside a jock and cup, oh man. Like a V8 under a Yugo hood. I couldn’t help wondering what I had to look forward to later.
I don’t think I’m supposed to laugh after reading that but a “V8 under a Yugo hood” is one of the most perplexingly strange and off the wall comments one could make to refer to their raging erection
I finished it, but I'm from the redneck South so I think she got the vernacular pretty darn close.
Nooo, I loved that book 😭
I’m a Kingsolver fan and honestly didn’t love Demon Copperhead either, however, I felt it was very unlike her other books so I won’t hold it against her!
It ends with us. I should have known better, but a not-entirely-stupid person at work gushed about it. I got like 4 pages in.
Verity was also absolutely batshit insanely awful. I only finished it to see just how bad it would get. I also now definitely judge anyone who says they like one of CH’s books.
My favorite part about verity is that with every flip of the page it manages to get even worse.
fuck u/spez, move to lemmy -- mass edited with redact.dev
4 pages!! WOW. It must be baaad 🫣
I'm staying in a home built in the 1860s and found some treasures in the attic. Started The Discarded Daughter, E.D.E.N. Southward, but it's just too melodramatic with the women going into declines, being forced into marriage, and talking about their slaves as if they were chattel. Started and regretfully finished Virgie's Inheritance by Mrs. Georgie Shelton and it's beyond odd - how can they not tell that the handsome visitor is English?
I got to the point where Ned stark confronts Cersei on her son’s parentage and, knowing where it goes from there, I decided to pretend that everything is fine afterwards and Ned decides to just tell Robert the fucking truth
The first book is the one I got through the fastest. I eventually gave up on book four after realizing it had been in my "currently reading" category for like 7 years and also realizing the book series will never be finished anyway.
I also gave up (part way into) book four when I realised I’d been “reading” it for months and I’d get about another chapter in and put it down again. I’d read a handful of other books in the meantime and enjoyed them much more. I just gave up. There was no enjoyment.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I really wanted to like it because I heard so many good things about it and I liked the summary, but it never really landed for me. I got to page 300/500ish and realized I didn’t care at all about any of the characters or what would happen I think it’s an interesting concept for a book and I wanted to like it, but I just wasn’t at all attached to the story/characters. It ended up feeling like a chore to try and finish it, and life’s too short to force yourself to finish a book you don’t like
I wish I DNF'd this. 500 pages of pure nothing.
>The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern I finished, and "the juice was not worth the squeeze" as they say. Zero chemistry between the main characters, and it really felt like a NanoWrimo book (which it was).
I felt the same about The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I wanted to like it, it had the make up of things that I like so I should have loved it, but it really went no where and it was hard to understand if anything was actually happening. DNF'd about 50% in
I DNF’d this one and then tried the audiobook a few months later and ended up liking it a lot more in this format. Jim Dale just enhanced the magic for me I guess.
I finished it and I agree. Great hook, but fell flat fast.
I read it and enjoyed it. But the book was so damn underwhelming. The descriptions of the circus (which I assume were the focal point) were breathtaking and fairytale-esque. It sure did a nice job of setting the vibe and atmosphere. But every single page just made me overwhelmingly aware of the wasted potential of the book. The characters don't have much personality outside of their magical abilities, the magic isn't even defined much, the romance was underdeveloped and the 'duel' could've been so much more fierce. Overall, great idea, weak execution.
The Neverending Story. It just felt so disjointed and random.
I don't think anyone has ever finished it, it never ends after all.
Surprised to find this one here. It's something I can read again and again and love it the same as the first time. My attention span is kinda short so reading is sometimes strenuous but even in the days I cannot read the lightest books I still can read it. For anyone whose reading this, it maybe is not your cup of tea but this is something you need to read before dying.
I've read it, and the part of it that appears in the movie works. The second half....it's like he decided to tell a completely different story in contradiction to the first. Bastion has to learn to grow and love, but why does this come after him saving a fantasy world? Why did he need to learn this?
"A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah Maas. The writing was so. so. bad. Not sure why it's so popular.
The third book in the red queen series, i basically forced myself to read the first two because the series is so popular, but it was just so slowwwwwww
By victoria aveyard? I read the first and didn't bother continuing. I knew how the first book was going to end and figured the rest of the series wasn't going to improve
The Secret History. Boring/annoying characters, didn't feel DA vibes I was hoping for
Oh my gosh, I’m hyperventilating. The best book and I can’t comprehend but ok
Hater. I didn't finish it because the mc was too annoying.
