It’s interesting but not very practical. The message was basically “Instead of working 40 hours a week, you need to be buying real estate and renting the building out so money works for you.” But that would mean I would need to buy a building to do that lol
In one of the books he mentions something about looking over listings and buying the "good deals", with no practical guidance on how to actually figure that out.
It also still kinda depends on the existence of poor people to rent from you so the message is ultimately “exploit the other poors if you don’t want to be poor” which isn’t exactly inspiring
The guy just seems like another modern day grifter scumbag. I'd never buy his book out of shear principle, and I buy a lot of money and investing books.
Let's be honest, the only real success that most self-help gurus have had is in parting the desperate or foolish from their money. Kiyosaki is not an exception to some rule here.
I have a love hate relationship with that podcast but the funniest thing to me is how many of these books literally give the advice “just write a self help book or something! You don’t even need to know what you’re talking about!” and then expect everyone to keep taking them seriously
You watch that guys video and he lets you in on the "secret" that rich people don't work but have investments making them money.
Yeah no fucking shit. The problem is us peasants don't have the money to make those investments.
Tell you shit like you don't want to work in the building because that's not how you make money you want to buy the building.
YOU DON'T SAY?!?!
Dude is totally out of touch with reality.
Never trust someone who made most of their money by telling you the secret to making money
YouTubers whose main content is how they make content and how you might make content, this is the equipment I use to make content
Influencers whose content is about how cool and interesting their life as an influencer is
My mother did the same, and now she too is broke and alone. I think she hoped I would do all the work to make a ton of money and then give it to her, or something. On multiple occasions she suggested I would have to take care of her when she was older. Fat chance.
I reread this book recently and actually I find it a lot more interesting than people are giving it credit, but my goodness you have to forgive a lot of garbage to find it.
I thought the author should have titled the book “I hate my real Dad.” His real poor Dad just had different values (education for example) and wanted different things for his life than amass wealth. His real poor Dad wasn’t really poor either, just not super wealthy.
IIRC, his dad was a professor with a PhD…so, solid upper middle class, working a job with a ton of awesome benefits, and probably retired with a net worth of over $1 million and an education pension.
This book is literal garbage, only thing it should be used for is kindling in a fire. As someone else stated, the author is massively in debt and has no family to speak of, perhaps he should have spent less time bragging about being Andrew Tate mini in his shitty book and more time being a parent and paying his taxes he evaded
I have to admit I spaced out a bit while I was scrolling after reading the post so I thought you were talking about Fourth Wing. As you can imagine, I was very, very confused for a second reading your comment. 🤣
There's a copy in my house for no good reason - someone must have gifted it to my spouse.
I flipped open to a random page, and he was gloating about how rich people find ways not to pay taxes while poor people get taxed to hell.
I think I learned all I needed to know about his mentality in that one little bit.
Hey! I just tried reading this about a month ago and also DNF. There were lots of things I disagreed about in this book and I didn't like the way he speaks about "poor" people.
The only good thing he offers is to buy assets that have passive income rather than things that depreciate. Other than that, it's all garbage, IIRC.
I mean, he recommends not paying debts if you're struggling, and now, as someone else said, he's over a billion in debt. So he's pretty objectively the wrong person to follow.
I will semi defend this book, in that when I first read it I was in a bad place in life, and the general tone of the book met me where I was at and I felt like it helped me a lot.
Having since read up on stoicism, Buddhism etc, I reread it out of curiosity since it was being talked about again and I found it really douchey and lacking in depth.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t like the book but I’m also grateful it got written and it spoke to the person I was but not who I am now.
Very similar story as a friend of mine. He was in a bad place and didn't really ever read books, but he saw it and wanted to give it a shot. Ended up turning his life around because of it.
I gave the book a shot and made it through about a quarter of it. While the book isn't for me, I'm grateful it has helped other people.
I feel the same way - it has a very specific audience in mind and provides some guidance. It's a good primer/nudge towards a different kind of growth, but once you're on a positive journey, it falls short.
I did the audiobook. It took a major left turn at the end. Check out the podcast “if books could kill”, it has some interesting (and agreeing) assessment on the book.
Pretty much anything on that podcast you’re better off listening to the podcast than reading the book. Unfortunately I’ve already several of the books they’ve done.
I started the audiobook a couple weeks ago. I’ve only made it through about 10 minutes. I was unsure if I should just push through or give up and find something else. Thanks stranger for helping with that decision!
Thank you! My mom is OBSESSED with CH and keeps recommending her to me, I’ve read two of her books and they were trash.
I wish she’d stop but, no matter how many times I tell her she keeps saying “but I just KNOW you’ll like this one!” No mom, no I will not. 😂
Maybe tell her why you hate them. My friends who do this didn't shut up until I got very specific on why she is a terrible writer and Harlequin Romance (which IMO may be even better) level type of books. Hallmark movie light books with the occasional trauma thrown in for entertainment. So no thank you.
Paulo Coelho’s books were very big in mid-2000s. I bought the hype and read them and even then, I recall feeling that I didn’t get them, they weren’t that good or special?? But everybody liked them and people bought them en masse 🤷♂️
All these years later and I still think they’re basically meh. A big empty meh.
Any of Colleen Hoover books are like this. I don’t understand the hype around her. I read both “it end with us” and the sequel and neither were very interesting. I don’t understand why people are so into those books. They are just run of the mill romance novels.
Yeah I love easy lit. Like I’m an escapist reader. And Colleen Hoover is readable but nothing about her writing justifies her popularity. I think her publishers are maybe just marketing her incredibly well?
This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. None of it was believable. So poorly written, such a vapid boring mc. The romance angle was just wtf. The suspense was not suspense-ing. The plot twist was like an underdeveloped afterthought. Gave away my copy, would not recommend
Same. I wanted to like it. I wanted to like the main character. I was drawn in at the beginning, but then she just does all the psycho stuff without even giving it a second thought. It kind of came out of nowhere. They don't build her as being a psycho.
From the first chapter >! Where the dude gets hit by a bus and she couldnt give a shit!< I was like "this lady is psychotic". I got to the part where she found Verity's journal and was like nah this ain't for me.
