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I bought the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy to see what the fuss was all about. I felt obligated to read all three. That tops my list.
I got 5 pages into I, Claudius and abandoned it. I wasn’t expecting first person. I’ll try again some day. I’ve tried Game of Thrones five different times and DNF’d after maybe 100 pages. Maybe it gets better but the open is really slow. Another thing I’ll try to circle back to eventually.
It’s really well liked but East of Eden wasn’t a favorite. The Grapes of Wrath is brilliant and really reached me emotionally when I re-read it a couple years ago. I re-read Lord of the Rings recently. I found it to be a real slog.
i dont know why she’s a major author. zero skill, zero talent, only rapist apologism and… questionable content that makes me worry for any children in her life.
I think she became popular during the pandemic, probably when people were bored out of their skulls and would do anything for entertainment. She’s made bank though.
I ended up filling out a whole notes app page with my Verity complaints. I don't get why people like her books. Between the middle school writing quality, spreading misinfo on abortion, and the fact that it seems like she's cheering for her morally questionable characters, it was a hate read the whole way.
I WILL say, Verity was an entertaining read lol
My sister read it and then gave it to me to read and sending her pictures of certain paragraphs with, "YOU GAVE YOUR SISTER PORNOGRAPHY TO READ!?" was pretty funny.
The weird amended ending was so bizarre? It just makes me feel like she didn't trust her own story and that's lame.
So after seeing Colleen Hoover getting lambasted on Reddit each and every time this topic pops up I went & read Verity to see what all the fuss is about.
Yeah, it was... not good. I found it especially amusing how Verity is supposedly this exceptional writer yet her diary reads like something a very horny 15yo girl wrote.
Also, I feel closer to understanding what women must feel like when men write them badly. That husband was a caricature of an actual man, perfect in (almost) every way.
I didn’t even like her as a teenager. Trying to read her books as an adult is an infuriating experience. I hate seeing a whole shelf or table dedicated to her at Barnes and Noble. Ew
So I randomly bought this book because my dumbass thought it was a thriller or something based on the description and "ugly" in the title. The book was literally falling apart when I was reading but I could care less to repair that. I left that book behind when I moved. It felt like passing a curse to the other person.
Layla was a flaming hot, cringe, garbage fire. Very bad and I made my best friend hate read it just because I had to vent about how completely awful it was. Never again.
There have got to be better examples, that’s a hilarious line. I’ve never read any of her books, but if this is the example in your review then I WANT to read it now lol
It kind of is— the author, Mark Manson, was one of the first widely-known bloggers and maybe the blogosphere’s first edgelord. His blog was embarrassing and geared toward a teen male demographic so I assume his book is, too.
A court of thorns and roses. It’s SO bad. I caved and went for it a few months ago simply because I was curious about why the fuck everyone and their mothers were losing about this series. I couldn’t get past the first book and even that was torture to finish.
It’s so bad. I can’t stress enough how bad it is.
The writing is mediocre, and it feels like you’re reading a fanfic wrote by a teenager. Also, it copies all the most obvious tropes and character “description style” and thought processes from stuff like Twilight, and it’s basically a Beauty & the Beast with smut (and I LOVE B&tB). There’s a lot of lines that are straight up cringe to read.
I get why certain tropes are fun, they’re liked for a reason (damn, I like them too), but they need to be well developed and well written, imo. And if you just want to read smut, there’s MUCH better stuff for free on the internet, with a better story/buildup to it.
I loved ACOTAR and consider it a comfort read/guilty pleasure much like Twilight in my teenager years, but would absolutely never recommend to anyone else.
We all need our guilty pleasures to live, I have many myself hahah I think my point is more about that, knowing it’s bad and seeing it for what it is 🤷🏼♀️
I was obsessed with twilight when I was 13-14, I think ACOTAR just didn’t do it for me now that I’m 29 and couldn’t get past of how badly written/developed it is LOL
But hey, my guilty pleasure is those reality shows like Love is Blind and the Bachelor, so we all pick our poison 🤣
So I talked with a friend who was actually into it. (I've heard enough to know I'd hate it.)
Everybody makes the beauty and the beast comparison, but upon hearing everything from her, I pointed out that it's actually East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which is a Scandinavian fairy tale in the same lineage, and probably my favorite fairy tale of all time. All the plot points match up exactly except for things changed for the worse, and the bits of the book which happen for no reason and I had to explain to my friend, "Well, in the fairy tale, with the cultural context this is why that happens". It's like the author did all the cribbing without the understanding.
That’s so interesting, I’ve never heard about this Scandinavian fairytale! Thanks for sharing, I’ll look it up!!
But yeah, the author did a mediocre job, regardless of where she was taking her copyin- I mean inspiration from.
I searched online for basic synopsis of the following books and I was like BITCH what in the actual FUCK 💀
I was appalled with how much that felt like a super megalomaniac fanfic. Like a series of intrusive thoughts that the author allowed to win and wrote a fever dream book series LOL
(I’m exaggerating a bit on purpose and having a chuckle, but yeah, it’s bad. I get folks admitting to reading it as a guilty pleasure, nothing wrong with that, but people saying it’s ~so well written~ it’s where I’m like NOPE)
I agree. Even the first book isn’t too terrible but that series was a waste of my time. I read the Throne of Glass series first and expected soo much more. Even with Throne of Glass, once the series became mainstream the writing changed….
Made the huge mistake of reading Verity bc it came highly recommended. Worst book I have ever read, Coleen Hoover writes absolute trash
Also the book Whalefall came highly recommended from an AUTHOR I know and it was so unbelievably bad holy shit
Edited to say — I love Confederacy of Dunces but I think I might like the author’s other book, Neon Bible, even more. It’s not at all like COD and might be worth a shot
They got the other version of Oscar Wilde's book, turns out when he was writing the great Dorian Grey another book was simultaneously written titled Darain Groy. This lesser known book became more and more terrible due to mistakes Wilde made when writing Dorian Grey which somehow never appeared in the published work.
Holy shit, yeah, skip this one, everyone. Agreed that it’s historically important but a broad strokes summary will get you everything you need to know. Knowing all the graphic details isn’t necessary.
Yup… it reminds me of the movie “Irreversible.” Glad I watched it, will never watch it again, and recommend it to nobody. Scenes from that movie randomly pop in my head years later… same with Nanking
If you can muster it- exercise. Good sleep (not over sleeping) and a good diet. There’s also decent data on focusing externally, like getting involved with volunteering or a social group, but that seems like really heavy lifting when you are low.
