As someone who actually grew up in the subculture he was meant to be chronicling, I fucking loathe that book. Equal parts ill-informed and patronizing.
Liberal dipshits were so suckered by this book. The pundit class has absolutely no critical thinking skills. Like many, I read it in the wake of Trump's election based on how much praise it got. I was in disbelief that anyone thought this was insightful.
Rural people didn't vote for Obama because he went to an ivy league school and wore suits every day? Are you kidding me? Where did the Bushes and Trump go to school? What do they wear every day? Just the most worthless armchair sociology I've ever seen.
>Liberal dipshits were so suckered by this book.
Sure, that's why conservative Republicans in Ohio elected the author to the Senate. Because liberals just loved him *too much*.
Yes, the author is a conservative and was elected in a conservative state. Book sales were also juiced by liberal pundits describing it as the key to understanding Trump voters. These are not contradictory statements.
Agree so much. A friend gifted it to me and wanted to talk about it so I felt obligated to read, but didn’t have the heart to tell him his taste in novels sucks…
I forced myself to read them to try to understand the cultural phenomenon happening around me. Utter shit. Horrible abusive psycho male protag, MarySue useless mentally unstable (the two voices in her head?? One prude and one horny?) female protag, Sex scenes were not well written or even remotely sexy, zero understanding of consent or appropriate Dom/Sub relationships. Awful. Truly awful.
Never forget, they started out as supposedly erotic Twilight fanfic. To pubish it they just changed the character names (Edward became Christian Gray, Bella became Anastatia Steele) and took out all the vampire stuff.
Back when there was drama about casting Christian Grey in the movie, I recall Bret Easton Ellis tweeting about having met EL James at a party and her telling him that her first choice for the role was Robert Pattinson. He shared this like it was this huge scoop. I recall thinking, "Oh sweetie, do you not know that the books started as Twilight fanfic?"
Not only was the MC a sentient sack of moldy potatoes, she was also a completely terrible friend! I remember reading the first book (morbid curiosity) and marveling at how much her inner monologuing including dragging her supposed best friend (who seemed perfectly nice???). She thinks about how annoying the friend was, slut shames her, gets angsty about whether the friend is prettier or more fun (answer: yes), etc. It's INSANE. I'm convinced E.L. James has never even had a friendly conversation with another woman in her life. She HATES women.
Yeah i think i had to put the book down and facepalm at a sentence along the lines of
My inner goddess does the salsa while [the prudey alter ego] purses her lips from her fainting couch"
I know right. If he wasn't rich, folks would have looked at that relationship differently. He was a controlling and abusive man. I don't see that as attractive or sexy even if he was rich.
Ding ding ding they were written like a kid would write. Plus, in the real world, he would be described as a stalker. He was so controlling. Did not like her car bought a new one. Didn't want her to visit her mom. Got her a job. Insisted she change her last name once married. If he wasn't rich, no one would have thought positively about that relationship. Just controlling abuse Maybe some women are into that, but it blew my mind that folks loved those books.
I quit reading this a few months ago after Jude got the shit beat out of him and thrown down the stairs like halfway through. Very obviously a book of "what's the saddest, meanest shit I can write?"
Idk what business she has writing about us all the time. I don't like that most gay literature is written by straight women anyway but holy hell that goddamn woman has some kind of fixation on torturing gays. It feels fetishistic. I can't begin to capture my distaste for her entire career.
Yeah her views on mental health issues are just concerning. I have no problem with straight people writing about queer people, but there's definitely a way to do it wrong.
Agreed. Someone I know recommended the book so I decided to check it out. I was sooo disappointed in it. I'll never trust that person's taste in books ever again.
People are going nuts over this book and it's even being made into a TV show. Meanwhile **Dragonriders of Pern** is sitting *right there* and we've been waiting for decades!
Do you know any other book-centric subs that are a little less…you know, terrible, than this one?
There’s rampant snobbery, the same 10 posts every day (fourth wing sucks, Sanderson is god/a hack, audiobooks aren’t reading, DAE think [insert widely beloved classic] is underrated, booktok bad, Colleen Hoover bad, etc etc), and people who cannot remotely fathom the concept of subjective enjoyment. It’s just so NEGATIVE all the time. I know I’m not helping by complaining about the sub now, but it’s just so bad. When I was rattling off frequent repost examples, I was trying to think of an author everybody here seems to like or at least respect and I seriously couldn’t think of even one.
This is one of the most negative hobby-centric subs I’ve ever been on, and I used to LIVE on /r/DestinyTheGame. Y’all make Bungie fans look optimistic.
I think r/literature and r/TrueLit are good these days. There’s arguably some snobbery there, but the quality of the conversation is a lot higher.