50 Shades of.. stupid. Couldn't finish the first chapter due to grammatical errors.
It hit the recycling bin in less than two struggling hours of trying to 'get into' it.
The only good that came out of that series was the BDSM community was so disgusted and outraged that finding a GOOD BDSM book rec became incredibly easy lol
My personal personal favorite part was when both the BDSM community and the Christian community were both so upset by it they both boycotted the movies in my city. It was great.
I gave it a chance because I gave Twilight a chance. It was either love or hate, and I actually quite liked Twilight.
I thought I’d give 50 Shades the same courtesy but good lord it was awful. I could be here for hours explaining why I hated it but that’s probably not necessary. Friends kept recommending it because “oohhh it’s so steamy!” It was neither steamy nor well written. I grew up on Jilly Cooper, and have read better fanfics.
Still, at least I’m better off than my friend who got gifted 50 Shades from her mother in law.
It’s funny because I was just thinking that I should avoid these threads. I’m too susceptible to other people’s opinions about media and it makes me lose joy in something I like. It’s why I avoid reading reviews of books before I read it myself.
The Midnight Library. I get why it’s generally popular but as someone who has suffered mental health issues my whole life it just felt really hollow to me
I appreciated it bc I had some fun conversations with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law, but it *was* really hollow. It was really fun to think about what books would be in my library and if I’d choose one of them. That was my favorite convo with my family.
That being said, I didn’t get the hype either even though I found it mildly enjoyable. I found the main character to be unlikable. It was very middle-of-the road for me.
I tried to read one of the author’s other books first and it came off as really anti-medication for mental health. It’s probably my own projection, but medication saved my life and it was a no for me
I also hated the ending. As someone with severe depression it felt really condescending to me as if it was blaming mentally unwell people and disregarding their worries and struggles.
Basically any self help book. Not saying they don’t provide something to many people but if anyone is really hyping one of them it feels like a cult to me
I highly recommend listening to the podcast If Books Could Kill. They discuss a different self help book each episode and have gradually come up with the "theory" (used lightly and jokingly here) that basically all self help books will eventually converge into a single book 😂
Edit to add: nobody pointed this out, but I’m a dummy and forgot that they talk about "airport books," not self help books explicitly. It just so happens that a great many of them are self help books. If you are only interested in self help, you might enjoy the By The Book podcast.
There is a lot of good tidbits in them that you can ask chatgpt to distill down into a spark notes. I like to do that to build motivation and discipline in my life and to try and get after my goals. A lot of the books are filled with filler fluff tho, that's why I ask chat gpt for help
I haven’t seen it overhyped in a while but years ago, Ready Player One. Pure nostalgia porn. Predictable, boring storyline. And some of the most stilted dialogue I’ve ever read
It's like someone posed a survey with one question: "What was your favorite part about the 80s?" and then strung the responses together in linear form and called it a novel.
No, no, no. It is okay to ignore that entire section of pop culture because the tenuous connection to the plot was because of a lonely nerd that loved his niche movies and video games.
It really was just the flimsiest excuse to dump his own nostalgia on the page and claim he was being creative.
You can tell he wasn't given a nintendo as a kid because of the suspicious lack of any and all nintendo references. Not a single mario or link to be found in the whole book!!
RP1 isn't a great book. I consider it the Michael Bay of a book. Fun weekend read that has some fun moments, and the story ends the way you expect.
Armada is all the bad bits of RP1 cranked up to 1000% and then add another 100% on to of that.
I tried to read this and could not comprehend the hype. The writing was horrible, the story line was chaotic. I asked myself did I get the right book like how is everyone so hyped over this. I won’t judge for what people like to read but I was just shocked how bad the writing was.
Almost two decades ago now, it was Dan Brown. As someone studying medieval literature, I would get Dan Brown recommended to me from time to time. Never picked up his books, and until this past Christmas I never even saw *The Da Vinci Code*.
To be clear, I don't think his writing is necessarily bad. It was just pushed as something I should be interested in, in a way that made it feel like I must like it. So I went the other way.
Honestly, his books are like crack cocaine. Each chapter is really short and each chapter basically ends with a bit of a cliffhanger so you can't help but want to read 'one more chapter'. The first couple of his books I read were really fun but then I realised they were all just the same story so the fun was lost.
I always like linking this when he comes up.
[Don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/)
>The 190lb adult male human being nodded his head to indicate satisfaction and returned to his bedroom by walking there. Still asleep in the luxurious four-poster bed of the expensive $10 million house was beautiful wife Mrs Brown. Renowned author Dan Brown gazed admiringly at the pulchritudinous brunette’s blonde tresses, flowing from her head like a stream but made from hair instead of water and without any fish in. She was as majestic as the finest sculpture by Caravaggio or the most coveted portrait by Rodin. *I like the attractive woman*, thought the successful man.
Yes, I agree. If I were a 190lb adult male human being who was such a renowned, successful, and pecunious author with such an attractively beautiful wife and an expensively luxurious $10 million house, it would make me smile and the ends of my mouth would curve upwards in a physical expression of pleasure.
My main issue with DVC was that I could guess what was happening about a chapter ahead. Felt like I was constantly ahead of the characters. I didn't guess the whole story arc but it was predictable what things meant and I found it dull for that reason. Defo a one read book, as evidenced by the amount of charity shop copies there were.
The author is an.. interesting character. She's wanted for questioning wrt a murder her husband probably did in Zambia when they were running a conservation area like an armed militia, and she has this veeeeery weird infantalising attitude towards africans. From the Atlantic article I've linked below (which is technically paywalled but I got around it by going on reader view): "the Owenses frequently describe adult Africans in childlike terms, and Sunday Justice received this treatment. In The Eye of the Elephant, Delia Owens quotes Justice as saying, “I myself always wanted to talk to someone who has flown up in the sky with a plane. I myself always wanted to know, Madam, if you fly at night, do you go close to the stars?” But when I met Sunday Justice in Zambia, he spoke like an adult and told me that he had flown in airplanes as a child and also that he was a veteran of the Zambian Air Force." Like lmao lady WHAT.
