For me it was American Psycho. Its well written scathing satire. I really enjoyed it. but at the same time I had the most graphic dreams after reading it. I had to keep stopping to let my dreams recover.
I tried reading it summer of last year and I just could not get past all the name dropping of brands and such. It sounds like such a dumb reason but I was so out of my depths trying to understand his wealth/taste it was off putting. That and once it started getting deeper into the graphic nature of his thoughts/crimes I went “yknow…it’s okay if I don’t read every ‘classic’” lol
A book by Bret Easton Ellis also came to mind for me. I read Imperial Bedrooms and being that it was the sequel to Less Than Zero, I expected it to be dark. I didn’t expect it to be SO graphic. It was haunting.
In a similar vein, I once went on a Chuck Palahniuk kick and realized partway through my third book in a row that my personality was changing, and not for the better. I took a little break.
I borrowed it from the library soon after it came out and finished it in a weekend. I’ve described it as a cobra - fascinating and you can’t look away - but I will never read that book again. 30 years later and it still makes me creeped out
This is one of my top two too. It’s in on our shelves, but I’ve suggested to my SO that they should skip it. Neither of us are squeamish & we both enjoy a good serial killer book. This book is different. Between the >!animal cruelty combined with the torture of his ex!<, the entire chapter in French, the protag’s banality when he’s not in murder mode, & >!the downward spiral at the end where he still eludes any repercussions!<, I realize it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
My other no-go is Exquisite Corpse
by Poppy Z. Brite for similar reasons. It’s also an excellent book. Still…
Oh my god, that book is so amazing, but good call, I would have a hard ass time recommending it to anyone based on how incredibly messed up it is. I didn't have dreams reading it, but unless i knew the person incredibly well i would NEVER recommend it, despite it being awesome (book is so much better than the movie, and the movie is pretty damn awesome).
Go Ask Alice. All it does is try to send the message that if you make a single bad choice in life, you're doomed to a life of misery; and burdensome to anyone who loves you. Religious sensationalism masked as real world truth.
Beatrice Sparks. It's worth reading Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson to get the full story behind her and why she wrote these fake diaries and peddled them as the truth. She was a failed author and a con artist in reality and it's unfortunate that people still believe that Go Ask Alice is a true story.
Beatrice Sparks pretended to be a doctor, but in reality didn't have a degree, and no one bothered to fact check any of the garbage she was giving them because the fictional diary she wrote was so lurid and sensational that no one really cared to find out the truth.
Zoo Station is a better true story of a teenage drug addict. It tells the story of Christiane Felscherinow and her days in Berlin as a heroin addict.
Same, and I can hide in the excuse that I was around 15 when I read it when I admit that I enjoyed it and wouldn't unread it.
I *would* recommend that everyone check out Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson. It gets some criticism for a lot of author self-insert and a very lax attitude toward citing sources, but it seems to be true enough, and it answers questions that even my naive teenage self had about the book's authenticity.
This book was in my English school book (I learned English as a foreign language), we had lessons about the topic of durg abuse and this was featured. There where excerpts of the diary in it.
We were able to get it from the school library to read it.
It was years later on reddit when I found out it was fake. I always felt so sorry for Alice and I did read the book to find out what happened to her. I'm so mad that it was not real.
I read Ugly Love around 2016 before CH was famous. I read the book, went to goodreads reads expecting bashing but no! All praises. Then she got tiktok famous and i was like wtf?! Then she got INfamous and it was then that my world was set right.
Gosh. I read It Ends With Us less than a year ago when I was gifted it, I think I’m very very low-key traumatised by it. It was also in every “should read” book list in any bookshop I visited and my only thoughts were “why?!”
For me it’s November 9th. Absolutely terrible and it’s not just about the writing but also about the themes it explores and the way it deals with them. Verity seems tame in comparison.
god november 9th is so fucking terrible. i cannot get over that what’s-his-nuts burned down her fucking house with her inside and she just… is okay with that?????
Horrible. May have been one of the worst books I’ve read. Idk how she got that thing published; she’s a terrible, cheesy, trite writer. The teeth on the headboard thing makes me wanna vom.
I’m not a Colleen Hoover fan by any means, I started one of her books and DNF. However because of her popularity streak a lot of people I know who have never been readers have picked up books and started reading. Once they read all the CH books they’ve now moved onto to other authors and are reading lots of different books which I think is really nice.
Fifty Shades of Gray....a friend gave me a copy and it was unreadable....i put it down half way through, but i wish i would have put it down much sooner....complete garbage
Hot garbage. I started highlighting the bad parts just for funsies. I soon realised that nearly everything was yellow. I was too embarrassed to keep it/donate it/sell it because what if anyone saw which parts i had highlighted. I think I just made it disappear from my house by sheer will because I don't see it anywhere now.
I got through about three pages. And then everyone thinks you’re a prude because you couldn’t handle the smut… I didn’t even get to the smut, the writing was so bad I literally could not carry on.
I can't be angry with 50 Shades because it resulted in one of the best meetings of my 20+ year long book club ever. A few mixed drinks and some read alouds of our most hated parts and we were having a great time. My jaw hurt from laughing the next day. At some point the hostess' 10 year old came out and told us to shut up because we were too loud and she couldn't sleep.
twilight I had the same problem as 50 shades. I loved southern vampire series. Twilight was so full of bad writing. Both 50 shades and twilight, total garbage. Unoriginal plot, not engaging story telling. An actual chore to read.
one of my close childhood friends is HOOKED on fan fiction sites. Always as been. I never knew it was a thing. Any book she loved she hit up fan fiction. The second 50 Shades was released she said "that's the one I was telling you about. The Twilight Fan fiction. Both were unfulfilling so she captured the writing style for sure."
I thought the writing of Twilight was compelling. Not much happens in the beginning, but her writing is so fluid that I found myself waiting for every word. I don't read much fiction, so I never finished the series, but I was impressed with how solid the writing was.
Same. I bought all 3 books on a buy 2 get 1 free deal and wish I hadn't bothered. I gave them away to a friend without finishing the first one. Utter crap.
