I have bought every book Stephen King has released since I was 12 years old (50 years)
Out of them all, the first one I couldn't finish was the Tommyknockers. I also didn't like the one called Cell (?) & Blaze (maybe)
That is an excellent % of good/great books đ
Interesting. I was fine with both of those, but I'm beginning to struggle with some of his more recent books as it becomes more and more clear that King stopped learning about the world in the 90s, and it's painfully obvious whenever he tries to write about young people or technology.
>King stopped learning about the world in the 90s, and it's painfully obvious whenever he tries to write about young people or technology.
Pretty much. I read *Billy Summers* not too long ago, and there's a part where Billy's upstairs neighbors are out of town and ask him to water their plants or something. Billy and another character repeatedly watch shows on the neighbor's Netflix subscription while they're gone. The other character, who's about 20 years old, leaves 20 dollars on the neighbor's counter "for Netflix."
King seems to think that Netflix functions like a payperview service or old landline phone bills where the amount of calls would affect the cost of the monthly bill. There is no way that a 20 year old in 2019 would make that mistake. It would've taken two minutes to look up "how much does netflix cost" but he didn't bother, because I suspect he is just cranking out his books as fast as possible at this point. He must have a goal of how many books he wants to publish in his lifetime or how much money he wants to make.
Exactly. I want to say that in Mr. Mercedes, he had a consultant of sorts to ask tech questions to (a family member?) because a lot of it was a bit more accurate from the standpoint of the non-tech literate main character, but I don't get that from more recent books. It's as though he's just stopped asking anyone or having anyone but his editor read it. And whoever the editor is, they're also either completely tech illiterate or just don't have the balls to call him out.
I know I read it back when I was a teen and I read a ton of King's books, but Cell is probably the one I remember the least. I remember cell phones emit a sound and then it basically turns into a generic zombie story, right? Where everyone who had a cell phone was turned into a bloodthirsty zombie but anyone who didn't have one stayed normal?
And the "about the author" page mentioned "he still does not have a cellphone." Dude I'm pretty sure back then they were just using cell phones for phone calls mostly and they weren't taking up as much of people's time as they do now. Pretty ironic that King was so against cell phones back then but is now active on twitter.
I love Kingâs work and I thought Cell was abysmal. I canât remember any of the characters whatsoever. The main characterâs goal was to reunite with his son but he was so bland a protagonist and we never saw his relationship with his kid so I just didnât care one bit for him.
I picked it up after hearing a bunch of complaints about the characters and ended up liking it quite a bit. It was very different than The Martian and PHM but I felt like a lot of that was the author actually stretching himself and experimenting. He didn't always pull it off but sometimes he did and even the parts he didn't weren't BAD to me. I liked the heist structure of it and really loved the Moon society he created. I'd happily read a sequel in that world.
Somehow I read the book completely while marveling how bad the characters are at times. Normally I drop books which are bad. So I think it wasn't a complete fail imo. The scenario was kind of cool.
The Martian is one of my all time favourite books and I hated Artemis so much it retroactively made me hate the Martian a little bit. Iâll literally never read another book by Andy Weir. Itâs a terrible, terrible book, one that was so mind blowingly bad that I am convinced the Martian was a complete fluke
It was and it wasn't. His latest book Project Hail Mary is such a Martian clone that it's abundantly clear where his few strengths are and where his many weaknesses also are.
I read the whole thing, you made the better call. Beautiful You wasn't as actively bad just mediocre, but at this point I don't feel likely to read any more of his work cause it's been 16 years and and at least half a dozen novels since he wrote anything I truly loved.
Tbh Invisible Monsters is probably my least favorite of his books that I still really liked. Rant is my favorite, Lullaby/Choke/Survivor/Fight Club/Diary are all in my top tier. That's awesome, I have a ton of his signed books secondhand (specifically I love when he goes crazy with the tour stamps and just stamps 10 random pages), but I've never been lucky enough to meet him.
Oh that book was awful. I hated the way he wrote the main character, she was so cringey and uncomfortable, which I know 13 year old girls can be (I once was one) but he took it to a level I didnât understand.
Same! I struggled through the very beginning and gave up. I read every book prior to that and still have them on my shelf. I could never pick up anything he wrote after that.
I love N.K. Jemisin but her The City We Became book/series is a total miss for me. If you aren't in love with NYC (and/or don't know much about it), you'll feel totally left out. đ„Č
Huge N.K. Jemisin fan, but have been put off from reading this series because one of my least favorite short stories in her How Long 'til Black Future Month? collection was the story this series is based on - sounds like I'm probably making the right choice!
The Codex Alera series, or at least the first book, which I DNF. I love the Dresden Files, and I love his new steampunk fantasy books, but for whatever reason, I just could not get through that first book of the Codex Alera series. I tried. It's not that it's bad. I've heard a lot of good things about it. It just isn't for me, I guess.
Jim Butcher has openly stated, the Codex Alera series is the result of a challenge he was given some years ago. Butcher had said that anyone could write a crossover of anything if they tried. A listener challenged him to do it with the Lost Roman Legion and Pokemon. So he did, filed the serial numbers off, and it became a best-selling series.
It took me awhile to get into the first book. I did not get the furies. I set the book down a couple of times before I decided to stick with it. It took me around a quarter of the first book before it grabbed me. From that point on everything went quickly. I have reread the series multiple times now. Just power through the first 70 pages and you should be hooked.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E Schwab, I enjoyed Vicious, the Shades of Magic Trilogy and even Gallant to a degree despite it being targeted to a younger audience, but the more I think about Addie LaRue the more I realized how hard it tried to be deep and how shallow and simplistic it really is
Had to DNF Addie LaRue :/ I donât necessarily mind a meandering, âitâs the journey not the destination book â (I loved the Goldfinch) but something about it felt hollow and boring
I thought Addie LaRue was fine, not life changing like people like to make it sound. I disliked Gallant. All atmosphere, boring plot and characters. I finished it, but didn't keep it, put it in a little library in my neighborhood for someone else.
The Pearl by Steinbeck. I donât know why I hated it so much, because honestly I tried to block it from my memory after reading it in school. I just remember everything being miserably depressing and the damn baby Coyotito.
That book is trash and I feel like everyone pretends otherwise solely because it's Steinbeck. Stupid magic baby-seeking bullets. I also didn't like The Red Pony, but I don't actively hate it like The Pearl.
I usually love Tana French's mysteries, but The Searcher was so slow I stopped reading. I was over 100 pages in and I think about the only thing that had happened was some livestock had been slaughtered. It wasn't enough to get me to finish it.