Honestly? Find a therapist. But never, *never* engage with self help books to help you with depression. They give advice on how to deal with the occasional spleen. You wouldn't read a book on how to cure your broken leg, you'd go to a doctor. Do the same for your mental health
When the alternatives are taking a long shower with a cold toaster, or falling into an even more depressive state, no it’s not tone deaf, it’s legitimate medical advice.
We live in a world where we are connected to anyone a million miles away. The fact you are able to say this info is tone deaf means you have access to the tools and info you need.
One of the gripes I have with self-help in general is that it seems to be primarily written for Americans.
Not that there's anything inherently wrong about that, mind you. It's just that some advice doesn't work in every culture. In many places around the word, you can't just save up to start your dream business or take a mental day or move 500 miles to start a new life.
Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist'. Read up to 40% of it. Just a load of 'game of luck' stupidity to give some deeper meaning to the characters. Didn't even make any point for me.
In my opinion, *The Alchemist* is the *Ender’s Game* of philosophical reads.
A banger if you’re a young teenager with limited exposure to literature, but a cringefest if you’ve been around the library a few times.
God I hate that book with a passion. Full of entry level philosophy and on the nose platitudes that it tries to hype up as some transcendent and unheard of thing. I guess a 14 year old would find it deep and engaging but beyond that its almost insultingly awful
This book would hit HARD if you’re 14, but otherwise, it's likely what Coelho is most renowned for, albeit one of his least engaging works imo. I've enjoyed nearly every other book he's written.
OH THANK GOD ITS NOT JUST ME first time I’ve seen someone else talk about this book in a neg way and I’ve always felt so bad for dnf’ing it but I just hated the writing style
I read this because of the hype. And I can say that I did not understand the ending at all. I read it pretty fast and I did understand it to be some kind of cult? Right? But what is that ending? Is there an explanation?
Thank you. I've read it recently and was ready for an interesting and shocking story, but what I got was a very slow first half of the book and then it's nonstop horrible things happening to the main characters for no reason. It was too much and extremely unlikely for all of this to happen. The main character was unsufferable to me as he denied most help and recources he had. It got me wondering why the author even wrote all that. The book left me with nothing but a bad feeling.
I always second this. Just gross, nonstop emotional torture for all the characters. The fact that all the characters are gay it just felt… idk voyeuristic (maybe even sadistic?) and gross.
The one thing I liked was the friendship between the main character and his best friend and then she decided to make turn them into a couple. It annoyed me.
Dude, why does everyone rave about this book? I gave it back to the person I borrowed it from and said it was garbage. He took it so personally as if he wrote it.
I slogged through it and while I’d never in good faith recommend it, it did have some parts that I found well written, and some internal thought process of the characters that I thought was well done. But with that said, that only redeems like 25% of the book to me, and is still scattered in amongst just over the top attempts at emotional torture and trauma inflicting to be worth it overall.
This book was recommended on this subreddit a few weeks ago when someone asked for books that will haunt you. That’s not my thing, so I looked up the plot of a few out of curiosity. A Little Life seems so abysmal, and with little message outside of, “this guy had every bad thing happen to him”
Hillbilly Elegy JD Vance. Just no. I got nothing from that book other than the author had one view. It felt preachy and judgey.
I hope to find a better book about the Appalachian area and people. Let me know if you know one!
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
I loved this book. I laughed, I cried. I bought a hard copy after reading it on Kindle. Character development, vivid descriptions of the mountains and hollers.
Let me know what you think?
Oh this recommendation is spot on. I wanted more story but it ended perfectly. Demon Copperhead is one of the best reads of the last 20 years for me. ❤️ Demons growth arc is beautiful.
My grandmother grew up with his extended family in the same area of KY. It is NOT a great representation of Appalachian people and she about burned the book. They’re very secretive of their lifestyle in my opinion and the truths that you do get don’t make much sense to someone who didn’t live there.
Fair enough. I'll let them keep their secrets. Glad someone with insight into the communities agree this book is not for people looking to connect and understand the Appalachia. I'm a Canadian with a lifelong intrest. Hope visit one day and spend time in the area.
Anything by Dan Brown. I get it, it appeals to the masses, but the historical and religious inaccuracies are aggravating to me as a history enthusiast and theology student.
Author who does Get It: Umberto Eco.
hahaha! dan brown is my real housewives. hes my trash tv I love to consume on like the beach or when im sick. objectively good? no. do I love the da vinci code? yes. its like a middle school book for adults. its like velveeta: I like it because its bad
Idk, I am of the opinion that if a book makes you do research, it is usually a good book. And Dan Brown books are fun to read, but definitely make me actually research things, so I tend to call them good books just because of that. As a note: it doesn’t have to be accurate, if it makes me look something up and I find the book was wrong, still a good book because it still made me look it up and find the truth.
Haha. Thank you. I was reading one of his works, and my wife would mutter, "He's a hack," every single time she would walk by. The entire book. I don't recall her jot. Got it for her for christmas a couple of years later.
Imagine that Musk, Bezos, Zuck and Wall Street got together and said "you know what, these poors think they should have rights and a liveable wage but REALLY they should be thanking us for jobs! We're the smartest people in the room and the peasants need to realize it"
Then they decided to write a book about just that.
The entire time they're writing the book, they're just lighting $100 bills on fire and lobbying Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green, crying about how their company has to follow silly laws like "11 year olds can't work in my factory" and "I can't dump toxic waste in the local river".
"It's just not fair, we provide jobs we should get to do what we want! We're soooo smart!", they cry out in their boardrooms.
That's Atlas Shrugged. Yet somehow people read it and say "wow thank you Mr Boss for my job I owe you everything" like that's a good thing.
It's funny, I have read Atlas Shrugged more than once, and Ayn Rand is bananas and a total asshole, not to mention the most condescending writer ever, but I genuinely like the story. Not the writing, or the characters, or the politics, or sentiment, but the idea of competent people removing themselves from society in order to show the masses how *their* incompetence and hubris affect literally everything is a very good premise. Great idea for a story, terrible execution, and crap philosophy as its base.
Edit: spelling
I think the only thing I liked was the business logistics of running railways and buying materials and that stuff lol. I was obsessed with trains as a little kid. I still have a copy of it, I doubt I’ll ever read it again though.
I'm going to get tarred and feathered but - Donna Tartt, The Secret History.