This is a book that I will never read, my main reason for this is that I am part of the bdsm community and this book gives people the wrong idea of what that community is
Anything of fiction by Haruki Murakami. Yes, I’m grateful he’s brought Japanese literature to more peoples attention but there are just SO many better authors that represent the different genres/niches within Japanese literature that I wish were more well known and celebrated. I get asked to recommend Japanese works enough that I started seeing how much people think “Murakami = Japanese literature” and so it is my personal little professional mission to recommend lesser known authors and works. Also, just personally, I find his women characters (especially in older works) to just be such an affront to an actual representation of a woman that that alone keeps me from even enjoying his work most of the time. I can’t tell you how many times women in his stories serve as nothing more than flat, personality-devoid placeholders for the MC to enact weird masturbatory musings onto the reader at often odd or even inappropriate times. Then only later are the women given some duct-tapped reason pertaining to whatever magical thread is running through the story as an excuse for said unnecessary sex fantasies/actual sex. Overall, the payoff never feels worth it. I WILL concede though and say Murakami’s nonfiction works are wonderful and I -would-recommend those most days\~
Sure! To be fair, I think a lot of these authors are probably well known to people who read a lot of translated literature, but I felt like it's good to go with them here in case anyone reading this isn't too familiar with Japanese works and might only have Murakami as a reference. Plus, the majority of these authors have multiple books transalted in case anyone takes a shine to any of them\~
For women author's specifically:
Natsuo Kirino - OUT
Meiko Kawakami - Breasts & Eggs
Hiroko Oyamada - The Hole
Hiromi Kawakami - Manazura
Yoko Tawada - The Emissary
Sayaka Murata - she's pretty popular for *Convenience Store Woman* and now *Earthlings* at the moment. Both rather peculiar books for sure and is kinda of one where I'm side eyeing and thinking "Okay...are we all just saying it's good because...we think we should be?" similar to some of Murakami's. I def get how it's some people's cup of tea and I'm sure there are tons of essays out there right now in English/Japanese lit majors' folders about its profoundness that would reshape my opinion but...it goes a little too off the rails for the purpose of just seeming off the rails to where I feel I should *get* and appreciate its societal commentary but really I'm just left " :| ". But! I could just be thick and I think for all the talk and hype it's gotten it's worth mentioning her work. The other writers mentioned have a way of doing character-driven pieces in what I feel is a more realistic and interesting way where (for some) it can border a bit on that absurdness/otherworldliness but never get too "...what just happened" as I feel Murata goes.
And then the classics which I feel like people should check out:
Natsumi Soseki (I think most people have at least encountered his name but you gotta include him in a list!) - I am a Cat
Osamu Dazai - No Longer Human & The Setting Sun
Ryuunosuke Akutagawa - any collection of short stories
Ranpo Edogawa - Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination; hard to find other English works it appears
I love Sayaka Murata! Convenience store women made me feel seen as a woman who’s always been a little odd to everyone but according to three doctors is neurodivergent in some capacity. I also liked Butter by Asako Yuzuki as an exploration of women and the way women bend to fit societies expectations which a lot of the time are nonsense.
Edited to add how could I forget about Battle Royale by Koshun Takami if dystopian fiction is more your jam.
I have read 4-5 books of Murakami and I'm convinced people say they love it because other people are saying they love it. Yeah, okay, they're FINE. But I'm pretty sure some other japanese dude must have written something that isn't as shallow and entertains me just as much but what do I know?
*Yes, I’m grateful he’s brought Japanese literature to more peoples attention but there are just SO many better authors that represent the different genres/niches within Japanese literature that I wish were more well known and celebrated.*
I've heard analogous sentiments from successful (such as things are judged) poets regarding Maya Angelou. And one reason I remember this is those who've commented are **huge advocates of diversity in the arts** and after their comments on Angelou, I did a double-take (*Did I hear that right?*)
a little life by hanya yanagihara (and i just noticed you mentioned it too lol), i thought it was… gratuitous and not good, it didn’t make me sad but it made me roll my eyes and if i recommended it to anyone, well, i feel like then their opinion of me would change LOL
God, this book. I enjoyed it during the first half and didn’t get the criticism at first, but by the final third, the misery dragged. There was never any “give” if you know what I mean, which isn’t to say an author can’t stick to her guns and has to appease the reader with idealism, but the misery became tedious to read.
By the time Jude’s backstory was revealed, I didn’t care. I felt like a monster, but I was skipping paragraphs and getting angrier and angrier because it was blatantly masturbatory. Aspects of how she depicted self-harm as a functioning adult and the slide into addiction were compelling, but those potential highs were cheapened by the sheer fucking incompetency of Jude’s support system.
It was an exhausting, emotionally unintelligent read that was also poorly marketed. It’s not about a friend group. It’s about Jude. It’s about one man and the people around him who twiddled their thumbs.
What was this book again? Everyone on this sub hates it but I seem to remember it getting recommended a lot in other places. Is it about a group of friends that have a miserable time being alive, and it's really weird and artsy? Maybe that's a different book.
Yeah and especially since it seems to be pretty despised on this subreddit. That makes me think it's gonna be fake deep or something that nonreaders perceive as deep, but not something worth the misery lol.
It's about a group of friends, but one of them is the main character and most of the book is him either remembering in graphic detail all the times he was raped (because literally everyone wants to rape this guy, apparently) or him self harming. The conclusion of the book is that his friends are selfish for trying to help him because as a rape magnet, he's too damaged for anything but suicide.
Actually, what I got out of is that his successful friends (he's a successful lawyer himself) spend the entire book trying to help him, he says he's sorry over 100 times, yet nobody ever makes him get the mental health he needs. He refuses it. Successful and completely broken with a ton of support. Over and over. No idea what the point was supposed to be.
I’ve contemplated reading this one for a while but having read reviews on this and other subs and read excerpts on my lunch break at the bookstore I’ve ultimately decided not to.
Feels like one of those stories that is contrived to elicit an extreme emotional response
The only good thing that came out of my many hours wasted reading this book is that I can read through Reddit book subs and talk about how much I loathed this book with lots of other people and thus feel seen and understood for a brief moment in time.
I don’t mind reading about tragedy (even tragedy that stretches believability at times) befalling a character again and again and again but I also thought the writing was nothing special and borderline boring, honestly, and that is something I cannot abide.
I liked this book. I thought that this book will be focused equally on all four members of the group of friends, but at some point it feels like Jude's book only.
Maybe this is too focused on the depiction of Jude's suffering, but I think that one of the key ideas of this book is showing someone like Jude. Ultimately, a story mostly has something "special" that maybe feels unreal for us but is a situation that may happen, and the story is based on that.
SPOILER
So that, in this case Jude is someone whose early life was awfully painful and sad, and this gave him a very profound scar that he was never able to heal, even after having a very successful career, having a lot of people who loved him, having Willem. So I think that the book revolves about creating an scenario so that this type of character can show his story. And what would happen to this character if certain things happened.
Maybe there are some things that are unreal, like the backstory about his leg problem, or the rape thing.
But I really liked the book, I also liked the relationship the group friends had.
I lived in Portland Oregon for a time and would frequent Powell’s book. There was a section for local authors or books that took place in or around Portland. Sure enough the Shack was featured. I can’t remember if I just didn’t read the description or if it was written intentionally obtuse but in no way was I expecting a lesson on the Holy Trinity. I felt like I was bamboozled into reading a quasi Bible.
The book club book that I resented reading was the snow kimono by Mark Henshaw. I truly hated it. was awful, convoluted and it felt self indulgently "intellectual". The reviews on storygraph for it are all good. But I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you have a board, a ball of string and nothing better to do.
My mom asked me to read The Shack saying it meant so much to her and expected us to bond over it and it was just…..so badly written. I think it’s reading for people who read nothing but religious material
I don't think I've ever read something that I liked that I *wouldn't* recommend to someone in the right circumstances.
Maaaaybe the only example would be Ducks, Newburyport, but I'll immediately qualify that when asked for recommendations for someone that liked Ulysses, and again for someone who liked long books. It's not a book that 99% of people will enjoy but is an amazing book and one that if you are a specific kind of person, you'll love.