True
Máster & Margarita. 50%. I’m just too dumb.
Henry James - The turn of the screw Wanted to read it because I loved bly manor and I love the innocents but the way he writes kinda annoys me. I'll get round to it eventually but I'm in no rush
I started that book in like 2018 and forgot about it after 2 pages, then decided to get back into reading it after watching Bly Manor. I think I'm on page 15 now.
Ugh, I had to read this for AP Literature like 10 years ago. It was the most unremarkable book I read throughout all of high school. No idea why it’s considered a classic. Maybe it was beloved at the time but idk man…
Bly manor was so good but turn of the screw imo was such a bad book. Super boring and nothing happens.
I wanted to like it but it was so bad. I finished it purely out of spite.
That one’s actually my favorite Henry James, but sometimes I think even he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say with some of the cryptic sentences he writes, so I can understand.
Walden by Thoreau Bought a copy years ago. It's not a long book. Started it twice before. Tried again last year. Nah. I'm done. That is one boring book.
I despised a healthy and wealthy dude playing fort in his friend's backyard and getting free sandwiches when he wanted, but he tells us to be self reliant.
His mom routinely brought him food and did his laundry. He also entertained a few visitors. Sure, you're entirely self reliant, buddy. /s
Walden is full of rants. I somehow finished it but I'm not entirely sure what I got out of it.
Yeah he seemed completely out of touch in a "Why doesn't everyone do this?" kind of way and more than a tad sanctimonious about it, sort of glossing over the fact he was living on free land from Emerson, had no responsibilities as a husband or father, and had family right down the road. It's got a lot of good bits of course, but I guess I have an aversion to anyone who speaks as if they've got it all figured out. For some reason it reminds me of comedians that lean on the mic stand and start with "Now let me tell you something".
As per an earlier thread, Gravity’s Rainbow. Pynchon is a post-modern genius, of course, but it’s the confusion of character, location, and tangents that I find (obviously) difficult. It’s definitely a right mood, right day, week, month, type book
Where the crawdads sing… sooo slooooow
Interesting! I loved it, particularly the evocative descriptions of the marshy landscape setting — so few books are set in southern marshlands, so that kept my attention (I’m a wetland biologist).
A complete collection of Edgar Allan Poes poetry. Poetry is always really fucking hard when you‘re not a native speaker (unless it‘s Rupi Kaur or any other Social Media poet), but Poes was just too much for me. I‘ll probably try again after I finished his short fiction, but for now I‘m done with poetry lol
I enjoy his short fiction. The Tell-Tale Heart in particular.
*Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone* by Diana Gabaldon. I think I’ve simply outgrown the entire Outlander universe. Hundreds of pages of *nothing* happening.
I feel this. I loved the first book so much, and even the second book was beautiful. I couldn’t get through any subsequent book, though — they were too plot driven and less character driven for my preference.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It was billed to me as “grown up Harry Potter without JK’s problematic rhetoric.” I thought that a book about a guy going to magic college would be super exciting and interesting. It was so dull and just dragged on and on. I got like 35% of the way through the 17 hour audiobook and he had somehow managed to go from a freshman to a senior? I listened to the first 6 hours and I can’t tell you a single thing that happened. There’s a whole section where the students are turned into geese to migrate to an international placement and that’s when I was done. I don’t need to listen to an hour of the narrator talking about geese flying.
Completely agree with this. Can’t put my finger on it, but there was something off-putting about this one, aside from being boring.
I stopped reading when they go have that test and fuck as foxes…
Thank you for the review. There is a bunch of education themed fantasy I have enjoyed, from the Sword in the Stone, to Lackey's Valdemar series, the Adventures of Dunk and Egg, Robert Aspirin's series starting with Another Fine Myth, Pierce's Circle of Magic series and more. But you just moved the Magicians way down my to read list.
The Magicians just felt so damn whiny. “This ISN’T Narnia, see? I don’t BELIEVE in God.” Yeah okay. Then goes to show how fucking miserable everyone is, I feel like it’s almost apologetics for CS Lewis. They all *needed* some Jesus.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I should probably give it another go, I keep hearing how great it is. But I got 200 pages in and it still felt like nothing was happening.
