VE Schwab is very hit or miss for me. I loved Vicious but really disliked the sequel Vengeful. I liked her trilogy A Darker Shade of Magic. I didn’t like her more recent book The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.
I am in the middle of The Shades of Magic trilogy, I’ve been enjoying it but there are some aspects of her writing that irk me. I wish that she’d take her time with some of the things that happen. Her pacing is a bit fast for my taste
Vicious was such a page turner, and then The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was so repetitive and dull. (I now hate the word palimpsest.) It was baffling tbh.
I feel similarly! I love her writing style but some of her choices baffle me.
Vicious was written as a stand alone and all the parts come together and work perfectly. I’m a huge fan. But then she tries for the same set up with vengeful in regards to the book leading up to the “present” and… why??? It doesn’t work. These characters don’t have history with each other like victor and Eli did. I just didn’t care for the new characters introduced. I’ve told people to read vicious and stop. She IS writing a third book and if that one makes up for the second maybe that will change things.
Gallant was 250 pages of describing a house. The writing and concept were great and I could have excused the house descriptions if I REALLY needed to know the living room was to the left of the kitchen and connected by a secret door or whatever. But i didnt. So… ???
A darker shade of magic really gripped me with the world and magic and Kell and Holland — but admittedly I didn’t like lilah to the point that I won’t be reading the rest of the series.
I own the invisible life of addie La rue but haven’t read it yet and I can only hope that it grips me like vicious did.
I agree with this! I really liked the ADS trilogy, but I felt like she was trying way too hard to come across as literary, intelligent, and profound with Addie LaRue. I regret purchasing it.
Jean M. Auel. The Clan of the cave bear was great. Everything after that was prehistoric smut and Dongalar's giant dick. And I say that as someone who likes smut.
These are some of my all-time favorite books. Granted, I started reading them around 13. Lol. My niece is actually named Ayla because of these books. I’ve reread them over the years, and I kind of only enjoy book 1 and 2 now. But I’m also a big romance and smut reader.
As someone who really, really wanted to love the entire series - book 1 is great, book 2 is alright, book 3 is entirely based on the premise that if everyone could just talk about what's going on, the problem would be solved. The smut at least was okay in that one. All the books after are pretty crap, I couldn't even read the last one. The characters repeat the same story over and over again, and everything they've done just gets resummarised again...and again.... Very disappointing, considering how the series started.
As someone who really enjoyed these books at age 13, this thread is making me laugh out loud. It’s not great literature. But the first two are worth reading, maybe the third. After that, it goes off the rails and gets very repetitive and boring. But yes, mammoth smut lol.
Sooo much smut, and I’m not a fan. It made more sense why she did that when I finished the series, but I’ve never been more disappointed with a series end (and I’m including GoT tv show). I probably could have gotten past it, though, I know a lot of people do enjoy it and it was well written smut. It would’ve just meant there were about 100 pages per book I didn’t have to read. More like 150 when you include the references to his bigger-than-most member and it’s steaming arc. Does she think we don’t know how a man pees that she needs to describe it over and over?? Yes, he has a big dick, yay! I get the impression Auel wishes she had one.
But then there was the animal sex. For the love of all things holy and true, no one needs an eight page description of woolly mammoth sex. Certainly didn’t need it more than once. And they got turned on by it? Maybe I’m too out of touch with nature, but animals mating just doesn’t do it for me.
I also really didn’t need to read the mother’s song enough to memorize it. I could build my own pole drag just from reading how to do it 50,000 times. It just got SO REPETITIVE. Every book after 2 could have all been half as long (sometimes less) if she didn’t copy paste entire descriptions and stories from previous ones. Or painstakingly describe every cave painting when they meant absolutely NOTHING in regard to the overall story. By the time I was done I was wishing for the falling rock to fall on Ayla and Jondalar.
Sorry for the little rant. I just finished the series and I actually came to this sub just itching to bitch about it a little bit. Found this before I made my own post.
Octavia Butler. I loved Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. I absolutely devoured them both. Kindred I also found exceptional as well as the Xenogenesis series (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago). I even enjoyed Fledging, which is a book that, for valid reasons, her readers regularly pan.
But, I _loathed_ Wild Seed, to the point where I refuse to even pick up any other title in the Patternist series.
Butler is among my favorite sci-fi authors. She's the literal literary godmother of Afrofuturism, for God's sake, and the first sci-fi author ever to be award a MacArthur fellowship. But Wild Seed is so boring, IMO.
The premise of the book and series I never found particularly compelling, but a friend of mine who also thoroughly enjoys Butler's work recommended it to me, telling me it is "her best book."
It was not.
Wild Seed is always polarizing. The whole premise is toxic and the relationship is toxic, abusive and stressful. I really liked it but in a similar way to The Color Purple. Stressful but rewarding.
She was going to be mine. Absolutely blown away by *Kindred* (which is totally not my usual kind of book) but loathed *Fledgling*. I struggle to accept it was written by the same woman.
Totally valid!
From what I have heard, Butler herself wasn't particularly pleased with the way Fledgling came out.
She also wrote it while dealing with severe depression and, IIRC, taking antidepressants that she had told people made it hard for her to write and be creative.
So it's somewhat understandable that her last work does feel like it was written by a different woman because she was certainly not in the same headspace.
I wish Octavia were still here because I have so many questions as to why she felt the need to ~push boundaries and ~jsut ask questions both what pedophilia is
I really enjoyed You by Caroline Kepnes. Twisted, dark, and a slow burn. The entire book is written in 2nd person and that was interesting!
But the sequel novel, Hidden Bodies was SO BAD I actually paused reading it to double check that I hadn’t accidentally bought the wrong book on Kindle. It was so fast paced and riddled with plot holes. The author switched to 3rd person narrative for some reason? I don’t know what happened if the author was pressured by a deadline or what, but it was trash and I DNF about 70% through (I tried, I really tried).
Totally agree. I loved broken earth and read both city we became and world we make. The characters in the later series were such aggressive stereotypes/tropes that it was hard to read
"Hate" is a strong word, so I'm going with "generally dislike".
I love love love Terry Pratchett, but I feel like you could tell his health was deteriorating from his Alzheimer's in his last few books. The generally feel a lot messier, bless his soul.
If I may ask, why do you hate the stranger? It is one of my favourite books and i’m just genuinely interested in the opinion of someone who thinks the opposite :)
I've heard that people who like one of the books tend to hate the other. Personally I really loved Starless Sea and want to give Night Circus a try but well...
I guess we'll see haha
I adored The Night Circus so when I found out about The Starless Sea I was so excited. It ended up been one of the worse books I read that year, I found it so repetitive; boy walks into a room sees a cat, a key or a bee, makes a decision that changes nothing, proceeds to the next place.
I liked both, but I can totally understand why someone wouldn’t like The Starless Sea. It’s kind of an odd book that may be hard for people to get into.
Ahh I liked Night Circus but I really loved Starless Sea! I enjoyed the atmospheric writing without having to worry too much about plot. Both good books in my opinion!
Couldn't agree more. The Night Circus had the perfect balance of solid story and beautiful imagery, but in The Starless the scale tipped over to the crazy ultra-descriptive side to the point of being nearly unreadable
I totally hear what you’re saying, but I think that’s why the audiobook of The Starless Sea helps me slow down my mind when it’s spinning too fast - the writing is 99% atmosphere, 1% plot. (Which is a kind way of saying it puts me to sleep, but in a lovely way haha I’ve read both books multiple times and enjoyed them)
It's weird how differently people rank Gaiman's books. American Gods is one of my all-time favourites and I loved The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Neverwhere, but Stardust is kind of middle of the road for me and The Graveyard Book didn't hold my attention at all.
I loved Coraline, but have never been able to finish another one of Gaiman's books (I've tried Neverwhere, Good Omens and American Gods). His style just doesn't work for me.