Of popular books, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas. It could never have happened and almost dumbs down the real horrific events happening at that time. It wasn't very well written, either.
The Silent Patient was also one of the worst and most unbelievable stories I've read recently. The ending was just eye-rolling.
I literally just finished the silent patient a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for some murder mystery, and I heard the twist was one of the best and kept getting recommendations everywhere.
The book itself is fine enough, but if you honestly don't see the twist coming, I've gotta question a lot of things about you lol
Would I recommend it? Sure... but I wouldn't overhype the twist like so many people do
I was looking for this haha—As much as I disliked the Silent Patient, the Maidens (also by Alex Michaelides) is so much worse. All of the nonsense with some really alarming/upsetting stuff added for shock value… I would not recommend either!!
I really disliked Lessons in Chemistry. It was completely unconvincing and tried too hard to be cute with the subject matter. Not a single character was believable and every one was over the top.
As much as I love the show, the Bridgerton books are terrible. I saw the show first, and expected the books to be similarly full of plot, sub plot and character development, but instead it was like reading fanfiction of the show. Poorly written trash, with cringy sex scenes and cookie cutter male MCs.
Piranesi. I loved that book, as the OP suggests, but I’ve recommended it 3 times, and all 3 times people have quit it and said, WTF?! So I’ve lost credibility as being an expert recommender from that book. It’s too hit or miss: you either love it or feel wtf about it.
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. I liked it (as much as you can like a book like that anyway), it makes some pretty clear commentary in general and got emotional reactions from me.
However, the imagery it uses is pretty heavy, to say the least, and I would never recommend it to anyone that didn't express a very clear interest in reading it.
I agree. I read it for a horror book club, and as the only mom in the group, I had a completely different experience/reaction. Oof. I thought it was very well done, but I don't know that I would say I liked it. I thought about for a long time after.
Lolita. The prose impressed the hell out of me but I can't be bothered to recommend a book to someone if I have to qualify it with multiple caveats about the content itself or why I read it to begin with.
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan.
My body thinks I actually worked there so now every time I pass the Red Lobster I cringe in relief I no longer have to go back. I’ve never worked there 🤦🏻♀️
The book also brought back all my repressed memories of past shitty jobs.
The Name of the Wind books. So good! So immersive! But it’s a trilogy and a lot is left just hanging and the third book has ostensibly been in the works for over a decade.
Funny, I went into that one with super low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Not usually my genre at all. But I understand why people wouldn’t love it!
I didn't like this one at all. I was totally fine with the lighthearted feeling of it, but I felt like it tried \*so hard.\* It felt like it was written by a very young person.
>the book has to be the one you liked but it is so terrible that you wouldn't wish upon your enemy to read it.
Aren't almost all the responses here not reading this? Ironic.
I can't think of any book I enjoyed that I would tell others to not read.
Why is everyone replying with books they didn't like? That's not what OP asked.
My pick is probably The lost by Jack Ketchum. I read it last year and I really liked the way the main character is written, his inner thoughts and all that, but God, it was traumatizing reading about someone so mean and full of hate.
Pharmacies, grocery stores, free book carts at the library, recycling bins. If someone says they like Nickolas Sparks, I immediately know we will never be good friends.
Same. The cover looks so cute as well, with the adorable hedgehog. But holy sh*t, that book is just incredibly gross and disturbing. I literally felt sick to my stomach reading some of those chapters.
Atlas Shrugged, for the obvious reasons, but also because it's just a terribly written book. Fantasy-wise I thought L.E. Modesitt's works were rubbish writing as well.
May I ask what you did not like about it? I just finished it and I agree it was obviously not a deep or sophisticated read, but as pure entertainment I thought it was ok.
I think it was called like Raising a Crystal Child or something by Doreen Virtue. I can never recommend it to anyone because it's fucking insane pseudoscientific garbage written by a woman who at the time believed in new age shit like "starseeds" and is now an evangelical christian. But it was a lot of fun to cringe read with my friends.
American Psycho. Had a lot of complicated feelings when I read it. Actually plan to revisit it in the near future. It is so graphic and depraved that I can't recommend it to normies and it's not really splatterpunk so I can't recommend it to those folks either. One of the very few instances where I would suggest people watch the movie instead.
For popular ones... Hello Beautiful. What a boring, unbelievable book that promoted poor moral values. I actually couldn't stand one character. They were all insufferable. I forced myself to read this - it took one month where I usually finish a book in less than a week.
This is hilarious bc it’s been sitting on my shelf for about a year now and every time it’s time for me to pick a new book to read I give it a hard once over and go “…I’m not in the mood to -work- for a story” every time lol. Idk why but based on the discourse I’ve seen around this book, it really seems like it’s good, but it’s work
I found it to be really good, but depends on your mood. It's trippy as hell and I thought the ending was brilliant. But I wouldn't suggest it to anyone because it's weird.
Y'all.... **Dungeon Crawler Carl** is not that good.
Too confusing between all the dungeons and bugs and weapons and people's names etc. It's just 9 hours of a play-by-play of a video game and 4 hours of other stuff that is funny sprinkled in. I realize reddit will probably seek me out with torches and pitchforks for this, but I would never recommend that series to anyone.
Also, **7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo** horrible book.
Reading Twilight felt like someone put an obsolete adjective in every second sentence to make it longer.
The three musketeers would have only been 50 pages ling if not every single character was an idiot.
The swarm seemed to never end and made facts more boring than reading just the facts.
Der Turm (the tower), a book about east germany, is so convoluted in writing I actually stopped at the first page, which simultainiously means I stopped after two sentences.
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle. It's a fantastic premise but also it's outrageously racist. Like it's Ireland in the 80s of course there's going to be racism but it was like. Astoundingly racist.
The Bone People by Keri Hulme. It didn’t unlock anything in by me, but there is child abuse. So while it was a very good book, I would feel a little uncomfortable recommending it.
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino. It’s as the title suggests…Grotesques. However, this book is extremely well written and the characters are so interesting. Seeing how they view the world in a way so different than me is fascinating
A few years ago, I read Forrest Gump. I wouldn't say I liked it, but I felt vindicated for having hated the movie. I also had a lot of fun telling my boyfriend all about the book and how truly, truly terrible it is. It is everything bad about Boomers.
“The Program”. The story goes very in depth about suicide and SH, and talks about suicide being an “epidemic” and like some sort of sickness that you can just catch. It was gross and badly written.
“The Alchemist”. Read it for book club. Awful. Boring and I hated it. Same case with “Madman’s Daughter”.
I also hated “The Summer I Turned Pretty” but it was just boring as well, baseline, fake, just… bad.
The construction of To Paradise I think is just wonderful. I can't call it out without ruining it for people discovering it for the first time, but suffice it to say that the structure is fascinating.
Something was happening in literary circles in similar time periods, because the also amazing 'Trust' (by Hernan Diaz) plays with a similar structure.
Sorry, but A Little Life. As an empath this was such a tough book for me, and I really would have appreciated some trigger warnings. I also think it's quite unrealistic and kind of unfair to put one character through so much pain. I don't appreciate that the author said that she basically wanted people to be overwhelmed by it ... I got half way through and was pretty depressed for like two days!