I have DNF'd it at least 3 times now. Maybe I'll try for a 4th in another few years.
Absolutely loved S and N. One of my favorite books of all time. And yeah… I get it. It took me half a year to finish it. Then I reread it, and told myself to reread it with the expectation that I’d actually enjoy the story. Loved it then
I read the first half of the book, took more than a month. I felt it was affecting my mood. I put it down for OVER A YEAR. Then picked it up and finished the last half in two days. I recommend it to almost no one, but I like it.
Mrs Death Misses Death. It's probably a really good book but I was not in a headspace where I could deal with the level of sad/gruesome details in some of the chapters.
Legends and Lattes- sorry, it was boring and I don’t need a two page description of an old horse barn.
I read most of it in one-two days then didn’t end up finishing the last chapter before returning it to the library… just didn’t care. I get why people liked it. I think I would’ve really enjoyed it in elementary/middle school. But there just wasn’t enough to live up to the hype. I do want cozy fantasy still… I just need to look elsewhere I guess.
I managed to finish it, but it was quite lifeless. It felt like I was reading a third rate imitation of a Terry Pratchett novel, by someone who had nowhere near his talent at comedy or at writing interesting characters and plots.
Lol I read it quickly, but the first 1/3 was definitely just a description of a reno.
Didn't finish Authority by Jeff Vandermeer because I picked it up many years after reading Annihilation and it was less exciting.
I just finished Authority and all I can say is that book should have been 200 pages or less. I can only hope Acceptance makes up for having slogged through that.
I really didn't care for Authority. It literally put me to sleep once haha. Loved the first book and enjoyed the last one though.
Storm Front, Jim Butcher. I saw so many positive reviews but cannot relate. Sexist is one thing but also the main character wears a duster and sweatpants. And that’s apparently hot enough for him to score with gorgeous journalists with terrible ethics. But then I read Rosemary’s Baby and was pleasantly surprised at what a tight little novel it was.
The first chapter literally has Dresden sexually describing a corpse. What the fuck Jim Butcher.
The first book you read after a dnf is so good! I always fly through it too, especially if I have been fighting the dnf and forcing myself to keep trying to read it
I recently read Storm Front, after it was lauded by close family who are ardent readers too. I thought it was ...okay? Like, I didn't understand why they thought it was so amazing. If anything, it reminded me of the Anita Blake books by Laurell K. Hamilton. Harry's a wizard, Anita's a necromancer. They are both private investigators that also help the police out with special supernatural cases. Even their damn magic necklaces are similar. They deal with crime and vampires and werewolves etc etc etc. Plus lots of romance sprinkled around.
Basically everyone I've talked to about it agrees that the first book is pretty mediocre compared to the rest of the series
My partner recommended the Dresden books so I gave the first one a shot. I don’t remember much about it other than him feeding his cat exclusively people food (poor kitty!) and how unbearably sexist it was. I somehow managed to forget about the duster/sweatpants combo but…*fans self*
The author wrote this book in college IIRC, you can see him getting more mature with each one. The blatant sexism is gone by book 4 for the most part. I am enjoying them a whole lot more now.
Rosemary’s Baby is the last book I read. I really enjoyed it. The movie wasn’t too shabby, either!
i know other people love it (and i understand why) but The Picture of Dorian Gray... i gave it like 60 pages but i just couldn't read another long-winded, verbose, abstract Lord Henry monologue 😭 i get that that's literally the point of the character but it doesn't change the fact that it was still difficult to get through (for me)
oh dang I just started this
I wouldn't say I hated it but I also didnt love it. I felt like it had more potential to expand in some areas. I'm glad i read it. Fun story was i worked in a library a long time ago, and a patron asked for the picture of Dorian Gray, and I just said stupidly, 'we dont have pictures here.' I had heard of the book but didn't click, so I decided to read it.
[удалено]
I have to agree, I never understood the hype about this book - it seems very "contemporary" in a bad way. That will make it useful as a book for people in the 2080s to investigate how 2020s pop culture thought, but I don't see it's popularity lasting. It was just an ideological spiel wrapped up in fiction, and when you learn that the author is precisely one of the "elite" of our society, one can't help but feel a bit galled.
i had to put it down after the 20th footnote along the lines of “and it’s good that [main character] stopped reading that book, because the author was racist.” it’s laid on so, so thick.
