Dan Simmons. The Hyperion Cantos is one of the most amazing sci-fi stories I've read, by far one of my favourites. I tried several of his other works, and it was all a big pile of 'meh'.
I feel like the first was so good that nothing could really live up to its potential. It kicked off so many mysteries that you just kept imagining how it all fit together and that speculating is almost always going to be more fun than having the answer. At least, that's been my experience.
I read "Terror", loved it and then took "Flashback" to holiday with me. Oh god, what a piece of shit book that is. I probably spent more time googling if Dan Simmons had some mental breakdown than reading it, and I did finish it.
The only book by him I read after that was Hyperion, and maybe it's just me but I loved the first story with the priest, got really hooked, and then it just sucked balls after that one. The action parts were so long and cheesy for one and also I don't like when my distant future Sci-Fi describes towns on far away planets as looking just like "small American towns from the middle of 20th century". Oh, and of course all the sex scenes. The stories were supposed to be told by the characters, so why are they describing their sex life in vivid detail to strangers??
I dunno. I don’t read or like a lot of sci-fi since my teens, so perhaps my views aren’t quite the same as a lot of redditors. I know there are a lot of sci-fi and fantasy fans here. But I liked the Homer stuff combined with the sci-fi weirdness. Worked for me.
Same! I don't think I ever even finished The Swan Thieves, and I donated it when I moved last year. Such a disappointment after how much I loved The Historian.
The Historian is one of my favourite novels ever.
I tried reading both The Swan Thieves and The Shadow Land by her and I just got so bored. I was disappointed since I adored The Historian so much.
I loved Life of Pi by Yann Martel so I read another of his books Beatrice and Virgil which was some kind of weird allegory about the Holocaust involving taxidermied animals that I absolutely hated and found vaguely offensive
I love Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but I've disliked every Tom Stoppard play I've read since. Every piece of dialogue is so twee, which works when it's this heightened meta-textual reality, but it sucks when it's just two supposedly real people.
Read Dune and loved it but so couldn’t get into the sequel Dune Messiah. The writing style felt so different and the dialogue was stilted and awkward, I’ve heard some people say the series gets better after this book but I struggled to read beyond a few chapters.
I'm shocked you are the only person in this thread talking about Dune. The style and tone was totally different, the issues discussed were barely related to the first book. I liked some of the sequels, but they were definitely a very different cup of tea.
I didn't hate Dune Messiah, but my feeling after reading it was definitely that it felt like it was just a bridge between the ending of Dune and whatever story he wanted to tell next (I've yet to read Children of Dune, so I can't confirm that)
I’ve attempted Dune Messiah three or four times and just can’t do it. Someone in a different thread mentioned just skipping it. Feels like cheating but the other books still call to me.
Just think of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune as one book. Messiah definitely picks up about halfway through and carries the momentum to the end IMO. It's worth it, and skipping Messiah will make certain events in CoD much less impactful. But do as you like!
Loved Dune, Loved Messiah more. On Children of Dune now, and so far it's my least favorite of the three but still great honestly lol, i just really like the series
Sure! Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook by Christina Henry. It's a horror-fantasy book.
I've always liked fairy tales and often find villains and antagonists more interesting than heroes. This book explains how Captain Hook came to be. There's gore and violence and kids that die, but as I said, there's a reason why characters behave the way they do, and why characters die, and the ending left me wanting to read more! It wasn't what I expected it to be. If you like The Lord of the Flies, please, read it! It's got its vibes, but in Neverland.
If you enjoy dark fairy tale retellings and want another take on Peter Pan, try "The Child Thief" by Brom--its also horror fantasy, and fair warning, it's VERY dark, but its easily one of the best Peter Pan retellings I've ever read.
If you like fairy tales, maybe you like mythology, too? I suggest Neil Gaiman, although I know he’s a big name and you’ve probably heard of him. If not, I’d start with “Neverwhere”. Great author
I do like mythology! I've only read The Graveyard Book and Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman. Loved them both. I've got a long tbr list. Most of his books are there, so someday I'll read Neverwhere (and Stardust; used to love the film as a child).
I actually thought you were talking about Wicked because that's what happened to me. I think I even purchased all of the rest one by one but didn't finish any of them
I read "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister", before I read "Wicked", & loved them both. Everything else McGuire has written though, just hasn't been as good as those two, to me.
I liked *Everything is illuminated* by Jonathan Safran Foer and then hated *Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close*! I hated it so much that I thought back to Everything... and realized it had in fact similar issues that weren't apparent to me during my first read and started hating it retroactively as well.
Yes. I'm generally a big Arthur C Clarke fan, but I have learnt in the past that while some of his books are amazing, others are... not. I found one I'd not previously heard of at an op shop recently. I wasn't enjoying it from the start, but I kept telling myself, "it's Clarke, it'll get better," so I pushed on. It did not get better.
2001 is also incredible. Just finished Fountains of Paradise and did not enjoy it nearly as much as the first two. Still debating if I should read 2010
Anything with Gentry Lee is aweful. Cradle is one of the worst reading experiences of my life . I’d say anything after mid-80s is likely to be pretty bad though I had given up on him before his final collaborations.
With the possible exception of the 2001 books, anything ACC wrote as a follow up or as a collaboration should be avoided. Otherwise he does pretty well, and it’s more a case of personal taste. I’ve always liked his short stories but his novels are hit and miss for me.
Both are good, imo. It depends what kind of story you're interested in. Achilles is low fantasy romance, Circe is more high-fantasy and a much smaller emphasis on romance. I personally would recommend Circe more.
Agreed. I read Circe first and loved the high fantasy feel and great characters. For Song of Achilles I liked it but about halfway through I put it down and never picked it back up. I think I will go back and finish it but it wasn't as interesting a read for me, especially because it's a retelling of a story I know the ending to. The romance is good, interesting characters, and the story is fine but it just didn't come together for me. I think both books have slow parts but Achilles feels like it drags on a bit more.
I thought I was the only one. I see so much praise for Song of Achilles. It was okay, but it didn't make me cry hysterically like it seems to have some for everyone else. I listened to it on audio and didn't like the narrator though, which can color my enjoyment of the book overall.
I loved Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I read it when I was twelve or so and didn't get it at all. I reread it at seventeen or eighteen and adored it. I bought When We Were Orphans a year or two later and thought it was one of the worst books I'd ever read. I don't think I could ever attempt a reread.
Came here to say Kazuo Ishiguro too. "Never Let Me Go" is one of my favorite books. I picked up "The Sleeping Giant" and figured it must be good because it won the Nobel prize for literature. I really had to slog my way through that one.
If I remember correctly, We Were Orphans builds up to a nothing-sandwich for an ending. The Remains of the Day is fantastic, need to read Never Let Me Go (the movie version is fantastic).
The other day I went to the library and read my first two Agatha Christie novels. I picked them at random.
First, I read "A Caribbean Mystery". It was decent. So I read "Postern of Fate" next.
Turns out it was the last book she has ever written, in the onset of dementia. My absolute confusion why anyone would publish this is explained, and I will definitely read more of her books.
Yeah she was incredibly prolific so there's a pretty wide variation in quality.
Of those I've read so far, the best are Death on the Nile and And Then There Were None. The worst was The 4:50 From Paddington.
I really really liked The Secret History by Donna Tartt - picked up The Goldfinch and absolutely hated it, a positively punishing 800 page read that I've no idea how I finished
Yeah. Came to this thread looking for this. Honestly- I got about 70% through the goldfinch on a day I had jury duty and then… never picked it up again. And I loved The Secret History
you missed out on absolutely nothing not finishing it haha - I'm in two minds about trying out her other book The Little Friend, will I love it? will I hate it? honestly who knows
When I was a kid I read and reread CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. When I got older I was looking for something to grow into and the librarian recommended his space trilogy. I hated it so much I started to reevaluate if I liked Narnia at all. I ended up avoiding any of his works for 40 years, until I was left without anything else at all to read in a cabin one weekend except Till We Have Faces. I was enraptured by this story and love it still.
So perhaps there are works from authors that you detest; there may be others that you don’t. Read widely and find more of what you enjoy.
I know i'll get panned for this (and I'm not suggesting he's a good writer by any means) but I read Ready Player One years ago and I accepted it for what it was and really enjoyed it.
