ITT discuss disappointing books to avoid

[LostintheCycle]

Is there anything more fun than dumping on things you don't like online?

Seven Types of Ambiguity - Eliot Perlman
I was drawn to the name and cover of this book in an op shop and decided on a whim I will buy and read this totally random book. The usual praise is plastered on the front and back, some thing about an award is mentioned. it is an Australian author too, so I am excited to get my mind changed about our native writers, who in my experience have usually been shit.
I start to read and I am initially interested in it, some of the plot was lost on me but I held on. The first part of seven ended on a weird note, which left me wondering "Where could this go from here?" Then I moved to the second part and it was in the perspective of a different character. It's one of those books. This structure trend apparently picked up in the 90s, and has really sunk its teeth into Australian fiction, so these sorts of books plague our high school booklists. I am tired of the gimmick and have no patience for books that use this anymore. I tried to read through it, but I lost steam, and decided I didn't want to read it anymore.

Hunger Games Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
I read the first Hunger Games book four times when I was younger, but the last one I only read once. I didn't like it because I didn't really get what was going on, it drooped somewhere in the middle into tedium until the end, but some parts of it I was kinda iffy on. This was the criticism I had with a series I adored as a twelve year old, I haven't read the Hunger Games in a few years so I can't speak for whether I think it holds up but obviously Mockingjay didn't hit the mark.

 

[RisingThumb]

Is there anything more fun than dumping on things you don't like online?

Seven Types of Ambiguity - Eliot Perlman
I was drawn to the name and cover of this book in an op shop and decided on a whim I will buy and read this totally random book. The usual praise is plastered on the front and back, some thing about an award is mentioned. it is an Australian author too, so I am excited to get my mind changed about our native writers, who in my experience have usually been shit.
I start to read and I am initially interested in it, some of the plot was lost on me but I held on. The first part of seven ended on a weird note, which left me wondering "Where could this go from here?" Then I moved to the second part and it was in the perspective of a different character. It's one of those books. This structure trend apparently picked up in the 90s, and has really sunk its teeth into Australian fiction, so these sorts of books plague our high school booklists. I am tired of the gimmick and have no patience for books that use this anymore. I tried to read through it, but I lost steam, and decided I didn't want to read it anymore.

Hunger Games Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
I read the first Hunger Games book four times when I was younger, but the last one I only read once. I didn't like it because I didn't really get what was going on, it drooped somewhere in the middle into tedium until the end, but some parts of it I was kinda iffy on. This was the criticism I had with a series I adored as a twelve year old, I haven't read the Hunger Games in a few years so I can't speak for whether I think it holds up but obviously Mockingjay didn't hit the mark.

I read the Hunger Games on the bus to school about a decade ago. It's... ok as a fiction, but it didn't impart some special wisdom on me... except for perhaps the one case where they were given a tree tap to get water from trees(but that's just a case of not being a dumbass). There was some books like Beast Quest and those Anthony Horowitz books, but both were pretty much just to improve reading comprehension as a kid back over a decade ago. Both were children's books so the point is to improve reading comprehension, not to impart unique wisdom.

I've got a box set of the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft. His short standalone stories are FUCKING SHIT exercises in describing "The unspeakable horror that cannot be spoken about" for the 50th time. Good ones are "The Temple", "The Thing on the Doorstep" and "The Music of Erich Zahn", but a lot of them are just crap that you can understand why it was published in pulp magazines just to have a paycheck. The fundamental problems of H.P. Lovecraft is his complete lack of sensory description, and his insistence on telling, not showing.

You can see the consequences of this lovecraft-inspired writing style in a lot of the works considered "Lovecraftian" especially ones where people make fan fictions in his universe.

Ultimately, the greatest eldritch horror who's name I shall not name for risk of invoking unspeakable hordes of troglodyte animated by rage, is Lovecraft's cat.

 

[xdsoftware]

The winner for me is two books:

To Kill a Mockingbird whose whole entire premise is seen as "anti-racism" but is really just an examination of who is Boo Radley and has tons of filler
13 Reasons Why which was literally emofanfiction.

 

[butt3rfly_s0up]

ANYTHING BY COLLEEN HOOVER!! STAY FAR AWAY FROM COLLEEN HOOVER.
If i could put a restraining order on books it would be on every colleen hoover book ever

 

[LostintheCycle]

Here is a scathing review I wrote when I was ten years old of a picture book. I'm guessing I was just pissed off we were reading picture books at that age.