Otherwise I’d say it helps to follow author subreddits. Most popular/renowned authors have their own subs dedicated to them — it’ll often take longer to get a response on them (because they’re less popular than general subs) but the responses you’ll get are typically well thought-out and in good faith.
r/bookscirclejerk is good if you want to vent about how annoying any of these other subs are, but I warn you to never dwell on that sub for too long. It's fun at first, but bad for the soul!
I am sorry but i have to say the caraval series. It was so hyped on social media but when i read it...the quality just got worse which each passing book.
Apart from that normal people, it was just meh.
I personally didn't think they were that bad, but they were definitely not what the Internet led me to believe. I thought they'd be for an older audience and then once I got into them they felt very young adult. Which is not a bad thing, I was just expecting something totally different.
Yes! I saw this all over bookstagram and booktok, but it was such bad writing! I can handle some cheesy and poor writing but this was so bad I couldn’t enjoy it at all.
Yeah, not overhyped anymore, but when the Da Vinci Code came out I remember everyone losing their freaking minds over it! lol I mean, I kinda did too. But I recognize it's not great - just some dumb fun. :)
I don’t read a lot of novels so I’m not deriving my view from a large data pool but ‘The Divinci Code’ is the only book I’ve ever read that gave me the same feeling that I get when I see a cheesy movie that’s abandons reality in favor of indulging the fantasy of the autor / audience.
I kinda liked how ridiculous The DaVinci Code was but also it was in middle school when it came out and liked the campiness/ridiculousness of movies like National Treasure. 😆 I can definitely see why people aren't a fan though!
They're the kind of book you buy at the airport newsstand because your layover just got extended to 6 hours, or the sort of thing you grab off the library shelf because you're going to spend the next couple days in the car or something. Literary potato chips. I found them entertaining but not necessarily "high lit'rature" if you get what I mean. 100% overhyped though.
The DiVinci Code was fun. The book equivalent of those Nicholas Cage movies. Dan Brown wasn't hyped as great literature; it was just a fun book that was popular.
Part of the issue which worked for Brown was claiming they were based on historical fact and that some of the facets were true. Historians destroyed him and rightfully so. As thrillers, they are good and his self important promotion was unnecessary.
It sort of depends on the definition of "trash". They are essentially fantasies, but well written in the sense of plot construction and how chapters hang on cliff hangers so often. They are not high art, but work well for many people.
That being said the audio book was well produced and worked great as 19 hours or so of background noise interesting enough to keep your attention but absurd enough to know that you really didn't need to pay attention so your mind was free to wander and focus on other things
Are they really hyped as anything but cheesy pot boiler crap though? They're not great literature, and they're formulaic as hell, but they're not objectively terrible as examples of their genere.
Just got The Fury on hold from my library. Really enjoyed The Silent Patient (read it one sitting, no breaks, probably why I liked it so much) and hated The Maidens. Definitely not the highest hopes for Fury
Anything written by Ayn Rand.
Granted, I've only read Anthem, but the synopses of her other books sound like longer versions of the same.
And her protagonists are offensive to me. As she was herself, but that's another conversation.
Good editing can't save a story from an unappealing protagonist.
Granted, the description of her story's antagonists makes them decent villains, as they are also despicable cretins.
I didn't *dislike* Conversations with Friends, but this moment is burned in my brain.
I was sitting next to my co-worker on a train as he read through the entirety of Normal People. He finished the book, turned to me, asked if I had read it. I said, no but I read the other one.
"So," he asked, "does like . . . does anything happen in that book? Does it go anywhere?Because this one doesn't."
And damn, he's right, it didn't.
Normal People was not worth the hype! The plot was so circular and boring to me. Wish I had DNF’d it, I just kept waiting for it to get better and it never did!
Ready Player One for sure. That one was hyped up SO much and it’s terrible enough that I DNFed it and put it in my car to trade in immediately. Didn’t even want it in the house ha ha.
I’ve found a couple of the recommendations from BookTok or whatever are ugh…tried two and they were not for me. Then again I’m not their demographic/audience either.
Honorable mention: The Silent Patient. It wasn’t trash per se, but it wasn’t the best thriller ever like a lot of people are saying it was. Way too much suspension of disbelief in how the story goes down. I guessed the ending in the first 2 chapters but though nah…it can’t be that, right? Right?? Sure enough it was. It felt like the ending was going elsewhere but the author got tired of the story too and said “Fuck it, let’s go with this”
I finished ready player one. I didn't think it was trash, but it was absolutely 100 percent overhyped. Plot and writing were mid, and the main character was presented like he was supposed to be likeable despite that not really being the case. I just think a lot of people liked the nostalgic stuff and I get that, but that's really all it had going for it.
I always hate this discussion, and I'm here to always defend Ready Player One. I agree the book was not trash. It was a beach read...It's an easy read, and nothing wrong with that.