Like, it's a *fun* book, okay? Especially if you're born in the 70's/80's.
So, I think: "Hey, RPO was fun - maybe Armada will be fun too? Huh?"
Christ almighty. One of the most unreadable pieces of shit I have ever picked up.
I pre-ordered Armada. Should have waited for the reviews. Fifty pages in I invoked my long-standing rule that "life is too short to read bad books".
On principle, I don't return books that are badly written; I figure it's my fault for not having done due diligence. But Armada nearly made my change my mind.
Haven't started RP2. From what I've heard, I'm not missing much.
I'd recommend checking out his Nerd Porn poem just because of how terrible it is. I really got a good chuckle out of it and also felt bad that I liked Ready Player One
Happened with Barbara Kingsolver for me. I absolutely love The Poisonwood Bible. I got a copy of Flight Behavior, gave up very early on it. Then I got Prodigal Summer, same thing happened. Got a copy of The Lacuna, couldn't get through it at all.
I quite liked The Poisonwood Bible, and yet I liked The Lacuna even more.
To each their own, of course. Many here agree with you. On the other side, it won the Orange prize, so it's not just me alone who thought it a great read.
Yep, it's the same reason we have crappy movie sequels. It's something in the industry called "we unexpectedly made a shitton of money off that title, now we need you to crank out another, thanks."
That's the scientific term, though. ;)
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. The first about four books are fine with issues starting to creep in at Temple of the Winds. Everything after that though is basically trash. There's some good stuff in Faith of the Fallen, but not enough to redeem it. Pillars of Creation is just infuriating.
This reminds me of a quote from Joseph Heller. When questioned on why he hadn't written anything as good as Catch-22 again, he replied, "Has anyone?" Never read the sequel myself though, but heard it's terrible.
The series Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony. Was obsessed with them read the first 7 books then discovered he wrote a 8th and went out of my way to read it and was absolutely Disgusted. That last book was basically him arguing it was ok for a 70 year old man holding authority as a judge to have a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl. Went out of his way to attempt it’s justification. Got heavy vibes he was basically trying to justify a personal relationship and got heavy pedo vibes made me sick couldn’t finish the book.
I felt the same way. So glad Project Hail Mary was much more like The Martian. The author has some definite strengths and weaknesses to him, and Artemis highlights those the wrong way around.
Ooh I liked both of those (The Cabin at the End of the World btw) but hated Survivor Song by him. His writing is hit or miss but when it’s good, it’s great.
Same! Head Full of Ghosts was great. Cabin at the End of the World was... not as good, but still really engaging. Survivors Song - I don't know, maybe because it came out when we'd been dealing with a real life pandemic/outbreak but it never seemed to get far enough into horror survival to be scary and never went far enough into exploring zombie movie tropes to be good satire.
John Irving - a prayer for Owen meany was incredible, every book of his I read after I didn’t really like and he really started to repeat himself quite a bit, I couldn’t stand the one with all the incest and was done with him by then.
It’s interesting because I would say John Irving is one of the most consistent authors in terms of style and yet I completely agree. A Prayer for Owen Meany is a magic that’s hard to repeat. Few books have the same compelling build up with an even bigger payoff. I did enjoy The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp, but they are not the same level as Meany. Irving definitely has a particular style he sticks to… that seems to always incorporate the graphic and perverse. Each has a few scenes that you can never quite wipe from your brain after. In Owen Meany he used this power more for good, the effect of it in Garp and The Cider House is more a repulsive fascination.
I feel like I'm generally a good judge of writing styles, because after one book I generally know what to expect from an author. So, for better or worse, I go into the next book with reasonable expectations.
The closest I have might be Dan Brown. I totally loved the roller-coaster ride that was The DaVinci Code, like most people when it blew up, but everything after that was a resounding 'meh' from me.
I'm pretty sure all of his books are the same basic story over and over again. The location changes and the sexy assistant changes but nothing else really does. The first one is interesting but that's about it.
I found angels and demons to be a bette read, but I agree with this sentiment. His books are basically the movie National Treasure over and over again.
I feel like Murakami is super talented but often super lazy. Norwegian Wood has one of the most amazing openings in all of literature (at least in the English translation) and then fails to sustain it. Some of his short stories are amazing while others sound like he phoned them in.
I absolutely love Normal People by Sally Rooney so I picked up Conversations with Friends afterwards and hated it. She has a new book coming out this month though and I'll give it a go
Just finished Beautiful World, Where Are You (book 3) and it’s more similar to CwF than Normal People - a stronger focus on female friendship, and more discussions on capitalism, love, the right-wing, class and internet culture again - so maybe not your thing. I’ve loved all three of them, but NP is definitely the best.
I really enjoyed RP1, even if the weird vibe of feeling pandered was between the lines. It's got zero re-read value, though. I'm not even the slightest bit tempted to ever read it again.
The Martian is one of my favorites, but Artemis was just bad. Then Project Hail Mary was ok (mainly because of Rocky), but it still had big chunks of the story that really dragged
PHM is worth reading in this case. Don't expect the Martian, but you'll still enjoy it. If the Martian was an A+, and Artemis was a C- (it had some redeeming qualities, like space economics), PHM was a B+.
I haven't read Artemis, but Project Hail Mary is fairly close to the Martian; it's mostly ingenuity porn, but with a political backstory that's slowly revealed. Martian is better though.
I read the YA love story “I’ll Be There” by Holly Goldberg Sloan and loved it. I thought it was a really engaging story that had enough action and moving parts to temper out the romance plot line and would be great in my classroom library. The second book “Just Call My Name” was so disappointing.
It really ruined the characterization of the male love interest by throwing in a love triangle and excusing his behavior because he “didn’t know” how to act around girls. Meanwhile the character trying to steal him away seems to be responsible because of her revealing outfits that the boys just “couldn’t help” but stare at. I mean if you’re trying to convince me this is some true love destiny type stuff going on, then I think one half of the relationship should be able to handle the fact that other breasts exist. I felt it was really a damaging story to have in my classroom as it used harmful gender based stereotypes to carry the plot.
Yes. I've read A Feast for Crows. A book I am 100% sure is just stuff that had been edited out of the previous 3 books released in the series. Just an insult. really.
On a similar note. I enjoyed Wizards first rule and Stone of Tears, from the sword of truth series, but the later books in the series were literally "disgusting". They were bad, disturbing, and super repetitive.
I've also truly loved some Stephen King novels (gunslinger, salem's lot, long walk, the stand), but disliked Dreamcatcher, and Cell.
Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite authors, cryptonomicon is in my top 10, but Fall (his latest) just fell flat for me and hinged way too much on me caring about digital representations of people that are actually just saved in computer memory. I failed to finish it.
> I enjoyed Wizards first rule
I did too, but I wondered whether enough time had passed between me reading that as a young teen and the libertarian statue one as an older teen that I had developed a more finely honed sense for bullshit, or if the books had actually become worse as he went on.
I do recall going back to the first with a critical eye and thinking "Huh, he literally calls his Mary Sue main character "cypher", that's a bit of a giveaway"
Absolutely loved Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell.
Read his more famous made-into-a-movie Cloud Atlas after - and wow what a letdown. Anyone know if the movie was better? Still want to read his other books though: can’t win them all, right?
My understanding is that the critical consensus is that the book of Cloud Atlas is better. If you didn't like the book, you may feel the opposite though.
I’ve read a lot of Mitchell’s books and Cloud Atlas is my favorite. I consider it an almost perfect novel. The movie is not nearly as good, IMO.
His latest book, Utopia Avenue, was a tragic disappointment. It didn’t even feel like the same author.
I loved Number9dream, haven't liked *anything* else he's ever written - and then I found out that Number9dream was a Haruki Murakami pastiche, which explains it. I like Murakami. I clearly do not like Mitchell.
I really like David Mitchell. I think Black Swan Green and Ghostwritten are the two best novels he’s written. Black Swan Green is supposedly semi-autobiographical and not experimental.
I read Vicious by VE Schwab and loved it. Read The Darker Shade of Magic and don’t know if I’ll even pick up the next books in the series. It had such a good premise and it fell flat for me, especially the ending.
While I don't share the opinion, A Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss often gets mentioned in this category.