My answer was going to be Tana Frenchâs Witch Elm. I liked the pace of the Searcher, but not the Witch Elm, because the main character was irritating and unlikeable and the book has the main characterâs amnesia as a plot point, which is a trope I despise.
I tried to reread the Witch Elm and ran into the same problem - the main character is horribly unlikable. I think I just really wanted answers the first time around and muscled through.
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Up until I tried to read this I'd loved all his books, but this was so excruciatingly boring I had to skip to the end to see where it was going, and never felt later that it would have been worth reading the skipped part to arrive at the end normally.
I thought it was excellent. I hope he returns to that setting for a sequel soon.
I absolutely loved the attention paid to orbital mechanics and the slowness of action in space. The realism hit me so hard. He lets the tension build and build.
First Skyward book was okay I thought. But it never lived up to what Brandon intended it of being: a spaceship version of the kid finding a dragon story arch. And each successive book in the series is worse than the last. The third book was actually terrible and the first Sanderson book I DNFed
I love skyward, but aside from skyward I havenât liked any of his books outside of the cosmere books. Steelheart, the rithmatists, legion and A frugal wizards guide to surviving medieval England were not good.
I didnât vibe with Skyward and I *wanted* to like Frugal Wizard. I liked the conceit of it a lot and I liked the inserts from the handbook. The main character is just so damn *bland*.
I really struggled to empathize with Spin from Skyward. She was just too much of an egotistical brat that had two modes - 'stargazing dreamer', and 'FIGHT ME I DARE YOU'. Unlike a lot of writers, Branden did a decent job of justifying why and how Spin was the way she was, but that doesn't make her any less cringy to read.
Eveeeeeentually Brandon got around to incorporating character development into the story, and she's improved in the sequals. But she was a real rough to read for the majority of the first book.
I liked Skyward okay, but not to a huge extent. My son LOVES that series though, and Iâm excited for him to open the newest installment that is wrapped up under the Xmas tree. :)
American Gods is probably always going to be my top answer. Gaiman is one of my favorites and I love almost everything I've read by him. This one felt like the very creative ramblings of a super edgy teenage boy.
I will probably get blasted for this, but I adore Barbara Kingsolver, and I thought Demon Copperhead was awful: just an overly-long, stereotype-scaffolded tale of white Appalachians circling the drain.
I risk sounding deliberately perverse here, but I have read many John Le Carre novels and enjoyed them greatly. The other year I finally got round to tackling Tinker Tailor Solidier
Whoops - To carry on⊠I tackled Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and found it challenging. In a. Bad way. I know this is,saying I am a Pink Floyd fan and think Dark Side of the Moon sucks.
Yeah. It's very different. The closest thing I could compare it to is maybe Suttree. To me the book felt a bit too meandering, some parts were just irritating, and it never gave me the sense that it knew what it wanted to say. Some passages were beautiful, but overall I was a bit disappointed.
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. I always enjoy her books whether they're horror or romance but this one was wall to wall mundane misery. I couldn't finish it.
I'm currently reading Skinner by Charlie Huston...but only because it's the only book of his I hadn't read. It just doesn't live up to his other books (which are all either 4 or 5 stars), and I'd probably DNF if it was any other writer.
I remember really not liking Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen.
Basically everything set in the past by Christopher Moore (except Lamb). Once he started doing his King Lear thing, I just can't. Couldn't even finish reading Noir...barely finished even after switching to the audiobook (and I ***love*** noir.) don't even have plans to attempt Sacre Bleu.
I read all of Chuck Palahniuk's earlier books. Tell-All is I think the worst book I've ever read, period.
All of Victor Gischler's earlier novels are very fun. Vampire A Go-Go was....bad. (maybe authors should stop trying to write humorous historical fiction....or I should at the very least automatically assume I'm going to hate them.)
Based on the historical aspect above, I never read Great Train Robbery or Eaters of the Dead, but Pirate Latitudes by Crichton was terrible. (and my two other least favorites from him are Jurassic Park and Timeline.)
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I love her Grishaverse series, and at the time I was wanting to explore dark academia, so I thought I'd pick up something from an author I already enjoyed.
And I just didn't like it. It was dull, and it dragged, and I really didn't care about any of the characters. Even the writing didn't feel very sparky, which was something I loved from Six of Crows onward.
I wish I liked it, but it just didn't work for me at all, and actually put me off dark academia. I still appreciate the aesthetic of it, but I'm not really in the mood for college students dealing with mysteries and conspiracies these days.
If I recall correctly, In Kingâs âOn Writingâ he describes not remembering writing Cujo because he was in the depths of his alcohol/cocaine addiction and was blacked out writing most of it. He later considered the story a metaphor for what he was going through. Doesnât answer the question but that always stuck with me.
I like King as well and I would say Dreamcatcher was pretty boring and I just stopped reading it. Also I like the first two books of The Passage Trilogy...but the third the City of Mirrors was an absolute slog to get through.
up until the fourth hand, I'd read every John Irving novel. I didn't make it through three chapters of tfh.
I like all of Anne Tyler too, except for a slipping-down life.
don't like a star called Henry by Roddy Doyle.
American Gods and Anansi Boys by Gaiman. I love almost all of his books, but these two didnât vibe.
Funnily, my partner doesnât like Neverwhere and Stardust, which I love. I always wondered if the former resonate more with Americans and the latter with Europeans.
I always hear great things about him but I tried reading American Gods and couldnât get into it. Is there a particular book youâd suggest I start with?
I would give his short story collections a try. They are varied and diverse enough that you are bound to read one you like. (And if not, at least the stories are short).
âFragile Thingsâ and âSmoke and Mirrorsâ are good ones to start.
His novel Stardust is a take on the classic fairytale. Itâs whimsical and funny and heartbreaking. (and features a tree inspired by Tori Amos.)
So sorry you didnât like them. They are probably my two favorite Gaiman books. But then thatâs what makes books so wonderful, something for everyone!
Isle of Dogs by Patricia Cornwell. I went in expecting the usual crime based, potentially medical themed stuff she does. Itâs never been literary genius but Iâve always found her books enjoyable and good for the genre. This was a fever dream of utter crap. Itâs incredibly boring, makes no sense at all and when I got to the bits from the perspective of talking crabs I honestly wondered if the whole thing was some sort of joke. I can only assume sheâs at the point where anything she writes will sell so she just figured sheâd write any old nonsense, hit her deadline and chill out with a glass of wine.
My mother read her books and I got hooked on them when I was visiting and needed something to read. I liked the early ones in the Scarpetta series but gave up on them when they started to read more like romance novels. I thought maybe this was a male perspective, but when I talked with my mother about it, turned out she had the same opinion.
