Bible.
Court of Thorns and Roses. It came highly recommended by my sister and many others.
I get the appeal, an adult retelling of classic fantasy. But it felt like it was written just to be edgey, sexy and proactive. Which is fine if that’s what you are wanting, lots of media does this. I was just hoping for a new angle or dimension on Beauty and the Beast, not just a sexy B&B. I guess that does count as a new angle, but not one for me.
Any author of the french mouvement réalisme.
I recently hate-read Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I had started reading it twice and stopped after a few chapters. I am aware that the book is meant to be satire, but the point of satire is to be to the point instead of having to slog through 600+ pages of drivel.
Foundations by Isaac Asimov. It’s a great story but it’s a tough read. Way better as an audiobook.
I really enjoyed the first three: they were pretty obviously just a bunch of short stories set in the same universe. The later books where he tried to write actual novels were not great though. He could do great short stories, but IMO wasn’t much of a novelist.
I like it but i noticed while reading it that Isaac Asimov has such an optimistic 1950s view, it can be challenging to keep reading with such limited conflict.
Catcher In The Rye
What a miserable experience reading the whiney thoughts of that little shithead.
Maybe it would have been more relatable if I read it at 15, but I read it at like 28 and it was insufferable.
A close second is The Great Gatsby. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen and then just like that it was over.
Yuuuup. I enjoy Catcher, it’s one of my faves but it’s greatest asset is also it’s biggest flaw. Holden is a convincing mind and thought process of a spoiled teenager. It’s great as a character study, but the charcter is an naive and arrogant jerk so being in his mindset is just frustrating.
Honestly reminds me of Lolita, which is a horror story told from the point of view from the monster. You really gotta read in between the lines because the character is actively lying to you. Holden does the same.
I don’t fault anyone for not liking either, they are rough reads. But if you’re a fan of unreliable narrators then they are a lot of fun.
Of books I’ve completed, Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Read it at school, hated it (as well as Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D’Urbervilles) - full of ridiculous coincidences. And also utterly miserable to boot.
I started reading The Da Vinci Code, but gave up after the very first page.
The fucking bible, ugh
I just noped out of a book called “Exquisite Corpse” by Poppy Z. Brite. It’s torture porn with necrophilia and sadism by the ton. It’s actually well written, but I just got sick of it.
Rich dad poor dad. Rich dad never existed. It’s all made up grift and, consequentially, people fall for it and make expensive life investment decisions after it.
Equus. Was forced to read it for highschool English literature class. Never again.
I saw it as a play, and it was amazing. Never understood why English teachers have students read plays. The whole point of a play is to have it performed. It’s like trying to teach swimming in an empty pool.
Harry Potter. I tried to read first book but couldn’t, the cringyness was high and the naming convention was straight up from 90’s bad fantasy book parody. It’s like one of the few books i not finished after i started, and i read a lot. And while the others are just forgettable experiences, HP is constantly in my face in media, reminding me of it.
the scarlet letter. I found it extremely unrelatable, and generally boring. I think The Crucible play by
the same authorarthur miller* conveys the same overarching principles about religious hypocrisy and herd mentality in a much more interesting way.Possibly showing my ignorance here, but The Crucible is by Arthur Miller, and The Scarlet Letter is by Nathaniel Hawthorne - did either of them write a work with the other title as well? I can’t find anything to suggest they did, but I might be missing something.
Oh, no. you’re correct. my mistake. it’s been a while.
No worries, easily done. I meant to say before, I also really like the Crucible - something we studied at school, and yet I still liked it! 😁
First school book I ever noped out of.
The Bible!
It did cause the world a lot of harm.
Of the ones I tried to read, Atlas Shrugged, and it’s not even close.
It’s not the worst book I’ve read, but Anthem is close. I never had the urge to read Atlas Shrugged after that. The details of the evil, collectivist society are just so over-the-top, and the plot is just such obvious author-wish-fulfillment jack-off-ery. In my head canon, there’s an epilogue to the story which picks up a year later: Gaea has died in childbirth due to a breech baby, and Prometheus is crippled from a broken leg that healed badly. Hey, maybe there are benefits to society after all, y’know?
I tried with it, I really fucking did. But GAWD was it so insufferable to hear how amazing and brilliant all these titans of business were so vastly more intelligent than the rest of the world. I got like a third of the way through before realizing I hated all of the charcters and didn’t care abiut what they were doing. So I decided to spend my time elsewhere.
I’ve read it twice, and I agree. The plot amounts to spoiled, rich children take their ball and go home because they’re mad the poors won’t let them strip the world of resources for personal gain. The author makes it clear throughout the text that Dagny, Hank, and Galt are the heros for fucking off to larp as robber barons in the 1880’s.
As a philosophic text objectivism is naive at best and a cynical justification for authoritarianism at its worst.
Why did you read it a second time?
Because the first time I read it I was a poor and stupid teenager slowly being pulled into an alt-right pipeline. After I figured that out I reread it with a more critical lens for closure.
why do you hate it?