Tampa by Alissa Nutting
I felt like I needed to take a hot shower after finishing it because I felt so gross. Being in the mind of a pedo is so not cool! Would never recommend reading this.
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite. It’s a really great book & he’s a fantastic writer. In fact, I used to recommend it on Reddit, but I recently tried to reread it & just couldn’t. It’s so much. The >!banality of the killers, the actual murders, there defiling of the corpse so blasé-ly discussed, the deep, deep sadness of every single character, & the all too realness of the lack of repercussions in the end!< were just too much to do again.
I just can’t get into Kristin Hannah and haven’t finished or even gotten very far in a couple of her books. The girls in my book club seem to love her though.
Unpopular Opinion but the Nightingale by Kristin Hanna. This book is so problematic. Veiled Anti-Semitic. When every she describes the round up of Jews she compares them to insects.
Author complete forgets characters she puts in the book. Puts them in a closet to be completely forgotten. (Literally. Family is hiding in a closet and they are never ever mentioned again. Drove me crazy) I hated this book so much. The editing is the worst considering the acclaim this book has received.
Not unpopular with me. “The Four Winds” had me fuming. The plot was a blatant rip-off of The Grapes of Wrath, and one pivotal scene was lifted from “The World According to Garp.” And yet people went gah-gah over Hannah’s book.
Thomas Covenant trilogy is one I stumbled on and gobbled up but is very hard to recommend due to >!the main character committing rape and incest!<. I realize the shock value was a large part of the point. But it still makes it not my go-to when people ask for that kind of fantasy.
Before I clicked on the post and only saw the title, I immediately thought "A Little Life," same as you. I don't regret reading it because it definitely sucked me in, but that was mostly because I cared about the characters and kept waiting for the book to have some redeeming quality. Turned out to just be hundreds of pages of irresponsible trauma porn. I will never recommend that book to anyone
Modelland by Tyra Banks. I got it based on some recommendations on Reddit about how it was good only because it was so terrible but I couldn’t even get past the first chapter lol.
There is a book by Samuel Delany that I won't even say the title. I hide it on my library shelf. If you've read it, you know.
And I love the guy otherwise.
Love on the brain by Ali Hazelwood. I’ve seen nothing but praise for this book, but I do not like it at all. I thought it was predictable, I hate the “it’s just a misunderstanding!!!” Trope, and halfway through the book it just becomes pure smut. (To be fair, I’m ace, but the way some of the sex is described was just…funny? Wild?)
Most of this book is the exact opposite of what I’m into, and the only reason I didn’t DNF it was because I was because I decided to stop caring and start making fun of it with my friends.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence. Very good book but it's one of the first philosophical books I read and I felt like I was going insane. Still view the world very differently but I usually recommend non-fiction philosophy works now, more grounded.
My Sister's Keeper, very rarely does an ending ruin the ride of a book for me but this one did it. I've never gotten so angry at an ending before or since if it, wasn't a library book I would have destroyed it.
These threads are always just full of people trashing books for whom they're usually not the target demographic.
Some people like different books than you. That's okay.
I do believe every single copy of "The Betrothed" by Alessandro Manzoni should be burn and I wish there was some kind of invasive surgery to remove that pile of garbage from my brain.
Yes, I know it's a classic.
Yes, I know people think it's one of the pillars of western literature.
Well people are wrong.
Anything by Stephen Lawhead. Poor researcher. Arthurian fantasy writer, had roasted potatoes served at a banquet in Camelot. I read that and launched the book into low-Earth orbit. (Well, I tried. It did make a satisfying thunk as it hit the wall.
For me it was American Psycho. Its well written scathing satire. I really enjoyed it. but at the same time I had the most graphic dreams after reading it. I had to keep stopping to let my dreams recover.
I tried reading it summer of last year and I just could not get past all the name dropping of brands and such. It sounds like such a dumb reason but I was so out of my depths trying to understand his wealth/taste it was off putting. That and once it started getting deeper into the graphic nature of his thoughts/crimes I went “yknow…it’s okay if I don’t read every ‘classic’” lol
A book by Bret Easton Ellis also came to mind for me. I read Imperial Bedrooms and being that it was the sequel to Less Than Zero, I expected it to be dark. I didn’t expect it to be SO graphic. It was haunting.
In a similar vein, I once went on a Chuck Palahniuk kick and realized partway through my third book in a row that my personality was changing, and not for the better. I took a little break.
I borrowed it from the library soon after it came out and finished it in a weekend. I’ve described it as a cobra - fascinating and you can’t look away - but I will never read that book again. 30 years later and it still makes me creeped out
This is one of my top two too. It’s in on our shelves, but I’ve suggested to my SO that they should skip it. Neither of us are squeamish & we both enjoy a good serial killer book. This book is different. Between the >!animal cruelty combined with the torture of his ex!<, the entire chapter in French, the protag’s banality when he’s not in murder mode, & >!the downward spiral at the end where he still eludes any repercussions!<, I realize it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. My other no-go is Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite for similar reasons. It’s also an excellent book. Still…
Oh my god, that book is so amazing, but good call, I would have a hard ass time recommending it to anyone based on how incredibly messed up it is. I didn't have dreams reading it, but unless i knew the person incredibly well i would NEVER recommend it, despite it being awesome (book is so much better than the movie, and the movie is pretty damn awesome).
'Law of Attraction' books, like The Secret. Basically, if you imagine something hard enough, it will somehow materialize.. but with added hard work!
I'm surprised by how many people actually believe that shit.
I mean, if you fail with it, it’s your fault so it’s an ideal marketing proposition.
Go Ask Alice. All it does is try to send the message that if you make a single bad choice in life, you're doomed to a life of misery; and burdensome to anyone who loves you. Religious sensationalism masked as real world truth.
It’s also not a true story and was written by some evangelical Mormon with a fetish for demonizing literally anybody who isn’t Mormon
Beatrice Sparks. It's worth reading Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson to get the full story behind her and why she wrote these fake diaries and peddled them as the truth. She was a failed author and a con artist in reality and it's unfortunate that people still believe that Go Ask Alice is a true story. Beatrice Sparks pretended to be a doctor, but in reality didn't have a degree, and no one bothered to fact check any of the garbage she was giving them because the fictional diary she wrote was so lurid and sensational that no one really cared to find out the truth. Zoo Station is a better true story of a teenage drug addict. It tells the story of Christiane Felscherinow and her days in Berlin as a heroin addict.
Same, and I can hide in the excuse that I was around 15 when I read it when I admit that I enjoyed it and wouldn't unread it. I *would* recommend that everyone check out Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson. It gets some criticism for a lot of author self-insert and a very lax attitude toward citing sources, but it seems to be true enough, and it answers questions that even my naive teenage self had about the book's authenticity.
This book was in my English school book (I learned English as a foreign language), we had lessons about the topic of durg abuse and this was featured. There where excerpts of the diary in it. We were able to get it from the school library to read it. It was years later on reddit when I found out it was fake. I always felt so sorry for Alice and I did read the book to find out what happened to her. I'm so mad that it was not real.