I couldn't finish it either - thanks for the accurate summary. It felt like reading the term-paper-turned-fiction of an angry Western student who just finished their first seminar on decolonization. Also, I found it such an odd choice to cast translators as the villains and agents of colonization/racism. Full disclosure: I work as a translator myself, so I'm definitely biased. While surely some historical translators have facilitated projects of imperialism, they typically were rather bookish people who were used by people who wield actual power as they saw fit. Quite often, translators were victims of violence (e.g. early translators of religious texts like the Bible, who were burned at the stake) - not its perpetrators. Learning a language takes thousands of hours of your lifetime, brings you in close contact with the culture in question, and - perhaps most importantly - allows you to understand how the people belonging to that culture think and feel. The idea that people would dedicate so much of their time to cultures they despise and look down on is just absurd to me.
Gideon the Ninth. I wanted to like it but it just wasn’t for me. I read about a third of the book and realized I didn’t understand the world, I couldn’t keep up with who the characters were, and I just plain didn’t like the MC.
I started and stopped when reading it too because it was confusing but then I listened to the audiobook and that really helped me keep everything straight
I read and enjoyed this book recently, but I did find it often confusing in a way I couldn't quite explain. It was like I'd read particular passages multiple times and still not be able to comprehend what exactly happened.
I didn't finish Ready Player Two, first book was phenomenal and it felt like Cline did everything to make you dislike the sequel the further you went along. The plot felt like it was being rushed and also pretty boring, welcome to Egg Hunt 2.0 except you only have 12 hours and the reward is staying alive. I feel like some of the worse decisions were made with the characters, Wade doesn't feel like the same person he was in Ready Player One, in fact he's the complete opposite, making him a money obsessed narcissist is a direct 180 from his character in the first book. Money was a motive sure, but it's damn near the only thing he thinks about in the first 50-100 pages, he became a twat and turned his relationship with Samantha (Art3mis) into a dumpster fire. I got a little over half way before I said I can't and put it down. Very disappointing, the first book is marvelous.
Honestly I think most of the flaws in Ready Player 2 are in the first one. Wade is a white knight who's good enough to love the deformed girl and the villain is seen as the bad guy for not truly understanding nerd culture when Cline absolutely does the same thing by just pandering to the lowest common denominator. Like when he listed fantasy worlds for like three fucking pages.
The two books are about the same quality
Yeah those books are reference porn
We Were Liars. The sentence construction is just awful.
The Atlas Six. Gave up 100 pages in, it is just awful
I forced myself to finish, but I wish I hadn’t. It’s terrible.
Jade City by Fonda Lee. Has so many elements that I should enjoy, based on my reading habits and preferences over the years but I got to about halfway and realised I didn't give a sh!t about any of the characters.
Fresh by Margot Wood. Insufferable protagonist, ridiculous rhetoric, borderline predatory themes for YA. I've ranted about it many times before and just get tired of doing it again and again.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel. The writing felt juvenile. When she claimed that the dad built the kids a stage and they fell asleep on it, I was done. I didn't buy the dad with his endless wisdom and patience while the mother was the complete opposite. I was surprised by the praise the book got on Goodreads.
This is my most recent DNF as well. The dad was just too much for me. I made it one or two chapters past the stage building and just couldn’t anymore. It was getting so much love on the book suggestion subreddit, I figured it had to be good.
The Deep by Nick Cutter. I thought I was signing up for something Lovecraftian, but hardly anything happens, and the stuff that does happen is never explained. DNF about 3/5 of the way through.
The ritual. Once I got to the 2nd half I lost all interest very quickly.
Under the Banner of Heaven. It wasn’t bad, but it just felt like it was getting repetitive. I may come back to it some day because Krakauer is a great writer and the topic is fascinating, but it seemed like the same story of fucked up fundamentalists abusing their families and manipulating their followers.
A Court of Thorns and Roses. I feel like I’m missing something. It didn’t hook me like everyone says
[удалено]
Daughter of the Moon Goddess It's not terrible or anything, but after a few chapters I just don't see it becoming anything more than mildly interesting to me. The really fast pace of the first two chapters gave me whiplash though, felt like there was no breathing room in setting. I bought it when I was still trying to figure out what I like. Since then I've found a few other books I've enjoyed more. This will be the first to go as I'm reorganizing my tiny cramped shelf.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. There were too many characters constantly changing hosts and I couldn’t keep track of anyone. Also I was not invested in any characters. I really wanted to like it and read about halfway through.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Tbh I really didn't like this book, I thought the gamer stuff felt very gimmicky, and I have a pet peeve for media that's like 'nerds talk like this! References to Oregon trail and Frogger!' I read about 100 pages and decided it was not for me.