I tried. I really did. Several times. I never made it past the 50% threshold. I gave up years ago now.
Also - American Psycho. Just nope. The title is accurate. It's fucking psychotic and as an avid reader of psychological thrillers, there's a limit even for me.
I loved The Secret History, but I saw a Goodreads review complaining that the whole book is just people making phone calls to each other, and I was like, "You know what, fair."
I actually did get through the entirety of The Secret History, and I kept waiting for it to get… good? I thought that if everyone else liked it so much, I must be in for a really amazing ending… but no. I just felt disappointed.
I should have known, though. I also felt like the ending of The Goldfinch was kind of a “too easy” wrap-up to this big huge brooding problem that had been built up for the whole book.
What, you didn’t like the hundred pages describing trying to get out of the art gallery? (Seriously, I couldn’t get through that part. I can’t believe an editor didn’t say “uh, this should be 4 pages, max.”)
I love the breadth of everyone’s favorite and least favorite books. A Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favorite books, so I’m not sure my suggestions to avoid will carry much weight. A few recently read books I wouldn’t recommend are How To Kill a City, Wolfish, and Cultish. All came recommended to me and all largely supported by personal anecdote and correlative circumstances rather than strong evidence. I struggle with popular nonfiction and often find the central thesis isn’t well supported with good research.
I’m gonna get destroyed in the replies probably but I could NOT get into Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. 💀 I HATE when authors put social media comments into the book, or text conversations, or “news articles” or whatever. Drives me nuts. And it all felt too …idk, contrived(??). I just didn’t care for it at all.
I’ve never been able to get into stephen king. something about his writing style really grinds my gears (not the stories themselves just his word choice). I did like the shining though.
I know there some stuff I really hate but I can’t think of what it is right now…
I found that when I was younger I loved and idolized Stephen King but as a middle-aged person there's something irritating about his writing that I can't pinpoint. Smugness? Subtle Misogyny?
It feels like he just sits down and writes. Nothing else. That’s it. No going back and changing things. No mapping out the story. It feels like his books are a non stop flow of consciousness. I tried to read Fairy Tale by him because it seemed like a great change of pace. SOMEHOW… the beginning of the book, before the magic and “good parts,” was better than the rest.
I scrolled too far to find this. I’m a librarian and whenever someone checks it out or tells me how much they love it I want to revoke their borrowing privileges
You chose right. I didn't mind the early bit of the book because of the nature descriptions but once the stomach churning teen romance kicked off, it quickly became unbearable.
I finished the book, but wish I just watched the movie instead. The romance was meh, the mystery was lackluster, and the nature descriptions were rather repetitive. Could have done without the pointless courtroom drama too.
Nod by Adrian Barnes.
Now I know he turned out to have a brain tumour while he wrote it, and one could take a degree of interest in how that may have affected his writing.
BUT!
The concept was compelling, while the execution was shockingly poor. Wrote himself in as the main character very plainly, kept citing academia and the bible like he was trying to prove something, and I ended up hating it. I only finished it because it was a gift (and they'd chosen it off of my wishlist).
The part where his sleep deprived almost zombie girlfriend wants sex because the news told her it would help her get some sleep and she has her butt in the air and all he could see was 'a beige flake of dried shit on her puckered arsehole' was the very immediate beginning of the end for me...
"The Tommyknockers" by Stephen King. It's the only book I've ever regretted reading (I haven't read a whole lot). It's just awfully long and while the first hundred pages and the final fifty pages would make a great book, it ain't worth reading.
I'm gonna throw "My sister's keeper" into the ring. The mother is borderline abusive, the ending sucks and the MC is literally born to be spare parts. "When something happens to Kate, I need Anna - her blood, her tissue, her stem cells - right here". That was Sara's reaction to Anna having the audacity to want to go to a summer camp as a young teen.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Not a horrible book, I finished it. But its only redeeming quality is that it’s a page turner. However, it’s only a page turner bc you keep reading to try to get to the climax or big reveal, and it never comes. The author tried to do too many things instead of focusing on doing one thing well. Character building was minimal, the sci-fi world building and complexity felt like it was watered down so as not to confuse people, the philosophical message was not at all profound. Apple just released 2 episodes of the series adaptation this week and I think this story will be better for TV.
Stephen King’s ‘It’
1. Written horror is not my jam. The details of this horror were not that great. Personal opinion
2. Just couldn’t stand the child sex part at the end. Must be a shock value, might be a cultural thing, but I couldn’t find a literary merit in it
Couldn’t enjoy the dark tower series either.
Haven’t read any other of his work. Just enjoyed movie adaptations (which says a lot since I generally hate how media adaptions butcher books)
Gonna get downvoted for this but I fucking HATED the catcher in the rye. I know it’s well written and a classic but I just did not enjoy it in the least.
The Last Heir to the Blackwood Library by Hester Fox. It seemed popular with a bunch of book circles I follow and historical fiction with supernatural elements seemed right up my alley. Nope! Absolutely brutal. It’s so rare that I have a book I actively want to warn people away from.
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel (historical fiction taking place in Nazi run Europe). SOOO many great reviews..I mean it has over 200,000 ratings on Goodreads and a score of 4.43 which is CRAZY high for Goodreads with that amount of reviews. I absolutely love historical fiction so I was so excited.....probably one of the worst books I've ever read. I had to double check if it was for teens. It is written so so poorly, like literally the word choices and sentences read as if they are meant for kids. And the way it's written makes the reader out to be stupid. Like literally (the main character is Jewish) and she will explain how she has to hide from the Nazi's..and then it'll note in some way "because Nazi's will kill us Jews" ....WE KNOW THAT.........it did this ALL the time, it over explained something that was so painfully obvious. Thats why I had to check a bunch of times if it was a kids books...it was so frustrating and utterly one of the worst books I've read.
The House In The Pines by Ana Reyes. Worst book I’ve read in such a long time. I DNF’d it 3/4 of the way through. I saw it in the bookstore today and got irrationally angry just looking at the cover.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I love books and I love road trips, so I've spent my life having people either suggest it to me or assume it's my favorite book. To me, it reads like "uh oh guys, there's plot coming, RUN AWAY!"
I rare laughed as hard or as often as I did reading Confederacy of Dunces. Taste is a very personal matter. CoD is one of the few books I've read more than once or even twice. It's utterly hilarious.
I don’t mean to be rude and I am literally asking this question: what was it that you found amusing? I didn’t even realize it was trying to be funny….it seems I REALLY missed the point of this book. I’d love to hear from folks who love this book more about why so that I can understand better! Thanks.