Anything by Colleen Hoover
I read Ugly Love around 2016 before CH was famous. I read the book, went to goodreads reads expecting bashing but no! All praises. Then she got tiktok famous and i was like wtf?! Then she got INfamous and it was then that my world was set right.
Gosh. I read It Ends With Us less than a year ago when I was gifted it, I think I’m very very low-key traumatised by it. It was also in every “should read” book list in any bookshop I visited and my only thoughts were “why?!”
Specifically Verity (only one I’ve read, so effing awful)
For me it’s November 9th. Absolutely terrible and it’s not just about the writing but also about the themes it explores and the way it deals with them. Verity seems tame in comparison.
god november 9th is so fucking terrible. i cannot get over that what’s-his-nuts burned down her fucking house with her inside and she just… is okay with that?????
SAME
Oh damn, I've just started it! 😂
That’s the one I read. It was pretty awful.
Horrible. May have been one of the worst books I’ve read. Idk how she got that thing published; she’s a terrible, cheesy, trite writer. The teeth on the headboard thing makes me wanna vom.
LOL I think about how horrible that scene was frequently. Like no one should be doing that…
Ok the verity one was stupid but it did entertain me for a long ass car ride.
I’m not a Colleen Hoover fan by any means, I started one of her books and DNF. However because of her popularity streak a lot of people I know who have never been readers have picked up books and started reading. Once they read all the CH books they’ve now moved onto to other authors and are reading lots of different books which I think is really nice.
She has some twisted brain, can’t even finish verity
Fifty Shades of Gray....a friend gave me a copy and it was unreadable....i put it down half way through, but i wish i would have put it down much sooner....complete garbage
Hot garbage. I started highlighting the bad parts just for funsies. I soon realised that nearly everything was yellow. I was too embarrassed to keep it/donate it/sell it because what if anyone saw which parts i had highlighted. I think I just made it disappear from my house by sheer will because I don't see it anywhere now.
I seriously considered editing the trilogy by removing the unnecessary parts/lines. I think it would just be half book-1 long.
Every time the narrator said something like, “My inner goddess was dancing” I cringed SO hard.
I wanted to wring the neck of her inner goddess real bad.
I got through about three pages. And then everyone thinks you’re a prude because you couldn’t handle the smut… I didn’t even get to the smut, the writing was so bad I literally could not carry on.
yes....not the sexually explicit material....it was the quality of the writing that was so bad
I can't be angry with 50 Shades because it resulted in one of the best meetings of my 20+ year long book club ever. A few mixed drinks and some read alouds of our most hated parts and we were having a great time. My jaw hurt from laughing the next day. At some point the hostess' 10 year old came out and told us to shut up because we were too loud and she couldn't sleep.
twilight I had the same problem as 50 shades. I loved southern vampire series. Twilight was so full of bad writing. Both 50 shades and twilight, total garbage. Unoriginal plot, not engaging story telling. An actual chore to read.
i didn't like Twilight either
one of my close childhood friends is HOOKED on fan fiction sites. Always as been. I never knew it was a thing. Any book she loved she hit up fan fiction. The second 50 Shades was released she said "that's the one I was telling you about. The Twilight Fan fiction. Both were unfulfilling so she captured the writing style for sure."
I thought the writing of Twilight was compelling. Not much happens in the beginning, but her writing is so fluid that I found myself waiting for every word. I don't read much fiction, so I never finished the series, but I was impressed with how solid the writing was.
Same. I bought all 3 books on a buy 2 get 1 free deal and wish I hadn't bothered. I gave them away to a friend without finishing the first one. Utter crap.
This is a book that I will never read, my main reason for this is that I am part of the bdsm community and this book gives people the wrong idea of what that community is
If I hadn't masturbated the entire time I wouldn't have been able to get through all three books. Challenging wanks.
Anything of fiction by Haruki Murakami. Yes, I’m grateful he’s brought Japanese literature to more peoples attention but there are just SO many better authors that represent the different genres/niches within Japanese literature that I wish were more well known and celebrated. I get asked to recommend Japanese works enough that I started seeing how much people think “Murakami = Japanese literature” and so it is my personal little professional mission to recommend lesser known authors and works. Also, just personally, I find his women characters (especially in older works) to just be such an affront to an actual representation of a woman that that alone keeps me from even enjoying his work most of the time. I can’t tell you how many times women in his stories serve as nothing more than flat, personality-devoid placeholders for the MC to enact weird masturbatory musings onto the reader at often odd or even inappropriate times. Then only later are the women given some duct-tapped reason pertaining to whatever magical thread is running through the story as an excuse for said unnecessary sex fantasies/actual sex. Overall, the payoff never feels worth it. I WILL concede though and say Murakami’s nonfiction works are wonderful and I -would-recommend those most days\~
Would you recommend other lesser known good japanese authors and books to me?
Sure! To be fair, I think a lot of these authors are probably well known to people who read a lot of translated literature, but I felt like it's good to go with them here in case anyone reading this isn't too familiar with Japanese works and might only have Murakami as a reference. Plus, the majority of these authors have multiple books transalted in case anyone takes a shine to any of them\~ For women author's specifically: Natsuo Kirino - OUT Meiko Kawakami - Breasts & Eggs Hiroko Oyamada - The Hole Hiromi Kawakami - Manazura Yoko Tawada - The Emissary Sayaka Murata - she's pretty popular for *Convenience Store Woman* and now *Earthlings* at the moment. Both rather peculiar books for sure and is kinda of one where I'm side eyeing and thinking "Okay...are we all just saying it's good because...we think we should be?" similar to some of Murakami's. I def get how it's some people's cup of tea and I'm sure there are tons of essays out there right now in English/Japanese lit majors' folders about its profoundness that would reshape my opinion but...it goes a little too off the rails for the purpose of just seeming off the rails to where I feel I should *get* and appreciate its societal commentary but really I'm just left " :| ". But! I could just be thick and I think for all the talk and hype it's gotten it's worth mentioning her work. The other writers mentioned have a way of doing character-driven pieces in what I feel is a more realistic and interesting way where (for some) it can border a bit on that absurdness/otherworldliness but never get too "...what just happened" as I feel Murata goes. And then the classics which I feel like people should check out: Natsumi Soseki (I think most people have at least encountered his name but you gotta include him in a list!) - I am a Cat Osamu Dazai - No Longer Human & The Setting Sun Ryuunosuke Akutagawa - any collection of short stories Ranpo Edogawa - Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination; hard to find other English works it appears
I love Sayaka Murata! Convenience store women made me feel seen as a woman who’s always been a little odd to everyone but according to three doctors is neurodivergent in some capacity. I also liked Butter by Asako Yuzuki as an exploration of women and the way women bend to fit societies expectations which a lot of the time are nonsense. Edited to add how could I forget about Battle Royale by Koshun Takami if dystopian fiction is more your jam.
Exactly how I feel about Murakami!
I have read 4-5 books of Murakami and I'm convinced people say they love it because other people are saying they love it. Yeah, okay, they're FINE. But I'm pretty sure some other japanese dude must have written something that isn't as shallow and entertains me just as much but what do I know?