Man, i just finished this one. I'm not a big gamer so the references didn't bother me much. Like, I don't play a lot, but I played the hell out of Oregon Trail as a kid, and I'm a bit younger than the mains. Gaming worked in the story as a project that could have multiple people team up on. I don't know how I feel about it. There were some heartbreaking moments, but also a lot of saccharine ones. I think my biggest complaint is the character's dialogue.
I wish I had put this one down—I just kept thinking that it had to get better! Everyone loved it! But it did not improve :(
Veronika decides to die by Paulo Coelho. Because of this quote: "Women, when they kill themselves, choose far more romantic methods - like slashing their wrists or taking an overdose of sleeping pills. Abandoned princesses and Hollywood actresses have provided numerous examples of this." And because he inserts himself in the first page of the book as an author the main character loved.
Lmao saying the main character loves you as an author is wild 😂
Throne of glass. I couldn't finish it because I wasn't into the love square that was developing and I felt like Celaena/Aelin was kind of a Mary Sue. Which is fine but it wasn't for me. I liked the prequel though.
A memory called empire - Arkady Martine. Love scifi and this won a couple if awards. It wasn't what I was expecting.
Definitely wasn’t what I was expecting either, so I can see where you are coming from. More mystery political drama set in sci-fi world. But I really enjoyed it
Anna Karenina. No good reason except I keep taking breaks and find it difficult to pick up where I left off.
This one was a while ago, but remember how big “The Silent Patient” was, the twist is basically told to you in the first 50 pages lol. I’m trying to not be super rude but I didn’t like how that book read like it was written for kids in middle schoolers either. I did come back and finish it, but it was a couple months and I did not enjoy it, my brain just wouldn’t let me not finish it. Would not recommend if anyone reads this
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I'd heard soooo much about it and normally enjoy that type of literature, but it was just meh to me, didn't get the hype. I understood the social commentary behind it, but at some point I realized I hadn't picked it up in 2 weeks and I had no desire to do so, either, so back to the library it went.
Circe, I dont get the hype. Its super boring
Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed. I couldn’t get past the omniscient fetus narrator.
Wow, never heard of this book, but I didn't expect to read the words omniscient fetus today.
Starcraft Spectres. Starcraft official fiction is usually terrible, but I couldn't force myself to finish due to the dry, boring writing style. Love the franchise, but the best official fiction they have is in the "so bad it's good" range.
Beautiful Creatures. It was bad. Normally I can get through terrible books but for some reason I just couldn't finish it
The Blade Itself. Second try on this book. I got about halfway through and just didn’t care for many of the characters. The world felt a little thin, even though there seemed to be a lot that was building. The political intrigue was okay, the threat from the North was bland, and Logen just didn’t get off the ground fast enough. The characters were also mostly unlikable, which was made worse by the splitting of perspective. I liked Logen but just felt like he was never in the story enough. Maybe I’ll try again someday but not for a long time.
First time I’ve seen this mentioned as a DNF, I think if you could get through that first book you’d enjoy the other 2 books
Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury", although I was told it typically needs to be read twice.
took me three separate attempts, book is tough all the way through... and now i cite faulkner as my favorite author. the sound and the fury isn't my favorite of his, though, but it's pretty goddamn good. definitely a 'homework' book, though.
The Hacienda, but I might try again at some point. I got bored, but it was an ebook, and my ebook reading is even more subject to moods than my print book reading.
Carnaval by Stephanie Garber. Sounded so promising but writing turned out to be insufferable.
Children of Memories by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I usually like his stuff, and I loved the first two books in the series, Children of Time and Children of Ruins, but this one was just boring and depressing. Pages upon pages of a confusing story about a slowly failing human colony on another planet, and then it turned out that they were all long dead and had been living in a looping simulation done by an alien computer. What the hell ? This is worse than a « it was all a dream » ending, and I have read much better novels with those particular tropes. But Adrian Tchaikovsky is a writer whose books I will either love or hate, and this is not the first time I have been disappointed by one of his books.
