# Books you really hated?



## Deleted member 4265 (Nov 19, 2015)

[Post Removed]


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## Deleted member 4265 (Nov 19, 2015)

[Post Removed]


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## Miskatonic (Nov 20, 2015)

IT. Too long and anything involving sex in King's books is usually bizarre. Especially the group sex part in IT. Not sure how he tried to justify that. 

There were a handful of good parts and a whole lot of zzzzzzz.


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## Incanus (Nov 20, 2015)

One of the biggest disappointments for me in recent years was Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  I didn't consciously have expectations about it one way or another when starting it, but with the awards it won and the fans it has, I assumed it would be a pretty decent read at least.  Didn't like anything about it.  The ending was so predictable, so obvious.  Logical problems everywhere.  Petty, unbelievable characters.  I guess if I had read it when I was a kid, it would have worked better.

To make it worse, I had this book with me when I was stuck in a waiting room for five hours while having a catalytic converter installed.  Of all the times to have only (what I consider) a poor book on hand... I was quite grumpy that day.


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## Tom (Nov 20, 2015)

It takes a lot for me to hate a book. In the case of the _Twilight Saga_ and the _Inheritance Cycle_, I dislike them rather than hate them. Both of them are the sort of badly written, unfortunate implication-strewn tripe I relish disliking. But I don't hate them. I might rant about them, but I don't hate them. They aren't worth my hatred. 

On the other hand, there are those books I hate. Usually they're the ones built up and built up until my expectation of them was of near-perfection. They're the books people recommend to me, gushing about how "you'll love this book! It's _so_ your type of book!" (As an aside, I don't really feel I have a type. I like a lot of different books, each very different from the others.) I get so excited about those books, and when I open them I think, "_This is going to blow my mind._" And more often than not, I'm disappointed. _That's_ what makes me hate a book. 

One book I hated was _Graceling_. I went into that book thinking I was going to love it, and came out of it severely disappointed. Maybe because it was one of those "Tom, this is _totally_ your type" books, or for some other reason, I don't know. Often when I really hate a book, I can't pinpoint the specific reason why I hate it. I dislike Twilight and Inheritance Cycle, and I can point out myriads of reasons why. For those books that have garnered my true hatred, I can't show you the passages that made me hate them. My book-hatred is less outrage at a specific instance and more a vague sense of growing antipathy as I read.


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## Incanus (Nov 20, 2015)

Yeah, I agree with you, Tom, that the word 'hate' here is probably a bit over-much.  I chose to respond to the spirit of the thread, rather than the literal meaning.  It's about disappointment, not hatred.


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## Steerpike (Nov 20, 2015)

I liked Graceling well enough, but Fire and Bitterblue are much better books. I've been disappointed in some hard sci-fi recently because of great premises but disappointing execution.


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## Deleted member 4265 (Nov 20, 2015)

Maybe hate is too strong a word for most people, so disappointed might have been a better title. Personally, I'm one of those people who gets really attached to the characters in a book so when I'm reading something and I love the first few chapters at least and then something happens that ruins it for me, it just makes my blood boil. I just think "how could the author do this to such a good book?" It's not just disappointment for me, it's a literal rage.


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## Tom (Nov 20, 2015)

I remember that book. I found it so boring I never finished it, and I usually make it a point to finish books, even those I don't like. Gary Paulsen is definitely on my "authors to avoid" list.


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## Manalodia (Nov 20, 2015)

Dracula the Undead. I can't get back the moments I spent on that, even after skipping the duller parts.


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## Caged Maiden (Nov 21, 2015)

I've posted it before, but The Kiterunner.  Now to say I hated it would be an overstatement, so I didn't hate it, but what I felt was real disappointment.  The beginning was so good.  Really great.  It was real, and raw, and the details were perfectly balanced to create the right imagery a child would experience and it felt so awesome I was hooked.  But the second half had nothing the first half had for me.  The first half had rivalry and childish pride.  It had fingers stained from pomegranates, and bloody hands from glass shards on kite strings.  It had mystery and family tension, and the most vivid imagery about a setting that was new and fresh to me.