Character Description 0/10 I can't say much because, there's literally, no description at ALL. You need to look at the pictures to know. We get no personality traits either.
Plot Development 0/10 The plot came too quick and wasn't exciting . No development and a too quick resouloution as well. That is why plot development gets a 0. Also makes NO logical sense, especially at the end.
Language and Character Empathy 0/10 Ugh. Language first; No interesting words, no description. Character empathy; I feel no feelings for Erics dillema.
Narrative Voice and Tone/Mood 0/10 I can't sense any tone/mood in this book and there is no narrative voice. I conclude this rating, over.
Crazy thing is, this is an honour book of The book council of Australia
Total: 0/40
Overall: Short and boring. It disappoints me.

My hatred for bad books has always been around it seems, all that changed was it became more wordy.

 

[cryptfrog]

Most recent thing I read that I was mad I paid for it was Mexican Gothic. It's written like a book for teenagers but didn't anywhere mention being young adult or anything like that. The writing is completely constructed of cliches, every character is some kind of basic tv archetype, the plot as far as I got was pretty lame but to be fair I stopped reading pretty quick because it really ain't worth it when there are thousands of wonderful books in the world I could be reading instead.

 

[__legalizenukes2024__]

my diary desu

 

[mauer]

In general the post-Tom Clancy books that use his name. They largely consist of vapid military porn, with rather poor writing and one dimensional heroes with zero flaws.
Overall Red Storm Rising was probably Clancy's best work regardless, but the books written under his name are an affront to his legacy imo

 

[JihyoParkXX]

Jane Eyre? The plot was kind of confusing, the last few chapters where her benefactor turned out to be her cousin felt too random and I don't get why she went through all the trouble of running away only to return to the guy before. The mystery aspect was interesting and there are really good quotes in it but for a book this long maybe an abridged version would be better.

I'm not saying it's bad, but for something with so much hype I found it only slightly above mediocre.

 

[GhostInTheMachine]

Sapiens by Noa Yuval Harari. Someone gifted it to me sometime. First book to make me genuinely angry. Even before knowing what the WEF was, I thought the takes were horrendous. The views expressed in this book and those who associate with it is what's wrong with the modern world. Even worse was the graphic novel version. I'd rather read toilet paper.

 

[Sidewinder91]

Sword of Truth, by Terry Goodkind:

It's basically a children's fantasy novel that tries to be 'mature' by including an excessive amount of graphic rape scenes. The heroes are dumb and need every single bit of exposition spoonfed to them, the cast of villains are so bland and generically evil they make Palpatine look like something out of Shakespeare, and nobody ever shuts up. The part that really worries me is that I've only ever read part of the first book, and supposedly that was 'the good one.' Apparently the constant monologuing gets much much worse as the series goes on and I honestly do not know how that's possible.

Also Terry Goodkind apparently felt that there wasn't enough African American representation in the fantasy genre so he decided to add in a group of people called 'The Mud People' who are all black. I don't think he was trying to be racist, I just think he's really out of touch.

 

[qwerty]

I'm going to add the Turner Diaries. I love reading controversial books (feel free to send me recommendations). Without going into the content too much, the writing is really lacking. It just reads more like some weird power fantasy than anything else.

 

[Some_porcupine]

Sapiens by Noa Yuval Harari. Someone gifted it to me sometime. First book to make me genuinely angry. Even before knowing what the WEF was, I thought the takes were horrendous. The views expressed in this book and those who associate with it is what's wrong with the modern world. Even worse was the graphic novel version. I'd rather read toilet paper.

Fuck that guy (well, no literally, he would like that!). I add 21 *whatever* for 21st century (by him too) to that.
no solutions in there
navelgazing
it is written in materialistic know-it-all style, but get to no point
i could write that, anyone can! what a waste...
as if i read my blog, but he got no hope when if there is no money post-mod incentive, or UBI/social credit/score
nightmare; he is optimistic in the wrong way, it feels ike he want to topple the system and become the head of it...

Also, dont read Flowers in the Attic series by W.C.Andrews. ew, nightmares. incest, capture, rich mother cant fight her mother and her children suffer, die, make wrong decisions, - all wrong. she even wanted to get them poisoned so she can save them from horrible granma... yuck

 

[Skookumsquitch]

Under the Dome by Stephen King.
Such a fantastic concept for a book, and the first ⅓–½ of the book is exceptionally executed. As an avid reader and writer, the first chapter makes me wet every time I come back to it. Though I nevertheless do not recommend the book entirely, I do urge all of you to read its opening chapter—it is masterfully done.

Spoiler: First Chapter

How King describes the resplendent day for flying, the two realistic and amicable characters flying the aeroplane and how they observe people and locations below that will turn up again later in the story, forshadowing future storylines. But most of all, how King describes the sudden crumpling of the nose of the aircraft before one of them even knows what's happened. It all comes together to make my favourite opener to a story ever.