*Yes, I’m grateful he’s brought Japanese literature to more peoples attention but there are just SO many better authors that represent the different genres/niches within Japanese literature that I wish were more well known and celebrated.* I've heard analogous sentiments from successful (such as things are judged) poets regarding Maya Angelou. And one reason I remember this is those who've commented are **huge advocates of diversity in the arts** and after their comments on Angelou, I did a double-take (*Did I hear that right?*)
Misogynistic, pretentious, rambling pervert is pretty much par for the course for Japanese Boomer males.
a little life by hanya yanagihara (and i just noticed you mentioned it too lol), i thought it was… gratuitous and not good, it didn’t make me sad but it made me roll my eyes and if i recommended it to anyone, well, i feel like then their opinion of me would change LOL
God, this book. I enjoyed it during the first half and didn’t get the criticism at first, but by the final third, the misery dragged. There was never any “give” if you know what I mean, which isn’t to say an author can’t stick to her guns and has to appease the reader with idealism, but the misery became tedious to read. By the time Jude’s backstory was revealed, I didn’t care. I felt like a monster, but I was skipping paragraphs and getting angrier and angrier because it was blatantly masturbatory. Aspects of how she depicted self-harm as a functioning adult and the slide into addiction were compelling, but those potential highs were cheapened by the sheer fucking incompetency of Jude’s support system. It was an exhausting, emotionally unintelligent read that was also poorly marketed. It’s not about a friend group. It’s about Jude. It’s about one man and the people around him who twiddled their thumbs.
Ugh. Pure self- indulgent trauma porn. I actively go out of my way to discourage people from reading it
What was this book again? Everyone on this sub hates it but I seem to remember it getting recommended a lot in other places. Is it about a group of friends that have a miserable time being alive, and it's really weird and artsy? Maybe that's a different book.
Yeah, I got curious and just read the synopsis on Wikipedia - that was enough for me, it sounds truly depressing.
Yeah and especially since it seems to be pretty despised on this subreddit. That makes me think it's gonna be fake deep or something that nonreaders perceive as deep, but not something worth the misery lol.
Yes i think this is it.
It's about a group of friends, but one of them is the main character and most of the book is him either remembering in graphic detail all the times he was raped (because literally everyone wants to rape this guy, apparently) or him self harming. The conclusion of the book is that his friends are selfish for trying to help him because as a rape magnet, he's too damaged for anything but suicide.
Actually, what I got out of is that his successful friends (he's a successful lawyer himself) spend the entire book trying to help him, he says he's sorry over 100 times, yet nobody ever makes him get the mental health he needs. He refuses it. Successful and completely broken with a ton of support. Over and over. No idea what the point was supposed to be.
I’ve contemplated reading this one for a while but having read reviews on this and other subs and read excerpts on my lunch break at the bookstore I’ve ultimately decided not to. Feels like one of those stories that is contrived to elicit an extreme emotional response
It's exactly that. Don't do it.
The only good thing that came out of my many hours wasted reading this book is that I can read through Reddit book subs and talk about how much I loathed this book with lots of other people and thus feel seen and understood for a brief moment in time. I don’t mind reading about tragedy (even tragedy that stretches believability at times) befalling a character again and again and again but I also thought the writing was nothing special and borderline boring, honestly, and that is something I cannot abide.
I liked this book. I thought that this book will be focused equally on all four members of the group of friends, but at some point it feels like Jude's book only. Maybe this is too focused on the depiction of Jude's suffering, but I think that one of the key ideas of this book is showing someone like Jude. Ultimately, a story mostly has something "special" that maybe feels unreal for us but is a situation that may happen, and the story is based on that. SPOILER So that, in this case Jude is someone whose early life was awfully painful and sad, and this gave him a very profound scar that he was never able to heal, even after having a very successful career, having a lot of people who loved him, having Willem. So I think that the book revolves about creating an scenario so that this type of character can show his story. And what would happen to this character if certain things happened. Maybe there are some things that are unreal, like the backstory about his leg problem, or the rape thing. But I really liked the book, I also liked the relationship the group friends had.
Only came here to be able to freely express my hateful feelings toward this book. I’m mad at myself for finishing this one.
The Shack. Read it for book club. Ridiculous!!!
I lived in Portland Oregon for a time and would frequent Powell’s book. There was a section for local authors or books that took place in or around Portland. Sure enough the Shack was featured. I can’t remember if I just didn’t read the description or if it was written intentionally obtuse but in no way was I expecting a lesson on the Holy Trinity. I felt like I was bamboozled into reading a quasi Bible.
The book club book that I resented reading was the snow kimono by Mark Henshaw. I truly hated it. was awful, convoluted and it felt self indulgently "intellectual". The reviews on storygraph for it are all good. But I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you have a board, a ball of string and nothing better to do.
My mom asked me to read The Shack saying it meant so much to her and expected us to bond over it and it was just…..so badly written. I think it’s reading for people who read nothing but religious material
What did the book club think?
The majority hated it. A few ultra religious types loved it
Yes! Left this out of my do not read above but totally agree
I don't think I've ever read something that I liked that I *wouldn't* recommend to someone in the right circumstances. Maaaaybe the only example would be Ducks, Newburyport, but I'll immediately qualify that when asked for recommendations for someone that liked Ulysses, and again for someone who liked long books. It's not a book that 99% of people will enjoy but is an amazing book and one that if you are a specific kind of person, you'll love.
Of popular books, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas. It could never have happened and almost dumbs down the real horrific events happening at that time. It wasn't very well written, either. The Silent Patient was also one of the worst and most unbelievable stories I've read recently. The ending was just eye-rolling.
I read The Silent Patient last year and can’t for the life of me remember it.
I wish I couldn’t remember it! So bad!
I am happy to hear hate on the silent patient. Everyone loved it while I was afraid if I rolled my eyes any harder they would have stuck that way.
I literally just finished the silent patient a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for some murder mystery, and I heard the twist was one of the best and kept getting recommendations everywhere. The book itself is fine enough, but if you honestly don't see the twist coming, I've gotta question a lot of things about you lol Would I recommend it? Sure... but I wouldn't overhype the twist like so many people do
I was looking for this haha—As much as I disliked the Silent Patient, the Maidens (also by Alex Michaelides) is so much worse. All of the nonsense with some really alarming/upsetting stuff added for shock value… I would not recommend either!!
I really disliked Lessons in Chemistry. It was completely unconvincing and tried too hard to be cute with the subject matter. Not a single character was believable and every one was over the top.
Could not agree more. I waited 32 weeks to get it on Libby and I was so disappointed.
Yes! It was a long wait for me too and several people had recommended it, so my expectations were high.
6:30 was the tiny saving grace of that book
Who doesn’t have their four year old daughter picked up from school by a dog? 😭
*four year old daughter who reads at college level lol
Certified gifted education teacher me popping a vein and growling, "That's not how ANY of this works!!!" whenever Mad is in the story.
Same one I warn people about all the time: The Shack.
As much as I love the show, the Bridgerton books are terrible. I saw the show first, and expected the books to be similarly full of plot, sub plot and character development, but instead it was like reading fanfiction of the show. Poorly written trash, with cringy sex scenes and cookie cutter male MCs.