The second half was rushed and striving for a dramatic goal it never hit, because it laid out facts in a plain way, like I was being slapped with a dead fish.  It wasn't colorful, it was crude and rough-hewn, so very unlike the first half.  It felt as if the author gave up halfway through and just threw any old thing in there to fill out the pages (like I felt the ending of the Harry Potter series just tapered off into something unexpectedly disappointing rather than a a grand crescendo that rocked me to the core).  Yeah, disappointing.  I do recommend it to people who want to know how to write a great character, but only the first half, where the details were magical and the characters were compelling.  It's a wonder to me how anyone can write such a gripping beginning, only to lose a reader at the halfway point, when the drama picks up pace.  I think for me, the character was what became less believable, and when that happened, I was out.


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## Chessie (Nov 21, 2015)

Manalodia said:


> Dracula the Undead. I can't get back the moments I spent on that, even after skipping the duller parts.


Have you read the original? That one goes on my list of hated. It's written entirely in journal form and I couldn't really get into the story (which is a bad ass idea btw).


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## kennyc (Nov 21, 2015)

I don't usually allow myself to 'hate' a book. If I don't like it after the first chapter or two I just put it away, sometimes I'll come back and try again but if the same thing happens then I don't typically come back. Neuromancer by Gibson was/is that way for me. Ulysses/Anything by James Joyce is that way....a few others that escape my memory - thank gawd!

Same goes for short stories....if the don't grab me (or annoy me) in the first few pages.....bye-bye!


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## kennyc (Nov 21, 2015)

Incanus said:


> One of the biggest disappointments for me in recent years was Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  I didn't consciously have expectations about it one way or another when starting it, but with the awards it won and the fans it has, I assumed it would be a pretty decent read at least.  Didn't like anything about it.  The ending was so predictable, so obvious.  Logical problems everywhere.  Petty, unbelievable characters.  I guess if I had read it when I was a kid, it would have worked better.
> 
> To make it worse, I had this book with me when I was stuck in a waiting room for five hours while having a catalytic converter installed.  Of all the times to have only (what I consider) a poor book on hand... I was quite grumpy that day.



You must get a Kindle (or other ebook reader) so this never happens again!


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## Mythopoet (Nov 21, 2015)

kennyc said:


> You must get a Kindle (or other ebook reader) so this never happens again!



Agreed! Having a whole library with you wherever you go is the best thing ever.


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## Incanus (Nov 25, 2015)

kennyc said:


> You must get a Kindle (or other ebook reader) so this never happens again!



Of course, that has only happened once in my life so far.  I could probably justify a bomb-shelter for similar reasons.

Still, I probably will have to get an ebook-thing at some point.  The advantages are pretty obvious.  I'm not young, and I just like the tactile feel of paper for some reason.  But I'm sure I'll to want to read something available only on ebook at some point.

And, strangely, I like to read a poor or mediocre book every once in while too.  Mostly so I can say to myself something along the lines of, "Wow.  How did this get published?  I'll make sure my book is better than this."


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## kennyc (Nov 25, 2015)

Incanus said:


> O...
> 
> And, strangely, I like to read a poor or mediocre book every once in while too.  Mostly so I can say to myself something along the lines of, "Wow.  How did this get published?  I'll make sure my book is better than this."



Oh there's tons of those on the self-published ebook sites including amazon. Another thing about ebooks you might consider is all the free classic and out of print books that are available!


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## Incanus (Nov 25, 2015)

kennyc said:


> Oh there's tons of those on the self-published ebook sites including amazon. Another thing about ebooks you might consider is all the free classic and out of print books that are available!



Far too many.  I only do this every once in a while, so I'll never, ever run out.

But I'm finding that there are a number of out-of-print items that are not in ebook form.  Or that they're terrible.  Used copies are the only option.

Can't find Tanith Lee's Tales of the Flat Earth.  And the Clark Ashton Smith stories are only poorly scanned versions--chock full of typos--a real travesty, he was one of the greatest.