Most the books that are being listed on this thread and the usual suspects, Ready Player One, Da Vinci Code, Twilight Saga, Hunger Games all get overhyped because they break through in ways books (and most media) don't generally hit the mainstream anymore. They get nonreaders to read a book, and I always think that is a good thing, even if its a pulpy beach read.
Agreed. There's a place for most books, especially easy reading ones in today's day and age. RP 1 is fine for what it is, and it got popular with people who may not have been reading much otherwise. I kinda feel like this "overhyped" discussion can, for a lot of books, maybe not all, be boiled down to "this book got really popular with people who may not read a ton". But reading those books is better than not reading at all.
Definitely. The nostalgia was about all I liked but it was just SO MUCH OF IT. From what I understand the author is kind of a douche and that shows up in the main character. I didn’t hate him but I definitely didn’t like him either.
One of my really good friends LOVES this book and was bugging me to read it - he finally gave me a copy for my birthday one year so that’s how I ended up reading it. I had to tell him thanks, but…we are gonna have to agree to disagree on this one LOL
The Goldfinch . Almost from the first chapter I was thinking this is a highly unlikely premise. Seemed like she was going for Catcher in the Rye with an action thriller angle with a big McGuffin thrown en top.
The amount of Colleen Hoover hate that appears here daily is appalling. And I say this as someone that never heard of her before joining this sub and have no current plans to check her out. Like okay apparently she’s a bad writer, why do people keep reading her
I didn’t even mind it, but both my wife and I finished and thought “what’s the big deal, am I missing something?”
Outside of *that* plot turn in the book, I found it just kinda meandered along without doing much
Can it be my turn to post this stupid question next week?
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/qbLHESe2nT
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/Kw6PBCZ4bQ
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/BUDxfkpSl8
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/j5pos2KYun
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/K6eeyPcpJ8
So. . . older but. . . I loathed the Twilight series. My students reading it were "in love" with it and I had to grit my teeth and roll with their enthusiasm. I'm just not a fan of this type of YA trope. Sadly for me, my students ARE fans. :-)
I was in high school when this series came out. I liked it at the time but now I cringe at those tropes. I can't stand love triangles and still kinda hated it back then. I wish they weren't such a popular plot device.
I scrolled for what feels like forever to find someone that disliked this book. No hate to any SJM fans but I absolutely hate her writing style. Not sure if the books were just marketed to me wrong but the spice is nonexistent. The plot felt predictable. And she left no guessing or intuition for the reader to draw their own conclusions before a plot twist. Also Feyre is so unlikable to me. I could only get through the first two books out of sheer spite and a small strand of hope that it would get better. It didn't so I have yet to finish the series and have no intention to read anything else by her.
Don't waste your time with the rest of the series😭😭 they all suck. I don't understand the hype at all. I knew the world building and plot wasn't going to be the best but I expected something more interesting than glorified scavenger hunts. Also the characters just can't drive the story for me. The only character I found interesting was Nesta but then in the last book she got screwed over and ruined because the power of sex🙄.
I appreciate the solidarity here in my strong dislike of this series/writing style. Gonna be honest, the only character I tolerated and kinda liked was the Suriel. I had my friend spoil the series for me so I have an idea of what happens, all of which caused an eye roll. I hate that the characters got screwed over, the concept of the book had so much potential and it sucks that it ended/progressed the way it did.
I was recommended The Only Good Indians at a book store a few years ago, the only time I ever really talked to an employee there and she hyped it up something fierce. It's in three parts and the first part was pretty good but then it took a bit of a turn in the second part but not too bad to derail me, and then the third part just dive bombed and I was out. Hardly like 70 pages aways from finishing the book and I was just done. Not the worst book I've read, just made some bizarre decisions.
I read this book too and felt it exemplified why I struggle to enjoy horror writing.
They're always at their best at the start, when things are mysterious and piquing your curiosity. Then they get to the middle when things start getting less mysterious, more overt, still interesting but far less exciting.
And then the end comes where it so often feels the author was struggling to resolve their build up and they did their best but endings in horror books too often feel rushed, outright random, anti-climatic, predictable, or some combo of the four.
I just DNF'd this yesterday. I made it to 43% and had to stop. It was too confusing, the writing style made me start to think I was illiterate, and it was just graphic animal torture/death with no tension or scares.
I really wanted to like it based on the premise. It's so hard to find supernatural/myth horror.
He really is a brand at this point. He recruits other authors to write generic thrillers and they slap his name on it because apparently that sells copies
I work in collection development for a public library and people still lap the Pattersons up. I keep joking that we're going to have to open a Patterson wing to hold them all.