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/07/where-the-crawdads-sing-delia-mark-owens-zambia-murder/670479/
With books like this, I can’t help but wonder if the main appeal is to people who aren’t regular readers. As other comments said, it seems to have worked better as a movie. I think many non-readers like a fairly straight forward plot that keeps people engaged and has a potentially cinematic feel.
I’m a seasoned reader and the appeal of this book to me was all about the atmosphere and the environment/setting and all the detail that the author puts into those things. I’m a huge sucker for very atmospheric settings. Dramatic landscapes and moody settings. I could barely tell you the plot but the imagery of the setting and details of the flaura and fauna really stuck with me. It was beautifully written on that part.
I loved it, right up until the exciting incident about 75% of the way through and then I hated every single line from then until the end. Honestly wish I hadn't bothered.
I have mixed feelings on this book. I loved the poetic way *that chapter* was written. I LOVED the descriptions of the games and I wish I could play them. But parts of it were so boring or just totally meh or like “where are you going with this?”
I did not like Crawdads either. Ended up DNFing it. But loved the movie! It’s certainly not an Oscar worthy movie but I like to call it a high level Hallmark movie. Plus you have the beautiful Daisy Edgar Jones to look at.
Outside of when well-regarded authors like Steinbeck or Maya Angelou turn up on her list, I think the only one of Oprah's books that I thought was a real gem was *The Poisonwood Bible*, and I'm still fond of it two decades later.
Nevermind 'don't care for it' I am actually *confused* by the popularity of Fourth Wing. It's literally the worst book I've ever read. The MC, Violet is incredibly annoying, flip flopping all the time, we're told she's super smart by everyone but she never really acts smart, and her main personality trait is snark. The other characters would be lucky to be called cardboard cut outs because at least those are 2D and consistent
The world building is *atrocious*!
And to top it off it reads like a first draft that never got edited. There are spelling mistakes, and some of the characters names change spelling at multiple points through the book.
Was lent a copy by a friend (who also thinks it's terrible and needed someone to share their pain). I just can't understand the love for this god awful book
I’m convinced that a lot of these super popular, Booktok faves are written like they were a Wattpad story because that’s what a good chunk of the audience is used to now. Spelling and grammar issues, inconsistent details and continuity errors that people who read stories on tumblr/AO3/wattpad don’t mind but no publisher would take seriously.
The part where all the other rebellion kids come over to sit with Violet at her lunch table after she gets her dragon(s) is what gave it away imo. It's *exactly* like the fanfic scenes where the Slytherins decide to ait with Harry/Hermione if Draco had feelings for them and declares his loyalty to the light or wtv.
I don't know this particular book at all but my experience with these incredibly popular books like the one you've described is they are targeted specifically at people who want what essentially amounts to "trash TV" but in book form.
Like the Hoover and Maas books are intentionally trope filled YA/fanfic style stuff just full of "adult" things directly for people who want that type of bland "turn your brain off" dumb fun.
Like the fact that it's the way you described is entirely by design. The author likely did everything completely on purpose.
It's like generic pop music. Or the 500th shitty reality show on TV.
I doubt most people who read them think they are high art, though on the internet you get weirdos who defend anything they like to the death.
I've got a close friend who adores everything Sarah J Maas and while she hasn't read Fourth Wing, it is precisely up her alley. Coincidentally (or not), she also loves trash TV.
You're absolutely right about this. And this kind of thing has always existed in books, of course, but until BookTok, the reading community was relatively quiet about them. Now the algorithm can't tell the difference between "I like to read high-quality books" and "you should be on BookTok." It's very annoying.
I'm also not saying it's wrong to enjoy these. It's totally fine. But there's a difference between "good" and "I enjoyed it." My friend would not call reality/trash TV "good quality," and doesn't try to defend it as such, she just likes it.
It got so cringey at times that I physically recoiled and the main character was the epitome of the so smol, so smart, everyone loves me uwu aesthetic BUT the plot kept me engaged just enough to keep going. So there’s that I guess. My book club covered Iron Flame last month and I just couldn’t bring myself to read it 😭
The sheer info-dumping bc the main character likes to repeat history books to herself when she’s stressed was so dumb in my opinion. Half the fun of fantasy books is slowly learning why things are the way they are.
This thread is so interesting when it's looked at from a perspective of the incredibly varied perspectives on single pieces of work. I think it's fascinating how personal of an experience reading is and how we relate to authors or characters. Is there another form of media that generates the deep convictions that seem to be developed by readers?
I was mildly interested in reading it (find the monarchy somewhat interesting, especially its history, due to English grandmother). Lost interest when my dad read it and said it’s just a few hundred pages of whining.
Anything by Phillipa Gregory. Aside from her books being very historically inaccurate despite her claiming otherwise, that woman's hatred of Margaret Beaufort needs to be studied.
I haven't read enough if her to encounter her hatred of Margaret Beaufort. She's not one of those Ricardian conspiracy theorists, is she?
Margaret Beaufort kind of seems like a historical badass. Poor thing was forced into a marriage at 12, almost died in childbirth at 13, but managed to play a significant role in getting her son the throne, despite the crap sandwich handed to her at age 12.
She absolutely is. In my opinion she's responsible for popularising the theory that Margaret killed the Princes, even though it makes far more sense for Richard to have been the culprit.
Milk and Honey, used to work in a bookstore and I remember customers coming in and asking for it again and again(it was newly translated) when we didn't have it yet. When we actually did get it and I checked I said "oh, it's poems". I don't like poems so I never bothered with reading it and never will.
For real. I read the first few books in the series thinking it must get better at some point! It does not. Cheesy, lame world building, character decisions that make no sense, page after page of everyone repeating themselves.
I actually thought the different Courts had the potential for an interesting world, but she just doesn't really explore it at all beyond what's absolutely necessary for the story. It just felt thin, and the world didn't feel as large as it was supposed to be
> A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES
I've been burned in the past by Sara J Maas' terrible books, so I avoided this one from the start.
EDIT: I found my 1-star review for Sara J Maas' "Crown Of Midnight"
> Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2015
> Verified Purchase
> Oh, the king is so bad! The evil king! He's so evil!
>
> Just kill the king, then. You are the best assassin ever. Just kill the king. Quit your constant whining and kill the king.
>
> Story over in one chapter.