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## Heliotrope (Nov 25, 2015)

I loved Hatchet  I like those sorts of wilderness adventure stories. And I liked the repetitive writing style and the combo-descriptions fell-ran stuff. 

A book I hated and was super disappointed about was Name of the Wind. What a major disappointment for me. I was so engaged in the writing… and then… nothing. Literally nothing. Kvothe was a total Gary Sue, he was great musician, then… what? He went to school and did some stuff, then saved a village from a dragon… hundreds of pages of nothing. 

Has anyone ever read anything by SheriLyn Kenyon? I picked up one of hers in the waiting room and it was also awful…


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## Incanus (Nov 25, 2015)

Heliotrope said:


> A book I hated and was super disappointed about was Name of the Wind. What a major disappointment for me. I was so engaged in the writing… and then… nothing. Literally nothing. Kvothe was a total Gary Sue, he was great musician, then… what? He went to school and did some stuff, then saved a village from a dragon… hundreds of pages of nothing.



This was very much my assessment as well.  Started off interesting, and with pretty good writing.  But the character was just a little too awesome at everything he did and he was smarter than his teachers.  So, for hundreds of pages, the only real source of conflict was that he had trouble scraping up enough money.  Boring, boring, boring.  But since my expectations were realistic going into it, I didn't suffer much in the way of disappointment.  No more Rothfuss for me, thank you very much.


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## Heliotrope (Nov 25, 2015)

Thank You! 

 so weird, since GRRM had a blurb on it, and I kept hearing how good it was.

What I really wanted to see was his true character. I kept hoping that the story he was relating to the Chronicler was actually not the true story at all… merely his 'media' story. I felt like Rothfuss was hinting at this… He is so great and perfect because this is actually not the true story, this is just the story he tells everyone… Or something. I wanted to find out that really he was a villain or something… I don't know. Something….


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## Gurkhal (Nov 26, 2015)

I dislike pretty much everything that David Eddings have written.  I find Harry Potter to be more interesting than anything publushed under the name Eddings. While there are many things that could have been good or great in these books, they always amounts to, at best, nothing of interest for me.


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## Mythopoet (Nov 27, 2015)

ooh, ooh, ooh, I've got lots!

*Witch World by Andre Norton.* I have NO IDEA why this book and this author gets praised. It was the most boring fantasy novel I have EVER read. By a long sot. Just dull, dull, dull. Maybe other books she wrote were better, but being introduced to her through this, one of her most famous books, I am not willing to take the risk. 

*The Magic of Recluce by L. E. Modesitt.* I guess if you're an adolescent boy who needs a hero who's always ogling girls and imagining that they all want to have sex with him just because they smiled while serving his food at an inn, this book might be for you. If you're literally anyone else, the MC is just a pathetic excuse for a character who refuses to think for himself, doesn't actually care about anything, and spends most of the story being bored up until he's suddenly not. This might be the second most dull fantasy novel I have ever read. 

*Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.* This book pisses me off because it begins with this absolutely fascinating prologue that is moving and intriguing and makes me want to know more.... and also takes place like thousands of years before the main story which instead decides to follow a group of boring, stupid, adolescent country oafs as they proceed to make a mess of everything until the 11th hour. There are startling passages full of amazing potential... that are totally squandered on all the stupid banal pov characters. I hate them all and wish they would all die, but I know they won't because the series drags on for literally forever. 

*Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake.* This one is more a matter of personal taste in that I don't argue that Peake's writing skills are, for the most part, fine. (Though his prose can get overly descriptive and spend far too much time in describing action scenes in ridiculously minute detail.) But the subject matter of this book is just thoroughly repulsive to me. There is nothing good in his world, every person is so thoroughly flawed as to be completely crippled by it. There is no ray of light anywhere. Everything is dark and weighed down in darkness. There isn't even any purpose for this. No thematic resonance that I could feel. Perhaps this works with some people. But it didn't work for me. 
*
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss*. Unlike some others here, I liked The Name of the Wind well enough. I certainly found its mysteries intriguing. Though I agree the character of Denna was lacking. (Honestly, I never expected her to come back after her first appearance. I think that was a mistake. She worked as this mysterious girl he had a crush on after a brief meeting and a haunting memory. She did not work for me at all in her expanded "I'm the girl you'll never be able to forget because even though I don't show the slightest consideration for you as more than another of my pawns I'm really hot and I'll never leave you alone" role.) Anyway, it was The Wise Man's Fear that really failed epicly for me. It pretty much ignored every interesting mystery the first book had introduced and instead focused on Kvothe gaining worldly experience from superhumans. I mean, it's great that Kvothe was taught to sex real good by some fairy goddess, I'm sure Denna will be thrilled. But this book spent so much time on tedious political intrigue followed by interludes of weeks of sexcapades and training from super special awesome fighter people and more sex and just none of it had anything to do with the interesting stuff the first book introduced. It was just a whole book of filler. It made me so frustrated. And somehow, even though it was focusing on Kvothe's development, he became so much less likable to me in this book. So... full of himself. Which is probably the point, but that doesn't make it fun to read about in first person. And what compounds the negativity of the whole experience, I read this book YEARS ago, a whole book of pointless filler, and the next book STILL isn't out. This was only supposed to be a trilogy! What the hell is the problem? Rothfuss, you really need to jump off the George "I can take however long I want to write my next book and you all can suck it" Martin bandwagon. 

Speaking of which:* A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin. * Didn't get farther than that. Obviously this is also a matter of taste, but I just really dislike all the characters and everything they do. There was nothing in these books that I enjoyed reading about. I kept saying to myself, "everyone loves these, it has to get good somewhere", but no it didn't. Not to my taste. I can't imagine wanting to read or write about such a dark, degenerate world. 

I think I'll stop there for now. Thinking about all these books I hate is souring my mood.


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## Ban (Nov 30, 2015)

People here really dislike kingkiller chronicles, don't you? I loved the first book, thought it was wonderful. The second book had some weird aspects like the Felurian thing, but overall i think it was a solid book as well with beautiful writing. I really don't understand why it keeps showing up here.


Onto the books that i hate.... I only read fantasy books that have had solid ratings, so i can't say i hate any book that i've read.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Nov 30, 2015)

Banten said:


> People here really dislike kingkiller chronicles, don't you?


Not this guy. I'm a fan.


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## Mythopoet (Dec 1, 2015)

Banten said:


> People here really dislike kingkiller chronicles, don't you? I loved the first book, thought it was wonderful. The second book had some weird aspects like the Felurian thing, but overall i think it was a solid book as well with beautiful writing. I really don't understand why it keeps showing up here.



Because it's way over hyped and overrated so a lot of people go into it with high expectations that are disappointed because it's just not as good as people say it is.


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## Russ (Dec 1, 2015)

Banten said:


> People here really dislike kingkiller chronicles, don't you? I loved the first book, thought it was wonderful. The second book had some weird aspects like the Felurian thing, but overall i think it was a solid book as well with beautiful writing. I really don't understand why it keeps showing up here.



I am on the fence.  I enjoyed the first book.  I love his prose, like the MC and enjoy the world.

I found the second book just too slow.  Not enough happened to move the plot along for me at all. I found the second book a little too full of adolescent wish fulfillment rather than good character development and plot.  I still loved his prose and the world.

The first book to me seemed to make a lot of promises to the reader.  I don't think the second book moved us far enough in the direction of fulfilling those promises.  The third book had better deliver a lot of good plot that resolves a few things if he wants me to remain a fan.


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## Ban (Dec 1, 2015)

Sure i agree the second book is overhyped (i won't say that about the first though), but is that enough reason to put it on a books you hated list? I mean it is your opinion and i can't really argue against it, but even with the hype it is still an at the very least acceptable series up until now.