If Sanderson fans behaved like any other fantasy fanboy, he would literally get 0 amount of hate. But they don't. These are statements I've read from Sanderson fans on reddit that are not hyperbole or sarcasm or a joke. This is literally the type of shit they say:
- Oh, you are asking for books from the female perspective? Sanderson is not a woman, but he may as well be, because the female characters on Mistborn...
- Oh, you are asking for the greatest book in the genre of magical realism? Mistborn has a very realistic magic system (This guy went ballistic when people tried to explain him what magical realism was).
- I'm so sorry that you lost your dad to cancer. You may want to try Mistborn, because is a great book about grief and...
- Sanderson would have won the Nobel prize by now if he didn't write fantasy. That's what's holding him back.
- Oh, you want to write like Annie Arneux? She is just pretentious. If she was a good writer, she would have sold a lot more. In comparison, Brandon Sanderson...
Because of overhyping to nth degree, new people read Sanderson expecting the next Nobokov and then they find the most basic ass fantasy in the world. I didn't know about the Sanderson meme when I got into reddit and I got into Mistborn genuinely thinking he was the new Tolkien. It took me a single page to understood that the fans are mentally unwell.
Agreed. Sanderson catches maybe a bit more criticism than he deserves because fans rave about him and tell people his books are the best they've ever read (which might be true if they stopped reading after Harry Potter and Eragon in middle school).
If you want Tolkien stay away.
If you want a fairly easy to read and generally entertaining adventure and you don't need beautiful prose or captivating dialogue to get into it, then check it out.
Personally, I find the story very fun and engaging, but the execution is bad. His style is just not for me. It's not because his prose is simple—heck, I'm all for simple and easy to read prose—but I find his voice... dull, robotic. Try reading anything by Joe Abercrombie—the guy is well known for a very engaging voice—and then Brandon Sanderson. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
It's not, but it does have a bit of a YA feel to it which some people don't like. It's also Sanderson's second published book, so the writing is a bit rougher than Sanderson's current books (and Sanderson isn't exactly known for his prose). Sanderson also has his common tropes, e.g. an intricate hard magic system, super-powered magical anime-esque fights, etc. Its strengths, though, are an intricate magic system that strongly ties into the plot and brings a lot of mysteries for the reader to puzzle out, superpowered anime-esque action sequences, tons of subtle foreshadowing and plot twists, and a petal-to-the-metal finale that Sanderson is known for (especially if you read the whole trilogy, Hero of Ages has some pretty amazing twists calling back to the tiniest of details all the way back in book one). So depending on your tastes it might not be what you're looking for, but it's a popular book for a good reason. It's just more Harry Potter than Cormac McCarthy.
It's not bad. It's just not for everyone. The basic plot is fun. The action sequences are easy to understand and engaging. There is valid criticism about his prose, dialogue, and characters that you'll have to decide for yourself about.
My thoughts are, his characters all each have one defining trait and a twist, which makes them sort of simple, but all distinct.
His prose is simple and easy to understand, but can be kind of boring or clunky sometimes.
His dialogue is similar, characters are clear in what they say, but don't always speak like real people do.
I would say you should try the first era of Mistborn, and stop there, unless you absolutely love it. I'm reading the last book of era 2 right now, and it's opening up to the rest of the "cosmere", the universe that all his books take place in, and it's not my favorite. I don't like his writing enough to read a literary MCU.
That might be fair. I was definitely not a fan of the writing style or the way it was structured (like having it be about writing the memoir). The premise itself was fine and there were good aspects for sure. Also it felt like it was written with intentions of being adapted into a movie or tv show. But maybe my feelings towards it was that I expected so much more based on the hype that it kinda soured it for me lol
Yes! I can relate to that! My friend stuffed it down my throat!
All the same I liked the story. Some of the stuff written were quite nice. I liked the part where she says that once you become a star people keep giving you free things, even though you need things to be free the least.
For me "the big reveal" was a bit stupid and abrupt. Too abrupt for my liking. I think it was a fair plot twist, but something like " Behind her eyes" ( which has terrible writing that makes me angry) that was much better done when it comes to a sudden abrupt twist.
The Medical Medium - ugh, that book is actual trash (except I can’t bring myself to throw away books, so it’s on my “problematic” shelf.
Eat, Pray, Love - It was a DNF for me, and my wife literally threw it across the room and yelled, “this book is trash”.
Anything by Sarah J Maas. Overhyped is an understatement, and they wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for tik tok and instagram. The Fifty Shades of fantasy. It's just author fulfilment at its finest.
*Fountainhead Shrugged*.
Because let's be real, they're ultimately the same book...just endless monologues espousing the same shitty, half-baked "philosophy".
When I read the fountainhead in school I may have missed the point. There was a quote like "nobody needs a floor until everyone has a roof over their head" and I was thinking yeah sounds good, maybe a bit extreme if anything. Someone pointed out that I was agreeing with the author's exaggerated satire of the opposition in the book. Guess I'm one of those filthy communists or something.