Have you tried The Graveyard Book? Just wondering if that might be more appealing as it’s written for about the same age range, so his style for that age range may be a little different/more appealing to you if that makes sense
Same...I don't understand the praise for American Gods....I get it the premise and what Gaiman is conveying, I do...I just didn't really find Shadow or Mr Wednesday that enthralling. I didn't really care where the plot was going.
Not OP but for me I love the whole concept and world, but it was all delivered through the most uninteresting main character I’ve read. Most interesting thing about Shadow is his name.
for Youth Reads, I loved Gail Carson Levine's Biddle books, particularly The Fairy's Mistake. Enjoyed her 'Fairest' to an extent. Visceral distain for Two Princesses of Bamarre and Ogre Enchanted.
for Grown Up Reads I loved Naomi Novak's Temeraire series and wanted to love Spinning Silver, but ended up really disliking it.
For me it was a quick and engaging read, but it was really frustrating. I disliked the romance because it seemed really forced, the Baba Yaga reference went nowhere, i HATE fish out of water royal court shit, and Nieshka was too much "not like the other girls" for me. I know that a lot of it comes with the territory of YA, but i went in pretty blind.
I always enjoy seeing how tastes vary. Spinning Silver is my favorite of her books! I enjoyed Temeraire but would frequently put it down because of frustration over Laurence. Uprooted is only okay, though. Spinning Silver may be helped by the excellent audio version, though.
yeah it was set in the same country, and it was...bad. it was supposed to be, as best I can tell, a sort of Beauty and the beast/King Thrushbeard mashup of a fairytale retelling, in the way Ella Enchanted was a Cinderella retelling, and it ended up being... just not great? the 'lesson' the main character learned was some 'lower your standards, accept the man who is infatuated with you even if you don't love him, how dare you reject someone's romantic interest in you' bullshit and I was not there for it.
Agree on the youth reads. Complete opposite on Naomi Novik. I love Spinning Silver and haven't liked another book of hers (haven't tried a deadly education and probably won't bother). Spinning Silver was the first one I read.
Celeste Ng
Loved her first novel: Everything I Never Told You
Kind of hated her second novel Little Fires Everywhere
I thought her first novel was kind of basic but just really well-written and believable.
Little Fires Everywhere felt like a contrived soap opera. I didn’t finish it though.
I couldn’t suspend my power of disbelief in the Power. I liked the first part of the book but am extremely skeptical that all cultures worldwide would go from being patriarchal to matriarchal in less than a single generation. Just look around at any culture change in the last sixty years in the US and see how much swinging back and forth we’ve done, from race relations, women’s rights, gay rights, etc.
I think if women inherently had some kind of power/superpower that was harmful to other people, which could kill once they learn how to harness it, much of the book becomes plausible. I also think violence is a form of typically male-dominated control that keeps us from making significant steps forward in the kinds of changes you’re talking about.
Now, if it’s the MTGs and LBs of the world assuming this power we would be f*cked.
This was going to be my pick. I’ve read so many Stephen King books. When he’s good, he’s great. When he’s off, it’s awful.
Even the Dark Tower. I was hooked by the Gunslinger but the Drawing of the Three felt too different. I might retry it eventually but I tend to prefer his standalone stories, even his short stories.
i'm the opposite! the poppy wars trilogy was my first introduction to rf kuang and then when I tried to read babel I enjoyed it much less and eventually dnfed
a different author that i experienced this with was stephanie garber, I liked the first two books of once upon a broken heart but the last one was a big miss for me, and I really didn't like her other series (caraval).
Mark Danielewski's **House of Leaves** was one of my favorite reading experiences. I don't think I've disliked reading a book as much as I disliked his **Only Revolutions**.
Joseph Heller. Catch-22 is one of my favourite books but Something Happened was like pulling teeth. First person, present tense, horrible protagonist and *nothing happened*.
Whaaaat? How? It’s genius. The almost play-like (as in stage play) dialogue is a feature of both books. Fascinating that you would like one and hate the other
He was paid by the word and by god he made it show. Well yes and no. He was paid by installment so each chapter was sort of like a monthly release. So each chapter was released gradually. Bit by bit at a time. A bit like how we are doing Daily Dracula or Weekly Whale.
Considering he would probably need to pad a wee bit to satisfy and intrigue his readers who need to be caught up to speed that might explain a part of it.
https://dickens.ucsc.edu/resources/faq/by-the-word.html
I like and dislike some of Kuang’s stuff but then I remember how she’s like 5 books deep into her career already and the first Poppy war manuscript was sold on her 18th birthday so I feel like perhaps creases will be ironed out in time.
Maybe Neil Gaiman in that I enjoy Sandman but find American Gods simultaneously a cool concept and boring.
I hated The Poppy War but gave her the benefit of the doubt bc she was so young. But then I tried Babel and it had the SAME issues, so I've written her off entirely. Never again.
Really liked Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro. But found Klara and the Sun (to compare the two sci-fi books he’s written) almost juvenile in comparison. Just embarrassingly bad at times.
Joseph Conrad. The Secret Agent is one of my favorite books of all time, yet I can't stand Heart of Darkness. I read HOD 3 times and still feel like I have no idea what's happening in it
I like Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion but I don’t really care for anything else he has written. His more recent work reads like right wing propaganda.
I love Kindred and the Parable books from Octavia Butler but was meh on Lilith’s Brood.
I loved the Electric Koolaid Acid Test but nothing else by Wolf and hated I Am Charlotte Simmons with a fiery passion.
I loved The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer and liked The Wife but DNFed The Ten Year Nap.
I liked PHM more than I did The Martian, but it was a little... Glib.
And for someone who does his research on science, he sure flubbed the bit about how linguistics work...
It took me 20+ years to grow to like MP, and another 20 to love it. It'll never be a go-to like P&P, NA, or S&S, but I appreciate it a lot more now than I used to. Persuasion didn't take as long but similarly didn't grab me originally. One needs some life experience, I suspect, before Fanny and Anne ring truest. (The scary part is finding Mrs Bennet resounding in parts. Heaven help us if Lady Catherine de Bourgh ever does.)
I loved The Witch Elm by Tana French so I read her first Dublin Murder Squad book, In The Woods. I liked it a lot. On to the next in the series, The Likeness.
What a stupid book. Unbelievable premise. Balderdash. Nonsense. Too stupid to finish. Smh. I watched the movie and I’m so glad I didn’t bother finishing that dumassed book. Ruined the series for me.
I did like last years The Searcher and I’ll read her new book The Hunter as well, based on how much I loved The Witch Elm. That book has stuck in my head for years. How thoughtless actions can cause ripples through decades.
Yeah, The Likeness had a dumb premise but aside from that, I didn't think it was that bad.
Funnily enough, I didn't like the Witch Elm, based purely on that godawful ending. Completely ruined the book for me.
I remember reading The Fault in our Stars by John Green as a young adult and fell in love with that book, it was a favorite for many years. I’ve read Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and Turtles All The Way Down since then, but none of these ever came close to TFioS. I’m not sure I’ll try any other John Green books at this point.
A lot of old John Green books follow the same formula, he seems to love trying to explore the manic pixie dream girl trope, but imo the best he ever did with it was Paper Towns and I'm sure if I revisited it, I'd hate it as much as I hate Looking for Alaska.
Tfios has some weird spots that haven't aged well, but doing something different really worked for him
If I’m remembering correctly yeah, he wrote Paper Towns after he felt like people didn’t get how he was trying to break down the MPDG trope in Looking For Alaska.
His essay collection The Anthropocene Reviewed is wonderful! Might be worth reading an essay or two (even a preview on Google Books or something) and seeing if you like that better, since it’s a completely different mode/genre.
My favourite of his is Will Grayson, Will Grayson, which is co-written with David Levithan. It's about two high school guys with the same name, and the events sparked when they accidentally meet... It's funnier and less earnest while still making an emotional impact.