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## Ban (Dec 1, 2015)

Russ said:


> I am on the fence.  I enjoyed the first book.  I love his prose, like the MC and enjoy the world.
> 
> I found the second book just too slow.  Not enough happened to move the plot along for me at all. I found the second book a little too full of adolescent wish fulfillment rather than good character development and plot.  I still loved his prose and the world.
> 
> The first book to me seemed to make a lot of promises to the reader.  I don't think the second book moved us far enough in the direction of fulfilling those promises.  The third book had better deliver a lot of good plot that resolves a few things if he wants me to remain a fan.



Yeah, i can understand that. I think the second book was pretty good while the first book was fantastic. Both books are at the positive side of the Book Quality Spectrum (that is a thing now), but the difference in quality is still big. I have high hopes for the third book though, considering that it will most likely be about the downfall of Kvothe so that we will finally see this slightly Gary Stu-ish character at his lowest.


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## Russ (Dec 1, 2015)

Banten said:


> Sure i agree the second book is overhyped (i won't say that about the first though), but is that enough reason to put it on a books you hated list? I mean it is your opinion and i can't really argue against it, but even with the hype it is still an at the very least acceptable series up until now.



I think you are correct that Wise Man's Fear is a victim of it's own expectations.  NOTW was really, really good and therefore hard to follow up.  Plus it is always tough to avoid the "sagging middle" in a trilogy.  But based on  my assessment of Rothfuss as a writer I thought he could have done so much more in book two.  I expect a lot of him because he has shown me how good he can be in book one.  It is the kind of problem I think many writers wish they had!


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## Mythopoet (Dec 1, 2015)

Well, I didn't read NOTW when it came out. I read it sometime later after hearing it highly praised from all quarters. And I did think NOTW was a very promising book. I enjoyed it for the most part, though I think it has some huge flaws, namely Denna's characterization and the whole weird, stupid climax episode. So I was looking forward to WMF when it came out and digging more into the more promising aspects that were introduced in the first book. However, WMF induced severe boredom and disappointment in me because it was mostly filler and fluff and non sequitur and everything I liked about the first book was pretty much gone while the things I didn't like got even worse. So yes, I hated it. It was NOT, in my opinion, an acceptable follow up to NOTW by any measure I apply.


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## Heliotrope (Dec 1, 2015)

Yeah, I LOVED Rothfuss' prose. Loved it. It was some of the most beautiful writing I have read in a long time… 

But the dragon sequence at the end? Wtf? That just ruined it for me. It had nothing to do with anything… I just didn't get it.


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## Tom (Dec 1, 2015)

Eurgh. Rothfuss. 

I tried, I really did. But for me, reading Name of the Wind was the literary equivalent to having teeth pulled.


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## Incanus (Dec 3, 2015)

And then there was A Farewell to Arms--Hemingway.  I don't think I read even fifteen pages of it.  Couldn't find a single thing I liked about it.  He must have done something right, though--just for others, not for me.


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## Velka (Dec 4, 2015)

Heh, I loved A Farewell to Arms. I adore Hemingway's austerity of prose, probably because it is a 180 from my own writing. 

A book that still gives me a visceral response of disgust is Blindness by Jose Saramago. Lack of periods, no quotation marks, and no character names (just descriptors like The Doctor or The Dog of Tears) drove me insane. Some of the scenes were really, really hard to read and made me feel almost physically ill.


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## Incanus (Dec 4, 2015)

That's kind of funny.  For me it is because Hemingway is 180 degrees opposite to my style that I loathe the prose austerity.

The other book you describe sounds pretty tough to deal with.  Without knowing more, it sounds like 'modernist' writing to me.


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## Mythopoet (Dec 4, 2015)

Incanus said:


> That's kind of funny.  For me it is because Hemingway is 180 degrees opposite to my style that I loathe the prose austerity.



See, this is why we need all kinds of styles. Me, I'm in the middle. I tend to dislike both dense and sparse prose and prefer a middle ground.


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## Zadocfish (Dec 4, 2015)

I forget which one, for I listened to them a long time ago, but either _The Land that Time Forgot_ or _The People that Time Forgot_ by Edgar Rice Burroughs..  Whichever one introduced the "evolution pools."  Referring to "less evolved" human features as "Negroid" and portraying beautiful white people as the pinnacle of human evolution was far, far too much for me.  I know you have to take these things in historical context, but there's "fair for its day" and then there's just plain icky.