I didnât like it when they took that direction either. I donât need a romantic angle in crime novels, I just want to focus on the crime! But Isle of Dogs is a whole other level of bad. I donât even know how to describe how weird it is except to emphasise that there are chapters from the perspective of crabs. We literally hear the thoughts of crabs in the sea. Crabs. JustâŠwow.
From a Buick 8 by King.... A whole book about a car with a portal to a demon dimension in its trunk. And the entire book, it sits in a garage while cops poke it with sticks. Can't believe I finished that.
Seeing a lot of people saying Dreamcatcher but I liked that one lmao
The World We Became by NK Jemison. Was so unimpressed with this work compared to othersâI know she gave up on the story halfway through, but still mad about the potential it had!
Love Stephen king and currently on book 3 of the Dark Tower series and loving it so farâŠ. Except for book 1: The Gunslinger. I was miserable for nearly all of that book and I considered going no further than that. But The Drawing of the Three was fantastic and now Iâm hooked.
I had a similar experience where it took me a month to read The Gunslinger but only 3 days to finish Drawing of the Three & 2 days to read Wasteland. I then hit the wall again with #4.. I did finish the rest of series as they were published but I wasn't that excited about it.
I love the Dark Tower and itâs one of my favorite stories of all time, but I actually tell people who mention they want to read it to give it til book 3. The Gunslinger and tbh Drawing of the Three were such a slog for me. Itâs definitely the setup/world building, and itâs absolutely worth it to get through - but you have to give it that chance first!
Oh man I canât imagine ever describing Drawing of the Three as a slog. I hope that means that I might describe it that way by comparison of the rest of the books.
Youâre in for a treat, bc thatâs exactly what I mean. :) There was a point by book 3, into 4, where I had the realization I couldnât stop reading! It definitely hits a cadence over time. I hope you love it as much as I did!
I mean it's not meant to be read as a normal book... It's more like the bible of middle earth. And reading the bible end to end wasn't exactly enjoyfull either. But there are some badass stories in Silmarillion
If you want to experience the story I can't recommend the audio versions enough. The narrator just pushes through and keeps it moving and keeps you from stalling out.
I love Stephen King and have read about 30 of his books but couldn't finish Cujo either. I think it was because I was a young mum at the time and couldn't handle the whole situation in the book. I also hated The Regulators and Pet Semetery.
*The Final Girl Support Group* by Grady Hendrix. It's literally the only book he's written that I haven't liked. I just couldn't get behind the main character at all, the story felt thin. And while I like the feminist side of his work, here it feels just too hamfisted, even for me.
This is not the best answer to your question since Iâve only read the one book by this author.
Iâve always heard of Isabel Allende and got the sense I would greatly enjoy her books. She writes in the magical realism genre, so I was told.
The first book I decided to read by her was called Ripper. It was a crime novel, no magical realism whatsoever. Why I didnât start with one of her famous books⊠I canât say. It was just a whim I read this one because the description was intriguing.
It was horrible. Iâve been wanting to try something else by her because sheâs supposedly a wonderful author, but Ripper was not good. Iâve wondered if it was her first try at a crime novel and she was outside of her comfort zone. I still donât know. The book was a disappointment. Do not recommend.
That one's terrible. Try House of the Spirits.
I have no idea why so many "literary" authors think genre fiction is easy. It's not. Thomas Pynchon tried to write a noir and it was awful.
I loved Cujo. First book to make me cry. (I havenât been huge into reading in my adult life)
But I can understand if you have dogs itâs tough.
I donât really have an answer to the question cause Iâve enjoyed every book Iâve read recently.
Had read 1/2 dozen or so novels by Patrica Highsmith and enjoyed them all. Found a volume with first 3 Ripley novels and didn't enjoy them all. In fact I didn't enjoy it much at all. I might have finished reading the first novel but if I was able to, it was thanks to skimming. Read no further.. Not by any means a bad book but to me quite a boring one.
Barbara Kingsolverâs The Lacuna. I have very much enjoyed or downright loved all her other novels but struggled to get past the first few chapters of this one. Keep meaning to try again but find myself dragging my feet!
That's his MO. Take one cool book's worth of ideas, and squeeze another six books out of it. Usually books 2&3 are ok, but the rest jump the shark. (I did like all the books following Ender. Not a fan of the Enders Shadow series.
Lately I've started to enjoy Sophie Hannah less and less, but *Haven't They Grown?* and *The Couple at the Table* were both just...bad. Obviously not every book could be a banger but they felt so illogical and stupid.
The *Thomas Covenant* series by Stephen R. Donaldson. I just couldn't like the main character at all. (OTOH, I LOVED his short story collection *Daughter of Regals* and recommend it strongly.)
Sadly, I also have to agree with those who said *Tommyknockers* by Stephen King. But that has recently been knocked out of the "worst King book" spot for me by *Holly.* Which is sad, because I loved all the other books about Holly. This one just crossed too many gross-out lines for me to be able to cope with it more than the first and only time I forced myself to read it.
Crossroads of twilight.
I mean, The wheel of time has a reputation for having 'the slog', but book #10 is just ... The whole book is basically just people reacting to the finale of the previous one.
the first two books of the Discworld Series. still impressive that Pratchett was able to get his groove by the 3rd book and didn't stop even after the Alzheimer's diagnosis.
I read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and LOVED it. Then I read Mother Night and also really enjoyed that. Next up I read Cat's Cradle, and it was an absolute slog to get through, I just don't understand the hype for it. Still love Vonnegut though.
I really love Kerry Greenwoodâs Miss Fisherâs Murder Mysteries series, but the sixth one in the series, Blood and Circuses, is just awful. Phryne Fisher is a badass! Sheâs part Poiroit, part James Bond, but in the sixth book, sheâs a sniveling damsel in distress who is trying to find out who she would be if she wasnât rich. It is completely, utterly out of character and nothing like her depictions in the previous books or the many that followed.
Fractal Mode by Piers Anthony. Actual, the whole Mode series. I thought they were very poorly written. I remember saying that Piers Anthony had gotten too popular because it seemed that the series hadn't been edited.
But I've since realized that this happens a lot.
Just finished The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke and I was rather underwhelmed. The author himself apparently said this was his favorite but it wasn't half as compelling as Childhood's End which I'd read years ago and it's not even his most known novel. I'll keep reading ACC but overall, I find Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick more fascinating.