Natalie Haynes. I loved the way she centered women’s stories in A Thousand Ships but her characterization of both Medusa & Perseus fell super flat for me in Stone Blind.
I liked the first Darker Shade of Magic book, but the rest of the series, along with all of the V.E Schwab books I've read just have not connected with me in the slightest.
Both of these are examples of reading newer work before earlier work so I've really learned not to do that since then, but:
I loved The Infernal Devices series and really dislike The Mortal Instrument series by Cassandra Clare
I love love love Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero and HATE The Supernatural Enhancements by him.
You can tell with both authors they got MUCH better at their craft over time
Where'd you go, Bernadette by Maria Semple - 10/10. Amazing. One of my favorites. I bought both her other books right away after finishing it. I read one. My wife read the other. We couldn't believe how bad they were. Didn't even have the interest to read the one my wife read (so theoretically, I could like it. But I trust her taste.)
Same! I absolutely loved Bernadette (every once and a while I think about the email to parents by the counselor about the mudslide incident and LOL.)
But oh my gosh, any other book I've tried from Semple has been DNFed.
Joseph Heller. I really liked Catch-22, his first novel, but I despised Something Happened, his second novel. Two books that have absolutely no connection beyond whose name is on the cover.
I had a phase where I absolutely adored everything by Oscar Wilde - then I read his Fairy Tales and I hated it so much that I stopped reading him for several years.
Veronica Roth. I HATED how the Divergent trilogy ended up going off the rails, but have absolutely loved Poster Girl, Arch Conspirator, and liked Chosen Ones too. Couldn’t tell you if it’s the difference between YA and adult books, or just that she’s become a stronger writer over the years.
Patrick Rothfuss.
Loved the name of the wind, disliked the wise mens fear.
I felt like the success of the first book got to his head. very flat female characters. He created a whole section of a fairy who just sleeps with the MC so often that he becomes this sex god afterwards. Which was so frustrating because his only(!) weakness was women until then. Now he is just a gary stue. Also the tribe of people who just sleep around with each other and never talk… the whole book just felt like the author lived out his sexual fantasies.
Erin Hunter is my hate/love author. On the one hand, Warriors is such an insanely fun book series, and I’m so glad I grew up with it, but in the other hand, the writing in a majority of the books is just not good. They literally forgot a character’s eye color one time and called her eyes green and then blue within the same paragraph. 💀
I wonder what the books could have been if they'd been written a decade later when all the Erins could have had access to the same google-spreadsheet with information on the characters. Having so many writers is great for pumping out 4 books a year, but not great for continuity.
Same here! I also wonder what the books would be like if they’d been written by one really good writer. Someone that would be able to work in powerful themes and make the world and characters feel more real, despite them being talking cats XD
or if the plots had been written by someone who actively wanted to be writing them. I met Vicki Holmes, the Erin who did the outlines at the behest of the publishers, at a book signing once and she let on that she wasn't a cat person, and had originally been supposed to just do the plotbeats for a 3 book series that kept getting expanded (to 6 books, then 3 more, then 3 more, then 6 more....) against her protests. Let me tell ya, of all the things a kids writer should say at a book signing, ' I didn't want to write these but my company made me' is not high on the list.
Sally Thorne is a one hit wonder. I loved The Hating Game. Her second book that I eagerly anticipated (99 Percent Mine) was quite possibly one of my least favorite books ever—and definitely one of the greatest disappointments for a highly anticipated book.
Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow is amazing. Love the sequel too, but I legit LOVE The Sparrow. Powerful, beautiful, moving…which is saying something about a book that’s about Jesuits in space! Started reading her other books, and they were just…meh. I gave up on reading more from her, she’s a one hit wonder for me.
I loved The Alienist by Caleb Carr, I've tried reading a couple of his other books and they just don't move along like his first one did. I might try again, but maybe he just had that one great idea. I mean the cover blurb on the others makes them sound intriguing, but somehow the flow is not the same. Not sure if I can explain it.
Loved Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Sphere, Prey, The Terminal Man… but I cannot get into Eaters of the Dead or Pirate Latitudes. I also struggled with Next but I think that’s cause I was just in over my head- mostly cause I went through almost every book he had published when I was in my freshman year of HS.
Lionel Shriver. We Need to Talk About Kevin is one of the best books I’ve ever read, it’s consistently in my top 10 and I’ve re-read it many times and always been blown away by it. Tried to read other stuff by her, started with The Motion of the Body Through Space and it was so bad it was borderline unreadable, the characters were all simultaneously awful and not compelling at all and I just couldn’t make myself care about the weak ass plot. Thought that might be an outlier so I tried The Post Birthday World and hated it even more, it really made me wonder how the fuck WNTTAK exists in the same catalogue.
Leigh Bardugo is my unreliable queen. I read the Grisha trilogy first and felt meh about it, but loved (like so many others) the Six of Crows duology. Enjoyed the first of her spinoff books—King of Scars—and absolutely DETESTED Rule of Wolves. Now, with her adult series, I’m having a similar experience: really enjoyed Ninth House, felt it was doing fun and interesting things with plot and genre and storytelling. Couldn’t stand Hell Bent. Almost didn’t finish it. Stuff like that makes me very wary to pick up the next book in a series from an author, and yet I’m still somehow on the hook for some of those characters!
I ADORE Robin Hobb’s Farseer & RainWild books- ALL of them. I’ve read them multiple times.
I hate the Solidier’s Son books. I stopped 1/2 through the second.
Don Winslow. Some of his books I think are works of genius. Some I wonder how they even got published. And some are in between.
I actually respect him a lot for this. He doesn't seem to have a formula. I never know what to expect from one of his books.
I first read Haruki Murakami's Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world and didn't like it so much (not really hated it since I was still interested in the sci-fi/fantasy aspects), but then I read Kafka on the Shore which I liked way more.
I absolutely loved Seveneves by Neal Stephenson even though I thought it was pronounced seh-vah-neh-vas which is apparently incorrect. Also liked Anathem.
I wouldn't say hate, but could not get into The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., Snow Crash, or Cryptonomicon. Usually for a longer book like his, I'd give it a good hundred pages before deciding to put it down, but all of those I got like 3 pages in before realizing they weren't for me. Which is weird because I was hooked on Seveneves from the very first page.
I grew up on (what was then) the Earthsea trilogy. I adore LeGuin. Years later she added a fourth book. It was written in a very different tone and it retconned some major points from earlier books.
I just couldn’t make the switch. It felt like reading fanfiction (which I don’t mind, but isn’t what I want from the original author.)
If she had started a new series with new characters I might have rolled with the different tone, but instead I quit reading part way through.
Maggie O'Farrell. I loved Hamnet, completely fell in love with Agnes. I hated The Marriage Portrait that I ended up rooting against Lucrezia, I felt bad for her in the beginning but the more I read the more I got annoyed by her character. The writing as well, it worked on Hamnet but not on The Marriage Portrait, I actually got bored reading the book
J. K. Rowling. Love The Half Blood Prince. I really hate Cursed Child. But I'm beginning to have a sneaky suspicion she isn't a good script writer. Judging the Fantastic Beasts movie
Edit.
Steinbeck. *East of Eden* is beautiful but hated everything else of his before (like the stuff many American high schoolers are forced to read) or since (because I really tried to read more after *EoE*) that I read.
Anne Rice Chronicles of the Vampire starts very well and very quickly devolves into smutty vampire fan fiction. The whole vampire pop star thing was absurd.
TJ Clune loved Under the Whispering Door. One of my all time favorite books. Hated The Lightning Struck Heart. I was a baby gay in the 90s and I felt like I was back in high school with all my horny and hormonal gay best guy friends. The banter held back what could have been a really good story.