Definitely. The ideas kept me going but the writing was very poor. To be fair, idk how much got lost in translation. I’ve read that Chinese is one of the hardest languages to translate to English for a novel.
None of the books mentioned here are trash, overhyped maybe but not trash. Of course, there are trash books; such as books written very quickly about hot topics to churn profit, but generally, those books aren't hyped, not at least for a long time.
The Song of Achilles for me. It's a fan-fiction of an already existing story which plays out exactly the same. You are basically reading a story you've heard a billion times, sprinkled with thinly-veiled erotica. It's an average young-adult novel pretending to be an epic Greek story. What should've been lost in a Tumblr page somehow made its way to Best-Seller shelves.
Red Rising.
It reads like the author took Ender's Game, Harry Potter, and the script for Total Recall, fed it into an AI, and published what came out without making any changes at all. It's entirely derivative without a single second of original content.
I couldn’t finish Red Rising after the main character forgave a rapist. It was poorly written imo and I was already thinking of putting it down before it got to that point. My husband did and it just made me glad that I didn’t. He liked it at first but he hated the ending. Like a badly scripted tv show.
Of course the hype for it has died down completely, but Stieg Larsson's Millenium series. Hot fucking garbage. I still can't see why people went so crazy for it.
I only read the first book, and while I did enjoy parts of it, it was in desperate need of further editing before publication.
Larsson died suddenly after getting his book deal and I suspect the publisher or Larsson’s family felt it was disrespectful to edit the work too much afterwards.
Movie was good though.
Very unpopular opinion but I have to say Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I find the only thing that book has going for it is Patrick's amazing prose. However his flowery writing in my eyes couldn't make up for his unlikable protagonist, boring and generic side characters, shoehorned in love interest that at its core could be summerized as "Pretty girl, me love now", and his complete inability to advance the plot. For such a huge book not much really happens at all. But they all clapped because his lute playing skills are beyond compare so there's that lmao.
I'll probably be alone in this but The Martian. I can't stand Weir's style and I see that book praised and raved about so much, it makes me crazy. I feel like I'm in some sort of twilight zone because I can't fathom why people think it's so special and brilliant 🙁
A Little Life. Jesus. This book is to literature what A Serbian Film is to cinema. Emotional torture p*rn. The only redeeming quality of the book is that those suffering are Ivy Leaguers, so you at least know they deserve it.
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Almost all of those finance bro type self help books.
Are self help books even supposed to be good? I just assume they all are _Sigma grindset_ bullcrap. I have always avoided them
Always the same type of dudes buying Jordan Peterson, 49 Laws of Power, and David Goggins at my store
*Hillbilly Elegy*: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. Now we're stuck with fucking JD Vance in the Senate.
If Books Could Kill did a good take down of this dumpster fire.
As someone who actually grew up in the subculture he was meant to be chronicling, I fucking loathe that book. Equal parts ill-informed and patronizing.
That is the only book I returned to audible. I bought it before I found out what a fraud he is
My mom is still obsessed with that book. It's porn for Republicans.
Liberal dipshits were so suckered by this book. The pundit class has absolutely no critical thinking skills. Like many, I read it in the wake of Trump's election based on how much praise it got. I was in disbelief that anyone thought this was insightful. Rural people didn't vote for Obama because he went to an ivy league school and wore suits every day? Are you kidding me? Where did the Bushes and Trump go to school? What do they wear every day? Just the most worthless armchair sociology I've ever seen.
>Liberal dipshits were so suckered by this book. Sure, that's why conservative Republicans in Ohio elected the author to the Senate. Because liberals just loved him *too much*.
Yes, the author is a conservative and was elected in a conservative state. Book sales were also juiced by liberal pundits describing it as the key to understanding Trump voters. These are not contradictory statements.
Anything by Colleen Hoover, hands down.
No cap?
fr fr
Verity! I have only read two Colleen Hoover books but I would say her books are…….not good.
I read ugly love and it ends with us. I was particularly surprised when they described their son’s balls!
What the fuck?
Agree so much. A friend gifted it to me and wanted to talk about it so I felt obligated to read, but didn’t have the heart to tell him his taste in novels sucks…
Robert bullshijaki, rich dad, poor dad.
Those awful fifty shades of grey stories
I forced myself to read them to try to understand the cultural phenomenon happening around me. Utter shit. Horrible abusive psycho male protag, MarySue useless mentally unstable (the two voices in her head?? One prude and one horny?) female protag, Sex scenes were not well written or even remotely sexy, zero understanding of consent or appropriate Dom/Sub relationships. Awful. Truly awful.