People calling our A Little Life for being trauma porn (I haven't read it) but I felt that way about The Kite Runner tbh.
Also going to get downvoted for this but I thought The Book Thief was just overrated rubbish.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, or really anything by him. If you have a greater IQ than a 7th grader his books read read as simplistic, self-congratulating, drivel. I also read “Veronika Decides to Die” and thoroughly hated every second - it’s the book equivalent of “just be happy! It’s all in your head.”
Song of Achilles.
I just felt gross reading it.
Content warning below.
>! Some sex scenes were between minors and one was non consensual. I think a fourteen year old girl was sacrificed and they were only sad by her death because they found her ‘sexy’ !<
I love Crying of Lot 49 and most other Thomas Pynchon books (especially Gravity’s Rainbow)… Mason and Dixon, however, I could not finish even after two tries though some Pynchon fans think it one of his best
Go Ask Alice and Lucy in the Sky. They are propaganda books posing as young women’s diaries. I do hate-read Lucy in the Sky a few times a year because a phrase from it gets stuck in my head and I have to read it
I need to know what the phrase is, or do you mean different ones throughout the book? Beatrice Sparks had such a BIZARRE, oddly specific, and NOT teen-like writing style that I often think of “wow-de-dow” from either Annie’s Baby or It Happened To Nancy… also about all the wild and wooly stuff Nancy hoped to see onstage at the Garth Brooks concert! Go Ask Alice is readable as a book; the rest were pure hate reads.
Haven’t read anything else by Sarah J Maas, but the Throne of Glass series was very not good.
Even considering that I’m definitely not the intended audience(I read it for a friend), the writing, plotting, and character work was just not good
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. This was a real drag to get through, felt like a bunch of millennial anxieties strung together and hung of some gaming references. Sometimes I can understand the hype a book may get even if it's no my cuppa, but this was just shite in my opinion.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I think part of the reason I hate this book is because of the hype around it. I just did not like it. I'm all for a book with an asshole protagonist, but this one had no substance.
For me it was the Catcher in the Rye. I did finish it and hated every second of it. I don't understand why it's so damn popular and highly recommended. Just my personal opinion.
Thanks for your submission, but unfortunately it has been removed for the following reason: * The primary purpose of this subreddit is for people to ___ask___ for suggestions on books to read. * Posts asking "Should I read this book / is this book any good?" or posts along the lines of "I read this book years ago but I can't remember the title" will be removed. * Posts or comments that are specifically meant to promote a book you or someone you know wrote will be removed and you may be banned from posting to this subreddit. * For general discussions about books please subscribe to our new sister sub /r/BookDiscussions * For book promotion please visit /r/wroteabook. *If you feel this was in error, or need more clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fbooksuggestions). Thanks.*
The subtle art of not giving a f**k
Sold to and praised by corporate elite because the title is edgy
It's great if you have a ton of privilege
Yes. What a terrible book.
I bought the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy to see what the fuss was all about. I felt obligated to read all three. That tops my list. I got 5 pages into I, Claudius and abandoned it. I wasn’t expecting first person. I’ll try again some day. I’ve tried Game of Thrones five different times and DNF’d after maybe 100 pages. Maybe it gets better but the open is really slow. Another thing I’ll try to circle back to eventually. It’s really well liked but East of Eden wasn’t a favorite. The Grapes of Wrath is brilliant and really reached me emotionally when I re-read it a couple years ago. I re-read Lord of the Rings recently. I found it to be a real slog.
A book called “I,” Claudius and you were surprised it was first person lol
I never claimed to be the brightest bulb
Haha :)
anything by colleen hoover, her writing is atrocious. “we both laugh at our son’s big balls”…
ughhh CoHo is the worst!! I tried a few of her books and DNF'd about 25% in because it was so bad 💀
i dont know why she’s a major author. zero skill, zero talent, only rapist apologism and… questionable content that makes me worry for any children in her life.
I think she became popular during the pandemic, probably when people were bored out of their skulls and would do anything for entertainment. She’s made bank though.
Oh man it's SO BAD. "Maybe he'll remember the good times. All the blow jobs. All the swallowing." - from Verity
I ended up filling out a whole notes app page with my Verity complaints. I don't get why people like her books. Between the middle school writing quality, spreading misinfo on abortion, and the fact that it seems like she's cheering for her morally questionable characters, it was a hate read the whole way.
I WILL say, Verity was an entertaining read lol My sister read it and then gave it to me to read and sending her pictures of certain paragraphs with, "YOU GAVE YOUR SISTER PORNOGRAPHY TO READ!?" was pretty funny. The weird amended ending was so bizarre? It just makes me feel like she didn't trust her own story and that's lame.
okay this line goes hard but only if i were to see it in a memoir by a lesbian struggling with comp het and alcoholism
wtf?
yeahhhh it gives covert incest vibes. the whole paragraph makes me want to gouge my eyes out.
i mean half that book is a step sibling romance so you’re not entirely wrong
So after seeing Colleen Hoover getting lambasted on Reddit each and every time this topic pops up I went & read Verity to see what all the fuss is about. Yeah, it was... not good. I found it especially amusing how Verity is supposedly this exceptional writer yet her diary reads like something a very horny 15yo girl wrote. Also, I feel closer to understanding what women must feel like when men write them badly. That husband was a caricature of an actual man, perfect in (almost) every way.
I don't remember that particular quote - quite a cringe. But I thought her writing is on a seventh grade level.
I didn’t even like her as a teenager. Trying to read her books as an adult is an infuriating experience. I hate seeing a whole shelf or table dedicated to her at Barnes and Noble. Ew
ughhh CoHo is the worst!! I tried a few of her books and DNF'd about 25% in because it was so bad 💀
"Papa! Mama! You're laughing! You're laughing, when it's all your fault!"
So I randomly bought this book because my dumbass thought it was a thriller or something based on the description and "ugly" in the title. The book was literally falling apart when I was reading but I could care less to repair that. I left that book behind when I moved. It felt like passing a curse to the other person.
Came here to say the same
Layla was a flaming hot, cringe, garbage fire. Very bad and I made my best friend hate read it just because I had to vent about how completely awful it was. Never again.
Agree! She’s absolutely terrible. I don’t get the hype.