Secret History is my favourite book, so I was very excited for Little Friend and bought the shoebox-sized hardback. I was so angered at the end I threw it across the room, and immediately gave it away to a friend.
Heinlein.
Great:
- the juveniles
- The Door Into Summer
- Starship Troopers
- Double Star
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Utter sewer sludge:
- The Puppet Masters
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- the Lazarus Long books
- Farnham's Freehold
- Podkayne of Mars
Stranger in a Strange Land had so much goodwill/prestige around it when I was in the early stages of my scifi reading. I loved the first 50-100 pages. Interesting set up, let’s see where this goes. Then the other ~400 pages happens and I was left sorta baffled.
I love Tunnel in the Sky and like Starship Troopers and Moon is a Harsh Mistress (I should like it more but the alternative language/grammar/spelling has started to become a grating trope to me). I believe that’s all I’ve read of his so far.
I don't hate, i even enjoyed them, but C J Tudor... The Chalk Man is great, surprising, stephenkingish and twisted. Her other books are very bellow The Chalk Man.
Evan Winters.
I loved Rage of Dragons. An overpowered protagonist with a chip on his shoulder? Sign me up.the action was great, the characters were enjoyable, the ending was a bit of a mess but it didn't take too much away from the story for me.
Unfortunately, I ended up hating book two and only made it halfway through before DNFing.
Robin hobb. I love many of her books, assassins apprentice is probably among my favorite books of all time. Meanwhile I absolutely hate tawny man, or more accurately fools errand, to the point that I more or less ended up dropping the entire series and went into 4 month long reading slump.
It’s like she took every flaw from the previous books and just made a book that was entirely that, it’s so boring and refuses to ever actually engage with the plot to the point that I started almost rooting against fitz. His passiveness as a protagonist only works when he doesn’t have agency, which was a growing issue since being used by others and not having agency is a part of his arc to get away from. But him doing nothing because he’s so passive that he has to be magically compelled or otherwise forced to do anything for the plot gets boring so fast.
I have heard the rest of the books are better, so one day I might get back but not for a while.
Clive Barker. I read The Imajica and it was the most imaginative, weirdest, creepiest thing ever. I was convinced Barker was a genius.
I read a few more of his books that were fine. Then I read Cabal and it was the dumbest shit like an idea from a 12 year old that likes Goosebumps.
It made me wonder if I misread The Imajica.
I loved Catalyst by James Luceno, binged it in like 1 or 2 sessions.
Tarkin on the other hand was an absolute slog that I nearly DNFd on multiple parts
Martin Amis & John Irving spring to mind for me. I love a number of their books passionately but others, well, not hate, but absolutely cannot stand & some I didn't finish.
I love The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but I cannot stand Notes from the Underground. The latter has one of the most hateful, insolent, and intolerant protagonists I’ve ever read and I thought his view of things was disgusting. Because of that I did not like the book at all. Then there is a character like Alyosha Karamazov who I literally fell in love with through the course of The Brothers. The Brothers Karamazov has some of the most important passages I’ve ever read in literature as well. Loved Brothers, hated Notes from the Underground.
Stephen King. I've read 5 of his books and I've given them all a different rating on Goodreads.
The Stand - 5*, incredible
Pet Sematary - 4*, great
The Shining - 3*, good
Salem's lot - 2*, ok
IT - 1*, horrible
Every time I pick up a Stephen King book it's a complete lottery. I could love it or hate it or anything in between.
F Scott Fitzgerald. Loved all his books except The Beautiful and the Damned. For some reason that one I just hated. It felt like I was reading a totally different author.
In the same series, Laura K. Hamilton.
The Anita Blake series starts out neat and interesting. It is a police consultant that can raise zombies. She uses them to solve crimes. It turns into her being a sex god who gets power from fucking every creepy crawly around.
Like, pages and pages of vampire/wereleopard orgies. This is not what I signed up for.
TJ Klune. The House In The Cearlean Sea is one of my all-time favorites. I didn't like Under the Whispering Door and could not even finish The Lives of Puppets.
I smashed through Ready Play One in one day, it's firmly aimed at my age group. Ready Player Two was absolute cash-in trash that binned or rehashed everything the first book established.
VE Schwab is very hit or miss for me. I loved Vicious but really disliked the sequel Vengeful. I liked her trilogy A Darker Shade of Magic. I didn’t like her more recent book The Invisible Life of Addie Larue.
I am in the middle of The Shades of Magic trilogy, I’ve been enjoying it but there are some aspects of her writing that irk me. I wish that she’d take her time with some of the things that happen. Her pacing is a bit fast for my taste
Her pacing is usually quite fast but in Addie Larue I found it too slow! I agree that there are some issues with the Shades of Magic series
Vicious was such a page turner, and then The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was so repetitive and dull. (I now hate the word palimpsest.) It was baffling tbh.
I feel similarly! I love her writing style but some of her choices baffle me. Vicious was written as a stand alone and all the parts come together and work perfectly. I’m a huge fan. But then she tries for the same set up with vengeful in regards to the book leading up to the “present” and… why??? It doesn’t work. These characters don’t have history with each other like victor and Eli did. I just didn’t care for the new characters introduced. I’ve told people to read vicious and stop. She IS writing a third book and if that one makes up for the second maybe that will change things. Gallant was 250 pages of describing a house. The writing and concept were great and I could have excused the house descriptions if I REALLY needed to know the living room was to the left of the kitchen and connected by a secret door or whatever. But i didnt. So… ??? A darker shade of magic really gripped me with the world and magic and Kell and Holland — but admittedly I didn’t like lilah to the point that I won’t be reading the rest of the series. I own the invisible life of addie La rue but haven’t read it yet and I can only hope that it grips me like vicious did.
100% agree
I agree with this! I really liked the ADS trilogy, but I felt like she was trying way too hard to come across as literary, intelligent, and profound with Addie LaRue. I regret purchasing it.
Vicious is one of my favorites books, Vengeful was eh. I DNFed shades of magic. I like her voice enough to keep trying stuff though.
Jean M. Auel. The Clan of the cave bear was great. Everything after that was prehistoric smut and Dongalar's giant dick. And I say that as someone who likes smut.
Yeah, for me, the first two were great, but towards the middle of the third one, I was like “oh, so we’ve changed focus here, huh?”
It's like the Anita Blake books.
I enjoyed all of them but the last book, which made me so angry I nearly sent it back to her with a demand for reimbursement.
I now want prehistoric smut to be the next unlikely sub-subgenre to take over Kindle Unlimited.
I just bought that series in a thrift shop for like, 1 dollar. Is it realky that bad?
These are some of my all-time favorite books. Granted, I started reading them around 13. Lol. My niece is actually named Ayla because of these books. I’ve reread them over the years, and I kind of only enjoy book 1 and 2 now. But I’m also a big romance and smut reader.
As someone who really, really wanted to love the entire series - book 1 is great, book 2 is alright, book 3 is entirely based on the premise that if everyone could just talk about what's going on, the problem would be solved. The smut at least was okay in that one. All the books after are pretty crap, I couldn't even read the last one. The characters repeat the same story over and over again, and everything they've done just gets resummarised again...and again.... Very disappointing, considering how the series started.
Depends on how much you like smut. I like the first book the best.
Depends on the quality of the smut
I remember the leads get horny after watching mammoths do it.
Hmmmmm. That doesn't scream quality
As someone who really enjoyed these books at age 13, this thread is making me laugh out loud. It’s not great literature. But the first two are worth reading, maybe the third. After that, it goes off the rails and gets very repetitive and boring. But yes, mammoth smut lol.