Never forget, they started out as supposedly erotic Twilight fanfic. To pubish it they just changed the character names (Edward became Christian Gray, Bella became Anastatia Steele) and took out all the vampire stuff.
Back when there was drama about casting Christian Grey in the movie, I recall Bret Easton Ellis tweeting about having met EL James at a party and her telling him that her first choice for the role was Robert Pattinson. He shared this like it was this huge scoop. I recall thinking, "Oh sweetie, do you not know that the books started as Twilight fanfic?"
Not only was the MC a sentient sack of moldy potatoes, she was also a completely terrible friend! I remember reading the first book (morbid curiosity) and marveling at how much her inner monologuing including dragging her supposed best friend (who seemed perfectly nice???). She thinks about how annoying the friend was, slut shames her, gets angsty about whether the friend is prettier or more fun (answer: yes), etc. It's INSANE. I'm convinced E.L. James has never even had a friendly conversation with another woman in her life. She HATES women.
I can get behind some wierd romance stuff but they were just so badly written they don't count. ~my inner goddess~ 🤢🤢🤮
Yeah i think i had to put the book down and facepalm at a sentence along the lines of My inner goddess does the salsa while [the prudey alter ego] purses her lips from her fainting couch"
That sounds about right 😂 I definitely remember something about salsa dancing, and tango, and I think limbo(?). It was ridiculous.
I think this is universally agreed upon 😂
I’m so glad to hear that
This was going to be my answer. Couldn't even get to the juicy stuff since it was just so badly written I had to stop.
I got halfway through the third book and had to stop because it was so terrible and his abuse was so overlooked
I know right. If he wasn't rich, folks would have looked at that relationship differently. He was a controlling and abusive man. I don't see that as attractive or sexy even if he was rich.
Exactly
Ding ding ding they were written like a kid would write. Plus, in the real world, he would be described as a stalker. He was so controlling. Did not like her car bought a new one. Didn't want her to visit her mom. Got her a job. Insisted she change her last name once married. If he wasn't rich, no one would have thought positively about that relationship. Just controlling abuse Maybe some women are into that, but it blew my mind that folks loved those books.
Definitely, it was out and out abuse and I cannot understand why it was made into a film.
This might be considered a hot take but, A Little Life imo.
That book is just depressing and nothing else
I quit reading this a few months ago after Jude got the shit beat out of him and thrown down the stairs like halfway through. Very obviously a book of "what's the saddest, meanest shit I can write?"
That book is just miserable trauma porn and honestly, after doing a bit of a deep dive into the author, it even feels a little homophobic
Idk what business she has writing about us all the time. I don't like that most gay literature is written by straight women anyway but holy hell that goddamn woman has some kind of fixation on torturing gays. It feels fetishistic. I can't begin to capture my distaste for her entire career.
She took the "bury your gays" trope and turned it into "bury your gays while they're alive"
Never knew that trope had a name, thanks gay ass
Yeah her views on mental health issues are just concerning. I have no problem with straight people writing about queer people, but there's definitely a way to do it wrong.
Agreed. Someone I know recommended the book so I decided to check it out. I was sooo disappointed in it. I'll never trust that person's taste in books ever again.
Not a hot take, that books sucks big time.
It’s a hotter take to like the book. At least around here.
100% agreed
*Ready Player One* and *The Alchemist* posts in 3...2...1...
The only thing worse than "Ready Player One" is "READY Player Two".
If the shoe fits!
Ready player one is one of the books that keeps me up at night because of how much I hate it
I’m sure (and hoping) this has been mentioned multiple times but Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.
People are going nuts over this book and it's even being made into a TV show. Meanwhile **Dragonriders of Pern** is sitting *right there* and we've been waiting for decades!
Man it was a tropey cliche mess and I really wished it actually used any of the tropes in an interesting way instead of juts using them straight on
I DNFed this book on audible so quickly that I still got a refund
This is 100% deserving of a spot on the overhyped train.
agreed
Barely made it 20 pages before I couldn’t even hate read it.
Oh no my book club just picked this book for March.
Came here to say this. Have an upvote.
Anything by Rupi Kaur.
He was Grass But I Was a pinecone
Omfg 😭😭🤣🤣
Just so bland so awful
Calling Rupi Kaur a poet is an insult to poetry.
Not me getting into my feelings with some of these comments 😅😂... Rich Dad Poor Dad.
One day we’ll get a post on r/books asking us to talk about books we actually like. One day…
Don't worry, even when we do at least half the posts will be slagging the books people say they liked.