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Full of cool concepts, the plot itself is just pointless misery porn. The other two Bas-Lag books have the same imagination and dark tone but with good stories behind them, itâs a shame that this is the one everyone talks about
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.
It's lauded as being amazing and yada yada, but I hated it. Gaiman really shines with short stories and graphic novels, so I thought a novella-length story would still be in that sweet spot. It was not. I don't understand the praise for this book.
I enjoyed Cujo, but I was a kid. I thought that The Tommyknockers was Kingâs worst.
While Iâve enjoyed all of the Michael Crichton novel that Iâve read, I found State of Fear not among his best and his incessant tirade against climate change absolutely bewildering.
Ulysses by James Joyce proved unreadable. I was unable to force myself through that steam-of-consciousness gibberish.
If It Bleeds by Stephen King. I love a lot of his work and especially have a soft spot for his short stories and novellas. But this book (of 4 novellas) felt utterly unnecessary and just...uninteresting. One of them had a protagonist that was unbelievably obnoxious, too. Nothing about the book felt like it needed to be written.
Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell. I have absolutely adored every other book that he has written, his collection of short stories, everything. Iâve tried to read number nine twice, and thereâs just something about it that I cannot get through.
Sharon Shinn is the author. I like everything of hers I've read, except for General Winston's Daughter. Just, no one likeable in the whole book, and the main character was an idiot.
Mansfield park- I usually have a soft spot for shy/timid characters because I'm like that too but fanny is so judgmental it was hard to root for her, I think if it was treated like a flaw and was used for character development I would have liked her a lot better, also aside from the incest, fanny and edmund are a boring couple. I love Mary crawford though and thought she was a very compelling character
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St John Mandel. Iâve read nearly all of her novels now and itâs definitely the weakest. Itâs also her first novel so I wonât hold it against her!
âPreyâ by Michael Crichton. I am a stupidly massive Crichton fan and that is a massively stupid book ⊠that I have somehow read three times now because of the previously mentioned fan problem.
I'm going to parrot Stephen King. Guy has some absolute bangers and some of my favorite books. Also has about five I think are just awful and will never touch again.
The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy. So much dialog and even narrative in Spanish without context that its impossible to pick up the storyline. If you don't know colloquial Spanish, leave this sucker in the bookshop.
And The Mountains Echoes by Khaled Hosseini.
The Kite Runner and One Thousand Splendid Suns are absolutely incredible. ATME was more like a collection of barely connected short stories at one point, with a cheap ending and corny dialogue in the latter quarter. Hosseini skipped over exactly what would have made the book interesting, and focused on minor characters that added nothing. Like, the rich Afghan brothers, and then the part in Greece? Where on earth were the editors?!
I have bought every book Stephen King has released since I was 12 years old (50 years) Out of them all, the first one I couldn't finish was the Tommyknockers. I also didn't like the one called Cell (?) & Blaze (maybe) That is an excellent % of good/great books đ
Interesting. I was fine with both of those, but I'm beginning to struggle with some of his more recent books as it becomes more and more clear that King stopped learning about the world in the 90s, and it's painfully obvious whenever he tries to write about young people or technology.
>King stopped learning about the world in the 90s, and it's painfully obvious whenever he tries to write about young people or technology. Pretty much. I read *Billy Summers* not too long ago, and there's a part where Billy's upstairs neighbors are out of town and ask him to water their plants or something. Billy and another character repeatedly watch shows on the neighbor's Netflix subscription while they're gone. The other character, who's about 20 years old, leaves 20 dollars on the neighbor's counter "for Netflix." King seems to think that Netflix functions like a payperview service or old landline phone bills where the amount of calls would affect the cost of the monthly bill. There is no way that a 20 year old in 2019 would make that mistake. It would've taken two minutes to look up "how much does netflix cost" but he didn't bother, because I suspect he is just cranking out his books as fast as possible at this point. He must have a goal of how many books he wants to publish in his lifetime or how much money he wants to make.
Exactly. I want to say that in Mr. Mercedes, he had a consultant of sorts to ask tech questions to (a family member?) because a lot of it was a bit more accurate from the standpoint of the non-tech literate main character, but I don't get that from more recent books. It's as though he's just stopped asking anyone or having anyone but his editor read it. And whoever the editor is, they're also either completely tech illiterate or just don't have the balls to call him out.
>it becomes more and more clear that King stopped doing coke
Cell sucks! I always felt it was so out of place with his other works.
I know I read it back when I was a teen and I read a ton of King's books, but Cell is probably the one I remember the least. I remember cell phones emit a sound and then it basically turns into a generic zombie story, right? Where everyone who had a cell phone was turned into a bloodthirsty zombie but anyone who didn't have one stayed normal? And the "about the author" page mentioned "he still does not have a cellphone." Dude I'm pretty sure back then they were just using cell phones for phone calls mostly and they weren't taking up as much of people's time as they do now. Pretty ironic that King was so against cell phones back then but is now active on twitter.
I love Kingâs work and I thought Cell was abysmal. I canât remember any of the characters whatsoever. The main characterâs goal was to reunite with his son but he was so bland a protagonist and we never saw his relationship with his kid so I just didnât care one bit for him.
This the Tommyknockers and I hated but slugged through the Dark Tower VII The whole thing should have ended after The Waste Lands
Indeed, Tommyknockers was also one of my picks.
Artemis - Andy Weir
Do you think I will enjoy this more if I read it before PHM and The Martian?
Yes. It's a good book, but it's just normal good compared to PHM and TM which are special good.
Thanks!!
I personally liked Artimis, not as much as his other two books, but I enjoy a book where I don't always adore the main character.
I picked it up after hearing a bunch of complaints about the characters and ended up liking it quite a bit. It was very different than The Martian and PHM but I felt like a lot of that was the author actually stretching himself and experimenting. He didn't always pull it off but sometimes he did and even the parts he didn't weren't BAD to me. I liked the heist structure of it and really loved the Moon society he created. I'd happily read a sequel in that world.
You will enjoy it more if you simply donât read it. This book is the definition of a sophomore slump.
Somehow I read the book completely while marveling how bad the characters are at times. Normally I drop books which are bad. So I think it wasn't a complete fail imo. The scenario was kind of cool.
The Martian is one of my all time favourite books and I hated Artemis so much it retroactively made me hate the Martian a little bit. Iâll literally never read another book by Andy Weir. Itâs a terrible, terrible book, one that was so mind blowingly bad that I am convinced the Martian was a complete fluke
Please read Project Hail Mary
I loved Project Hail Mary. Also loved the Martian and hated Artemis.