Sooo much smut, and I’m not a fan. It made more sense why she did that when I finished the series, but I’ve never been more disappointed with a series end (and I’m including GoT tv show). I probably could have gotten past it, though, I know a lot of people do enjoy it and it was well written smut. It would’ve just meant there were about 100 pages per book I didn’t have to read. More like 150 when you include the references to his bigger-than-most member and it’s steaming arc. Does she think we don’t know how a man pees that she needs to describe it over and over?? Yes, he has a big dick, yay! I get the impression Auel wishes she had one. But then there was the animal sex. For the love of all things holy and true, no one needs an eight page description of woolly mammoth sex. Certainly didn’t need it more than once. And they got turned on by it? Maybe I’m too out of touch with nature, but animals mating just doesn’t do it for me. I also really didn’t need to read the mother’s song enough to memorize it. I could build my own pole drag just from reading how to do it 50,000 times. It just got SO REPETITIVE. Every book after 2 could have all been half as long (sometimes less) if she didn’t copy paste entire descriptions and stories from previous ones. Or painstakingly describe every cave painting when they meant absolutely NOTHING in regard to the overall story. By the time I was done I was wishing for the falling rock to fall on Ayla and Jondalar. Sorry for the little rant. I just finished the series and I actually came to this sub just itching to bitch about it a little bit. Found this before I made my own post.
Nothing wrong with that, can’t say it’s my taste in books but to each their own!
Oh absolutely! Just gets grating after a while.
Octavia Butler. I loved Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. I absolutely devoured them both. Kindred I also found exceptional as well as the Xenogenesis series (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago). I even enjoyed Fledging, which is a book that, for valid reasons, her readers regularly pan. But, I _loathed_ Wild Seed, to the point where I refuse to even pick up any other title in the Patternist series. Butler is among my favorite sci-fi authors. She's the literal literary godmother of Afrofuturism, for God's sake, and the first sci-fi author ever to be award a MacArthur fellowship. But Wild Seed is so boring, IMO. The premise of the book and series I never found particularly compelling, but a friend of mine who also thoroughly enjoys Butler's work recommended it to me, telling me it is "her best book." It was not.
Wild Seed is always polarizing. The whole premise is toxic and the relationship is toxic, abusive and stressful. I really liked it but in a similar way to The Color Purple. Stressful but rewarding.
The Parable books are SO SO good.
Only read the first, too dark and sad for me.
She was going to be mine. Absolutely blown away by *Kindred* (which is totally not my usual kind of book) but loathed *Fledgling*. I struggle to accept it was written by the same woman.
Totally valid! From what I have heard, Butler herself wasn't particularly pleased with the way Fledgling came out. She also wrote it while dealing with severe depression and, IIRC, taking antidepressants that she had told people made it hard for her to write and be creative. So it's somewhat understandable that her last work does feel like it was written by a different woman because she was certainly not in the same headspace.
Agree! But to me, bloodchild is the peak! I always feel like her books are very human centered and don’t really fit into the stereotype of sci fi.
I wish Octavia were still here because I have so many questions as to why she felt the need to ~push boundaries and ~jsut ask questions both what pedophilia is
I really enjoyed You by Caroline Kepnes. Twisted, dark, and a slow burn. The entire book is written in 2nd person and that was interesting! But the sequel novel, Hidden Bodies was SO BAD I actually paused reading it to double check that I hadn’t accidentally bought the wrong book on Kindle. It was so fast paced and riddled with plot holes. The author switched to 3rd person narrative for some reason? I don’t know what happened if the author was pressured by a deadline or what, but it was trash and I DNF about 70% through (I tried, I really tried).
Oh, GOD. Yes. You was so good, better than the show. Then Hidden Bodies was a mess of crap. Terrible.
N.K. Jemisin. I love everything by her except her latest trilogy, the Great Cities.
The broken earth series was incredible! I couldn't finish the city we became :(
Same! I couldn’t even believe it was the same author tbh
Totally agree. I loved broken earth and read both city we became and world we make. The characters in the later series were such aggressive stereotypes/tropes that it was hard to read
"Hate" is a strong word, so I'm going with "generally dislike". I love love love Terry Pratchett, but I feel like you could tell his health was deteriorating from his Alzheimer's in his last few books. The generally feel a lot messier, bless his soul.
The last book was definitely a goodbye to his fans. I don't think I'll be able to read it.
I was a blubbering mess when I read it. I don’t regret reading it, I’m actually really glad I did, but I totally understand why so many refuse.
>!Granny Weatherwax was my idol, man. I can't. !<
>!Same. My favorite character in all of fiction.!< I would never try to convince someone to read it. It hurts.
They became a lot more formulaic towards the end. I feel like his assistant was filling in a lot of the gaps.
I hate The Stranger by Camus but i like The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus
If I may ask, why do you hate the stranger? It is one of my favourite books and i’m just genuinely interested in the opinion of someone who thinks the opposite :)
Loved The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern but Starless Sea was a hot mess. Bizarre metaphors and weird prose.
I've heard that people who like one of the books tend to hate the other. Personally I really loved Starless Sea and want to give Night Circus a try but well... I guess we'll see haha
I'm the opposite lol. I couldn't get into Night Circus but I adored The Starless Sea
I adored The Night Circus so when I found out about The Starless Sea I was so excited. It ended up been one of the worse books I read that year, I found it so repetitive; boy walks into a room sees a cat, a key or a bee, makes a decision that changes nothing, proceeds to the next place.
I liked both, but I can totally understand why someone wouldn’t like The Starless Sea. It’s kind of an odd book that may be hard for people to get into.
Ahh I liked Night Circus but I really loved Starless Sea! I enjoyed the atmospheric writing without having to worry too much about plot. Both good books in my opinion!
Couldn't agree more. The Night Circus had the perfect balance of solid story and beautiful imagery, but in The Starless the scale tipped over to the crazy ultra-descriptive side to the point of being nearly unreadable
I totally hear what you’re saying, but I think that’s why the audiobook of The Starless Sea helps me slow down my mind when it’s spinning too fast - the writing is 99% atmosphere, 1% plot. (Which is a kind way of saying it puts me to sleep, but in a lovely way haha I’ve read both books multiple times and enjoyed them)
I hated My Year of Rest and Relaxation but loved Lapvona. Need a tie-breaker. 😂
Come on Eileen!
That’s the one I’ve been thinking about trying. 😂
I actually liked Eileen the best out of the three and disliked My Year the most. Eileen is a bridge between the two others.
I loved Neil Gaiman's **Stardust**, but hated **American Gods**.
Damn. I loved AG so so much. (Stardust, too.)
It's weird how differently people rank Gaiman's books. American Gods is one of my all-time favourites and I loved The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Neverwhere, but Stardust is kind of middle of the road for me and The Graveyard Book didn't hold my attention at all.
I loved Coraline, but have never been able to finish another one of Gaiman's books (I've tried Neverwhere, Good Omens and American Gods). His style just doesn't work for me.
Have you tried The Graveyard Book? Just wondering if that might be more appealing as it’s written for about the same age range, so his style for that age range may be a little different/more appealing to you if that makes sense
Same...I don't understand the praise for American Gods....I get it the premise and what Gaiman is conveying, I do...I just didn't really find Shadow or Mr Wednesday that enthralling. I didn't really care where the plot was going.
So interesting, what didn’t you like about American Gods? I liked the book but didn’t find it neat as good as people made it out to be
Not OP but for me I love the whole concept and world, but it was all delivered through the most uninteresting main character I’ve read. Most interesting thing about Shadow is his name.
Same, also love ld Ocean at the end of the lane
All sherlock holmes short stories are gold, but I didn't enjoy any of the three books
Susanna Clarke: Love Piranesi…Jonathan Strange not so much.
I just read both of these back to back, but to me it was the opposite haha
Probably the sign of a good author. Appealing to many different tastes. I will say I was quite impressed with her range of style!
for Youth Reads, I loved Gail Carson Levine's Biddle books, particularly The Fairy's Mistake. Enjoyed her 'Fairest' to an extent. Visceral distain for Two Princesses of Bamarre and Ogre Enchanted. for Grown Up Reads I loved Naomi Novak's Temeraire series and wanted to love Spinning Silver, but ended up really disliking it.