The first chapter is masterful at setting up an amazing story, and then it just derails at the climax. I won't bother detailing it because it's a waste of time, honestly. Ultimately, it's just unfortunate how the end turned out, but oh boy do I love the first chapter all on its own.
The Simpsons pulled off the plot better than Under the Dome did, which sure says something, eh?

 

[Orlando Smooth]

The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin. I was extremely disappointed because The Three Body Problem was one of the best books I'd read in years; truly innovative sci-fi with an interesting plot, original conceptualizations of alien life, believable characters (though not particularly deep), and just an all around perfect setup to a trilogy. The censors must've got to him after realizing how popular the book became outside of China though, because Dark Forest was bordering on CCP propaganda the whole time and did not advance the plot in a remotely satisfying way. Never even bothered to read Death's End because I really lost all interest.

Even worse was the graphic novel version.

I didn't know there was a graphic novel version, but I can't say I'm surprised. Literally "We need to spread our message to the plebs, but they don't like it. I know, let's make it a picture book!"

Under the Dome by Stephen King.
Such a fantastic concept for a book, and the first ⅓–½ of the book is exceptionally executed.

Have you read much else by him to compare it to? I feel like that's King's "thing" - he's unrivaled at creating interesting characters and situations, but struggles immensely to conclude the story. I read The Stand in like March/April 2020, that was fun.

 

[Skookumsquitch]

Have you read much else by him to compare it to? I feel like that's King's "thing" - he's unrivaled at creating interesting characters and situations, but struggles immensely to conclude the story. I read The Stand in like March/April 2020, that was fun.

To be honest, not too many comparisons to draw from. The last one I remember from start to finish was The Mist, which I think was a solid story throughout. I also roughly remember The Tommyknockers having an ineffably weird ending.
If ending stories is a common fumble of his then I suppose I'm slightly less worked up about Under the Dome's fate, but not entirely so.

 

[Vitnira]

The Illuminatus! trilogy.
I really wanted to like it. It's recommended by Chaos Magicians and Libertarians, it pops up every so often on /x/, and I thought hey that venn diagram intersection has gotta be great right?
But no. It's everything I hate about those communities condensed into a book. Too busy being weird and offensive to get anything done, raunchy sex every 20 pages just to be shocking. It even has a super rich, super cool author self-insert character soapbox his clearly superior politics.
To be wEiRd it switches between characters, time periods, and plots within the same page with little indication. Cute idea, frustrating to read.

To its credit the authors seem to have a good idea of conspiracies - one example is they write out the connections of Rhodes, Oxford, and the Anglo order. They would drop an interesting conspiracy nugget every so often like little treats to keep me reading until the end of the first book. But that was all it was, treats with no substance. I wish I had that time back.

The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin. I was extremely disappointed because The Three Body Problem was one of the best books I'd read in years; truly innovative sci-fi with an interesting plot, original conceptualizations of alien life, believable characters (though not particularly deep), and just an all around perfect setup to a trilogy. The censors must've got to him after realizing how popular the book became outside of China though, because Dark Forest was bordering on CCP propaganda the whole time and did not advance the plot in a remotely satisfying way. Never even bothered to read Death's End because I really lost all interest.

I 100% agree with you. I read Death's End and you didn't miss out on anything. Based on the popularity I wonder if anyone actually read the 2nd and 3rd books...
I went in having mildly negative thoughts on the CCP and ended the series with a hatred. The pervasive Crab Mentality was so offensive to me it felt like reading a book about two alien civilizations.

 

[Voicedrew]

Virtually everything by Alice Munro.

 

[Fracksi]

For recent works read, I would have to say Heretics of Dune and the half of Chapterhouse I've gotten too are pretty subpar compared to the four before that (Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune.) I don't know what happened with Hebert during his time writing Heretics but it made the entire book a slog after he started up with his attempts at PLOT.
I've started Count Zero Interrupt as well, for the Sprawl series and while Gibsons books are good I often get distracted thinking about CD Projekt Red for having nearly zero creativity in Cyberpunk 2077.

 

[InsufferableCynic]

Atlas Shrugged

This presents itself as a clever, intellectual defence of Libertarianism and the free market, but bungles the representation so badly you could be forgiven for thinking it's parodying the whole concept. I'm not a libertarian so I already think the whole concept is stupid (because it is), but if I wanted to have a genuine good-faith investigation into libertarianism and it's merits, and was genuinely interested in seeing the ideology in it's best possible light, I wouldn't use this book at all because it makes the whole thing look insane and woefully inept.

It's also just kind of technically bad. Horrible sentence structure and word choice in places.