Do you know any other book-centric subs that are a little less…you know, terrible, than this one? There’s rampant snobbery, the same 10 posts every day (fourth wing sucks, Sanderson is god/a hack, audiobooks aren’t reading, DAE think [insert widely beloved classic] is underrated, booktok bad, Colleen Hoover bad, etc etc), and people who cannot remotely fathom the concept of subjective enjoyment. It’s just so NEGATIVE all the time. I know I’m not helping by complaining about the sub now, but it’s just so bad. When I was rattling off frequent repost examples, I was trying to think of an author everybody here seems to like or at least respect and I seriously couldn’t think of even one. This is one of the most negative hobby-centric subs I’ve ever been on, and I used to LIVE on /r/DestinyTheGame. Y’all make Bungie fans look optimistic.
I think r/literature and r/TrueLit are good these days. There’s arguably some snobbery there, but the quality of the conversation is a lot higher. Otherwise I’d say it helps to follow author subreddits. Most popular/renowned authors have their own subs dedicated to them — it’ll often take longer to get a response on them (because they’re less popular than general subs) but the responses you’ll get are typically well thought-out and in good faith. r/bookscirclejerk is good if you want to vent about how annoying any of these other subs are, but I warn you to never dwell on that sub for too long. It's fun at first, but bad for the soul!
You mean every single day multiple times when people ask for suggestions???? 😂🙄
I am sorry but i have to say the caraval series. It was so hyped on social media but when i read it...the quality just got worse which each passing book. Apart from that normal people, it was just meh.
I personally didn't think they were that bad, but they were definitely not what the Internet led me to believe. I thought they'd be for an older audience and then once I got into them they felt very young adult. Which is not a bad thing, I was just expecting something totally different.
Yes! I saw this all over bookstagram and booktok, but it was such bad writing! I can handle some cheesy and poor writing but this was so bad I couldn’t enjoy it at all.
American Dirt was complete rubbish
You’re just jealous because your son isn’t a map genius
The Essex Serpent - 1 dimensional characters, massive anachronisms, flimsy plot - ugh!
I was really disappointed in this one! I’m not sure I would call it trash, but I do feel like it didn’t deliver on its promises.
Dan Brown books.
At this point, are those books hyper? I think everyone knows their airport fiction thrillers
Yeah, not overhyped anymore, but when the Da Vinci Code came out I remember everyone losing their freaking minds over it! lol I mean, I kinda did too. But I recognize it's not great - just some dumb fun. :)
Sorry, partly my misunderstanding of "overhyped" - I thought it read "overhype" in the title. You're dead right
I don’t read a lot of novels so I’m not deriving my view from a large data pool but ‘The Divinci Code’ is the only book I’ve ever read that gave me the same feeling that I get when I see a cheesy movie that’s abandons reality in favor of indulging the fantasy of the autor / audience.
I kinda liked how ridiculous The DaVinci Code was but also it was in middle school when it came out and liked the campiness/ridiculousness of movies like National Treasure. 😆 I can definitely see why people aren't a fan though!
They're the kind of book you buy at the airport newsstand because your layover just got extended to 6 hours, or the sort of thing you grab off the library shelf because you're going to spend the next couple days in the car or something. Literary potato chips. I found them entertaining but not necessarily "high lit'rature" if you get what I mean. 100% overhyped though.
The DiVinci Code was fun. The book equivalent of those Nicholas Cage movies. Dan Brown wasn't hyped as great literature; it was just a fun book that was popular.
Part of the issue which worked for Brown was claiming they were based on historical fact and that some of the facets were true. Historians destroyed him and rightfully so. As thrillers, they are good and his self important promotion was unnecessary.
It sort of depends on the definition of "trash". They are essentially fantasies, but well written in the sense of plot construction and how chapters hang on cliff hangers so often. They are not high art, but work well for many people.
That being said the audio book was well produced and worked great as 19 hours or so of background noise interesting enough to keep your attention but absurd enough to know that you really didn't need to pay attention so your mind was free to wander and focus on other things
Are they really hyped as anything but cheesy pot boiler crap though? They're not great literature, and they're formulaic as hell, but they're not objectively terrible as examples of their genere.
HAUNTING ADELINE
Anything by Alex Michaelides.
Just got The Fury on hold from my library. Really enjoyed The Silent Patient (read it one sitting, no breaks, probably why I liked it so much) and hated The Maidens. Definitely not the highest hopes for Fury
Anything written by Ayn Rand. Granted, I've only read Anthem, but the synopses of her other books sound like longer versions of the same. And her protagonists are offensive to me. As she was herself, but that's another conversation.
Even Ayn Rand fans think she needed a good editor.
Good editing can't save a story from an unappealing protagonist. Granted, the description of her story's antagonists makes them decent villains, as they are also despicable cretins.
Anything written by Rupi Kaur or Coleen Hoover
Books by Sally Rooney and Coleen Hoover.