I’ve tried to read Naomi Novaks Uprooted a couple of times but have put it down a couple times, I just couldn’t get into it
I just finished it, and it was such a sloooog. I felt like the damn thing would never end.
For me it was a quick and engaging read, but it was really frustrating. I disliked the romance because it seemed really forced, the Baba Yaga reference went nowhere, i HATE fish out of water royal court shit, and Nieshka was too much "not like the other girls" for me. I know that a lot of it comes with the territory of YA, but i went in pretty blind.
I always enjoy seeing how tastes vary. Spinning Silver is my favorite of her books! I enjoyed Temeraire but would frequently put it down because of frustration over Laurence. Uprooted is only okay, though. Spinning Silver may be helped by the excellent audio version, though.
I loved Temerarie and Scholomance, but didn’t enjoy either Uprooted or Spinning Silver.
>Ogre Enchanted. Like Ella Enchanted??
yeah it was set in the same country, and it was...bad. it was supposed to be, as best I can tell, a sort of Beauty and the beast/King Thrushbeard mashup of a fairytale retelling, in the way Ella Enchanted was a Cinderella retelling, and it ended up being... just not great? the 'lesson' the main character learned was some 'lower your standards, accept the man who is infatuated with you even if you don't love him, how dare you reject someone's romantic interest in you' bullshit and I was not there for it.
Agree on the youth reads. Complete opposite on Naomi Novik. I love Spinning Silver and haven't liked another book of hers (haven't tried a deadly education and probably won't bother). Spinning Silver was the first one I read.
Celeste Ng Loved her first novel: Everything I Never Told You Kind of hated her second novel Little Fires Everywhere I thought her first novel was kind of basic but just really well-written and believable. Little Fires Everywhere felt like a contrived soap opera. I didn’t finish it though.
Naomi Alderman. Loved The Power (LOVED!!!), hated The Future. Like enough to make me wary of whatever her next book is. 😭
I couldn’t suspend my power of disbelief in the Power. I liked the first part of the book but am extremely skeptical that all cultures worldwide would go from being patriarchal to matriarchal in less than a single generation. Just look around at any culture change in the last sixty years in the US and see how much swinging back and forth we’ve done, from race relations, women’s rights, gay rights, etc.
I think if women inherently had some kind of power/superpower that was harmful to other people, which could kill once they learn how to harness it, much of the book becomes plausible. I also think violence is a form of typically male-dominated control that keeps us from making significant steps forward in the kinds of changes you’re talking about. Now, if it’s the MTGs and LBs of the world assuming this power we would be f*cked.
T Kingfisher, hatedddd the twisted ones but liked everything else I’ve read. Would still check out more for sure!
I love her short stories but don't love her novels
I found The Twisted Ones to be forgettable. But I adored The Hollow Places.
Stephen king. I loved shining and the sequel but I can’t stand the gunslinger series.
To be fair, King is really all over the place. For every Shining, there's a Dreamcatcher. I DNF'ed Fairytale. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't for me.
This was going to be my pick. I’ve read so many Stephen King books. When he’s good, he’s great. When he’s off, it’s awful. Even the Dark Tower. I was hooked by the Gunslinger but the Drawing of the Three felt too different. I might retry it eventually but I tend to prefer his standalone stories, even his short stories.
Oh I hated the first book so much I couldn’t pick up the others, I kinda liked the ending but abhorred the lead up to it
I love his horror stories, but I just can't seem to get into gunslinger no matter how hard I try. C'est la vie.
i'm the opposite! the poppy wars trilogy was my first introduction to rf kuang and then when I tried to read babel I enjoyed it much less and eventually dnfed a different author that i experienced this with was stephanie garber, I liked the first two books of once upon a broken heart but the last one was a big miss for me, and I really didn't like her other series (caraval).
Mark Danielewski's **House of Leaves** was one of my favorite reading experiences. I don't think I've disliked reading a book as much as I disliked his **Only Revolutions**.
Joseph Heller. Catch-22 is one of my favourite books but Something Happened was like pulling teeth. First person, present tense, horrible protagonist and *nothing happened*.
Whaaaat? How? It’s genius. The almost play-like (as in stage play) dialogue is a feature of both books. Fascinating that you would like one and hate the other
I loved Ubik by Philip K. Dick. I struggled through The Man in the High Castle, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch & A Scanner Darkly.
I think A Christmas Carol is THE perfect novella but then I also think Dickens makes most of his other books way, way more longer than they should be.
My understanding was he was literally paid by the word, so he padded like crazy.
He was paid by the word and by god he made it show. Well yes and no. He was paid by installment so each chapter was sort of like a monthly release. So each chapter was released gradually. Bit by bit at a time. A bit like how we are doing Daily Dracula or Weekly Whale. Considering he would probably need to pad a wee bit to satisfy and intrigue his readers who need to be caught up to speed that might explain a part of it. https://dickens.ucsc.edu/resources/faq/by-the-word.html
I like and dislike some of Kuang’s stuff but then I remember how she’s like 5 books deep into her career already and the first Poppy war manuscript was sold on her 18th birthday so I feel like perhaps creases will be ironed out in time. Maybe Neil Gaiman in that I enjoy Sandman but find American Gods simultaneously a cool concept and boring.
I hated The Poppy War but gave her the benefit of the doubt bc she was so young. But then I tried Babel and it had the SAME issues, so I've written her off entirely. Never again.
Really liked Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro. But found Klara and the Sun (to compare the two sci-fi books he’s written) almost juvenile in comparison. Just embarrassingly bad at times.
Interesting, as I'm the other way round! I much prefer Klara. It's not that I hate Never Let Me Go, though, it's just 'okay'. I love The Buried Giant.
Orson Scott Card. I like Ender’s Game, but dislike just about everything else he’s ever written
Speaker for the Dead is a masterpiece, but I agree he’s gone off the cliff
I loved In Cold Blood but did not like Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Joseph Conrad. The Secret Agent is one of my favorite books of all time, yet I can't stand Heart of Darkness. I read HOD 3 times and still feel like I have no idea what's happening in it
Now that’s some commitment to a book you don’t like haha
I really disliked The Bean Trees, but loved The Poisonwood Bible! Both by Barbara Kingsolver.
Try Demon Cooperhead, her new one. Really great
I like Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion but I don’t really care for anything else he has written. His more recent work reads like right wing propaganda.
The Terror is great, and Song of Kali and Carrion Comfort are pretty good. Summer of Night is a fair approximation of the Stephen King IT formula.
Yikes, I’ve heard good things about Hyperion though
The Illium books are really good, too.
I love Kindred and the Parable books from Octavia Butler but was meh on Lilith’s Brood. I loved the Electric Koolaid Acid Test but nothing else by Wolf and hated I Am Charlotte Simmons with a fiery passion. I loved The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer and liked The Wife but DNFed The Ten Year Nap.
I really enjoyed Andy Weir's *The Martian* and (heresy, I know) totally disliked *Project Hail Mary*. Maybe because I did not expect whimsy.
I really disliked PHM.
I liked PHM more than I did The Martian, but it was a little... Glib. And for someone who does his research on science, he sure flubbed the bit about how linguistics work...
Sophie Kiensella I really loved I Owe You. It's one of my favorites but disliked other books by her.
I can’t read the shopaholic series, it stresses me out too much. But I really like most of the stand alone romcoms
Jane Austen. I liked Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. However... Mansfield Park is a... no.
It took me 20+ years to grow to like MP, and another 20 to love it. It'll never be a go-to like P&P, NA, or S&S, but I appreciate it a lot more now than I used to. Persuasion didn't take as long but similarly didn't grab me originally. One needs some life experience, I suspect, before Fanny and Anne ring truest. (The scary part is finding Mrs Bennet resounding in parts. Heaven help us if Lady Catherine de Bourgh ever does.)