Yup, I went back to it like three times, really hurt
It was and it wasn't. His latest book Project Hail Mary is such a Martian clone that it's abundantly clear where his few strengths are and where his many weaknesses also are.
Chuck Palahniuk's Damned. Couldn't get into it. Stopped reading about 50 or so pages in.
I read the whole thing, you made the better call. Beautiful You wasn't as actively bad just mediocre, but at this point I don't feel likely to read any more of his work cause it's been 16 years and and at least half a dozen novels since he wrote anything I truly loved.
Invisible Monsters earned him a lot of chances. I just met him while he was promoting Not Forever but For Now (incredibly nice guy).
Tbh Invisible Monsters is probably my least favorite of his books that I still really liked. Rant is my favorite, Lullaby/Choke/Survivor/Fight Club/Diary are all in my top tier. That's awesome, I have a ton of his signed books secondhand (specifically I love when he goes crazy with the tour stamps and just stamps 10 random pages), but I've never been lucky enough to meet him.
Oh that book was awful. I hated the way he wrote the main character, she was so cringey and uncomfortable, which I know 13 year old girls can be (I once was one) but he took it to a level I didnât understand.
I thoroughly enjoyed Damned. The sequel Doomed? Hated that one. It was hot garbage.
For me it was Pigmy. I just gave up on the writing style.
Same! I struggled through the very beginning and gave up. I read every book prior to that and still have them on my shelf. I could never pick up anything he wrote after that.
Same. I read many of his books but after giving up on Pigmy that was it. Which is a shame because many sound great.
Chuck Palahniuk is hit-and-miss in general.
I love N.K. Jemisin but her The City We Became book/series is a total miss for me. If you aren't in love with NYC (and/or don't know much about it), you'll feel totally left out. đ„Č
Huge N.K. Jemisin fan, but have been put off from reading this series because one of my least favorite short stories in her How Long 'til Black Future Month? collection was the story this series is based on - sounds like I'm probably making the right choice!
The Codex Alera series, or at least the first book, which I DNF. I love the Dresden Files, and I love his new steampunk fantasy books, but for whatever reason, I just could not get through that first book of the Codex Alera series. I tried. It's not that it's bad. I've heard a lot of good things about it. It just isn't for me, I guess.
Jim Butcher has openly stated, the Codex Alera series is the result of a challenge he was given some years ago. Butcher had said that anyone could write a crossover of anything if they tried. A listener challenged him to do it with the Lost Roman Legion and Pokemon. So he did, filed the serial numbers off, and it became a best-selling series.
Oh, yes, I am aware! lol That's what friends of mine told me when they tried to convince me to read it. I still didn't enjoy it, though.
It took me awhile to get into the first book. I did not get the furies. I set the book down a couple of times before I decided to stick with it. It took me around a quarter of the first book before it grabbed me. From that point on everything went quickly. I have reread the series multiple times now. Just power through the first 70 pages and you should be hooked.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E Schwab, I enjoyed Vicious, the Shades of Magic Trilogy and even Gallant to a degree despite it being targeted to a younger audience, but the more I think about Addie LaRue the more I realized how hard it tried to be deep and how shallow and simplistic it really is
I didnât hate Addie LaRue I just thought it would have been better if theyâd cut 50-100 pages. Really dragged in the middle.
Had to DNF Addie LaRue :/ I donât necessarily mind a meandering, âitâs the journey not the destination book â (I loved the Goldfinch) but something about it felt hollow and boring
I thought Addie LaRue was fine, not life changing like people like to make it sound. I disliked Gallant. All atmosphere, boring plot and characters. I finished it, but didn't keep it, put it in a little library in my neighborhood for someone else.
The Pearl by Steinbeck. I donât know why I hated it so much, because honestly I tried to block it from my memory after reading it in school. I just remember everything being miserably depressing and the damn baby Coyotito.
Wow I did not realize this random ass depressing book I had to read in middle school was Steinbeck
That's how I feel about A Separate Peace
That book is trash and I feel like everyone pretends otherwise solely because it's Steinbeck. Stupid magic baby-seeking bullets. I also didn't like The Red Pony, but I don't actively hate it like The Pearl.
I usually love Tana French's mysteries, but The Searcher was so slow I stopped reading. I was over 100 pages in and I think about the only thing that had happened was some livestock had been slaughtered. It wasn't enough to get me to finish it.
My answer was going to be Tana Frenchâs Witch Elm. I liked the pace of the Searcher, but not the Witch Elm, because the main character was irritating and unlikeable and the book has the main characterâs amnesia as a plot point, which is a trope I despise.
I tried to reread the Witch Elm and ran into the same problem - the main character is horribly unlikable. I think I just really wanted answers the first time around and muscled through.
I love Tana French but Witch Elm was a rare DNF for me.
I came here looking for this/to say this! I own all of her books and have read and loved all the rest, but I never finished this one.
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson Up until I tried to read this I'd loved all his books, but this was so excruciatingly boring I had to skip to the end to see where it was going, and never felt later that it would have been worth reading the skipped part to arrive at the end normally.
Oh no! This is the book I am currently reading and I love it so far!
I thought it was excellent. I hope he returns to that setting for a sequel soon. I absolutely loved the attention paid to orbital mechanics and the slowness of action in space. The realism hit me so hard. He lets the tension build and build.
I agree. Read it all and was very underwhelmed.
Skyward - Brandon Sanderson I liked Cujo but DNFed Dreamcatcher some years ago. Not sure if I should give it another try.
First Skyward book was okay I thought. But it never lived up to what Brandon intended it of being: a spaceship version of the kid finding a dragon story arch. And each successive book in the series is worse than the last. The third book was actually terrible and the first Sanderson book I DNFed
I love skyward, but aside from skyward I havenât liked any of his books outside of the cosmere books. Steelheart, the rithmatists, legion and A frugal wizards guide to surviving medieval England were not good.
I didnât vibe with Skyward and I *wanted* to like Frugal Wizard. I liked the conceit of it a lot and I liked the inserts from the handbook. The main character is just so damn *bland*.
I loved Frugal Wizards Guide, I am sorry you didn't like it. Different strokes, I suppose.
Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians is pretty good in my opinion.
I really struggled to empathize with Spin from Skyward. She was just too much of an egotistical brat that had two modes - 'stargazing dreamer', and 'FIGHT ME I DARE YOU'. Unlike a lot of writers, Branden did a decent job of justifying why and how Spin was the way she was, but that doesn't make her any less cringy to read. Eveeeeeentually Brandon got around to incorporating character development into the story, and she's improved in the sequals. But she was a real rough to read for the majority of the first book.