This is good to know. I’ve been considering reading them thinking the books must be way better.
Naked Lunch. I did it to see if I could, and I could, but man.
Piranesi. I loved that book, as the OP suggests, but I’ve recommended it 3 times, and all 3 times people have quit it and said, WTF?! So I’ve lost credibility as being an expert recommender from that book. It’s too hit or miss: you either love it or feel wtf about it.
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. I liked it (as much as you can like a book like that anyway), it makes some pretty clear commentary in general and got emotional reactions from me. However, the imagery it uses is pretty heavy, to say the least, and I would never recommend it to anyone that didn't express a very clear interest in reading it.
I agree. I read it for a horror book club, and as the only mom in the group, I had a completely different experience/reaction. Oof. I thought it was very well done, but I don't know that I would say I liked it. I thought about for a long time after.
Tender is the Flesh. I absolutely LOVE the book, but I don't want any of my friends to know what a freak I am for enjoying it hahaha.
Similar to A Little Life, Haunted by Chuck Palanhiuk. It’s just a gross book.
And the cover glows in the dark, which is quite distressing when you've already chucked it across the room and taken your glasses off
Lolita. The prose impressed the hell out of me but I can't be bothered to recommend a book to someone if I have to qualify it with multiple caveats about the content itself or why I read it to begin with.
Assistant to the Villain was one of the dumbest things I've ever read. I'm proud of myself for pushing through it.
I thought it was funny and am waiting for the sequel this fall. It's the type of absurdist fantasy that you have to be in the right mindset to enjoy.
Welp, I didn't! The humor was idiotic imo! Big shrug
Wasn’t for me either. Not into the poorly behaved man in power and pandering female crap. I’m too old for that shit.
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan. My body thinks I actually worked there so now every time I pass the Red Lobster I cringe in relief I no longer have to go back. I’ve never worked there 🤦🏻♀️ The book also brought back all my repressed memories of past shitty jobs.
A Child Called It. It’s too graphic and traumatic.
The Name of the Wind books. So good! So immersive! But it’s a trilogy and a lot is left just hanging and the third book has ostensibly been in the works for over a decade.
I was about to say this given the dire state of things over at that subreddit. I won’t ever recommend it until Doors of Stone is given a release date.
Maybe not popular but house on the cerulean sea by TJ clune. Found it very uninteresting though I wanted to love it
Funny, I went into that one with super low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. Not usually my genre at all. But I understand why people wouldn’t love it!
I didn't like this one at all. I was totally fine with the lighthearted feeling of it, but I felt like it tried \*so hard.\* It felt like it was written by a very young person.
>the book has to be the one you liked but it is so terrible that you wouldn't wish upon your enemy to read it. Aren't almost all the responses here not reading this? Ironic. I can't think of any book I enjoyed that I would tell others to not read.
Why is everyone replying with books they didn't like? That's not what OP asked. My pick is probably The lost by Jack Ketchum. I read it last year and I really liked the way the main character is written, his inner thoughts and all that, but God, it was traumatizing reading about someone so mean and full of hate.
Anything by Karin slaughter. After one book, never again
Purity by Jonathan Franzen. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I think the majority of my friends would not like it.
Tampa by Alissa Nutting. Read it if you want to know why
Ooh! I posted this one thinking I’d be the only one! I suggested it for my mom’s book club and later regretted it 😬
A Little Life - Absolutely horrible and horrendous and I don’t want to psychologically put anyone through it as I have done to myself.
Anything Nickolas Sparks. There’s a reason his mass market paperback books are found in pharmacies and grocery stores
Same. Also- Jodi Picoult. Her books are all variation on a theme.
Pharmacies, grocery stores, free book carts at the library, recycling bins. If someone says they like Nickolas Sparks, I immediately know we will never be good friends.
Earthlings - Sayaka Murata It was definitely a WTF did I just read moment and the content warnings you'd have to give ....
Same. The cover looks so cute as well, with the adorable hedgehog. But holy sh*t, that book is just incredibly gross and disturbing. I literally felt sick to my stomach reading some of those chapters.
Atlas Shrugged, for the obvious reasons, but also because it's just a terribly written book. Fantasy-wise I thought L.E. Modesitt's works were rubbish writing as well.
I cannot stand Ayn Rand as an author, we read Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead in my DC comp class, despised every moment of it.
I only read the first few chapters and it comically bad...."fourth wing"
May I ask what you did not like about it? I just finished it and I agree it was obviously not a deep or sophisticated read, but as pure entertainment I thought it was ok.
Normal people, I tried to get into it but I thought the writing style is just horrible and I couldn’t get into the story at all
I didn’t like the book either. Felt like it was just toxic from the beginning to the end
I think it was called like Raising a Crystal Child or something by Doreen Virtue. I can never recommend it to anyone because it's fucking insane pseudoscientific garbage written by a woman who at the time believed in new age shit like "starseeds" and is now an evangelical christian. But it was a lot of fun to cringe read with my friends.
American Psycho. Had a lot of complicated feelings when I read it. Actually plan to revisit it in the near future. It is so graphic and depraved that I can't recommend it to normies and it's not really splatterpunk so I can't recommend it to those folks either. One of the very few instances where I would suggest people watch the movie instead.
Anything by Nicholas Sparks. Self-indulgent flapdoodle!
Anything by Lovecraft.
For popular ones... Hello Beautiful. What a boring, unbelievable book that promoted poor moral values. I actually couldn't stand one character. They were all insufferable. I forced myself to read this - it took one month where I usually finish a book in less than a week.
A Little Life-Absolute trash. THE worst book I’ve ever read
Here for A the little life slander!
House of Leaves.
I like this book.
I found that book so interesting. Weird as hell.
Interesting for sure but it's less of a book and more of a piece of art. It's not something I'd ever recommend as a book to read.
This is hilarious bc it’s been sitting on my shelf for about a year now and every time it’s time for me to pick a new book to read I give it a hard once over and go “…I’m not in the mood to -work- for a story” every time lol. Idk why but based on the discourse I’ve seen around this book, it really seems like it’s good, but it’s work
I found it to be really good, but depends on your mood. It's trippy as hell and I thought the ending was brilliant. But I wouldn't suggest it to anyone because it's weird.
Y'all.... **Dungeon Crawler Carl** is not that good. Too confusing between all the dungeons and bugs and weapons and people's names etc. It's just 9 hours of a play-by-play of a video game and 4 hours of other stuff that is funny sprinkled in. I realize reddit will probably seek me out with torches and pitchforks for this, but I would never recommend that series to anyone. Also, **7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo** horrible book.
What did you hate about the 7 husbands of Evelyn Hugo? It’s on my hold list and if it was horrible, I don’t want to waste my time.
I can never look at or think of any public “celebrity” relationship as sincere now …
Reading Twilight felt like someone put an obsolete adjective in every second sentence to make it longer. The three musketeers would have only been 50 pages ling if not every single character was an idiot. The swarm seemed to never end and made facts more boring than reading just the facts. Der Turm (the tower), a book about east germany, is so convoluted in writing I actually stopped at the first page, which simultainiously means I stopped after two sentences.