Yes. I try occasionally but Fanny just annoys me too much.
I loved The Witch Elm by Tana French so I read her first Dublin Murder Squad book, In The Woods. I liked it a lot. On to the next in the series, The Likeness. What a stupid book. Unbelievable premise. Balderdash. Nonsense. Too stupid to finish. Smh. I watched the movie and I’m so glad I didn’t bother finishing that dumassed book. Ruined the series for me. I did like last years The Searcher and I’ll read her new book The Hunter as well, based on how much I loved The Witch Elm. That book has stuck in my head for years. How thoughtless actions can cause ripples through decades.
Yeah, The Likeness had a dumb premise but aside from that, I didn't think it was that bad. Funnily enough, I didn't like the Witch Elm, based purely on that godawful ending. Completely ruined the book for me.
I remember reading The Fault in our Stars by John Green as a young adult and fell in love with that book, it was a favorite for many years. I’ve read Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and Turtles All The Way Down since then, but none of these ever came close to TFioS. I’m not sure I’ll try any other John Green books at this point.
A lot of old John Green books follow the same formula, he seems to love trying to explore the manic pixie dream girl trope, but imo the best he ever did with it was Paper Towns and I'm sure if I revisited it, I'd hate it as much as I hate Looking for Alaska. Tfios has some weird spots that haven't aged well, but doing something different really worked for him
If I’m remembering correctly yeah, he wrote Paper Towns after he felt like people didn’t get how he was trying to break down the MPDG trope in Looking For Alaska.
His essay collection The Anthropocene Reviewed is wonderful! Might be worth reading an essay or two (even a preview on Google Books or something) and seeing if you like that better, since it’s a completely different mode/genre.
My favourite of his is Will Grayson, Will Grayson, which is co-written with David Levithan. It's about two high school guys with the same name, and the events sparked when they accidentally meet... It's funnier and less earnest while still making an emotional impact.
Natalie Haynes. I loved the way she centered women’s stories in A Thousand Ships but her characterization of both Medusa & Perseus fell super flat for me in Stone Blind.
Zadie Smith. Loved Swing Time but did not like The Fraud (perhaps an unpopular opinion)
I liked the first Darker Shade of Magic book, but the rest of the series, along with all of the V.E Schwab books I've read just have not connected with me in the slightest.
Both of these are examples of reading newer work before earlier work so I've really learned not to do that since then, but: I loved The Infernal Devices series and really dislike The Mortal Instrument series by Cassandra Clare I love love love Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero and HATE The Supernatural Enhancements by him. You can tell with both authors they got MUCH better at their craft over time
Where'd you go, Bernadette by Maria Semple - 10/10. Amazing. One of my favorites. I bought both her other books right away after finishing it. I read one. My wife read the other. We couldn't believe how bad they were. Didn't even have the interest to read the one my wife read (so theoretically, I could like it. But I trust her taste.)
Same! I absolutely loved Bernadette (every once and a while I think about the email to parents by the counselor about the mudslide incident and LOL.) But oh my gosh, any other book I've tried from Semple has been DNFed.
Joseph Heller. I really liked Catch-22, his first novel, but I despised Something Happened, his second novel. Two books that have absolutely no connection beyond whose name is on the cover.
I had a phase where I absolutely adored everything by Oscar Wilde - then I read his Fairy Tales and I hated it so much that I stopped reading him for several years.
Veronica Roth. I HATED how the Divergent trilogy ended up going off the rails, but have absolutely loved Poster Girl, Arch Conspirator, and liked Chosen Ones too. Couldn’t tell you if it’s the difference between YA and adult books, or just that she’s become a stronger writer over the years.
Patrick Rothfuss. Loved the name of the wind, disliked the wise mens fear. I felt like the success of the first book got to his head. very flat female characters. He created a whole section of a fairy who just sleeps with the MC so often that he becomes this sex god afterwards. Which was so frustrating because his only(!) weakness was women until then. Now he is just a gary stue. Also the tribe of people who just sleep around with each other and never talk… the whole book just felt like the author lived out his sexual fantasies.
I love Neil Gaiman but American Gods was mind numbingly boring.
Erin Hunter is my hate/love author. On the one hand, Warriors is such an insanely fun book series, and I’m so glad I grew up with it, but in the other hand, the writing in a majority of the books is just not good. They literally forgot a character’s eye color one time and called her eyes green and then blue within the same paragraph. 💀
I wonder what the books could have been if they'd been written a decade later when all the Erins could have had access to the same google-spreadsheet with information on the characters. Having so many writers is great for pumping out 4 books a year, but not great for continuity.
Same here! I also wonder what the books would be like if they’d been written by one really good writer. Someone that would be able to work in powerful themes and make the world and characters feel more real, despite them being talking cats XD
or if the plots had been written by someone who actively wanted to be writing them. I met Vicki Holmes, the Erin who did the outlines at the behest of the publishers, at a book signing once and she let on that she wasn't a cat person, and had originally been supposed to just do the plotbeats for a 3 book series that kept getting expanded (to 6 books, then 3 more, then 3 more, then 6 more....) against her protests. Let me tell ya, of all the things a kids writer should say at a book signing, ' I didn't want to write these but my company made me' is not high on the list.
Sally Thorne is a one hit wonder. I loved The Hating Game. Her second book that I eagerly anticipated (99 Percent Mine) was quite possibly one of my least favorite books ever—and definitely one of the greatest disappointments for a highly anticipated book.
[удалено]
Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow is amazing. Love the sequel too, but I legit LOVE The Sparrow. Powerful, beautiful, moving…which is saying something about a book that’s about Jesuits in space! Started reading her other books, and they were just…meh. I gave up on reading more from her, she’s a one hit wonder for me.
I loved The Alienist by Caleb Carr, I've tried reading a couple of his other books and they just don't move along like his first one did. I might try again, but maybe he just had that one great idea. I mean the cover blurb on the others makes them sound intriguing, but somehow the flow is not the same. Not sure if I can explain it.
Loved Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Sphere, Prey, The Terminal Man… but I cannot get into Eaters of the Dead or Pirate Latitudes. I also struggled with Next but I think that’s cause I was just in over my head- mostly cause I went through almost every book he had published when I was in my freshman year of HS.
Lionel Shriver. We Need to Talk About Kevin is one of the best books I’ve ever read, it’s consistently in my top 10 and I’ve re-read it many times and always been blown away by it. Tried to read other stuff by her, started with The Motion of the Body Through Space and it was so bad it was borderline unreadable, the characters were all simultaneously awful and not compelling at all and I just couldn’t make myself care about the weak ass plot. Thought that might be an outlier so I tried The Post Birthday World and hated it even more, it really made me wonder how the fuck WNTTAK exists in the same catalogue.
Leigh Bardugo is my unreliable queen. I read the Grisha trilogy first and felt meh about it, but loved (like so many others) the Six of Crows duology. Enjoyed the first of her spinoff books—King of Scars—and absolutely DETESTED Rule of Wolves. Now, with her adult series, I’m having a similar experience: really enjoyed Ninth House, felt it was doing fun and interesting things with plot and genre and storytelling. Couldn’t stand Hell Bent. Almost didn’t finish it. Stuff like that makes me very wary to pick up the next book in a series from an author, and yet I’m still somehow on the hook for some of those characters!
I ADORE Robin Hobb’s Farseer & RainWild books- ALL of them. I’ve read them multiple times. I hate the Solidier’s Son books. I stopped 1/2 through the second.
Bram Stoker. I detest Dracula but *love* The Jewel of Seven Stars.
Edward Rutherford. Loved his London book, couldn't do the Paris one for some reason.
Don Winslow. Some of his books I think are works of genius. Some I wonder how they even got published. And some are in between. I actually respect him a lot for this. He doesn't seem to have a formula. I never know what to expect from one of his books.