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## Garren Jacobsen (Dec 5, 2015)

Hated Pride and Prejudice.


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## Ireth (Dec 5, 2015)

Of Human Bondage. I don't even remember most of it, it was so boring.


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## Axaran (Dec 20, 2015)

I don't know if any of you have even heard of this series but 'Chronicles of Blood and Stone' trilogy by Robert Newcomb was probably the only book I actually despise, not only was it totally cookie cutter (and bad at that) but the villains were hyper female sex pervert maniacs (and badly written ones at that) the hero saves the world by accident by dropping one of the witch's amulets because he is too stupid to do it himself. But when I read about the actual author he really admits that he had never actually read a fantasy book in his life. So basically take the most boring cookie cutter fantasy archetype and add in hours of meaningless rape and BDSM and that is what it is. 

I try to learn something from every book I read, on this one I learned if you can have submissive BDSM sex with an editor you can get your god-awful book in print. 

Why I hate this book is because it actually got published when there are plenty of strugling authors with good ideas who are refused


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## skip.knox (Dec 21, 2015)

Pretty much anything by R.A. Salvatore.


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## Clearmadness (Dec 21, 2015)

Eragon, and the Inheritance Cycle.

I don't know that sup par cliche ridden nonsense was ever published.


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## Mythopoet (Dec 22, 2015)

Devouring Wolf said:


> Anything by China MiÃ©ville. I tried to read two of his books first Kraken and The Scar and couldn't finish either. It feels like the way he wrote the book was by smoking a joint, writing 600 pages of drug-fueled description, adding his political ideology into it, and then going "hm, maybe this should have a plot" a statement my sister who adores him agrees with.
> 
> I'm beginning to think the new weird genre just isn't for me. Recently I tried reading another book in that category, The Unwrapped Sky. I didn't hate it, in the beginning I actually really enjoyed it, but somewhere in the middle I just stopped caring about the characters so i didn't finish it (and I'm pretty good at finishing books once I've committed to them)



Whenever I find myself really liking a book until at some point in the middle I realize I don't care, I don't think it has anything to do with the genre. Rather, it always seems to be the author's lack of skill in utilizing the genre to tell a compelling story.


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## Deleted member 4265 (Dec 22, 2015)

Mythopoet said:


> Whenever I find myself really liking a book until at some point in the middle I realize I don't care, I don't think it has anything to do with the genre. Rather, it always seems to be the author's lack of skill in utilizing the genre to tell a compelling story.



That's true. There were definitely things in The Unwrapped Sky that if I'd been writing it I would've done differently (mainly the fact that the characters felt a bit inconsistent) but at the same time, I really am beginning to think new weird is not for me. Even if I had liked that book, it would've ended up being the exception rather than the rule.


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## tiggywinke (Feb 12, 2016)

I've hated many books in my life, most of which I was required to read for school.  One book I hated that I theoretically read for fun was "Ruins" by Kevin J. Anderson.  It was an X-Files novel--or at least it claimed to be on the front.  It's probably easiest to list the things that this book did right.  Mr. Anderson successfully adhered to the basic conventions of the English language.  The punctuation was lovely.  Also, it was well-put-together enough that I could tell it was a novel, and not a cookbook, or a hastily-scrawled sign saying "HELP ME" held up in the back window of a car.    On every single other point, this novel was an abysmal failure.  It's almost worth reading just so you can see how bad a novel a literate person can produce.


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## Ray M. (May 9, 2016)

Brent Week's Beyond the Shadows trilogy

I'll stay far, far away from those. My uncle bought them to me as a gift. I really tried hard to like at least the first one; my uncle would be sad if I told him he got me books that I thought were shit. It got to the point where it was unreadable. The book throws plot points at you, skips parts of the story (laziness?) that might've been vital or a good read, characters are two dimensional and most of the times made of cardboard, the writing shallow and indifferent. It reminds me of very bad fan fiction that a teenager would write for free online, it has just been edited so it's actually coherent, and that's the worst part, it's a mess that actually works. In the end, I had to lie to my uncle, because I found nothing good to say about those books.