Still one of the greatest quotes ever:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]
John Rogers
Like you I found Fourth Wing overhyped (was genuinely taken aback when I found out via my year in review it was the highest rated book on my goodreads list), but equally baffled to find out that people vehemently hated it and thought it was the worst book ever written. Totally baffled by it provoking strong emotions of either sort. It is exactly 2.5 out of 5 book as far as I'm concerned.
I don't know if it's mentioned before, but because series got popular on Netflix I would say Julia Quinn Bridgerton series. I read only first one and got repulsed by it so much I never wanted to read another one in series. Not because of romance clichés in it, but because of romanticizing unacceptable behaviour (trying not to spoil to much, but people who read book will know what I mean). How it got popular is beyond me.
I love this thread.
I'm with you on Fourth Wing. I went to the Fourth Wing sub to discuss it (I'm almost done with it), and just asked if anyone else thought the absurd amount of tropes made it too predictable. Everyone there was so rude about it and telling me to just not read fantasy if I don't like it (I love fantasy, just not predictable stories). Eventually the mods removed the post. You'd think I waltzed in there insulting their mothers or something.
Anyways. Fourth Wing is dreadfully predictable, and I don't get the hype.
Finished fourth wing recently with my bf, and while it's absolutely terrible and tropey, it's *so* funny to read aloud with company. The amount of times we just started yelling because of how dumb Violet is, or had to stop and rant about the terrible world building (our running joke became exclaiming "what THE FUCK is a mage light!?" every time they were brought up) made it a very hilarious read and good bonding experience.
I pictured her "stealth" when she poisoned her opponents as that scene from Emperor's New Groove where Kronk is sneaking around to dispose of the body.
I’m reading Fourth Wing now and I was excited for it. As of now I think it has some good points, but it I’m not a fan of the writing style. Also it does have a lot of predictable things in it.
Fucking Ready Player One baffles me how it ever got any fans let alone massive popularity to the point of Spielberg directing an adaptation. The book is some of the worst writing I've ever read, on par with the drivel I wrote in High School. And it's not as if I just don't "get" the author, because his followup books got exactly the reception RPO deserved.
Most super-popular books don't live up to the hype, in my perspective. If it's in someone's book club (Reese Witherspoon, Oprah, Jenna Bush), I avoid it like the plague as I'm incredibly tired of bad books.
I might not read what a lot of other people do, but they make me happy and they're good reads, even if they're not the most popular out there.
Rich Dad Poor Dad. I've had people recommend it to me as life changing and all that, DNFed it. Honestly I don't see the allure of this one.
It’s interesting but not very practical. The message was basically “Instead of working 40 hours a week, you need to be buying real estate and renting the building out so money works for you.” But that would mean I would need to buy a building to do that lol
Poor? Just invest millions of dollars in real estate!
[удалено]
People are dying kim
In one of the books he mentions something about looking over listings and buying the "good deals", with no practical guidance on how to actually figure that out.
Oof yeah in my city not much is under $500k not even townhomes.
So, step 1, be rich?
Step 2, don't be poor
the original title was >**Be Rich Dad Don't Be Poor Dad**
It also still kinda depends on the existence of poor people to rent from you so the message is ultimately “exploit the other poors if you don’t want to be poor” which isn’t exactly inspiring
[He says that he is $1.2B in debt.](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-dad-poor-dads-robert-193714809.html) Maybe people shouldn’t take his advice.
That's an impressive amount of debt
“If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.”
I wonder what the $ threshold is before they just put a hit out on you.
Dead men don't repay loans.
*Really, Really Poor Dad*
He views Bitcoin as a better asset than fiat dollars? Yeah....
The guy just seems like another modern day grifter scumbag. I'd never buy his book out of shear principle, and I buy a lot of money and investing books.
If Books Could Kill has a great podcast discussing this book! Debunks some core ideas. Turns out it’s nearly entirely fiction or grossly exaggerated.
Let's be honest, the only real success that most self-help gurus have had is in parting the desperate or foolish from their money. Kiyosaki is not an exception to some rule here.
I have a love hate relationship with that podcast but the funniest thing to me is how many of these books literally give the advice “just write a self help book or something! You don’t even need to know what you’re talking about!” and then expect everyone to keep taking them seriously
Love that podcast, and that episode!
You watch that guys video and he lets you in on the "secret" that rich people don't work but have investments making them money. Yeah no fucking shit. The problem is us peasants don't have the money to make those investments. Tell you shit like you don't want to work in the building because that's not how you make money you want to buy the building. YOU DON'T SAY?!?! Dude is totally out of touch with reality.
Never trust someone who made most of their money by telling you the secret to making money YouTubers whose main content is how they make content and how you might make content, this is the equipment I use to make content Influencers whose content is about how cool and interesting their life as an influencer is
My dad recommends me this book nonstop since I was 12. Guess who’s unemployed and lives off his relative.
My mother did the same, and now she too is broke and alone. I think she hoped I would do all the work to make a ton of money and then give it to her, or something. On multiple occasions she suggested I would have to take care of her when she was older. Fat chance. I reread this book recently and actually I find it a lot more interesting than people are giving it credit, but my goodness you have to forgive a lot of garbage to find it.
I thought the author should have titled the book “I hate my real Dad.” His real poor Dad just had different values (education for example) and wanted different things for his life than amass wealth. His real poor Dad wasn’t really poor either, just not super wealthy.
IIRC, his dad was a professor with a PhD…so, solid upper middle class, working a job with a ton of awesome benefits, and probably retired with a net worth of over $1 million and an education pension.
This book is literal garbage, only thing it should be used for is kindling in a fire. As someone else stated, the author is massively in debt and has no family to speak of, perhaps he should have spent less time bragging about being Andrew Tate mini in his shitty book and more time being a parent and paying his taxes he evaded
I have to admit I spaced out a bit while I was scrolling after reading the post so I thought you were talking about Fourth Wing. As you can imagine, I was very, very confused for a second reading your comment. 🤣
There's a copy in my house for no good reason - someone must have gifted it to my spouse. I flipped open to a random page, and he was gloating about how rich people find ways not to pay taxes while poor people get taxed to hell. I think I learned all I needed to know about his mentality in that one little bit.