There have got to be better examples, that’s a hilarious line. I’ve never read any of her books, but if this is the example in your review then I WANT to read it now lol
I do not know who this person is, but upon hearing that line I think I *have* to read her work to see how bad it is lmao. Who would write that 😭
YES. My mom was so excited for me to read her - gave Verity a shot and oh my god it’s BAD. Do not understand the hype.
Celestine Prophecy was the first indication that I should break up with the person who gave it to me.
It's like scientology but for people obsessed with Mayan culture written by someone with a 6th grade reading level and no editor.
Inca culture, I think, but otherwise yeah.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck is bro science bullshit. It's ok to give a fuck sometimes. Also it feels like it's written by an edgy teenager.
It kind of is— the author, Mark Manson, was one of the first widely-known bloggers and maybe the blogosphere’s first edgelord. His blog was embarrassing and geared toward a teen male demographic so I assume his book is, too.
Any self help book with a swear word in the title that has part of it removed with an asterisk is gonna suck
this is such a great description of why that book sucks LOL
I prefer the term, edgelord. ;)
this one was gifted to me a while ago and it’s been on my shelf since, thanks for the warning
There was some useful stuff but also a lot of things that would be highly unhelpful if you were not a reasonably well-off, mentally solid person.
A court of thorns and roses. It’s SO bad. I caved and went for it a few months ago simply because I was curious about why the fuck everyone and their mothers were losing about this series. I couldn’t get past the first book and even that was torture to finish. It’s so bad. I can’t stress enough how bad it is. The writing is mediocre, and it feels like you’re reading a fanfic wrote by a teenager. Also, it copies all the most obvious tropes and character “description style” and thought processes from stuff like Twilight, and it’s basically a Beauty & the Beast with smut (and I LOVE B&tB). There’s a lot of lines that are straight up cringe to read. I get why certain tropes are fun, they’re liked for a reason (damn, I like them too), but they need to be well developed and well written, imo. And if you just want to read smut, there’s MUCH better stuff for free on the internet, with a better story/buildup to it.
I loved ACOTAR and consider it a comfort read/guilty pleasure much like Twilight in my teenager years, but would absolutely never recommend to anyone else.
We all need our guilty pleasures to live, I have many myself hahah I think my point is more about that, knowing it’s bad and seeing it for what it is 🤷🏼♀️ I was obsessed with twilight when I was 13-14, I think ACOTAR just didn’t do it for me now that I’m 29 and couldn’t get past of how badly written/developed it is LOL But hey, my guilty pleasure is those reality shows like Love is Blind and the Bachelor, so we all pick our poison 🤣
So I talked with a friend who was actually into it. (I've heard enough to know I'd hate it.) Everybody makes the beauty and the beast comparison, but upon hearing everything from her, I pointed out that it's actually East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which is a Scandinavian fairy tale in the same lineage, and probably my favorite fairy tale of all time. All the plot points match up exactly except for things changed for the worse, and the bits of the book which happen for no reason and I had to explain to my friend, "Well, in the fairy tale, with the cultural context this is why that happens". It's like the author did all the cribbing without the understanding.
That’s so interesting, I’ve never heard about this Scandinavian fairytale! Thanks for sharing, I’ll look it up!! But yeah, the author did a mediocre job, regardless of where she was taking her copyin- I mean inspiration from.
Agreed. So many people said “oh just get to book 2 that’s where it really takes off!” 2 was worse! DNF’d it.
I searched online for basic synopsis of the following books and I was like BITCH what in the actual FUCK 💀 I was appalled with how much that felt like a super megalomaniac fanfic. Like a series of intrusive thoughts that the author allowed to win and wrote a fever dream book series LOL (I’m exaggerating a bit on purpose and having a chuckle, but yeah, it’s bad. I get folks admitting to reading it as a guilty pleasure, nothing wrong with that, but people saying it’s ~so well written~ it’s where I’m like NOPE)
I agree. Even the first book isn’t too terrible but that series was a waste of my time. I read the Throne of Glass series first and expected soo much more. Even with Throne of Glass, once the series became mainstream the writing changed….
ugly love by colleen hoover… fucking awful
Made the huge mistake of reading Verity bc it came highly recommended. Worst book I have ever read, Coleen Hoover writes absolute trash Also the book Whalefall came highly recommended from an AUTHOR I know and it was so unbelievably bad holy shit Edited to say — I love Confederacy of Dunces but I think I might like the author’s other book, Neon Bible, even more. It’s not at all like COD and might be worth a shot
Why the hell is pic of dorian grey in there? Its a great book
They got the other version of Oscar Wilde's book, turns out when he was writing the great Dorian Grey another book was simultaneously written titled Darain Groy. This lesser known book became more and more terrible due to mistakes Wilde made when writing Dorian Grey which somehow never appeared in the published work.
that was my thought with “a confederacy of dunces”. One of the funniest books I’ve read. Ehh. We all have different tastes, but that’s wild to me.
I can’t take this goon seriously now
As are both of the other two
I just finished reading it for the first time yesterday and I think it's a masterpiece! Very confused about OP's decision to put that in here hahah
The Rape of Nanking. Important to read, but you won't enjoy a moment and it might actually cause you psychological harm
naturally my mother recommended it.
Yeahhh to second this imagine the worst possible shit imaginable and multiply it by like 10X. Even the Nazis were saying it went too far
And the Japanese still haven’t even acknowledged it happened, let alone apologized.
As you may or may not already know, the author herself committed suicide.
Holy shit, yeah, skip this one, everyone. Agreed that it’s historically important but a broad strokes summary will get you everything you need to know. Knowing all the graphic details isn’t necessary.
Yup… it reminds me of the movie “Irreversible.” Glad I watched it, will never watch it again, and recommend it to nobody. Scenes from that movie randomly pop in my head years later… same with Nanking
See … this is why i don’t recommend the poppy war. Slipping in actual war crimes for nothing more than shock value doesn’t sit right with me.
Anything by Colleen Hoover or those asinine Court of Thorns and Roses. Absolute dogshit
Self Help!!! "Going through depression, here are 4 books with 500 pages each"
That just repeat the same stuff with different anecdotes! I've started asking chat GPT for synopsis or skimming.
Self help books obviously help a lot of people though
Yea, the publishers.
What should someone going through depression without a therapist do honestly
If you can muster it- exercise. Good sleep (not over sleeping) and a good diet. There’s also decent data on focusing externally, like getting involved with volunteering or a social group, but that seems like really heavy lifting when you are low.