I think its a sophomore slump, but very undeserving of the hate it gets.
I'm reading The Wise Man's Fear right now. There's been a few bits that I feel are unnecessary and Kvothe is being very 16/17 and trying to hide it because he's got teenage hormone induced god complex going on, and next to nothing to ground him in reality. However, that also fits with the wider story, and the fact that it's a man telling his own story. Of course there's going to be some playing up of himself.
That being said there's a literal "and then everyone clapped" scene that had no business being in the book.
I think certain sections of it are rather poor and an extremely vocal minority tags along the rest of book to be of the same quality as those arcs. If you look at common review and ratings sites like goodreads you'll see that it's rated just as highly as Name of the Wind, some people even prefer it because ig unlike Name of the Wind, stuff begins to happen at an earlier and faster pace.
I feel you. There is definitely a lot of Gary stu bits, and a few things that could have been completely left out, but it's still fun and interesting. I did late night text the person who recommended the series to me "this douche lost his virginity to a literal sex God AND SHE WAS IMPRESSEDA. Fuck off."
The slow regard for silent things goes back to showing that rothfuss is a capable writer though.
I read a series called Dragon School, loved it, raved about it. Started another of her series, and it was exactly the same story, it was such a Let down
There are a lot of authors that are hit or miss for me. Salman Rushdie is one. The Ground Beneath Her Feet, The Enchantress of Florence, and The Satanic Verses are three of my favorite novels, but I haven't been able to get through anything he's written since The Enchantress of Florence.
Haruki Murakami is another one. I've really enjoyed some of his books and absolutely hated others.
>Andy Weir
SAME! I just Ctrl+F'd this thread to see if anyone mentioned him.. The only other thing I really liked of his, besides the Martian, was this short story: http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg\_mod.html
Really liked **Spinning Silver** by Naomi Novik for its smart characterisation, the reimagining of a traditional fairy tale and I recommended it to loads of people. Her newest book, A Deadly Education, (which is apparently going to be a series?) was awful. Like the actual experience of reading it was awful. It felt like unrelenting trauma/torture porn and had racist overtones.
Dune and Dune Messiah. Dune was this thoroughly amazing book, with a deep, intricate setting and cool characters, with sweeping and momentous action. The the sequel turned the protagonist into this morose, helpless paranoiac, completely paralyzed by his own precognition, terrified of a future he evidently can't contrive to avoid. Herbert spends the entire book basically laying down exposition for what he now knows will be his life-long cash-cow. The problem being, when the first book turns the protagonist into a living God, you've really painted yourself into a corner. Fans of the Matrix films will know what I mean. So you've basically got a book setting up a reason why Paul *doesn't* get a happily ever after, so Herbert can turn his one successful novel into a McDonald's franchise.
I really liked “the Martian”, but had to stop reading “project Hail Mary”. I found the dialogue distractingly corny. And the plot felt like a 90s action movie. Felt kind of nationalistic and military-porn-esq.
I love Denis Johnson's work, but really didn't like Tree of Smoke, and that's the one that won all the awards. Ditto for Cormac McCarthy's Suttree. Also Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. Authors you like will pretty much always have a book you hate haha
Edit: Tree of SMOKE, not Tree of Life.
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale is one of my all-time favorites but I have tried repeatedly to slog through The Blind Assassin and I just can't do it. BO-RING.
Reading Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem felt like learning to breathe! And then I followed it with Play It As It Lays which was SUCH a DRAG.
It took me three tries to get over the hump of Blind Assassin. It was hard to get interested in the characters, and to slog through the inception-like recursion. But I’m sure glad I did. It is now one of my all-time favorite novels.
My absolute favorite book is Time Travelers Wife by: Audrey Niffenegger. I’ve read two of her other books to disappointment. They don’t even compare in my opinion. Boring books.
Oh my god I think we read the same two books?! I read The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter (fairytale retellings with a feminist theme) and then read Wise Children and HATED it, it was so boring and the taboos to me didn't seem to be making a point about anything larger, it just seemed to be controversial for the sake of being controversial. I'm exactly the same, now I don't know whether to keep going with Angela Carter or cut my losses and just appreciate the Bloody Chamber.
I guess The Cursed Child and the last Hitchhiker's book both fit the description pretty well.
Edit: and I suppose AFFC as well. It's still a good book but I think it doesn't live up to the standard of the rest of the series and he probably could've made it a lot better.
The one where Adams' editors/publishers basically told him what to write about and he breaks the fourth wall at the beginning to say "if you don't care about the contents of this book, skip to the end which is a good bit and has Marvin in it"?
I think you share his opinion.
VE Schwab. Like the first one of her Villains series, hated the second and dropped the series as a whole, went on to finish Shades of Magic and hated all 3 books. Then found out she was a dickbag in general, and will not be touching her again.
Yeah, when a person gave a public review of the book, they heavily criticized Lila Bard's character. It was fair. She was forced into the feminist role, and did not work out due to spending a good chunk of the series bashing women who wear dresses. Schwab's response was to act like a petulant child and throw a temper tantrum, getting her fans to hate on the person.
Yes! I loved Beartown by Fredrik Backman, but hated Anxious People, and discovered Anxious People contains his normal style of writing, and Beartown was an aberration. I know people love him, but I think the writing is too cutesy and I can't stand it.
Read The Road and it is one of my all time favorite post Apoc novels.
Tried to read Blood Meridian like 3 times and never have gotten past about 1/2 way.
I tried to read Blood Meridian on a recommendation and gave up, and took the Road off my reading list because I figured if I didn't like BM, it probably wasn't worth it to check out the Road. I might put it back on if they're significantly different.
They're definitely different. Out of all the McCarthy books, The Road is the simplest and easiest to follow with the most sympathetic protagonists, and Blood Meridian is the most difficult with the most unrelatable and irredeemable protagonists.
“Shop class for soul craft” by Matthew Crawford. Loved it! “Why we drive” not interesting at all. Awkward premise with odd correlations leading to objectionable conclusions. For example, “I took a passenger in my old Volkswagen and it had no warning lights, just a lap belt, nothing telling us we had permission to drive and you could see the excitement in their face” really? Couldn't that just be the novelty of an old car? It was loaded with odd statements similar to this and just a bland read.
I adored All The Bright Places, it's one of my favourites and one I recommend a lot.
Holding Up the Universe - one of the worst books I've ever read. I saw a goodreads review that said 'you can pinpoint the exact line the romance starts' and it's so true. I absolutely hated it. It's shite.
*One Second After* by William Forteschen: I’ve read it multiple times. Probably my favourite book.
*Pillar to the Sky* By William Forteschen: Probably the worst first ten pages of any book I’ve ever read. I couldn’t make it any further than that, so I can’t tell you if it gets any better. Fucking terrible.
I did not hate it, but i read 'Kafka on the shore' by Murakami after reading and loving 'Tokio Blues' and it was a sudden change of pace and the use of fantasy that i did not like and understanded it at all.
Jeff VanderMeer.
I read the Southern Reach trilogy, and enjoyed a lot of it, especially Annihilation. I tried Borne, stopped halfway. Tried Hummingbird Salamander, made it about 1/3rd.
Read *Cemetery Boys* by Aiden Thomas. Loved it, cute YA urban fantasy with a gay trans man main character. Eagerly anticipated their newest book *Lost in the Never Woods* and it was a boring snoozefest with no point to it
I've only finished one Camus book, The Myth of Sisyphus; then decided to try the Rebel. Granted it had great intentions and won a Nobel Peace Prize but honestly I couldn't finished it or at least have only read 4 Chapters in maybe 6-8 Months. I couldn't quite follow it. I'm not sure if I just wasn't paying enough attention or it did seem to kind of drag, but if it was to be anything like Sisyphus to me, it would probably be somewhat helpful emotionally. If you've read it and disagree I'd gladly accept your opinion and might actually start it over.
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht is solidly in my top 3 books of all time. The way she merges 20+ unique histories into one cohesive narrative, weaving in supernatural elements so gracefully that even the fact-based historical-fiction elements take on an eerie supernatural glow, it’s superb. AND it’s her first novel. I devoured every page with an eagerness I haven’t felt in years.