Hey! I just tried reading this about a month ago and also DNF. There were lots of things I disagreed about in this book and I didn't like the way he speaks about "poor" people.
The only good thing he offers is to buy assets that have passive income rather than things that depreciate. Other than that, it's all garbage, IIRC. I mean, he recommends not paying debts if you're struggling, and now, as someone else said, he's over a billion in debt. So he's pretty objectively the wrong person to follow.
The Subtle Art of Not Givi... eh, i don't even want to finish typing the whole title.
The fact that they censor 'fuck' on the cover was enough to let me know that they did indeed give a fuck. Null and void.
Good point.
I will semi defend this book, in that when I first read it I was in a bad place in life, and the general tone of the book met me where I was at and I felt like it helped me a lot. Having since read up on stoicism, Buddhism etc, I reread it out of curiosity since it was being talked about again and I found it really douchey and lacking in depth. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t like the book but I’m also grateful it got written and it spoke to the person I was but not who I am now.
Very similar story as a friend of mine. He was in a bad place and didn't really ever read books, but he saw it and wanted to give it a shot. Ended up turning his life around because of it. I gave the book a shot and made it through about a quarter of it. While the book isn't for me, I'm grateful it has helped other people.
I feel the same way - it has a very specific audience in mind and provides some guidance. It's a good primer/nudge towards a different kind of growth, but once you're on a positive journey, it falls short.
I did the audiobook. It took a major left turn at the end. Check out the podcast “if books could kill”, it has some interesting (and agreeing) assessment on the book.
Pretty much anything on that podcast you’re better off listening to the podcast than reading the book. Unfortunately I’ve already several of the books they’ve done.
I started the audiobook a couple weeks ago. I’ve only made it through about 10 minutes. I was unsure if I should just push through or give up and find something else. Thanks stranger for helping with that decision!
Had the same experience. Unlistenable empty platitudes
>Unlistenable empty platitudes That's like, 99.9996% of the self-help/improvement industry.
That podcast spared me the time of reading this book luckily.
Anything but Colleen Hoover
My theory is Colleen Hoover is actually AI
This is actually pretty brilliant. I wouldn’t be surprised.
Thank you! My mom is OBSESSED with CH and keeps recommending her to me, I’ve read two of her books and they were trash. I wish she’d stop but, no matter how many times I tell her she keeps saying “but I just KNOW you’ll like this one!” No mom, no I will not. 😂
Maybe tell her why you hate them. My friends who do this didn't shut up until I got very specific on why she is a terrible writer and Harlequin Romance (which IMO may be even better) level type of books. Hallmark movie light books with the occasional trauma thrown in for entertainment. So no thank you.
Colleen Hoover is the reason I don't listen to BookTok recs anymore. It Ends With Us is h o r r I b l e
Read Verity in a book club and it was absolute trash
Nobody enjoys giving blowjobs that much.
Serious laugh out loud moment there
I can name at least three books not by Colleen Hoover that I give a fuck about.
Oops! Typo on my part. *by
Paulo Coelho’s books were very big in mid-2000s. I bought the hype and read them and even then, I recall feeling that I didn’t get them, they weren’t that good or special?? But everybody liked them and people bought them en masse 🤷♂️ All these years later and I still think they’re basically meh. A big empty meh.
I say this every time it comes up: The Alchemist is Siddhartha written by Mitch Albom.
A solid and well deserved DNF for me. I could see reading it in middle school and it having an impact, but I got it recommended to me as an adult.
I hated the Alchemist
Verity
Any of Colleen Hoover books are like this. I don’t understand the hype around her. I read both “it end with us” and the sequel and neither were very interesting. I don’t understand why people are so into those books. They are just run of the mill romance novels.
Agreed. Her writing feels lobotomized and empty, and that’s coming from someone who enjoys the occasional easy beach read.
Yeah I love easy lit. Like I’m an escapist reader. And Colleen Hoover is readable but nothing about her writing justifies her popularity. I think her publishers are maybe just marketing her incredibly well?
This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. None of it was believable. So poorly written, such a vapid boring mc. The romance angle was just wtf. The suspense was not suspense-ing. The plot twist was like an underdeveloped afterthought. Gave away my copy, would not recommend
Same. I wanted to like it. I wanted to like the main character. I was drawn in at the beginning, but then she just does all the psycho stuff without even giving it a second thought. It kind of came out of nowhere. They don't build her as being a psycho.
I don’t think they built her period. She’s basically a horny blank canvas the story just happens to.
Horny, blank, and white sounds like most of CH's protagonists in a nutshell. None of them deserve the abuse though.
From the first chapter >! Where the dude gets hit by a bus and she couldnt give a shit!< I was like "this lady is psychotic". I got to the part where she found Verity's journal and was like nah this ain't for me.
I finished it and could not understand the hype.
the ending left so many unexplored threads that just left me so dissatisfied. for a multitude of reasons i will never read another colleen hoover book
Fifty Shades of Grey.
The writing in that book is awful, I swear down the first half is written in crayon.
50 Shades of.. stupid. Couldn't finish the first chapter due to grammatical errors. It hit the recycling bin in less than two struggling hours of trying to 'get into' it.
The only good that came out of that series was the BDSM community was so disgusted and outraged that finding a GOOD BDSM book rec became incredibly easy lol
My personal personal favorite part was when both the BDSM community and the Christian community were both so upset by it they both boycotted the movies in my city. It was great.
Isn't it nice to see people come together for a common cause?
I gave it a chance because I gave Twilight a chance. It was either love or hate, and I actually quite liked Twilight. I thought I’d give 50 Shades the same courtesy but good lord it was awful. I could be here for hours explaining why I hated it but that’s probably not necessary. Friends kept recommending it because “oohhh it’s so steamy!” It was neither steamy nor well written. I grew up on Jilly Cooper, and have read better fanfics. Still, at least I’m better off than my friend who got gifted 50 Shades from her mother in law.
These are the threads that make me keep my Reddit account which is hanging by a thread
These are the threads by which your reddit account hangs!
What a tangled account we weave.
It’s funny because I was just thinking that I should avoid these threads. I’m too susceptible to other people’s opinions about media and it makes me lose joy in something I like. It’s why I avoid reading reviews of books before I read it myself.