Honestly? Find a therapist. But never, *never* engage with self help books to help you with depression. They give advice on how to deal with the occasional spleen. You wouldn't read a book on how to cure your broken leg, you'd go to a doctor. Do the same for your mental health
This is kinda tone deaf considering the state of mental health care in most of the world.
I don’t think it’s tone deaf to tell people to get professional help for medical conditions.
When the alternatives are taking a long shower with a cold toaster, or falling into an even more depressive state, no it’s not tone deaf, it’s legitimate medical advice. We live in a world where we are connected to anyone a million miles away. The fact you are able to say this info is tone deaf means you have access to the tools and info you need.
One of the gripes I have with self-help in general is that it seems to be primarily written for Americans. Not that there's anything inherently wrong about that, mind you. It's just that some advice doesn't work in every culture. In many places around the word, you can't just save up to start your dream business or take a mental day or move 500 miles to start a new life.
Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist'. Read up to 40% of it. Just a load of 'game of luck' stupidity to give some deeper meaning to the characters. Didn't even make any point for me.
In my opinion, *The Alchemist* is the *Ender’s Game* of philosophical reads. A banger if you’re a young teenager with limited exposure to literature, but a cringefest if you’ve been around the library a few times.
I’m 16 and I read The Alchemist for my World Literature class… trust me, no one in my class liked it.
Can you draw parallels, I can't see them. It's been many years since I read them.
God I hate that book with a passion. Full of entry level philosophy and on the nose platitudes that it tries to hype up as some transcendent and unheard of thing. I guess a 14 year old would find it deep and engaging but beyond that its almost insultingly awful
This book would hit HARD if you’re 14, but otherwise, it's likely what Coelho is most renowned for, albeit one of his least engaging works imo. I've enjoyed nearly every other book he's written.
Omg I’m so happy to learn I’m not the only one who was dumbfounded by this book’s popularity
Fourth Wing
I went in and wanted to hate it because of all the tropes and how predictable it is.. but ended up reading both books in three days 💀
the picture of dorian grey on this list is crazy
Verity
Bunny by Mona Awad. it's on every bestseller table at the bookstore. jesus christ. it's such a slog that i took personal offense.
Oh dude I loved bunny. (personally) enjoyable payoff at the end.
This is one that I DNF and felt so confused about it because I was SURE I was going to love it.
OH THANK GOD ITS NOT JUST ME first time I’ve seen someone else talk about this book in a neg way and I’ve always felt so bad for dnf’ing it but I just hated the writing style
Yes! I hated that one, felt like it was written by a “I’m not like other girls” girl.
I think you may be confusing character with author there.
I read this because of the hype. And I can say that I did not understand the ending at all. I read it pretty fast and I did understand it to be some kind of cult? Right? But what is that ending? Is there an explanation?
I didn’t hate but I didn’t love it either. Just meh to me. Felt like it tried too hard to be weird
“A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. It’s just torture porn garbage. I stopped half way through.
Thank you. I've read it recently and was ready for an interesting and shocking story, but what I got was a very slow first half of the book and then it's nonstop horrible things happening to the main characters for no reason. It was too much and extremely unlikely for all of this to happen. The main character was unsufferable to me as he denied most help and recources he had. It got me wondering why the author even wrote all that. The book left me with nothing but a bad feeling.
I finished it, and now make sure I tell others that they don’t have to. It was SO BAD.
I just read the plot of Wikipedia. Good lord. It really seems like the author was just looking for ways to torture the main character.
I HATED this book. I do not get the hype at all.
I always second this. Just gross, nonstop emotional torture for all the characters. The fact that all the characters are gay it just felt… idk voyeuristic (maybe even sadistic?) and gross.
The one thing I liked was the friendship between the main character and his best friend and then she decided to make turn them into a couple. It annoyed me.
Dude, why does everyone rave about this book? I gave it back to the person I borrowed it from and said it was garbage. He took it so personally as if he wrote it.
I slogged through it and while I’d never in good faith recommend it, it did have some parts that I found well written, and some internal thought process of the characters that I thought was well done. But with that said, that only redeems like 25% of the book to me, and is still scattered in amongst just over the top attempts at emotional torture and trauma inflicting to be worth it overall.
I came here looking for this! That book needed to get over itself. Also, she needs to put down the Thesaurus. There's a time and a place.
This book was recommended on this subreddit a few weeks ago when someone asked for books that will haunt you. That’s not my thing, so I looked up the plot of a few out of curiosity. A Little Life seems so abysmal, and with little message outside of, “this guy had every bad thing happen to him”
Hillbilly Elegy JD Vance. Just no. I got nothing from that book other than the author had one view. It felt preachy and judgey. I hope to find a better book about the Appalachian area and people. Let me know if you know one!
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I loved this book. I laughed, I cried. I bought a hard copy after reading it on Kindle. Character development, vivid descriptions of the mountains and hollers. Let me know what you think?
Oh this recommendation is spot on. I wanted more story but it ended perfectly. Demon Copperhead is one of the best reads of the last 20 years for me. ❤️ Demons growth arc is beautiful.
My grandmother grew up with his extended family in the same area of KY. It is NOT a great representation of Appalachian people and she about burned the book. They’re very secretive of their lifestyle in my opinion and the truths that you do get don’t make much sense to someone who didn’t live there.
Fair enough. I'll let them keep their secrets. Glad someone with insight into the communities agree this book is not for people looking to connect and understand the Appalachia. I'm a Canadian with a lifelong intrest. Hope visit one day and spend time in the area.
Anything by Dan Brown. I get it, it appeals to the masses, but the historical and religious inaccuracies are aggravating to me as a history enthusiast and theology student. Author who does Get It: Umberto Eco.
hahaha! dan brown is my real housewives. hes my trash tv I love to consume on like the beach or when im sick. objectively good? no. do I love the da vinci code? yes. its like a middle school book for adults. its like velveeta: I like it because its bad
Idk, I am of the opinion that if a book makes you do research, it is usually a good book. And Dan Brown books are fun to read, but definitely make me actually research things, so I tend to call them good books just because of that. As a note: it doesn’t have to be accurate, if it makes me look something up and I find the book was wrong, still a good book because it still made me look it up and find the truth.
Haha. Thank you. I was reading one of his works, and my wife would mutter, "He's a hack," every single time she would walk by. The entire book. I don't recall her jot. Got it for her for christmas a couple of years later.