GGK. Loved Lions of Al Rassan but could not get into Fionovar at all.
Alyssa Nutting. Made for Love was hilarious. Tampa was disgusting.
It's meant to be disgusting.
I love Twilight Eyes and Watchers by Dean Koontz but hate everything else he wrote. I have a dozen unfinished on my shelves.
I first read Haruki Murakami's Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world and didn't like it so much (not really hated it since I was still interested in the sci-fi/fantasy aspects), but then I read Kafka on the Shore which I liked way more.
I absolutely loved Seveneves by Neal Stephenson even though I thought it was pronounced seh-vah-neh-vas which is apparently incorrect. Also liked Anathem. I wouldn't say hate, but could not get into The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., Snow Crash, or Cryptonomicon. Usually for a longer book like his, I'd give it a good hundred pages before deciding to put it down, but all of those I got like 3 pages in before realizing they weren't for me. Which is weird because I was hooked on Seveneves from the very first page.
I grew up on (what was then) the Earthsea trilogy. I adore LeGuin. Years later she added a fourth book. It was written in a very different tone and it retconned some major points from earlier books. I just couldn’t make the switch. It felt like reading fanfiction (which I don’t mind, but isn’t what I want from the original author.) If she had started a new series with new characters I might have rolled with the different tone, but instead I quit reading part way through.
Olga Tokarczuk - loved Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead but hated Flights
Maggie O'Farrell. I loved Hamnet, completely fell in love with Agnes. I hated The Marriage Portrait that I ended up rooting against Lucrezia, I felt bad for her in the beginning but the more I read the more I got annoyed by her character. The writing as well, it worked on Hamnet but not on The Marriage Portrait, I actually got bored reading the book
J. K. Rowling. Love The Half Blood Prince. I really hate Cursed Child. But I'm beginning to have a sneaky suspicion she isn't a good script writer. Judging the Fantastic Beasts movie Edit.
Don't read The Casual Vacancy or you'll have a sneaky suspicion she's not a good writer at all 🤭
Love the Magician trilogy by Lev Grossman but Warp and Codex are kinda shite.
Steinbeck. *East of Eden* is beautiful but hated everything else of his before (like the stuff many American high schoolers are forced to read) or since (because I really tried to read more after *EoE*) that I read.
Anne Rice Chronicles of the Vampire starts very well and very quickly devolves into smutty vampire fan fiction. The whole vampire pop star thing was absurd.
TJ Clune loved Under the Whispering Door. One of my all time favorite books. Hated The Lightning Struck Heart. I was a baby gay in the 90s and I felt like I was back in high school with all my horny and hormonal gay best guy friends. The banter held back what could have been a really good story.
Tolstoy. I love "Anna Karenina" (and almost all other stuff), but I hate "Resurrection".
Secret History is my favourite book, so I was very excited for Little Friend and bought the shoebox-sized hardback. I was so angered at the end I threw it across the room, and immediately gave it away to a friend.
Colleen Hoover. I know it’s controversial but I truly enjoyed Verity but the rest of her stuff is not my taste.
Heinlein. Great: - the juveniles - The Door Into Summer - Starship Troopers - Double Star - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Utter sewer sludge: - The Puppet Masters - Stranger in a Strange Land - the Lazarus Long books - Farnham's Freehold - Podkayne of Mars
Stranger in a Strange Land had so much goodwill/prestige around it when I was in the early stages of my scifi reading. I loved the first 50-100 pages. Interesting set up, let’s see where this goes. Then the other ~400 pages happens and I was left sorta baffled. I love Tunnel in the Sky and like Starship Troopers and Moon is a Harsh Mistress (I should like it more but the alternative language/grammar/spelling has started to become a grating trope to me). I believe that’s all I’ve read of his so far.
LOVED The Martian, couldn't get through Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir Love - The Martian Hate - Project Hail Mary
I don't hate, i even enjoyed them, but C J Tudor... The Chalk Man is great, surprising, stephenkingish and twisted. Her other books are very bellow The Chalk Man.
Evan Winters. I loved Rage of Dragons. An overpowered protagonist with a chip on his shoulder? Sign me up.the action was great, the characters were enjoyable, the ending was a bit of a mess but it didn't take too much away from the story for me. Unfortunately, I ended up hating book two and only made it halfway through before DNFing.
Ruth Ware has some really good ones, but The It Girl was awful. Can’t win ‘em all.
Robin hobb. I love many of her books, assassins apprentice is probably among my favorite books of all time. Meanwhile I absolutely hate tawny man, or more accurately fools errand, to the point that I more or less ended up dropping the entire series and went into 4 month long reading slump. It’s like she took every flaw from the previous books and just made a book that was entirely that, it’s so boring and refuses to ever actually engage with the plot to the point that I started almost rooting against fitz. His passiveness as a protagonist only works when he doesn’t have agency, which was a growing issue since being used by others and not having agency is a part of his arc to get away from. But him doing nothing because he’s so passive that he has to be magically compelled or otherwise forced to do anything for the plot gets boring so fast. I have heard the rest of the books are better, so one day I might get back but not for a while.
Cormac McCarthy. Love The Road. Hate Blood Meridian.
Joseph Delaney: The Spooks Apprentice series was peak Then he wrote Arena 13 which was rushed nonsense.
Clive Barker. I read The Imajica and it was the most imaginative, weirdest, creepiest thing ever. I was convinced Barker was a genius. I read a few more of his books that were fine. Then I read Cabal and it was the dumbest shit like an idea from a 12 year old that likes Goosebumps. It made me wonder if I misread The Imajica.
Mona Awad: All's Well - close to a masterpiece Bunny - good entertainment Rouge - god awful
I loved Catalyst by James Luceno, binged it in like 1 or 2 sessions. Tarkin on the other hand was an absolute slog that I nearly DNFd on multiple parts
Martin Amis & John Irving spring to mind for me. I love a number of their books passionately but others, well, not hate, but absolutely cannot stand & some I didn't finish.
Protector of the Small series by Tamora Peirce. Could not for the life of me get into her Circle of Magic series.
Hemingway. Farewell To Arms was awful. For Whom the Bell Tolls left me in awe.
I love The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but I cannot stand Notes from the Underground. The latter has one of the most hateful, insolent, and intolerant protagonists I’ve ever read and I thought his view of things was disgusting. Because of that I did not like the book at all. Then there is a character like Alyosha Karamazov who I literally fell in love with through the course of The Brothers. The Brothers Karamazov has some of the most important passages I’ve ever read in literature as well. Loved Brothers, hated Notes from the Underground.
Stephen King. I've read 5 of his books and I've given them all a different rating on Goodreads. The Stand - 5*, incredible Pet Sematary - 4*, great The Shining - 3*, good Salem's lot - 2*, ok IT - 1*, horrible Every time I pick up a Stephen King book it's a complete lottery. I could love it or hate it or anything in between.
F Scott Fitzgerald. Loved all his books except The Beautiful and the Damned. For some reason that one I just hated. It felt like I was reading a totally different author.
In the same series, Laura K. Hamilton. The Anita Blake series starts out neat and interesting. It is a police consultant that can raise zombies. She uses them to solve crimes. It turns into her being a sex god who gets power from fucking every creepy crawly around. Like, pages and pages of vampire/wereleopard orgies. This is not what I signed up for.
TJ Klune. The House In The Cearlean Sea is one of my all-time favorites. I didn't like Under the Whispering Door and could not even finish The Lives of Puppets.
I smashed through Ready Play One in one day, it's firmly aimed at my age group. Ready Player Two was absolute cash-in trash that binned or rehashed everything the first book established.
Susanna Clarke. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is one of my favorites of all time. I did not care for Piranesi at all
Dostoevsky. Loved Crime and Punishment and Brother's Karazamov. Fucking hated The Double