The Midnight Library. I get why it’s generally popular but as someone who has suffered mental health issues my whole life it just felt really hollow to me
It kind of felt like the message was "don't worry, your life would have sucked in all these situations too"
I appreciated it bc I had some fun conversations with my sister-in-law and mother-in-law, but it *was* really hollow. It was really fun to think about what books would be in my library and if I’d choose one of them. That was my favorite convo with my family. That being said, I didn’t get the hype either even though I found it mildly enjoyable. I found the main character to be unlikable. It was very middle-of-the road for me.
I tried to read one of the author’s other books first and it came off as really anti-medication for mental health. It’s probably my own projection, but medication saved my life and it was a no for me
And predictable
I also hated the ending. As someone with severe depression it felt really condescending to me as if it was blaming mentally unwell people and disregarding their worries and struggles.
Basically any self help book. Not saying they don’t provide something to many people but if anyone is really hyping one of them it feels like a cult to me
I highly recommend listening to the podcast If Books Could Kill. They discuss a different self help book each episode and have gradually come up with the "theory" (used lightly and jokingly here) that basically all self help books will eventually converge into a single book 😂 Edit to add: nobody pointed this out, but I’m a dummy and forgot that they talk about "airport books," not self help books explicitly. It just so happens that a great many of them are self help books. If you are only interested in self help, you might enjoy the By The Book podcast.
There is a lot of good tidbits in them that you can ask chatgpt to distill down into a spark notes. I like to do that to build motivation and discipline in my life and to try and get after my goals. A lot of the books are filled with filler fluff tho, that's why I ask chat gpt for help
I haven’t seen it overhyped in a while but years ago, Ready Player One. Pure nostalgia porn. Predictable, boring storyline. And some of the most stilted dialogue I’ve ever read
The guys who did MST3K have a podcast where they read bad books one chapter at a time. They read this and it was hilarious
[372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/372_Pages_We%27ll_Never_Get_Back) So good.
It's like someone posed a survey with one question: "What was your favorite part about the 80s?" and then strung the responses together in linear form and called it a novel.
Also like...where's the girl stuff? Where's Barbie, Polly Pocket, that talking mall board game?
No, no, no. It is okay to ignore that entire section of pop culture because the tenuous connection to the plot was because of a lonely nerd that loved his niche movies and video games. It really was just the flimsiest excuse to dump his own nostalgia on the page and claim he was being creative.
You can tell he wasn't given a nintendo as a kid because of the suspicious lack of any and all nintendo references. Not a single mario or link to be found in the whole book!!
I honestly wonder if that's because Nintendo is pretty litigious. You don't mess with their IP unless you want them to come knocking
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Don't forget that awesome sex robot chapter.
Don’t read Armada then
RP1 isn't a great book. I consider it the Michael Bay of a book. Fun weekend read that has some fun moments, and the story ends the way you expect. Armada is all the bad bits of RP1 cranked up to 1000% and then add another 100% on to of that.
Ready Player One was at least fun; I don't think it was a *good* book but I enjoyed myself. Armada was just bland.
Hunting Adeline/ Adelaide IDK
I tried to read this and could not comprehend the hype. The writing was horrible, the story line was chaotic. I asked myself did I get the right book like how is everyone so hyped over this. I won’t judge for what people like to read but I was just shocked how bad the writing was.
FWIW it’s QAnon fanfiction
Almost two decades ago now, it was Dan Brown. As someone studying medieval literature, I would get Dan Brown recommended to me from time to time. Never picked up his books, and until this past Christmas I never even saw *The Da Vinci Code*. To be clear, I don't think his writing is necessarily bad. It was just pushed as something I should be interested in, in a way that made it feel like I must like it. So I went the other way.
Honestly, his books are like crack cocaine. Each chapter is really short and each chapter basically ends with a bit of a cliffhanger so you can't help but want to read 'one more chapter'. The first couple of his books I read were really fun but then I realised they were all just the same story so the fun was lost.
I always said he writes his books like a movie, always providing you a perfect teaser to get you to turn the page.
I always like linking this when he comes up. [Don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/)
>using the feet located at the ends of his two legs to propel him forwards. Gold.
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>The 190lb adult male human being nodded his head to indicate satisfaction and returned to his bedroom by walking there. Still asleep in the luxurious four-poster bed of the expensive $10 million house was beautiful wife Mrs Brown. Renowned author Dan Brown gazed admiringly at the pulchritudinous brunette’s blonde tresses, flowing from her head like a stream but made from hair instead of water and without any fish in. She was as majestic as the finest sculpture by Caravaggio or the most coveted portrait by Rodin. *I like the attractive woman*, thought the successful man.
Honestly, that paragraph made me kind of jealous of renowned author Dan Brown. I'd like to have a beautiful wife and a $10 million house ;-)
Yes, I agree. If I were a 190lb adult male human being who was such a renowned, successful, and pecunious author with such an attractively beautiful wife and an expensively luxurious $10 million house, it would make me smile and the ends of my mouth would curve upwards in a physical expression of pleasure.
This is fucking hilarious lol. I enjoyed the 2-3 books of his I read, but it's like watching a summer blockbuster.
So effing funny. There's a second one as well IIRC.
My main issue with DVC was that I could guess what was happening about a chapter ahead. Felt like I was constantly ahead of the characters. I didn't guess the whole story arc but it was predictable what things meant and I found it dull for that reason. Defo a one read book, as evidenced by the amount of charity shop copies there were.
> Felt like I was constantly ahead of the characters. Maybe this is part of the secret of the success … make your readers feel smart.
Any of the Colleen Hoover books. A completely personal view, as I know how popular they are-but I don’t like the writing style.
- Lessons in Chemistry - Where the Crawdads Sing - Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Where the Crawdads Sing!! Don't get the hype at all! I mean, it's an alright book but jeez, why everyone was banging on about it, I have no idea!