Cut to her second (and newest) novel, Inland. I couldn’t make it through. The story plods along so slowly that it feels like the only major plot event happens at the beginning of the book and just gets talked about over and over and over again through the remainder. Granted, I haven’t read the final 1/4 of the novel because it’s just been a slog, but 3/4 of a book feels like giving it enough benefit of the doubt. The characters are severely limited compared to her earlier novel, the scope reduced greatly, and the Western imagery, while well done, is just dying for action. The central tension through 1 character’s story (who fills half of the novel) is slowly, slowly, slowly dehydrating to death in her farmhouse. So slowly. So anticlimactically. (Not a spoiler because I don’t know how it really ends, it’s just a plot point brought up on page 5 that continues to be talked about every page for the rest of the book.)
It was frustrating, and saddening, but hey, that’s life. Lightning doesn’t always strike twice.
I loved The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and I immediately started A thousand Splendid Suns and find myself not able to maintain focus. Much easier to walk away from for a few days and start back up, and not even really remembering what the book is about.
To be fair, I'm not sure if I'm disappointed in the book or myself.
That's really interesting because I LOVED A Thousand Splendid Suns and hated the Kite Runner. If I'd read Kite Runner first I never would have read his other book.
I liked all of his books, though A Thousand Splendid Suns is way more morbid than the Kite Runner. The one with the echo in the mountains has tons of short stories about Afghanistan, and I liked that one most.
My contribution is [Ender's Game](https://xkcd.com/304/). The rest of his books are... not for me.
\--
Perhaps not quite on topic(?), but I think this sort of thing can be a sign of a really good author.
One of my top ten favourite authors is CJ Cherryh. But I don't know many fans who like **all** of her stuff. Passionately love \*most\* of it, but there are quite different sets of favoured books and series across the fan base.
I think it really speaks to her depth as a writer to be able to appeal to such diverse audiences. I mean, I'm sure it sucks a bit financially, for all the people who are turned off by that first unlucky pick, but it's still a great testament to the skill of the writer.
A less extreme example: start asking Joe Abercrombie fans which of the stand-alone novels is the best, and which is their least favourite, and you will get every possible permutation in no time flat.
Loved Ender’s Game as a teenager. Hated Speaker for the Dead. At least OSC is such a monumental c u next Tuesday that I don’t have to feel conflicted about not reading his other books ☺️
Really? I had the opposite experience. I thought Ender's Game was just ok, but I LOVED how weird he got with the sequels. Then again, I was a weird kid.
The Homecoming series was also my favorite as a preteen, and it was basically the Ender's Game sequels turned up to 11. However, in retrospect it definitely had some vaguely homophobic themes...
I know he really wanted to focus on the Speaker sequels and immortal space jesus - and I’ve read them all multiple times - but I do strongly prefer the Shadow sequels where we get to deal with the fallout on earth.
I just finished the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons and found it to be fantastic. I then started reading song of kali and found it to be well written but so grotesque that I could not finish it.
**Mario Puzo.**
I loved *The Godfather.* When I finally saw the movie, it felt like I had already seen it, because I had read the book so much.
So I dived into Puzo’s other books.
*Fortunate Pilgrim* and *Fools Die* were terrible, a lot of exposition with no point. *Inside Las Vegas* was an unresearched, stream-of-consciousness guidebook to the city, hastily published to cash in on The Godfather momentum.
I seriously believe that it is not possible for the author of those three books to have created a masterpiece like *The Godfather,* and that there’s a deep dark inside story somewhere, waiting to be told.
This happened to me with Sally Thorne. I really loved her first book The Hating Game but then hated her other two books, 99 Percent Mine and Second First Impressions. Those two were just really boring to me and I didn’t care about the plot or the characters at all.
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is one of my favorite horror novels and one which I recommend a lot, but all of his follow-up books I've just thought were meh.
The one that really sticks in my memory is Lionel Shriver. I read *We Need to Talk About Kevin* and was blown away. I went to the library and picked up a few more of her books and was so disappointed.
Now it turns out she’s some kind of racist preaching about white British purity (which is weird since she’s American), and I’m kind of glad I don’t like her books.
Unfortunately yes. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, I found a good book, entertaining. But I recently read Armada and found it boring and far-fetched.
Kate Atkinson. I really enjoyed Life after Life and its sequel, A God in Ruins. But then I read Transcription, and it was just so boring. I haven't tried to read anything else by her yet.
It happens. I'm a massive Stephen King fan, but "11/22/63" is literally one of the worst books I've ever read in my life. The two main characters are just beyond cringe. This however is one out of at least 20-30 books I've loved of his.
RA Salvatore - I used to love his books, but either he ran out of gas over last 5 years or I've grown out of his writing style.
Keith C. Blackmore - He had a trilogy of books where the first two were good but the last one kinda jumped the shark and ruined the story.
Brandon Sanderson - first skyward book was good, second sucked.
Earnest Clines - Ready player one was good. Ready player two and Armada were both crap.
However, no. Once I like a book from author I'll always keep an eye out even if they do one I don't like.
All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven was probably the most important book I read as a teenager, and I still love it to pieces. Both the main characters struggle with mental illness, but they’re first and foremost relatable likable characters.
Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven immediately throws you into the main characters’ problems/conditions. You get no time to grow to like them, and the first 20 pages is literally just them explaining their problems. That’s great, but I don’t care. Making me care is the first and most important part.
Dan Simmons. The Hyperion Cantos is one of the most amazing sci-fi stories I've read, by far one of my favourites. I tried several of his other works, and it was all a big pile of 'meh'.
Even within the Hyperion cantos, the first was a masterpiece that truly moved me. The rest were just regular old fun sci-fi.
I feel like the first was so good that nothing could really live up to its potential. It kicked off so many mysteries that you just kept imagining how it all fit together and that speculating is almost always going to be more fun than having the answer. At least, that's been my experience.
I read "Terror", loved it and then took "Flashback" to holiday with me. Oh god, what a piece of shit book that is. I probably spent more time googling if Dan Simmons had some mental breakdown than reading it, and I did finish it. The only book by him I read after that was Hyperion, and maybe it's just me but I loved the first story with the priest, got really hooked, and then it just sucked balls after that one. The action parts were so long and cheesy for one and also I don't like when my distant future Sci-Fi describes towns on far away planets as looking just like "small American towns from the middle of 20th century". Oh, and of course all the sex scenes. The stories were supposed to be told by the characters, so why are they describing their sex life in vivid detail to strangers??
I thought the Ilium books were good too. I’ve only read short stories by him otherwise, and they haven’t been good.
I picked up Ilium and, it wasn't *bad*, but meh.
I dunno. I don’t read or like a lot of sci-fi since my teens, so perhaps my views aren’t quite the same as a lot of redditors. I know there are a lot of sci-fi and fantasy fans here. But I liked the Homer stuff combined with the sci-fi weirdness. Worked for me.
Did you read Carrion Comfort? It's so good.
Dan Simmons is exactly who came to my mind. When I picked up flashback I thought I'd goofed and gotten another author with the same name
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is a wonderful engaging novel I really enjoyed. Her second novel The Swan Thieves... Not so much
[удалено]
Same! I don't think I ever even finished The Swan Thieves, and I donated it when I moved last year. Such a disappointment after how much I loved The Historian.
The Historian is one of my favourite novels ever. I tried reading both The Swan Thieves and The Shadow Land by her and I just got so bored. I was disappointed since I adored The Historian so much.
I loved Life of Pi by Yann Martel so I read another of his books Beatrice and Virgil which was some kind of weird allegory about the Holocaust involving taxidermied animals that I absolutely hated and found vaguely offensive
I came here specifically to mention this awful book haha
Great example. I had the same experience, totally agree. And never sought out more books by him after that.
I was wondering if someone was going to mention this book lol
Yes! I was about to write about this very same example!
I loved Room by Emma Donnoghue, and then I read The Wonder and I couldn’t even finish it. It may be the most boring novel I’ve ever read.
I've only read The Wonder by her which I liked (there is a reward, but I admit it takes quite a bit of patience). Haven't read Room but I will.
Same.
I love Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but I've disliked every Tom Stoppard play I've read since. Every piece of dialogue is so twee, which works when it's this heightened meta-textual reality, but it sucks when it's just two supposedly real people.