There may be people who disagree, but I honestly think this author gives fantasy a bad name. I'm not one to hate books, and I don't hate anything else I've come across, but they do take the cake.


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## Steerpike (May 10, 2016)

Brian Scott Allen said:


> Hated Pride and Prejudice.



I thought it was great. From the first line, I knew it was going to be a good one.


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## CupofJoe (May 10, 2016)

There have been many books I have stopped reading because I really didn't like something about them. There are few that I have hated.
About the only book I have finished and hated was _Bored of the Rings_. 
I was told it was the funniest thing EVER... As I was trying to go out with the book's recommender I struggled through it hoping it was going to get good. It didn't.
Another is _The Younger Gods_ by D&L Eddings. The whole of _The Dreamer_ series [_The Elder Gods_, _The Treasured One_, _Crystal Gorge_, & _The Younger Gods_] was a diminishing return, but I was hoping that there was going to be a twist in the tale to make the really bad story come together in a way I hadn't foreseen. 
Again dear Readers, it didn't... I felt cheated. And then sad as I found about David Eddings becoming ill.


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## Ben (May 10, 2016)

Ray M. said:


> Brent Week's Beyond the Shadows trilogy
> 
> I'll stay far, far away from those. My uncle bought them to me as a gift. I really tried hard to like at least the first one; my uncle would be sad if I told him he got me books that I thought were shit. It got to the point where it was unreadable. The book throws plot points at you, skips parts of the story (laziness?) that might've been vital or a good read, characters are two dimensional and most of the times made of cardboard, the writing shallow and indifferent. It reminds me of very bad fan fiction that a teenager would write for free online, it has just been edited so it's actually coherent, and that's the worst part, it's a mess that actually works. In the end, I had to lie to my uncle, because I found nothing good to say about those books.
> 
> There may be people who disagree, but I honestly think this author gives fantasy a bad name. I'm not one to hate books, and I don't hate anything else I've come across, but they do take the cake.



I started to read one of his books, it literally began with a little kid crawling around in mud and shit.  I powered through to about page 100 but couldn't find like about it. I realize different strokes for different folks but this was not for me.


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## Ben (May 10, 2016)

Devouring Wolf said:


> Anything by China MiÃ©ville. I tried to read two of his books first Kraken and The Scar and couldn't finish either. It feels like the way he wrote the book was by smoking a joint, writing 600 pages of drug-fueled description, adding his political ideology into it, and then going "hm, maybe this should have a plot" a statement my sister who adores him agrees with.
> 
> I'm beginning to think the new weird genre just isn't for me. Recently I tried reading another book in that category, The Unwrapped Sky. I didn't hate it, in the beginning I actually really enjoyed it, but somewhere in the middle I just stopped caring about the characters so i didn't finish it (and I'm pretty good at finishing books once I've committed to them)



I'm surprised. I really liked The City and The City and Embassytown. He's capable of some gorgeous prose. Perdido Street Station was a bit of a sprawl but some good imagery, the Slake Moths are amazing monsters. Haven't read the two you tried to read but maybe he's better at shorter books. The ones I mentioned don't have much in the way of political ideology (maybe Perdido Street a little bit)


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## Reaver (May 10, 2016)

The Sword of Truth series. Perhaps it's not fair to knock the entire series because I didn't read it.  I barely got through the first book and maybe two chapters in the second. That's as far as I could make it and I doubt that it gets any better.  Too preachy for my liking.


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## Reaver (May 10, 2016)

skip.knox said:


> Pretty much anything by R.A. Salvatore.



I'm in the same boat.  However, much like the mostly maligned Dragonlance books, I think Bob Salvatore aims for a younger demographic. In that regard I think they hold up well.


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## Tom (May 10, 2016)

Dragonlance. Oh my. That really dredges up some cringey memories...


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## Reaver (May 10, 2016)

If you want to see cringe-worthy, read the Sword of Truth books.


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