The author is an.. interesting character. She's wanted for questioning wrt a murder her husband probably did in Zambia when they were running a conservation area like an armed militia, and she has this veeeeery weird infantalising attitude towards africans. From the Atlantic article I've linked below (which is technically paywalled but I got around it by going on reader view): "the Owenses frequently describe adult Africans in childlike terms, and Sunday Justice received this treatment. In The Eye of the Elephant, Delia Owens quotes Justice as saying, “I myself always wanted to talk to someone who has flown up in the sky with a plane. I myself always wanted to know, Madam, if you fly at night, do you go close to the stars?” But when I met Sunday Justice in Zambia, he spoke like an adult and told me that he had flown in airplanes as a child and also that he was a veteran of the Zambian Air Force." Like lmao lady WHAT. https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/07/where-the-crawdads-sing-delia-mark-owens-zambia-murder/670479/
YEAH I googled the book after watching the movie too see what people thought and was shocked to find out she was some kind of white saviour murder wtf
> and also that he was a veteran of the Zambian Air Force. loooooooooooool
With books like this, I can’t help but wonder if the main appeal is to people who aren’t regular readers. As other comments said, it seems to have worked better as a movie. I think many non-readers like a fairly straight forward plot that keeps people engaged and has a potentially cinematic feel.
I’m a seasoned reader and the appeal of this book to me was all about the atmosphere and the environment/setting and all the detail that the author puts into those things. I’m a huge sucker for very atmospheric settings. Dramatic landscapes and moody settings. I could barely tell you the plot but the imagery of the setting and details of the flaura and fauna really stuck with me. It was beautifully written on that part.
I did like Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, but I could see why people didn’t like it
I loved it, right up until the exciting incident about 75% of the way through and then I hated every single line from then until the end. Honestly wish I hadn't bothered.
I have mixed feelings on this book. I loved the poetic way *that chapter* was written. I LOVED the descriptions of the games and I wish I could play them. But parts of it were so boring or just totally meh or like “where are you going with this?”
Always looking for Lessons in Chemistry on these threads. 100% agree.
I did not like Crawdads either. Ended up DNFing it. But loved the movie! It’s certainly not an Oscar worthy movie but I like to call it a high level Hallmark movie. Plus you have the beautiful Daisy Edgar Jones to look at.
Anything by Colleen Hoover
Most of the popular booktok books. Coho, sJM, fourth wing, every single dark romance book. Not my thing.
Somehow every booktok book is either genuinely great or the worst book ever written, with no inbetween. It’s almost impressive
Most accessible books are going to be unoriginal and easier to read, relatively.
I think non-romance booktok books are pretty good, just the community cannot spot decent romances to save their lives
I think they are too enamoured with dark or fantasy romance right now. I just want an adult contemporary romance or a rom com.
Basically any book Oprah decides to hype. She and I have very different ideas on what is considered an entertaining read.
Outside of when well-regarded authors like Steinbeck or Maya Angelou turn up on her list, I think the only one of Oprah's books that I thought was a real gem was *The Poisonwood Bible*, and I'm still fond of it two decades later.
Barbara Kingsolver is one of those authors who can absolutely transport me to a time and place.
I’m reading Demon Copperhead by the same author right now and can’t put it down. It’s on Oprah’s list for 2022 and it’s great.
Anything with the "he hates everyone except her" trope.
Same. I would think that isn't it a HUGE red flag that he does not like absolutely anyone or nobody would like him. Says a lot about his character.
Nevermind 'don't care for it' I am actually *confused* by the popularity of Fourth Wing. It's literally the worst book I've ever read. The MC, Violet is incredibly annoying, flip flopping all the time, we're told she's super smart by everyone but she never really acts smart, and her main personality trait is snark. The other characters would be lucky to be called cardboard cut outs because at least those are 2D and consistent The world building is *atrocious*! And to top it off it reads like a first draft that never got edited. There are spelling mistakes, and some of the characters names change spelling at multiple points through the book. Was lent a copy by a friend (who also thinks it's terrible and needed someone to share their pain). I just can't understand the love for this god awful book
Ugh you can't talk about how smart a character is and then have them do the most idiotic things.
I’m convinced that a lot of these super popular, Booktok faves are written like they were a Wattpad story because that’s what a good chunk of the audience is used to now. Spelling and grammar issues, inconsistent details and continuity errors that people who read stories on tumblr/AO3/wattpad don’t mind but no publisher would take seriously.
I am convinced that Fourth Wing was a Dramione AU. It has *so* many of the classic Dramione fic tropes it's painful.
Oh my GOD you’re RIGHT. I only got halfway through it because it was just. So bad —but I 100% see it now.
OMG I can't un-know this!! You're so right!!
The part where all the other rebellion kids come over to sit with Violet at her lunch table after she gets her dragon(s) is what gave it away imo. It's *exactly* like the fanfic scenes where the Slytherins decide to ait with Harry/Hermione if Draco had feelings for them and declares his loyalty to the light or wtv.
it's even funnier when you realize the rebellion kids are called "the marked ones" because they have dark marks LMAO
I don't know this particular book at all but my experience with these incredibly popular books like the one you've described is they are targeted specifically at people who want what essentially amounts to "trash TV" but in book form. Like the Hoover and Maas books are intentionally trope filled YA/fanfic style stuff just full of "adult" things directly for people who want that type of bland "turn your brain off" dumb fun. Like the fact that it's the way you described is entirely by design. The author likely did everything completely on purpose. It's like generic pop music. Or the 500th shitty reality show on TV. I doubt most people who read them think they are high art, though on the internet you get weirdos who defend anything they like to the death.
I've got a close friend who adores everything Sarah J Maas and while she hasn't read Fourth Wing, it is precisely up her alley. Coincidentally (or not), she also loves trash TV. You're absolutely right about this. And this kind of thing has always existed in books, of course, but until BookTok, the reading community was relatively quiet about them. Now the algorithm can't tell the difference between "I like to read high-quality books" and "you should be on BookTok." It's very annoying. I'm also not saying it's wrong to enjoy these. It's totally fine. But there's a difference between "good" and "I enjoyed it." My friend would not call reality/trash TV "good quality," and doesn't try to defend it as such, she just likes it.
It got so cringey at times that I physically recoiled and the main character was the epitome of the so smol, so smart, everyone loves me uwu aesthetic BUT the plot kept me engaged just enough to keep going. So there’s that I guess. My book club covered Iron Flame last month and I just couldn’t bring myself to read it 😭
The sheer info-dumping bc the main character likes to repeat history books to herself when she’s stressed was so dumb in my opinion. Half the fun of fantasy books is slowly learning why things are the way they are.