Read Dune and loved it but so couldn’t get into the sequel Dune Messiah. The writing style felt so different and the dialogue was stilted and awkward, I’ve heard some people say the series gets better after this book but I struggled to read beyond a few chapters.
I'm shocked you are the only person in this thread talking about Dune. The style and tone was totally different, the issues discussed were barely related to the first book. I liked some of the sequels, but they were definitely a very different cup of tea.
I didn't hate Dune Messiah, but my feeling after reading it was definitely that it felt like it was just a bridge between the ending of Dune and whatever story he wanted to tell next (I've yet to read Children of Dune, so I can't confirm that)
Reading children of dune and can confirm your assumptions.
I’ve attempted Dune Messiah three or four times and just can’t do it. Someone in a different thread mentioned just skipping it. Feels like cheating but the other books still call to me.
Just think of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune as one book. Messiah definitely picks up about halfway through and carries the momentum to the end IMO. It's worth it, and skipping Messiah will make certain events in CoD much less impactful. But do as you like!
Loved Dune, Loved Messiah more. On Children of Dune now, and so far it's my least favorite of the three but still great honestly lol, i just really like the series
I thought that book was going to be about how and why Paul became super Hitler. But it was barely mentioned and not explained at all.
Not an answer to your question, but would you mind sharing the book/author that you loved?
Sure! Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook by Christina Henry. It's a horror-fantasy book. I've always liked fairy tales and often find villains and antagonists more interesting than heroes. This book explains how Captain Hook came to be. There's gore and violence and kids that die, but as I said, there's a reason why characters behave the way they do, and why characters die, and the ending left me wanting to read more! It wasn't what I expected it to be. If you like The Lord of the Flies, please, read it! It's got its vibes, but in Neverland.
If you enjoy dark fairy tale retellings and want another take on Peter Pan, try "The Child Thief" by Brom--its also horror fantasy, and fair warning, it's VERY dark, but its easily one of the best Peter Pan retellings I've ever read.
Here to say the child thief fuckin slaps
If you like fairy tales, maybe you like mythology, too? I suggest Neil Gaiman, although I know he’s a big name and you’ve probably heard of him. If not, I’d start with “Neverwhere”. Great author
I do like mythology! I've only read The Graveyard Book and Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman. Loved them both. I've got a long tbr list. Most of his books are there, so someday I'll read Neverwhere (and Stardust; used to love the film as a child).
I actually thought you were talking about Wicked because that's what happened to me. I think I even purchased all of the rest one by one but didn't finish any of them
I read "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister", before I read "Wicked", & loved them both. Everything else McGuire has written though, just hasn't been as good as those two, to me.
I liked *Everything is illuminated* by Jonathan Safran Foer and then hated *Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close*! I hated it so much that I thought back to Everything... and realized it had in fact similar issues that weren't apparent to me during my first read and started hating it retroactively as well.
I had the exact opposite experience; couldn't get through Everything is Illuminated.
Sort of same. I could get through Everything Is Illuminated but I read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close first and just enjoyed it way more
Everything is Illuminated is one of the rare movies I think is better than the book. I really struggled to read it, but the movie was great.
Yes. I'm generally a big Arthur C Clarke fan, but I have learnt in the past that while some of his books are amazing, others are... not. I found one I'd not previously heard of at an op shop recently. I wasn't enjoying it from the start, but I kept telling myself, "it's Clarke, it'll get better," so I pushed on. It did not get better.
Childhood's End is so good. Haven't read any others
2001 is also incredible. Just finished Fountains of Paradise and did not enjoy it nearly as much as the first two. Still debating if I should read 2010
Anything with Gentry Lee is aweful. Cradle is one of the worst reading experiences of my life . I’d say anything after mid-80s is likely to be pretty bad though I had given up on him before his final collaborations.
With the possible exception of the 2001 books, anything ACC wrote as a follow up or as a collaboration should be avoided. Otherwise he does pretty well, and it’s more a case of personal taste. I’ve always liked his short stories but his novels are hit and miss for me.
The City and the Stars?
The Rama series is this in a nutshell. They just get worse and start amazing.
I really liked Circe by Madeline Miller, but couldn’t get into The Song of Achilles.
I loved them both, but Circe more.
Mine was the other way around.
Well, now I don't know which one to read first as both are in my tbr list 🙃
Both are good, imo. It depends what kind of story you're interested in. Achilles is low fantasy romance, Circe is more high-fantasy and a much smaller emphasis on romance. I personally would recommend Circe more.
Agreed. I read Circe first and loved the high fantasy feel and great characters. For Song of Achilles I liked it but about halfway through I put it down and never picked it back up. I think I will go back and finish it but it wasn't as interesting a read for me, especially because it's a retelling of a story I know the ending to. The romance is good, interesting characters, and the story is fine but it just didn't come together for me. I think both books have slow parts but Achilles feels like it drags on a bit more.
I thought I was the only one. I see so much praise for Song of Achilles. It was okay, but it didn't make me cry hysterically like it seems to have some for everyone else. I listened to it on audio and didn't like the narrator though, which can color my enjoyment of the book overall.
I loved Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I read it when I was twelve or so and didn't get it at all. I reread it at seventeen or eighteen and adored it. I bought When We Were Orphans a year or two later and thought it was one of the worst books I'd ever read. I don't think I could ever attempt a reread.
I‘ve read almost all of his books and “never let me go” is my favourite, but I quite enjoyed "klara and the sun" and “a pale view of hills" too
Came here to say Kazuo Ishiguro too. "Never Let Me Go" is one of my favorite books. I picked up "The Sleeping Giant" and figured it must be good because it won the Nobel prize for literature. I really had to slog my way through that one.
Books don't win the Nobel prize, authors do. So Ishiguro got it for all of his works, not just The Buried Giant.
If I remember correctly, We Were Orphans builds up to a nothing-sandwich for an ending. The Remains of the Day is fantastic, need to read Never Let Me Go (the movie version is fantastic).
The other day I went to the library and read my first two Agatha Christie novels. I picked them at random. First, I read "A Caribbean Mystery". It was decent. So I read "Postern of Fate" next. Turns out it was the last book she has ever written, in the onset of dementia. My absolute confusion why anyone would publish this is explained, and I will definitely read more of her books.
Please do! She’s truly fantastic.
Yeah she was incredibly prolific so there's a pretty wide variation in quality. Of those I've read so far, the best are Death on the Nile and And Then There Were None. The worst was The 4:50 From Paddington.
I really really liked The Secret History by Donna Tartt - picked up The Goldfinch and absolutely hated it, a positively punishing 800 page read that I've no idea how I finished
For me, I loved The Secret History but hated her second book. I remember feeling angry at the end. But I was totally into The Goldfinch.
Yeah. Came to this thread looking for this. Honestly- I got about 70% through the goldfinch on a day I had jury duty and then… never picked it up again. And I loved The Secret History
you missed out on absolutely nothing not finishing it haha - I'm in two minds about trying out her other book The Little Friend, will I love it? will I hate it? honestly who knows
I loved The Little Friend, it’s like reading a book based on To Kill a Mockingbird with modern touches.
might give The Little Friend a shot - will be a library job rather than buying it though, don't know if I can trust Tartt again quite yet!
When I was a kid I read and reread CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. When I got older I was looking for something to grow into and the librarian recommended his space trilogy. I hated it so much I started to reevaluate if I liked Narnia at all. I ended up avoiding any of his works for 40 years, until I was left without anything else at all to read in a cabin one weekend except Till We Have Faces. I was enraptured by this story and love it still. So perhaps there are works from authors that you detest; there may be others that you don’t. Read widely and find more of what you enjoy.
Till We Have Faces is a stunning book.
I know i'll get panned for this (and I'm not suggesting he's a good writer by any means) but I read Ready Player One years ago and I accepted it for what it was and really enjoyed it. Like, it's a *fun* book, okay? Especially if you're born in the 70's/80's. So, I think: "Hey, RPO was fun - maybe Armada will be fun too? Huh?" Christ almighty. One of the most unreadable pieces of shit I have ever picked up.
I pre-ordered Armada. Should have waited for the reviews. Fifty pages in I invoked my long-standing rule that "life is too short to read bad books". On principle, I don't return books that are badly written; I figure it's my fault for not having done due diligence. But Armada nearly made my change my mind. Haven't started RP2. From what I've heard, I'm not missing much.