Brando Sando Wizard Guide to Medieval England or whatever itâs called.
I actually enjoyed Skyward. Frugal Wizard's Guide to Surviving Medieval England is the book of his that fell flat for me
I liked Skyward okay, but not to a huge extent. My son LOVES that series though, and Iâm excited for him to open the newest installment that is wrapped up under the Xmas tree. :)
American Gods is probably always going to be my top answer. Gaiman is one of my favorites and I love almost everything I've read by him. This one felt like the very creative ramblings of a super edgy teenage boy.
1Q84 - Murakami
Really? I'm about 2/3 of the way through that now and loving it. Murakami is so batshit crazy. It's not ad good as Kafka or HBW, but still great.
Which is your favorite?
Oooh mine is Kafka on the Shore. Itâs not *bad*, itâs just at the very bottom out of everything Iâve read by him
Oof I agree.
I will probably get blasted for this, but I adore Barbara Kingsolver, and I thought Demon Copperhead was awful: just an overly-long, stereotype-scaffolded tale of white Appalachians circling the drain.
I risk sounding deliberately perverse here, but I have read many John Le Carre novels and enjoyed them greatly. The other year I finally got round to tackling Tinker Tailor Solidier
Whoops - To carry on⊠I tackled Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and found it challenging. In a. Bad way. I know this is,saying I am a Pink Floyd fan and think Dark Side of the Moon sucks.
I like the killers but I'm not keen on Mr. Brightside
Itâs a very good book!
Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.
The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy. Itâs the only book of his Iâve read that I didnât like.
Yeah. It's very different. The closest thing I could compare it to is maybe Suttree. To me the book felt a bit too meandering, some parts were just irritating, and it never gave me the sense that it knew what it wanted to say. Some passages were beautiful, but overall I was a bit disappointed.
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. I always enjoy her books whether they're horror or romance but this one was wall to wall mundane misery. I couldn't finish it.
I'm currently reading Skinner by Charlie Huston...but only because it's the only book of his I hadn't read. It just doesn't live up to his other books (which are all either 4 or 5 stars), and I'd probably DNF if it was any other writer. I remember really not liking Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen. Basically everything set in the past by Christopher Moore (except Lamb). Once he started doing his King Lear thing, I just can't. Couldn't even finish reading Noir...barely finished even after switching to the audiobook (and I ***love*** noir.) don't even have plans to attempt Sacre Bleu. I read all of Chuck Palahniuk's earlier books. Tell-All is I think the worst book I've ever read, period. All of Victor Gischler's earlier novels are very fun. Vampire A Go-Go was....bad. (maybe authors should stop trying to write humorous historical fiction....or I should at the very least automatically assume I'm going to hate them.) Based on the historical aspect above, I never read Great Train Robbery or Eaters of the Dead, but Pirate Latitudes by Crichton was terrible. (and my two other least favorites from him are Jurassic Park and Timeline.)
Moore/Palahniuk/Crichton are 3 of my top 4 authors, definitely trying to stalk your bookshelf, though I did love Noir/Timeline/Jurassic Park.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. I love her Grishaverse series, and at the time I was wanting to explore dark academia, so I thought I'd pick up something from an author I already enjoyed. And I just didn't like it. It was dull, and it dragged, and I really didn't care about any of the characters. Even the writing didn't feel very sparky, which was something I loved from Six of Crows onward. I wish I liked it, but it just didn't work for me at all, and actually put me off dark academia. I still appreciate the aesthetic of it, but I'm not really in the mood for college students dealing with mysteries and conspiracies these days.
Interesting - I enjoyed Ninth House, but as someone who started her work with 6 of Crows, that was how I felt about the original Grisha trilogy
The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. It was so bad.
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
Did not enjoy Fractal Noise by Paolini.
If I recall correctly, In Kingâs âOn Writingâ he describes not remembering writing Cujo because he was in the depths of his alcohol/cocaine addiction and was blacked out writing most of it. He later considered the story a metaphor for what he was going through. Doesnât answer the question but that always stuck with me.
I like King as well and I would say Dreamcatcher was pretty boring and I just stopped reading it. Also I like the first two books of The Passage Trilogy...but the third the City of Mirrors was an absolute slog to get through.
up until the fourth hand, I'd read every John Irving novel. I didn't make it through three chapters of tfh. I like all of Anne Tyler too, except for a slipping-down life. don't like a star called Henry by Roddy Doyle.
American Gods and Anansi Boys by Gaiman. I love almost all of his books, but these two didnât vibe. Funnily, my partner doesnât like Neverwhere and Stardust, which I love. I always wondered if the former resonate more with Americans and the latter with Europeans.
I always hear great things about him but I tried reading American Gods and couldnât get into it. Is there a particular book youâd suggest I start with?
I would give his short story collections a try. They are varied and diverse enough that you are bound to read one you like. (And if not, at least the stories are short). âFragile Thingsâ and âSmoke and Mirrorsâ are good ones to start. His novel Stardust is a take on the classic fairytale. Itâs whimsical and funny and heartbreaking. (and features a tree inspired by Tori Amos.)
The graveyard Book is my favorite by him. American Gods is a tough one to start with if youâve not read his other book imo
Ocean At The End of the Lane is his best book.
So sorry you didnât like them. They are probably my two favorite Gaiman books. But then thatâs what makes books so wonderful, something for everyone!
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Isle of Dogs by Patricia Cornwell. I went in expecting the usual crime based, potentially medical themed stuff she does. Itâs never been literary genius but Iâve always found her books enjoyable and good for the genre. This was a fever dream of utter crap. Itâs incredibly boring, makes no sense at all and when I got to the bits from the perspective of talking crabs I honestly wondered if the whole thing was some sort of joke. I can only assume sheâs at the point where anything she writes will sell so she just figured sheâd write any old nonsense, hit her deadline and chill out with a glass of wine.
My mother read her books and I got hooked on them when I was visiting and needed something to read. I liked the early ones in the Scarpetta series but gave up on them when they started to read more like romance novels. I thought maybe this was a male perspective, but when I talked with my mother about it, turned out she had the same opinion.
I didnât like it when they took that direction either. I donât need a romantic angle in crime novels, I just want to focus on the crime! But Isle of Dogs is a whole other level of bad. I donât even know how to describe how weird it is except to emphasise that there are chapters from the perspective of crabs. We literally hear the thoughts of crabs in the sea. Crabs. JustâŠwow.