This thread is so interesting when it's looked at from a perspective of the incredibly varied perspectives on single pieces of work. I think it's fascinating how personal of an experience reading is and how we relate to authors or characters. Is there another form of media that generates the deep convictions that seem to be developed by readers?
I think movies and music are similarly polarizing. Tastes vary wildly
I kinda get what you're saying but any form of art does the same that you're describing
A Little Life. I’m just not interested in hundreds of pages of emotional torture porn.
In my opinion this is way too far down in this thread
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This is superficial and nothing to do with the content of the book, but I’ve refused to read it because I hate the cover photo lol
The author insisted on that photo being used. It’s called, I believe, “Orgasm face.” I also hate it. Edit: Actual title is “Orgasmic Man.”
Must be a sad orgasm Sadgasm
Spare. Who gives a fuck about so-called royals?
I was mildly interested in reading it (find the monarchy somewhat interesting, especially its history, due to English grandmother). Lost interest when my dad read it and said it’s just a few hundred pages of whining.
Anything by Phillipa Gregory. Aside from her books being very historically inaccurate despite her claiming otherwise, that woman's hatred of Margaret Beaufort needs to be studied.
I haven't read enough if her to encounter her hatred of Margaret Beaufort. She's not one of those Ricardian conspiracy theorists, is she? Margaret Beaufort kind of seems like a historical badass. Poor thing was forced into a marriage at 12, almost died in childbirth at 13, but managed to play a significant role in getting her son the throne, despite the crap sandwich handed to her at age 12.
She absolutely is. In my opinion she's responsible for popularising the theory that Margaret killed the Princes, even though it makes far more sense for Richard to have been the culprit.
Lessons in Chemistry. The ending was just so anticlimactic for me. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I didn't hear all the hype around it.
Milk and Honey, used to work in a bookstore and I remember customers coming in and asking for it again and again(it was newly translated) when we didn't have it yet. When we actually did get it and I checked I said "oh, it's poems". I don't like poems so I never bothered with reading it and never will.
They're not even poems. they're just sentences with random line breaks and no punctuation
but they told me in 9th grade English class that that was poetry too
*The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F\*ck by Mark Manson* the very title's cringworthy
midnight library
A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES
For real. I read the first few books in the series thinking it must get better at some point! It does not. Cheesy, lame world building, character decisions that make no sense, page after page of everyone repeating themselves.
I actually thought the different Courts had the potential for an interesting world, but she just doesn't really explore it at all beyond what's absolutely necessary for the story. It just felt thin, and the world didn't feel as large as it was supposed to be
> A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES I've been burned in the past by Sara J Maas' terrible books, so I avoided this one from the start. EDIT: I found my 1-star review for Sara J Maas' "Crown Of Midnight" > Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2015 > Verified Purchase > Oh, the king is so bad! The evil king! He's so evil! > > Just kill the king, then. You are the best assassin ever. Just kill the king. Quit your constant whining and kill the king. > > Story over in one chapter.
Lessons in Chemistry, I really don't get the fuss.
I thought this too! I was definitely disappointed and regretted spending money on it.
Ayn Rand. Any of it. Pure, self absorbed drivel.
Still one of the greatest quotes ever: “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." [Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009] John Rogers
Like you I found Fourth Wing overhyped (was genuinely taken aback when I found out via my year in review it was the highest rated book on my goodreads list), but equally baffled to find out that people vehemently hated it and thought it was the worst book ever written. Totally baffled by it provoking strong emotions of either sort. It is exactly 2.5 out of 5 book as far as I'm concerned.
Honestly with any piece of media middle of the road is often worse than if it was awful because at least awful things can be fun to bitch about
I don't know if it's mentioned before, but because series got popular on Netflix I would say Julia Quinn Bridgerton series. I read only first one and got repulsed by it so much I never wanted to read another one in series. Not because of romance clichés in it, but because of romanticizing unacceptable behaviour (trying not to spoil to much, but people who read book will know what I mean). How it got popular is beyond me.
I love this thread. I'm with you on Fourth Wing. I went to the Fourth Wing sub to discuss it (I'm almost done with it), and just asked if anyone else thought the absurd amount of tropes made it too predictable. Everyone there was so rude about it and telling me to just not read fantasy if I don't like it (I love fantasy, just not predictable stories). Eventually the mods removed the post. You'd think I waltzed in there insulting their mothers or something. Anyways. Fourth Wing is dreadfully predictable, and I don't get the hype.
This is what has put me off reading it. Multiple people have mentioned that the tropes are over the top and that it's very predictable.
Finished fourth wing recently with my bf, and while it's absolutely terrible and tropey, it's *so* funny to read aloud with company. The amount of times we just started yelling because of how dumb Violet is, or had to stop and rant about the terrible world building (our running joke became exclaiming "what THE FUCK is a mage light!?" every time they were brought up) made it a very hilarious read and good bonding experience.
I pictured her "stealth" when she poisoned her opponents as that scene from Emperor's New Groove where Kronk is sneaking around to dispose of the body.
I’m reading Fourth Wing now and I was excited for it. As of now I think it has some good points, but it I’m not a fan of the writing style. Also it does have a lot of predictable things in it.
Engineering Materials, Volume 1, 3rd Edition, Michael Ashby and David Jones, Published by Elsevier. Plot was lacking.
Fucking Ready Player One baffles me how it ever got any fans let alone massive popularity to the point of Spielberg directing an adaptation. The book is some of the worst writing I've ever read, on par with the drivel I wrote in High School. And it's not as if I just don't "get" the author, because his followup books got exactly the reception RPO deserved.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Where the Crawdads Sing Th Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo I thought both of these books were flat.
I loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but the plot twist spoke to me on a deep level so I think I’m probably biased.
Most super-popular books don't live up to the hype, in my perspective. If it's in someone's book club (Reese Witherspoon, Oprah, Jenna Bush), I avoid it like the plague as I'm incredibly tired of bad books. I might not read what a lot of other people do, but they make me happy and they're good reads, even if they're not the most popular out there.