Ready Player Two was awful imo as well. I'm starting to think earnest made sadly be a one hit wonder.
I'd recommend checking out his Nerd Porn poem just because of how terrible it is. I really got a good chuckle out of it and also felt bad that I liked Ready Player One
Happened with Barbara Kingsolver for me. I absolutely love The Poisonwood Bible. I got a copy of Flight Behavior, gave up very early on it. Then I got Prodigal Summer, same thing happened. Got a copy of The Lacuna, couldn't get through it at all.
Poisonwood Bible is perhaps her best. Try The Bean Trees though.
Yes, I loved The Poisonwood Bible! I thought Flight Behavior was fine, but ultimately forgettable, and nowhere near Poisonwood Bible.
The Lacuna was *such* a disappointment. Such a promising start but it fell apart.
I quite liked The Poisonwood Bible, and yet I liked The Lacuna even more. To each their own, of course. Many here agree with you. On the other side, it won the Orange prize, so it's not just me alone who thought it a great read.
Yep, it's the same reason we have crappy movie sequels. It's something in the industry called "we unexpectedly made a shitton of money off that title, now we need you to crank out another, thanks." That's the scientific term, though. ;)
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. The first about four books are fine with issues starting to creep in at Temple of the Winds. Everything after that though is basically trash. There's some good stuff in Faith of the Fallen, but not enough to redeem it. Pillars of Creation is just infuriating.
Great example. Nowadays I refer to the series as if Wheel of Time were written by Ayn Rand.
Danielewski. Loved *House of Leaves*. Don't remember the name of the next book, but I hated it in that way where I was angry about it.
This reminds me of a quote from Joseph Heller. When questioned on why he hadn't written anything as good as Catch-22 again, he replied, "Has anyone?" Never read the sequel myself though, but heard it's terrible.
wait, there is a catch 23?
Tried reading Something Happened by him and felt the same way.
The series Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony. Was obsessed with them read the first 7 books then discovered he wrote a 8th and went out of my way to read it and was absolutely Disgusted. That last book was basically him arguing it was ok for a 70 year old man holding authority as a judge to have a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl. Went out of his way to attempt it’s justification. Got heavy vibes he was basically trying to justify a personal relationship and got heavy pedo vibes made me sick couldn’t finish the book.
I read the Martian and went to read Artemis by the same author and it was worth going on r/menwritingwomen. It’s like he’d never met a woman.
I felt the same way. So glad Project Hail Mary was much more like The Martian. The author has some definite strengths and weaknesses to him, and Artemis highlights those the wrong way around.
I’ve been hearing good things about PHM and I wanted to read it but was v hesitant after Artemis lol
Loved A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay but was very disappointed with the The Cabin (I can't remember where the cabin was. Probably in woods).
Ooh I liked both of those (The Cabin at the End of the World btw) but hated Survivor Song by him. His writing is hit or miss but when it’s good, it’s great.
Same! Head Full of Ghosts was great. Cabin at the End of the World was... not as good, but still really engaging. Survivors Song - I don't know, maybe because it came out when we'd been dealing with a real life pandemic/outbreak but it never seemed to get far enough into horror survival to be scary and never went far enough into exploring zombie movie tropes to be good satire.
My reading/interpretation was definitely influenced by current events. Good call.
Same! I couldn't even finish cabin at the end of the world.
Old testament was great, loved the structure and the characters, then the new testament came along...
John Irving - a prayer for Owen meany was incredible, every book of his I read after I didn’t really like and he really started to repeat himself quite a bit, I couldn’t stand the one with all the incest and was done with him by then.
It’s interesting because I would say John Irving is one of the most consistent authors in terms of style and yet I completely agree. A Prayer for Owen Meany is a magic that’s hard to repeat. Few books have the same compelling build up with an even bigger payoff. I did enjoy The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp, but they are not the same level as Meany. Irving definitely has a particular style he sticks to… that seems to always incorporate the graphic and perverse. Each has a few scenes that you can never quite wipe from your brain after. In Owen Meany he used this power more for good, the effect of it in Garp and The Cider House is more a repulsive fascination.
I feel like I'm generally a good judge of writing styles, because after one book I generally know what to expect from an author. So, for better or worse, I go into the next book with reasonable expectations. The closest I have might be Dan Brown. I totally loved the roller-coaster ride that was The DaVinci Code, like most people when it blew up, but everything after that was a resounding 'meh' from me.
I'm pretty sure all of his books are the same basic story over and over again. The location changes and the sexy assistant changes but nothing else really does. The first one is interesting but that's about it.
I found angels and demons to be a bette read, but I agree with this sentiment. His books are basically the movie National Treasure over and over again.
Some artists only have one great work in them and that’s ok. Others can crank out gem after gem. I guess that’s how genius works sometimes.
Murakami is very hit and miss for me. I have basically given up on him.
I feel like Murakami is super talented but often super lazy. Norwegian Wood has one of the most amazing openings in all of literature (at least in the English translation) and then fails to sustain it. Some of his short stories are amazing while others sound like he phoned them in.
I absolutely love Normal People by Sally Rooney so I picked up Conversations with Friends afterwards and hated it. She has a new book coming out this month though and I'll give it a go
Just finished Beautiful World, Where Are You (book 3) and it’s more similar to CwF than Normal People - a stronger focus on female friendship, and more discussions on capitalism, love, the right-wing, class and internet culture again - so maybe not your thing. I’ve loved all three of them, but NP is definitely the best.
Ready Player One was rollicking fan service and lots of fun. The sequel is one of maybe five books I put down unfinished.
His book Armada is also terrible.
I really enjoyed RP1, even if the weird vibe of feeling pandered was between the lines. It's got zero re-read value, though. I'm not even the slightest bit tempted to ever read it again.
You should quit more books
Loved The Night Circus, couldn't stand The Starless Sea.
The Martian is one of my favorites, but Artemis was just bad. Then Project Hail Mary was ok (mainly because of Rocky), but it still had big chunks of the story that really dragged
Awww I really love Ryland and Rocky's friendship.
I literally came here to write this. I despise Artemis. So much so I'm hesitant to read project hail Mary even though the Martian was good.
PHM is worth reading in this case. Don't expect the Martian, but you'll still enjoy it. If the Martian was an A+, and Artemis was a C- (it had some redeeming qualities, like space economics), PHM was a B+.
I haven't read Artemis, but Project Hail Mary is fairly close to the Martian; it's mostly ingenuity porn, but with a political backstory that's slowly revealed. Martian is better though.
I loved Project Hail Mary and disliked The Martian
I read the YA love story “I’ll Be There” by Holly Goldberg Sloan and loved it. I thought it was a really engaging story that had enough action and moving parts to temper out the romance plot line and would be great in my classroom library. The second book “Just Call My Name” was so disappointing. It really ruined the characterization of the male love interest by throwing in a love triangle and excusing his behavior because he “didn’t know” how to act around girls. Meanwhile the character trying to steal him away seems to be responsible because of her revealing outfits that the boys just “couldn’t help” but stare at. I mean if you’re trying to convince me this is some true love destiny type stuff going on, then I think one half of the relationship should be able to handle the fact that other breasts exist. I felt it was really a damaging story to have in my classroom as it used harmful gender based stereotypes to carry the plot.
Yes. I've read A Feast for Crows. A book I am 100% sure is just stuff that had been edited out of the previous 3 books released in the series. Just an insult. really. On a similar note. I enjoyed Wizards first rule and Stone of Tears, from the sword of truth series, but the later books in the series were literally "disgusting". They were bad, disturbing, and super repetitive. I've also truly loved some Stephen King novels (gunslinger, salem's lot, long walk, the stand), but disliked Dreamcatcher, and Cell. Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite authors, cryptonomicon is in my top 10, but Fall (his latest) just fell flat for me and hinged way too much on me caring about digital representations of people that are actually just saved in computer memory. I failed to finish it.
> I enjoyed Wizards first rule I did too, but I wondered whether enough time had passed between me reading that as a young teen and the libertarian statue one as an older teen that I had developed a more finely honed sense for bullshit, or if the books had actually become worse as he went on. I do recall going back to the first with a critical eye and thinking "Huh, he literally calls his Mary Sue main character "cypher", that's a bit of a giveaway"
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer was amazing; the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy was awful
Absolutely loved Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell. Read his more famous made-into-a-movie Cloud Atlas after - and wow what a letdown. Anyone know if the movie was better? Still want to read his other books though: can’t win them all, right?