From a Buick 8 by King.... A whole book about a car with a portal to a demon dimension in its trunk. And the entire book, it sits in a garage while cops poke it with sticks. Can't believe I finished that. Seeing a lot of people saying Dreamcatcher but I liked that one lmao
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I read 3 other Gaiman books before this and it was my least favourite, something in the story felt off/ missing
The World We Became by NK Jemison. Was so unimpressed with this work compared to othersâI know she gave up on the story halfway through, but still mad about the potential it had!
I was bored to tears by the Red Pony by Steinbeck.
Love Stephen king and currently on book 3 of the Dark Tower series and loving it so farâŠ. Except for book 1: The Gunslinger. I was miserable for nearly all of that book and I considered going no further than that. But The Drawing of the Three was fantastic and now Iâm hooked.
I had a similar experience where it took me a month to read The Gunslinger but only 3 days to finish Drawing of the Three & 2 days to read Wasteland. I then hit the wall again with #4.. I did finish the rest of series as they were published but I wasn't that excited about it.
I love the Dark Tower and itâs one of my favorite stories of all time, but I actually tell people who mention they want to read it to give it til book 3. The Gunslinger and tbh Drawing of the Three were such a slog for me. Itâs definitely the setup/world building, and itâs absolutely worth it to get through - but you have to give it that chance first!
Oh man I canât imagine ever describing Drawing of the Three as a slog. I hope that means that I might describe it that way by comparison of the rest of the books.
Youâre in for a treat, bc thatâs exactly what I mean. :) There was a point by book 3, into 4, where I had the realization I couldnât stop reading! It definitely hits a cadence over time. I hope you love it as much as I did!
The Silmarillion by Tolkien. Not really a page-turner.
I mean it's not meant to be read as a normal book... It's more like the bible of middle earth. And reading the bible end to end wasn't exactly enjoyfull either. But there are some badass stories in Silmarillion
I agree, nonetheless it is my least favorite book by an author I enjoy.
I am a mutant. I love "The Silmarillion", but have never been able to finish "Lord of the Rings". I've tried multiple times, I've given up.
If you want to experience the story I can't recommend the audio versions enough. The narrator just pushes through and keeps it moving and keeps you from stalling out.
You liked that? Holy crap I love The entire LOTR trilogy and the hobbit but that one I felt like I was in school đ«
My answer to these is always âI love F. Scott Fitzgerald, but hate The Great Gatsbyâ
His short stories don't get the attention they deserve.
Happy Place by Emily Henry
Horse by Geraldine Brooks. I would say sheâs my favorite author but I couldnât finish Horse.
Horse is the only book of hers I've read and I loved it! I have a few issues with the ending, but I adored the writing and structure
House of Sky and Breath by SJM.
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. I am an absolute fan, but I found this story forced and outside of her typical writing.
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney was unreadable for me. I loved her other two books so it was a big disappointment.
I enjoyed that one and loved Normal People but absolutely hated Conversations with Friends. Frances was unbearable as a main character.
I love Stephen King and have read about 30 of his books but couldn't finish Cujo either. I think it was because I was a young mum at the time and couldn't handle the whole situation in the book. I also hated The Regulators and Pet Semetery.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
*The Final Girl Support Group* by Grady Hendrix. It's literally the only book he's written that I haven't liked. I just couldn't get behind the main character at all, the story felt thin. And while I like the feminist side of his work, here it feels just too hamfisted, even for me.
Cell by Stephen King
Holly - Stephen King
This is not the best answer to your question since Iâve only read the one book by this author. Iâve always heard of Isabel Allende and got the sense I would greatly enjoy her books. She writes in the magical realism genre, so I was told. The first book I decided to read by her was called Ripper. It was a crime novel, no magical realism whatsoever. Why I didnât start with one of her famous books⊠I canât say. It was just a whim I read this one because the description was intriguing. It was horrible. Iâve been wanting to try something else by her because sheâs supposedly a wonderful author, but Ripper was not good. Iâve wondered if it was her first try at a crime novel and she was outside of her comfort zone. I still donât know. The book was a disappointment. Do not recommend.
That one's terrible. Try House of the Spirits. I have no idea why so many "literary" authors think genre fiction is easy. It's not. Thomas Pynchon tried to write a noir and it was awful.
Definitely try House of the Spirits! Her more recent work in general is not as good as her older work IMO but that one is fabulous.
I second House of the Spirits! I also enjoyed Daughter of Fortune
I loved Cujo. First book to make me cry. (I havenât been huge into reading in my adult life) But I can understand if you have dogs itâs tough. I donât really have an answer to the question cause Iâve enjoyed every book Iâve read recently.
I felt so bad for the dog
Had read 1/2 dozen or so novels by Patrica Highsmith and enjoyed them all. Found a volume with first 3 Ripley novels and didn't enjoy them all. In fact I didn't enjoy it much at all. I might have finished reading the first novel but if I was able to, it was thanks to skimming. Read no further.. Not by any means a bad book but to me quite a boring one.
Barbara Kingsolverâs The Lacuna. I have very much enjoyed or downright loved all her other novels but struggled to get past the first few chapters of this one. Keep meaning to try again but find myself dragging my feet!
Same. Exactly. She writes some of my favorite books. This is the only one I couldnât get into. I should also try again.
I enjoy Charlaine Harris, but did not like the Aurora Teagarden series. The main character was a bit annoying and bland.
Killing Commandatore, Haruki Murakami. It just⊠never goes anywhere. Very strange, vaguely pointless book.
Firewalkers - Adrian Tchaikovsky. Hate this book so much. love all his other work even the obscure novellas
The Last Shadow by Orsen Scott Card. It's not the only series that he started off strong and fizzled at the end.
That's his MO. Take one cool book's worth of ideas, and squeeze another six books out of it. Usually books 2&3 are ok, but the rest jump the shark. (I did like all the books following Ender. Not a fan of the Enders Shadow series.
Killing Commodore by Murakami. It's the only book of his I DNF.
Soldier Son by Robin Hobb. I love The Realm of the Elderlings but usually forget that this trilogy exists.
Billy summers by Stephen king. Cujo made me cry.
Cujo is way to crazy if you like dogs
Rouge by Mona Awad đ„Ž
Lately I've started to enjoy Sophie Hannah less and less, but *Haven't They Grown?* and *The Couple at the Table* were both just...bad. Obviously not every book could be a banger but they felt so illogical and stupid.
I'm a fan of Michael Crichton but I didn't care for his book *Timeline*.
The *Thomas Covenant* series by Stephen R. Donaldson. I just couldn't like the main character at all. (OTOH, I LOVED his short story collection *Daughter of Regals* and recommend it strongly.) Sadly, I also have to agree with those who said *Tommyknockers* by Stephen King. But that has recently been knocked out of the "worst King book" spot for me by *Holly.* Which is sad, because I loved all the other books about Holly. This one just crossed too many gross-out lines for me to be able to cope with it more than the first and only time I forced myself to read it.