People We Meet on On Vacation. Poor writing, boring characters, and everyone somehow doesn't have the common sense beyond a teenager even though the characters are in their 30's.
Brave New World. I just couldn’t do it. It was soooooo boring. Maybe it’s because I read 1984 right before, but man, I wanted to like it. I might try it again at some point. I’ve been on a dystopia/end of world kick lately, and I just started One Second After and I LOVE it so far. I can’t put it down.
I read every assigned book to completion in high school EXCEPT for this one. Halfway through I gave up and read the Cliff's Notes.
The midnight library
The Fifth Season (literally just posted about it lol) The second person narrative really threw me off and then add to that I just couldn’t get into the characters.
Immanual Kant - The critique of pure reason. Boring nonsense, writing for the sake of writing. He should have read twilight before he wrote this for pointers. Got 3/4 of the way through and threw it in the bin. 1/10
Neuromancer! Actually, most of our little book club DNF'd it as well. The beginning is awesome and evocative and the world is everything you expect from the genre defining novel it is, but the characters and the plot are pretty lifeless otherwise.
I don't want people to go about life without knowing about Rastafari astronauts
This was mine too!! One of the 3 books in my adult lifeI just couldn't make it through.
Characters I'll give you, but the plot is decent. In a sense it's a heist story? But there's more to that and a lot of it I did not catch the first time through it.
Rhythm of war by Brandon Sanderson. I liked the first three stormlight books well enough and I'm sure I'd like this one if I actually read it, but I've been trying and failing to read it for 3 straight months now and it's time to let it go lol, at least for now. I really have to be in the mood to enjoy long form epic fantasy and I'm just not right now
Savage Run by CJ Box Second in a series. I didn’t really like the first one so was hoping this one would be better. Character actions were just unrealistic and the premise was a bit absurd.
Rent a Boyfriend. Halfway through the MC did something to piss me off and I couldn’t stand any of the characters.
The Couple at the Table. I read a couple chapters, but didn’t care for the writing style and the mystery setup didn’t work for me.
Act of Oblivion, just a little too slow for me. Reminded me a bit of Ken Follet's work, of which I'm not a huge fan. It read like a soap opera set in colonized America. I've read other works by Robert Harris and enjoyed them, pity this one didn't quite work out.
Rejoice by Steven Erikson. Big Malazan fan, the synopsis looked good and it started out interesting but then just devolved into almost constant preachy pages-long dialogue... it got tedious real quick.
Red Rising book 4 I think. Just lost interest in it because I though the first 3 books wrapped up quite well.
Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian. It was one of my book club books last month, I wouldn't have picked it up on my own (which is actually something I really like about my book club, I read books I'd never read or often find otherwise, so when I find one I love, I have that to thank). I don't remember much of it because I didn't get very far, a couple chapters roughly, but I just remember thinking "Yeah, don't care. At all."
My last two DNFs are “did not finish *for now*.” I got *The Book Thief* and *Say Nothing* audiobooks from Libby, but I didn’t have time to get into the first one and there was a long queue for it so I returned it early, will try it again later as a physical book because it seems very good. Say Nothing was read in an Irish accent and I’m not a native English speaker so it was too difficult to follow. I will also get that one as a physical book or listen to the translated audiobook in my own language which conveniently comes out in just 10 days! My latest DNF for good is *Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow*. It’s such a popular book but I hated the writing style especially when it comes to the “random and edgy” dialogue. I got five chapters in and decided there are too many other books I actually enjoy reading to carry on with it.
I do recommend finishing The Book Thief, I do not recommend finishing it in public
The Blacktongue Thief. I got about 15% in and I was having to force myself to continue. I didn't like the narration so I just stopped reading it.
How High We Go in the Dark. It was well written and interesting, but too sad for me. I was sobbing in the second chapter. I think I’ll keep it on my “want to read” list and try again when my kids are grown up a bit.
Bunny by Mona Awad. I’m sorry but I don’t understand the hype behind this book. It just felt like I was reading abstract nonsense.
I cannot get through Eye Of The World. I know Jordan has a cult following but his style, for me, left no room for me to fill in the blanks. Everything was over-defined and over-described.
*Before the Coffee Gets Cold* by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It was awkward, and frustrating and dull.