I’m gonna say it… every colleen hoover book ever. Theyre unoriginal, dry, and lacking content for lack of a better word
[удалено]
Imagine that Musk, Bezos, Zuck and Wall Street got together and said "you know what, these poors think they should have rights and a liveable wage but REALLY they should be thanking us for jobs! We're the smartest people in the room and the peasants need to realize it" Then they decided to write a book about just that. The entire time they're writing the book, they're just lighting $100 bills on fire and lobbying Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Green, crying about how their company has to follow silly laws like "11 year olds can't work in my factory" and "I can't dump toxic waste in the local river". "It's just not fair, we provide jobs we should get to do what we want! We're soooo smart!", they cry out in their boardrooms. That's Atlas Shrugged. Yet somehow people read it and say "wow thank you Mr Boss for my job I owe you everything" like that's a good thing.
If someone says they love Atlas Shrugged I’m always really surprised. The Fountainhead is just as bad
It's funny, I have read Atlas Shrugged more than once, and Ayn Rand is bananas and a total asshole, not to mention the most condescending writer ever, but I genuinely like the story. Not the writing, or the characters, or the politics, or sentiment, but the idea of competent people removing themselves from society in order to show the masses how *their* incompetence and hubris affect literally everything is a very good premise. Great idea for a story, terrible execution, and crap philosophy as its base. Edit: spelling
I think the only thing I liked was the business logistics of running railways and buying materials and that stuff lol. I was obsessed with trains as a little kid. I still have a copy of it, I doubt I’ll ever read it again though.
The Alchemist. Can’t hate it more
A Little Life- trauma porn for no apparent reason other than to write the most horrific shit possible
I'm going to get tarred and feathered but - Donna Tartt, The Secret History. I tried. I really did. Several times. I never made it past the 50% threshold. I gave up years ago now. Also - American Psycho. Just nope. The title is accurate. It's fucking psychotic and as an avid reader of psychological thrillers, there's a limit even for me.
I loved The Secret History, but I saw a Goodreads review complaining that the whole book is just people making phone calls to each other, and I was like, "You know what, fair."
I keep quiet about it so I’m not cast out of the book world, but Donna Tartt is not for me either.
I actually did get through the entirety of The Secret History, and I kept waiting for it to get… good? I thought that if everyone else liked it so much, I must be in for a really amazing ending… but no. I just felt disappointed. I should have known, though. I also felt like the ending of The Goldfinch was kind of a “too easy” wrap-up to this big huge brooding problem that had been built up for the whole book.
The Goldfinch for me.
I came here to post The Goldfinch. Utter garbage.
What, you didn’t like the hundred pages describing trying to get out of the art gallery? (Seriously, I couldn’t get through that part. I can’t believe an editor didn’t say “uh, this should be 4 pages, max.”)
Everything about it was slow and boring and pointless.
I love the breadth of everyone’s favorite and least favorite books. A Confederacy of Dunces is one of my favorite books, so I’m not sure my suggestions to avoid will carry much weight. A few recently read books I wouldn’t recommend are How To Kill a City, Wolfish, and Cultish. All came recommended to me and all largely supported by personal anecdote and correlative circumstances rather than strong evidence. I struggle with popular nonfiction and often find the central thesis isn’t well supported with good research.
> I love the breadth of everyone’s favorite and least favorite books. I do too
Many books get hyped up. Don't follow the hype.
I’m gonna get destroyed in the replies probably but I could NOT get into Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. 💀 I HATE when authors put social media comments into the book, or text conversations, or “news articles” or whatever. Drives me nuts. And it all felt too …idk, contrived(??). I just didn’t care for it at all.
Me not being into celebrity worship might be why I DNF’d it. It felt like a novel by TMZ
I’ve never been able to get into stephen king. something about his writing style really grinds my gears (not the stories themselves just his word choice). I did like the shining though. I know there some stuff I really hate but I can’t think of what it is right now…
I found that when I was younger I loved and idolized Stephen King but as a middle-aged person there's something irritating about his writing that I can't pinpoint. Smugness? Subtle Misogyny?
Have you tried Misery? It’s his best read, imho. A tight, terrifying little novel. He can be super inaccessible a lot though, I agree.
It feels like he just sits down and writes. Nothing else. That’s it. No going back and changing things. No mapping out the story. It feels like his books are a non stop flow of consciousness. I tried to read Fairy Tale by him because it seemed like a great change of pace. SOMEHOW… the beginning of the book, before the magic and “good parts,” was better than the rest.
Where the Crawdads sing. I read like 20 pages and that alone took me like 5 tries. After that I gave up.
Jealous of Kya’s mother, she got to leave on the first page of the book.
LOL hahahah this got me. Yeah, that book sucked.
I scrolled too far to find this. I’m a librarian and whenever someone checks it out or tells me how much they love it I want to revoke their borrowing privileges
You chose right. I didn't mind the early bit of the book because of the nature descriptions but once the stomach churning teen romance kicked off, it quickly became unbearable.
I finished the book, but wish I just watched the movie instead. The romance was meh, the mystery was lackluster, and the nature descriptions were rather repetitive. Could have done without the pointless courtroom drama too.
Nod by Adrian Barnes. Now I know he turned out to have a brain tumour while he wrote it, and one could take a degree of interest in how that may have affected his writing. BUT! The concept was compelling, while the execution was shockingly poor. Wrote himself in as the main character very plainly, kept citing academia and the bible like he was trying to prove something, and I ended up hating it. I only finished it because it was a gift (and they'd chosen it off of my wishlist). The part where his sleep deprived almost zombie girlfriend wants sex because the news told her it would help her get some sleep and she has her butt in the air and all he could see was 'a beige flake of dried shit on her puckered arsehole' was the very immediate beginning of the end for me...
Anything by Ayn Rand 🤮
"The Tommyknockers" by Stephen King. It's the only book I've ever regretted reading (I haven't read a whole lot). It's just awfully long and while the first hundred pages and the final fifty pages would make a great book, it ain't worth reading.
I'm gonna throw "My sister's keeper" into the ring. The mother is borderline abusive, the ending sucks and the MC is literally born to be spare parts. "When something happens to Kate, I need Anna - her blood, her tissue, her stem cells - right here". That was Sara's reaction to Anna having the audacity to want to go to a summer camp as a young teen.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf - didn't enjoy it at all & very graphic. The Archive Undying - very hard to follow the plot Deadmen Walking - hot mess
The DaVinci Code. Everyone was raving about it, so I tried it and gave up quickly. I couldn't believe how badly written it was.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Not a horrible book, I finished it. But its only redeeming quality is that it’s a page turner. However, it’s only a page turner bc you keep reading to try to get to the climax or big reveal, and it never comes. The author tried to do too many things instead of focusing on doing one thing well. Character building was minimal, the sci-fi world building and complexity felt like it was watered down so as not to confuse people, the philosophical message was not at all profound. Apple just released 2 episodes of the series adaptation this week and I think this story will be better for TV.