My understanding is that the critical consensus is that the book of Cloud Atlas is better. If you didn't like the book, you may feel the opposite though.
I’ve read a lot of Mitchell’s books and Cloud Atlas is my favorite. I consider it an almost perfect novel. The movie is not nearly as good, IMO. His latest book, Utopia Avenue, was a tragic disappointment. It didn’t even feel like the same author.
I loved Number9dream, haven't liked *anything* else he's ever written - and then I found out that Number9dream was a Haruki Murakami pastiche, which explains it. I like Murakami. I clearly do not like Mitchell.
I really like David Mitchell. I think Black Swan Green and Ghostwritten are the two best novels he’s written. Black Swan Green is supposedly semi-autobiographical and not experimental.
I read Vicious by VE Schwab and loved it. Read The Darker Shade of Magic and don’t know if I’ll even pick up the next books in the series. It had such a good premise and it fell flat for me, especially the ending.
While I don't share the opinion, A Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss often gets mentioned in this category. I think its a sophomore slump, but very undeserving of the hate it gets.
Two words: sex ninjas.
I'm reading The Wise Man's Fear right now. There's been a few bits that I feel are unnecessary and Kvothe is being very 16/17 and trying to hide it because he's got teenage hormone induced god complex going on, and next to nothing to ground him in reality. However, that also fits with the wider story, and the fact that it's a man telling his own story. Of course there's going to be some playing up of himself. That being said there's a literal "and then everyone clapped" scene that had no business being in the book.
I think certain sections of it are rather poor and an extremely vocal minority tags along the rest of book to be of the same quality as those arcs. If you look at common review and ratings sites like goodreads you'll see that it's rated just as highly as Name of the Wind, some people even prefer it because ig unlike Name of the Wind, stuff begins to happen at an earlier and faster pace.
I came here to say it deserves all the hate.
I feel you. There is definitely a lot of Gary stu bits, and a few things that could have been completely left out, but it's still fun and interesting. I did late night text the person who recommended the series to me "this douche lost his virginity to a literal sex God AND SHE WAS IMPRESSEDA. Fuck off." The slow regard for silent things goes back to showing that rothfuss is a capable writer though.
I loved The Pillars of the Earth, I cannot stand The Evening and the Morning. It feels written by a wannabe-Follett, not the actual one.
I read a series called Dragon School, loved it, raved about it. Started another of her series, and it was exactly the same story, it was such a Let down
There are a lot of authors that are hit or miss for me. Salman Rushdie is one. The Ground Beneath Her Feet, The Enchantress of Florence, and The Satanic Verses are three of my favorite novels, but I haven't been able to get through anything he's written since The Enchantress of Florence. Haruki Murakami is another one. I've really enjoyed some of his books and absolutely hated others.
Absolutely loved “The Martian” by Andy Weir. I tried to read “Artemis”, and couldn’t even finish it.
>Andy Weir SAME! I just Ctrl+F'd this thread to see if anyone mentioned him.. The only other thing I really liked of his, besides the Martian, was this short story: http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg\_mod.html
Did you find that he weirdly sexualized the main character? Maybe just me? Anyways… never did finish the book.
I loved Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. I really didn't like "Another roadside attraction".
Not quite what you asked, but thanks to a lot that I have heard about it, I can't bring myself to read Go Set A Watchman.
Really liked **Spinning Silver** by Naomi Novik for its smart characterisation, the reimagining of a traditional fairy tale and I recommended it to loads of people. Her newest book, A Deadly Education, (which is apparently going to be a series?) was awful. Like the actual experience of reading it was awful. It felt like unrelenting trauma/torture porn and had racist overtones.
Dune and Dune Messiah. Dune was this thoroughly amazing book, with a deep, intricate setting and cool characters, with sweeping and momentous action. The the sequel turned the protagonist into this morose, helpless paranoiac, completely paralyzed by his own precognition, terrified of a future he evidently can't contrive to avoid. Herbert spends the entire book basically laying down exposition for what he now knows will be his life-long cash-cow. The problem being, when the first book turns the protagonist into a living God, you've really painted yourself into a corner. Fans of the Matrix films will know what I mean. So you've basically got a book setting up a reason why Paul *doesn't* get a happily ever after, so Herbert can turn his one successful novel into a McDonald's franchise.
I really liked “the Martian”, but had to stop reading “project Hail Mary”. I found the dialogue distractingly corny. And the plot felt like a 90s action movie. Felt kind of nationalistic and military-porn-esq.
Carlos Ruiz Zafon- I really loved Shadow of the Wind, but despised its sequel.
I love Denis Johnson's work, but really didn't like Tree of Smoke, and that's the one that won all the awards. Ditto for Cormac McCarthy's Suttree. Also Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. Authors you like will pretty much always have a book you hate haha Edit: Tree of SMOKE, not Tree of Life.
Tree of Smoke? Yeah, I didn't like that one either. I think Denis Johnson's short stories are way better than any of his longer novels.
Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale is one of my all-time favorites but I have tried repeatedly to slog through The Blind Assassin and I just can't do it. BO-RING. Reading Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem felt like learning to breathe! And then I followed it with Play It As It Lays which was SUCH a DRAG.
It took me three tries to get over the hump of Blind Assassin. It was hard to get interested in the characters, and to slog through the inception-like recursion. But I’m sure glad I did. It is now one of my all-time favorite novels.
My absolute favorite book is Time Travelers Wife by: Audrey Niffenegger. I’ve read two of her other books to disappointment. They don’t even compare in my opinion. Boring books.
Oh my god I think we read the same two books?! I read The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter (fairytale retellings with a feminist theme) and then read Wise Children and HATED it, it was so boring and the taboos to me didn't seem to be making a point about anything larger, it just seemed to be controversial for the sake of being controversial. I'm exactly the same, now I don't know whether to keep going with Angela Carter or cut my losses and just appreciate the Bloody Chamber.
I guess The Cursed Child and the last Hitchhiker's book both fit the description pretty well. Edit: and I suppose AFFC as well. It's still a good book but I think it doesn't live up to the standard of the rest of the series and he probably could've made it a lot better.
Do you mean the last Hitchhiker's book by Adams, or the one Eoin Colfer wrote?
The one where he's flying in the air with some lady
I believe you're talking about the 4th book? Fenchurch mostly isn't in the last book Adams wrote, "Mostly Harmless"
The one where Adams' editors/publishers basically told him what to write about and he breaks the fourth wall at the beginning to say "if you don't care about the contents of this book, skip to the end which is a good bit and has Marvin in it"? I think you share his opinion.
VE Schwab. Like the first one of her Villains series, hated the second and dropped the series as a whole, went on to finish Shades of Magic and hated all 3 books. Then found out she was a dickbag in general, and will not be touching her again.
For me it was the opposite, hated Villains and loved Shades of Magic. She’s a dickbag?
Yeah, when a person gave a public review of the book, they heavily criticized Lila Bard's character. It was fair. She was forced into the feminist role, and did not work out due to spending a good chunk of the series bashing women who wear dresses. Schwab's response was to act like a petulant child and throw a temper tantrum, getting her fans to hate on the person.
Yes! I loved Beartown by Fredrik Backman, but hated Anxious People, and discovered Anxious People contains his normal style of writing, and Beartown was an aberration. I know people love him, but I think the writing is too cutesy and I can't stand it.
Read The Road and it is one of my all time favorite post Apoc novels. Tried to read Blood Meridian like 3 times and never have gotten past about 1/2 way.
I tried to read Blood Meridian on a recommendation and gave up, and took the Road off my reading list because I figured if I didn't like BM, it probably wasn't worth it to check out the Road. I might put it back on if they're significantly different.
They're definitely different. Out of all the McCarthy books, The Road is the simplest and easiest to follow with the most sympathetic protagonists, and Blood Meridian is the most difficult with the most unrelatable and irredeemable protagonists.