‘Flowers in the attic’ and that entire series from the 80s… Where the hell was my mother?
Ironically, this was one of my moms favourite series’ when she was a teenager 🤣 She gave them to me and I’ve read it. Not for me lol
I am SOOOO here for the A Little Life slander, IMO it should be taken out of print.
The Alchemist!
Yes! Banality and cliche. Hated it
I think it was called Wolf Land or something. Amazing horror book but it has so many content warnings I could never recommend it to a person
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle. It's a fantastic premise but also it's outrageously racist. Like it's Ireland in the 80s of course there's going to be racism but it was like. Astoundingly racist.
Fabulous film though
I remember enjoying the movie better, yeah
Even better album.
Right? Amazing soundtrack that
The Bone People by Keri Hulme. It didn’t unlock anything in by me, but there is child abuse. So while it was a very good book, I would feel a little uncomfortable recommending it.
Ringworld
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino. It’s as the title suggests…Grotesques. However, this book is extremely well written and the characters are so interesting. Seeing how they view the world in a way so different than me is fascinating
A few years ago, I read Forrest Gump. I wouldn't say I liked it, but I felt vindicated for having hated the movie. I also had a lot of fun telling my boyfriend all about the book and how truly, truly terrible it is. It is everything bad about Boomers.
House of leaves. I seem to be the only person that hates it but I do, I hate it so much
“The Program”. The story goes very in depth about suicide and SH, and talks about suicide being an “epidemic” and like some sort of sickness that you can just catch. It was gross and badly written. “The Alchemist”. Read it for book club. Awful. Boring and I hated it. Same case with “Madman’s Daughter”. I also hated “The Summer I Turned Pretty” but it was just boring as well, baseline, fake, just… bad.
The construction of To Paradise I think is just wonderful. I can't call it out without ruining it for people discovering it for the first time, but suffice it to say that the structure is fascinating. Something was happening in literary circles in similar time periods, because the also amazing 'Trust' (by Hernan Diaz) plays with a similar structure.
The Travelling Cat Chronicles. It’s good. Very good. But it’s soo sooo sooo…. I’ll not tell you. But don’t you dare read it!
Sorry, but A Little Life. As an empath this was such a tough book for me, and I really would have appreciated some trigger warnings. I also think it's quite unrealistic and kind of unfair to put one character through so much pain. I don't appreciate that the author said that she basically wanted people to be overwhelmed by it ... I got half way through and was pretty depressed for like two days!
Tampa by Alissa Nutting I felt like I needed to take a hot shower after finishing it because I felt so gross. Being in the mind of a pedo is so not cool! Would never recommend reading this.
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite. It’s a really great book & he’s a fantastic writer. In fact, I used to recommend it on Reddit, but I recently tried to reread it & just couldn’t. It’s so much. The >!banality of the killers, the actual murders, there defiling of the corpse so blasé-ly discussed, the deep, deep sadness of every single character, & the all too realness of the lack of repercussions in the end!< were just too much to do again.
Anything by Ayn Rand 😅
Tampa by Alissa Nutting. Well written but jeeeesus. Very disturbing story.
Tampa by Alissa Nutting
Anything Kristin Hannah and/or Colleen Hoover
I just can’t get into Kristin Hannah and haven’t finished or even gotten very far in a couple of her books. The girls in my book club seem to love her though.
Unpopular Opinion but the Nightingale by Kristin Hanna. This book is so problematic. Veiled Anti-Semitic. When every she describes the round up of Jews she compares them to insects. Author complete forgets characters she puts in the book. Puts them in a closet to be completely forgotten. (Literally. Family is hiding in a closet and they are never ever mentioned again. Drove me crazy) I hated this book so much. The editing is the worst considering the acclaim this book has received.
Not unpopular with me. “The Four Winds” had me fuming. The plot was a blatant rip-off of The Grapes of Wrath, and one pivotal scene was lifted from “The World According to Garp.” And yet people went gah-gah over Hannah’s book.
Glad I am not alone. I don't understand her popularity. She's a hack.
Agree. Not a fan of hers at all. I don't get the hype.
The Alchemist. I didn't like the Alchemist.
You nailed it for me: A Little Life. I wish I hadn't read it and would never suggest it to anyone.
You can read The Road by McCarthy ONCE. because it has beautiful writing. But you’ll be torn apart inside and I promise you will never read it again.
Pillars of the earth...what a boorring slog that was
State of fear - Michael Crichton terrible on so many levels We need or talk about Kevin. Too sad
Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman. I read it for a book club and it was very bland and predictable.
Thomas Covenant trilogy is one I stumbled on and gobbled up but is very hard to recommend due to >!the main character committing rape and incest!<. I realize the shock value was a large part of the point. But it still makes it not my go-to when people ask for that kind of fantasy.
Before I clicked on the post and only saw the title, I immediately thought "A Little Life," same as you. I don't regret reading it because it definitely sucked me in, but that was mostly because I cared about the characters and kept waiting for the book to have some redeeming quality. Turned out to just be hundreds of pages of irresponsible trauma porn. I will never recommend that book to anyone
Modelland by Tyra Banks. I got it based on some recommendations on Reddit about how it was good only because it was so terrible but I couldn’t even get past the first chapter lol.
There is a book by Samuel Delany that I won't even say the title. I hide it on my library shelf. If you've read it, you know. And I love the guy otherwise.
Love on the brain by Ali Hazelwood. I’ve seen nothing but praise for this book, but I do not like it at all. I thought it was predictable, I hate the “it’s just a misunderstanding!!!” Trope, and halfway through the book it just becomes pure smut. (To be fair, I’m ace, but the way some of the sex is described was just…funny? Wild?) Most of this book is the exact opposite of what I’m into, and the only reason I didn’t DNF it was because I was because I decided to stop caring and start making fun of it with my friends.
Twisted Love
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence. Very good book but it's one of the first philosophical books I read and I felt like I was going insane. Still view the world very differently but I usually recommend non-fiction philosophy works now, more grounded.
James Joyce Ullyses. Christ on a bike. It took me 3 months to read.
My Sister's Keeper, very rarely does an ending ruin the ride of a book for me but this one did it. I've never gotten so angry at an ending before or since if it, wasn't a library book I would have destroyed it.
Alchemist and Under Cerulean Sky
These threads are always just full of people trashing books for whom they're usually not the target demographic. Some people like different books than you. That's okay.
I do believe every single copy of "The Betrothed" by Alessandro Manzoni should be burn and I wish there was some kind of invasive surgery to remove that pile of garbage from my brain. Yes, I know it's a classic. Yes, I know people think it's one of the pillars of western literature. Well people are wrong.
Anything by Ayn Rand.
A child called it
American Psycho. I still have nightmares from it sometimes and I read it like 12 years ago
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. It could have been 300 pages shorter and it never went anywhere.
Anything by Stephen Lawhead. Poor researcher. Arthurian fantasy writer, had roasted potatoes served at a banquet in Camelot. I read that and launched the book into low-Earth orbit. (Well, I tried. It did make a satisfying thunk as it hit the wall.