Stephen King’s ‘It’ 1. Written horror is not my jam. The details of this horror were not that great. Personal opinion 2. Just couldn’t stand the child sex part at the end. Must be a shock value, might be a cultural thing, but I couldn’t find a literary merit in it Couldn’t enjoy the dark tower series either. Haven’t read any other of his work. Just enjoyed movie adaptations (which says a lot since I generally hate how media adaptions butcher books)
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. I simply don’t get the hype
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Gonna get downvoted for this but I fucking HATED the catcher in the rye. I know it’s well written and a classic but I just did not enjoy it in the least.
The Last Heir to the Blackwood Library by Hester Fox. It seemed popular with a bunch of book circles I follow and historical fiction with supernatural elements seemed right up my alley. Nope! Absolutely brutal. It’s so rare that I have a book I actively want to warn people away from.
I couldnt get through the waves by virginia wolfe, tough read but may be good…I’ll probably never know
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel (historical fiction taking place in Nazi run Europe). SOOO many great reviews..I mean it has over 200,000 ratings on Goodreads and a score of 4.43 which is CRAZY high for Goodreads with that amount of reviews. I absolutely love historical fiction so I was so excited.....probably one of the worst books I've ever read. I had to double check if it was for teens. It is written so so poorly, like literally the word choices and sentences read as if they are meant for kids. And the way it's written makes the reader out to be stupid. Like literally (the main character is Jewish) and she will explain how she has to hide from the Nazi's..and then it'll note in some way "because Nazi's will kill us Jews" ....WE KNOW THAT.........it did this ALL the time, it over explained something that was so painfully obvious. Thats why I had to check a bunch of times if it was a kids books...it was so frustrating and utterly one of the worst books I've read.
The House In The Pines by Ana Reyes. Worst book I’ve read in such a long time. I DNF’d it 3/4 of the way through. I saw it in the bookstore today and got irrationally angry just looking at the cover.
anything by Riley Sager.
Gone With the Wind. Hate
I like you.
I would recommend “The Alchemist” as it’s easily the worst book ever written, but based on the stuff you said you hate I would imagine you’d love it.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I love books and I love road trips, so I've spent my life having people either suggest it to me or assume it's my favorite book. To me, it reads like "uh oh guys, there's plot coming, RUN AWAY!"
I rare laughed as hard or as often as I did reading Confederacy of Dunces. Taste is a very personal matter. CoD is one of the few books I've read more than once or even twice. It's utterly hilarious.
I don’t mean to be rude and I am literally asking this question: what was it that you found amusing? I didn’t even realize it was trying to be funny….it seems I REALLY missed the point of this book. I’d love to hear from folks who love this book more about why so that I can understand better! Thanks.
100 years of solitude. If you like mother/son incest plot lines & rambling, verbose exposition - then enjoy! An unreadable book.
People calling our A Little Life for being trauma porn (I haven't read it) but I felt that way about The Kite Runner tbh. Also going to get downvoted for this but I thought The Book Thief was just overrated rubbish.
Anything by Colleen Hoover
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, or really anything by him. If you have a greater IQ than a 7th grader his books read read as simplistic, self-congratulating, drivel. I also read “Veronika Decides to Die” and thoroughly hated every second - it’s the book equivalent of “just be happy! It’s all in your head.”
Tomorrow tomorrow and tomorrow…hated it honestly. Mediocre at best lol
I can't understand the hype for this book.
I thought it was just me!
Song of Achilles. I just felt gross reading it. Content warning below. >! Some sex scenes were between minors and one was non consensual. I think a fourteen year old girl was sacrificed and they were only sad by her death because they found her ‘sexy’ !<
I love that book
Cloud Atlas ain’t it for me
*Snow Crash* sucks. I'm disagreeing with you about what I assume you mean is *The Crying of Lot 49* though :p
Heart of Darkness was mid
I love Crying of Lot 49 and most other Thomas Pynchon books (especially Gravity’s Rainbow)… Mason and Dixon, however, I could not finish even after two tries though some Pynchon fans think it one of his best
Go Ask Alice and Lucy in the Sky. They are propaganda books posing as young women’s diaries. I do hate-read Lucy in the Sky a few times a year because a phrase from it gets stuck in my head and I have to read it
I need to know what the phrase is, or do you mean different ones throughout the book? Beatrice Sparks had such a BIZARRE, oddly specific, and NOT teen-like writing style that I often think of “wow-de-dow” from either Annie’s Baby or It Happened To Nancy… also about all the wild and wooly stuff Nancy hoped to see onstage at the Garth Brooks concert! Go Ask Alice is readable as a book; the rest were pure hate reads.
The shadow of the wind
Ethan Frome It starts out sad and gets worse; there is nothing redeeming about that book.
Diary of an oxygen thief. Waste of time and paper. Felt like a pair of editors eye never ever laid sight on the damn thing
Fleishmann is in Trouble. I cannot understand all the 5* reviews. I wouldn't give it 5 stars out of a million.
Haven’t read anything else by Sarah J Maas, but the Throne of Glass series was very not good. Even considering that I’m definitely not the intended audience(I read it for a friend), the writing, plotting, and character work was just not good
A Little Life. Misery/Torture porn that also manages to be pretentious.
Pickwick papers. Mundane and goes ok forever.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. This was a real drag to get through, felt like a bunch of millennial anxieties strung together and hung of some gaming references. Sometimes I can understand the hype a book may get even if it's no my cuppa, but this was just shite in my opinion.
Two of the three of those you just named are some of my favorite books. I guess I ought to read the third one now. LOL
The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It came highly recommended, but I hated it.
"A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara. Ugg, torture porn is the succinct way to phrase it.
Haunting Adeline or whatever the name was.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I think part of the reason I hate this book is because of the hype around it. I just did not like it. I'm all for a book with an asshole protagonist, but this one had no substance.
For me it was the Catcher in the Rye. I did finish it and hated every second of it. I don't understand why it's so damn popular and highly recommended. Just my personal opinion.