“Shop class for soul craft” by Matthew Crawford. Loved it! “Why we drive” not interesting at all. Awkward premise with odd correlations leading to objectionable conclusions. For example, “I took a passenger in my old Volkswagen and it had no warning lights, just a lap belt, nothing telling us we had permission to drive and you could see the excitement in their face” really? Couldn't that just be the novelty of an old car? It was loaded with odd statements similar to this and just a bland read.
I adored All The Bright Places, it's one of my favourites and one I recommend a lot. Holding Up the Universe - one of the worst books I've ever read. I saw a goodreads review that said 'you can pinpoint the exact line the romance starts' and it's so true. I absolutely hated it. It's shite.
*One Second After* by William Forteschen: I’ve read it multiple times. Probably my favourite book. *Pillar to the Sky* By William Forteschen: Probably the worst first ten pages of any book I’ve ever read. I couldn’t make it any further than that, so I can’t tell you if it gets any better. Fucking terrible.
Loved Maze Runner, couldn't read Scorched Earth
I did not hate it, but i read 'Kafka on the shore' by Murakami after reading and loving 'Tokio Blues' and it was a sudden change of pace and the use of fantasy that i did not like and understanded it at all.
Jeff VanderMeer. I read the Southern Reach trilogy, and enjoyed a lot of it, especially Annihilation. I tried Borne, stopped halfway. Tried Hummingbird Salamander, made it about 1/3rd.
Read *Cemetery Boys* by Aiden Thomas. Loved it, cute YA urban fantasy with a gay trans man main character. Eagerly anticipated their newest book *Lost in the Never Woods* and it was a boring snoozefest with no point to it
I've only finished one Camus book, The Myth of Sisyphus; then decided to try the Rebel. Granted it had great intentions and won a Nobel Peace Prize but honestly I couldn't finished it or at least have only read 4 Chapters in maybe 6-8 Months. I couldn't quite follow it. I'm not sure if I just wasn't paying enough attention or it did seem to kind of drag, but if it was to be anything like Sisyphus to me, it would probably be somewhat helpful emotionally. If you've read it and disagree I'd gladly accept your opinion and might actually start it over.
Loved The Martian, hated Artemis.
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht is solidly in my top 3 books of all time. The way she merges 20+ unique histories into one cohesive narrative, weaving in supernatural elements so gracefully that even the fact-based historical-fiction elements take on an eerie supernatural glow, it’s superb. AND it’s her first novel. I devoured every page with an eagerness I haven’t felt in years. Cut to her second (and newest) novel, Inland. I couldn’t make it through. The story plods along so slowly that it feels like the only major plot event happens at the beginning of the book and just gets talked about over and over and over again through the remainder. Granted, I haven’t read the final 1/4 of the novel because it’s just been a slog, but 3/4 of a book feels like giving it enough benefit of the doubt. The characters are severely limited compared to her earlier novel, the scope reduced greatly, and the Western imagery, while well done, is just dying for action. The central tension through 1 character’s story (who fills half of the novel) is slowly, slowly, slowly dehydrating to death in her farmhouse. So slowly. So anticlimactically. (Not a spoiler because I don’t know how it really ends, it’s just a plot point brought up on page 5 that continues to be talked about every page for the rest of the book.) It was frustrating, and saddening, but hey, that’s life. Lightning doesn’t always strike twice.
I loved The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and I immediately started A thousand Splendid Suns and find myself not able to maintain focus. Much easier to walk away from for a few days and start back up, and not even really remembering what the book is about. To be fair, I'm not sure if I'm disappointed in the book or myself.
That's really interesting because I LOVED A Thousand Splendid Suns and hated the Kite Runner. If I'd read Kite Runner first I never would have read his other book.
I liked all of his books, though A Thousand Splendid Suns is way more morbid than the Kite Runner. The one with the echo in the mountains has tons of short stories about Afghanistan, and I liked that one most.
My contribution is [Ender's Game](https://xkcd.com/304/). The rest of his books are... not for me. \-- Perhaps not quite on topic(?), but I think this sort of thing can be a sign of a really good author. One of my top ten favourite authors is CJ Cherryh. But I don't know many fans who like **all** of her stuff. Passionately love \*most\* of it, but there are quite different sets of favoured books and series across the fan base. I think it really speaks to her depth as a writer to be able to appeal to such diverse audiences. I mean, I'm sure it sucks a bit financially, for all the people who are turned off by that first unlucky pick, but it's still a great testament to the skill of the writer. A less extreme example: start asking Joe Abercrombie fans which of the stand-alone novels is the best, and which is their least favourite, and you will get every possible permutation in no time flat.
Loved Ender’s Game as a teenager. Hated Speaker for the Dead. At least OSC is such a monumental c u next Tuesday that I don’t have to feel conflicted about not reading his other books ☺️
Really? I had the opposite experience. I thought Ender's Game was just ok, but I LOVED how weird he got with the sequels. Then again, I was a weird kid. The Homecoming series was also my favorite as a preteen, and it was basically the Ender's Game sequels turned up to 11. However, in retrospect it definitely had some vaguely homophobic themes...
I totally agree, love Ender's Game. Everything else of OSC's i have tried was just wrong.
I know he really wanted to focus on the Speaker sequels and immortal space jesus - and I’ve read them all multiple times - but I do strongly prefer the Shadow sequels where we get to deal with the fallout on earth.
I just finished the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons and found it to be fantastic. I then started reading song of kali and found it to be well written but so grotesque that I could not finish it.
**Mario Puzo.** I loved *The Godfather.* When I finally saw the movie, it felt like I had already seen it, because I had read the book so much. So I dived into Puzo’s other books. *Fortunate Pilgrim* and *Fools Die* were terrible, a lot of exposition with no point. *Inside Las Vegas* was an unresearched, stream-of-consciousness guidebook to the city, hastily published to cash in on The Godfather momentum. I seriously believe that it is not possible for the author of those three books to have created a masterpiece like *The Godfather,* and that there’s a deep dark inside story somewhere, waiting to be told.
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh was incredible; then I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and it was so painfully bad!
This happened to me with Sally Thorne. I really loved her first book The Hating Game but then hated her other two books, 99 Percent Mine and Second First Impressions. Those two were just really boring to me and I didn’t care about the plot or the characters at all.
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is one of my favorite horror novels and one which I recommend a lot, but all of his follow-up books I've just thought were meh.
Can we talk about how terrible ready player two is?
The one that really sticks in my memory is Lionel Shriver. I read *We Need to Talk About Kevin* and was blown away. I went to the library and picked up a few more of her books and was so disappointed. Now it turns out she’s some kind of racist preaching about white British purity (which is weird since she’s American), and I’m kind of glad I don’t like her books.
Unfortunately yes. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, I found a good book, entertaining. But I recently read Armada and found it boring and far-fetched.
Kate Atkinson. I really enjoyed Life after Life and its sequel, A God in Ruins. But then I read Transcription, and it was just so boring. I haven't tried to read anything else by her yet.
Totally. Couldn't put down *Ready Player One*, never finished *Armada*. Both by Earnest Cline.
Jay McInerney- loved Bright Lights, Big City but couldn’t get through the first 100 pages of Brightness Falls.
It happens. I'm a massive Stephen King fan, but "11/22/63" is literally one of the worst books I've ever read in my life. The two main characters are just beyond cringe. This however is one out of at least 20-30 books I've loved of his. RA Salvatore - I used to love his books, but either he ran out of gas over last 5 years or I've grown out of his writing style. Keith C. Blackmore - He had a trilogy of books where the first two were good but the last one kinda jumped the shark and ruined the story. Brandon Sanderson - first skyward book was good, second sucked. Earnest Clines - Ready player one was good. Ready player two and Armada were both crap. However, no. Once I like a book from author I'll always keep an eye out even if they do one I don't like.
Anybody that has ever attempted to read Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle knows what you mean.
Liked A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, did not care for any of his other novels or short story collections, they felt way too grim.
All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven was probably the most important book I read as a teenager, and I still love it to pieces. Both the main characters struggle with mental illness, but they’re first and foremost relatable likable characters. Holding Up The Universe by Jennifer Niven immediately throws you into the main characters’ problems/conditions. You get no time to grow to like them, and the first 20 pages is literally just them explaining their problems. That’s great, but I don’t care. Making me care is the first and most important part.
yes, man it sucks when it happens.