Iâll stick with King like the OP, and go with Liseyâs Story. Just awful. Dreadful.
Crossroads of twilight. I mean, The wheel of time has a reputation for having 'the slog', but book #10 is just ... The whole book is basically just people reacting to the finale of the previous one.
the first two books of the Discworld Series. still impressive that Pratchett was able to get his groove by the 3rd book and didn't stop even after the Alzheimer's diagnosis.
I agree with you about Cujo as a dog lover it was very difficult for me to read and I did not enjoy it.
I read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and LOVED it. Then I read Mother Night and also really enjoyed that. Next up I read Cat's Cradle, and it was an absolute slog to get through, I just don't understand the hype for it. Still love Vonnegut though.
I really love Kerry Greenwoodâs Miss Fisherâs Murder Mysteries series, but the sixth one in the series, Blood and Circuses, is just awful. Phryne Fisher is a badass! Sheâs part Poiroit, part James Bond, but in the sixth book, sheâs a sniveling damsel in distress who is trying to find out who she would be if she wasnât rich. It is completely, utterly out of character and nothing like her depictions in the previous books or the many that followed.
An Innocent Man, by John Grisham. For someone that wrote some fun and exciting legal fiction, he writes dry and boring nonfiction.
Fractal Mode by Piers Anthony. Actual, the whole Mode series. I thought they were very poorly written. I remember saying that Piers Anthony had gotten too popular because it seemed that the series hadn't been edited. But I've since realized that this happens a lot.
Dreamcatcher by Stephen King. Awful.
Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
Did you like the deep? I found that one awful. I liked little heaven though.
Martin Amis's *The Zone of Interest* was, IMO, awful. The film is getting a lot of buzz. I hope it is a loose adaptation.
I've not read the book, but I've seen the film and it did absolutely nothing for me.
Just finished The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke and I was rather underwhelmed. The author himself apparently said this was his favorite but it wasn't half as compelling as Childhood's End which I'd read years ago and it's not even his most known novel. I'll keep reading ACC but overall, I find Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick more fascinating.
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Full of cool concepts, the plot itself is just pointless misery porn. The other two Bas-Lag books have the same imagination and dark tone but with good stories behind them, itâs a shame that this is the one everyone talks about
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. It's lauded as being amazing and yada yada, but I hated it. Gaiman really shines with short stories and graphic novels, so I thought a novella-length story would still be in that sweet spot. It was not. I don't understand the praise for this book.
I enjoyed Cujo, but I was a kid. I thought that The Tommyknockers was Kingâs worst. While Iâve enjoyed all of the Michael Crichton novel that Iâve read, I found State of Fear not among his best and his incessant tirade against climate change absolutely bewildering. Ulysses by James Joyce proved unreadable. I was unable to force myself through that steam-of-consciousness gibberish.
Bleeding Edge - Thomas Pynchon
Oryx and Crake. I barely finished it.
The Long War might be the worst book with Pratchett's name printed on it
If It Bleeds by Stephen King. I love a lot of his work and especially have a soft spot for his short stories and novellas. But this book (of 4 novellas) felt utterly unnecessary and just...uninteresting. One of them had a protagonist that was unbelievably obnoxious, too. Nothing about the book felt like it needed to be written.
Christine by Stephen King. Gave up about 1/4 way through and read Pet Sematary instead, which was a farrr superior book
Normally love Stephen King. Absolutely hated The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
The Last Chairlift by John Irving. Itâs all his regular tropes, but totally garbage characters and story.
Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell. I have absolutely adored every other book that he has written, his collection of short stories, everything. Iâve tried to read number nine twice, and thereâs just something about it that I cannot get through.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Still like a 6/10 but every other book of his is 8+ for me.
Roadwork is by far my least favorite King. Iâm good for giving his stuff 3-4 stars easy but that one just is so bleh.
Sharon Shinn is the author. I like everything of hers I've read, except for General Winston's Daughter. Just, no one likeable in the whole book, and the main character was an idiot.
State of Fear by Michael Crichton.
Philip K. Dick wrote some stinkers between masterpieces.
The Maze by Nelson DeMille He ruined his best character with this terrible book
Cujo by SK as well.
John le CarrĂ©, The Little Drummer Girl. I have no idea why, because I love most of his books, but Iâve started it several times and never managed to finish it.
Coincidentally, âCujoâ is the one that King says he doesnât entirely remember writing.
Something like âhe wrote it on a 3 day bender and it should be read in the same state.â Obviously not a verbatim quote
Mansfield park- I usually have a soft spot for shy/timid characters because I'm like that too but fanny is so judgmental it was hard to root for her, I think if it was treated like a flaw and was used for character development I would have liked her a lot better, also aside from the incest, fanny and edmund are a boring couple. I love Mary crawford though and thought she was a very compelling character
Swamp Story by Dave Barry. His other novels have me laughing so hard my stomach hurts. This one, just a chuckle or 2 and too much violence.
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St John Mandel. Iâve read nearly all of her novels now and itâs definitely the weakest. Itâs also her first novel so I wonât hold it against her!
The simarillion - Tolkien it's pretty tedious
I read Cujo years ago and really enjoyed it. Tried to read it again as a mother of small sons, and couldn't. I trust I don't need to put why!
I would have to say Foregone by Russell Banks.
The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson.
âPreyâ by Michael Crichton. I am a stupidly massive Crichton fan and that is a massively stupid book ⊠that I have somehow read three times now because of the previously mentioned fan problem.
I'm going to parrot Stephen King. Guy has some absolute bangers and some of my favorite books. Also has about five I think are just awful and will never touch again.
Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee. I couldn't withstand the complete annihilation of Atticus Finch's everyman/hero mythos and I didn't finish the book.
I tried my best to get into The hunt for red October. I know people love it for this reason, but it felt like someone spouting technical mumbo jumbo.
The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy. So much dialog and even narrative in Spanish without context that its impossible to pick up the storyline. If you don't know colloquial Spanish, leave this sucker in the bookshop.
And The Mountains Echoes by Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner and One Thousand Splendid Suns are absolutely incredible. ATME was more like a collection of barely connected short stories at one point, with a cheap ending and corny dialogue in the latter quarter. Hosseini skipped over exactly what would have made the book interesting, and focused on minor characters that added nothing. Like, the rich Afghan brothers, and then the part in Greece? Where on earth were the editors?!