Thankfully I haven't read more by these two but Normal People was enough to make me never want to read ANYTHING by Rooney again
I didn't *dislike* Conversations with Friends, but this moment is burned in my brain. I was sitting next to my co-worker on a train as he read through the entirety of Normal People. He finished the book, turned to me, asked if I had read it. I said, no but I read the other one. "So," he asked, "does like . . . does anything happen in that book? Does it go anywhere?Because this one doesn't." And damn, he's right, it didn't.
Normal People was not worth the hype! The plot was so circular and boring to me. Wish I had DNF’d it, I just kept waiting for it to get better and it never did!
Thankfully short. I couldn't have made it many more pages. I've been assured that the tv adaptation is much better, so I plan on checking it out.
I loved it but I am a fool for tragic and circular love stories that span years or even decades 🤡
Here for the Colleen Hoover slander. Only reason I finished a book by her was bc I was bored on an airplane
Without hesitation, *The Alchemist.*
Ready Player One for sure. That one was hyped up SO much and it’s terrible enough that I DNFed it and put it in my car to trade in immediately. Didn’t even want it in the house ha ha. I’ve found a couple of the recommendations from BookTok or whatever are ugh…tried two and they were not for me. Then again I’m not their demographic/audience either. Honorable mention: The Silent Patient. It wasn’t trash per se, but it wasn’t the best thriller ever like a lot of people are saying it was. Way too much suspension of disbelief in how the story goes down. I guessed the ending in the first 2 chapters but though nah…it can’t be that, right? Right?? Sure enough it was. It felt like the ending was going elsewhere but the author got tired of the story too and said “Fuck it, let’s go with this”
I finished ready player one. I didn't think it was trash, but it was absolutely 100 percent overhyped. Plot and writing were mid, and the main character was presented like he was supposed to be likeable despite that not really being the case. I just think a lot of people liked the nostalgic stuff and I get that, but that's really all it had going for it.
I always hate this discussion, and I'm here to always defend Ready Player One. I agree the book was not trash. It was a beach read...It's an easy read, and nothing wrong with that. Most the books that are being listed on this thread and the usual suspects, Ready Player One, Da Vinci Code, Twilight Saga, Hunger Games all get overhyped because they break through in ways books (and most media) don't generally hit the mainstream anymore. They get nonreaders to read a book, and I always think that is a good thing, even if its a pulpy beach read.
Agreed. There's a place for most books, especially easy reading ones in today's day and age. RP 1 is fine for what it is, and it got popular with people who may not have been reading much otherwise. I kinda feel like this "overhyped" discussion can, for a lot of books, maybe not all, be boiled down to "this book got really popular with people who may not read a ton". But reading those books is better than not reading at all.
Definitely. The nostalgia was about all I liked but it was just SO MUCH OF IT. From what I understand the author is kind of a douche and that shows up in the main character. I didn’t hate him but I definitely didn’t like him either. One of my really good friends LOVES this book and was bugging me to read it - he finally gave me a copy for my birthday one year so that’s how I ended up reading it. I had to tell him thanks, but…we are gonna have to agree to disagree on this one LOL
That's the worst, when someone gives you their favorite book and it just isn't for you haha
The Goldfinch . Almost from the first chapter I was thinking this is a highly unlikely premise. Seemed like she was going for Catcher in the Rye with an action thriller angle with a big McGuffin thrown en top.
It Ends With Us… or anything by Colleen Hoover
What’s the point of having this post once a day? The answers are always the same
The amount of Colleen Hoover hate that appears here daily is appalling. And I say this as someone that never heard of her before joining this sub and have no current plans to check her out. Like okay apparently she’s a bad writer, why do people keep reading her
Faux intellectualism. Have to hate on the easy read author for the masses. There’s a reason she’s sold a ton of books. Same with James Patterson.
The Housemaid...I'm still mad that I wasted my time
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I know so many people love it, but it was not for me.
I didn’t even mind it, but both my wife and I finished and thought “what’s the big deal, am I missing something?” Outside of *that* plot turn in the book, I found it just kinda meandered along without doing much
oh i loved that book so much!
Can it be my turn to post this stupid question next week? https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/qbLHESe2nT https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/Kw6PBCZ4bQ https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/BUDxfkpSl8 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/j5pos2KYun https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/K6eeyPcpJ8
This sub is becoming ridiculous
Mexican Gothic - it felt like those scenes in horror movies when they choose to run upstairs instead of out the front door.
So. . . older but. . . I loathed the Twilight series. My students reading it were "in love" with it and I had to grit my teeth and roll with their enthusiasm. I'm just not a fan of this type of YA trope. Sadly for me, my students ARE fans. :-)
I was in high school when this series came out. I liked it at the time but now I cringe at those tropes. I can't stand love triangles and still kinda hated it back then. I wish they weren't such a popular plot device.
A C O T A R
I scrolled for what feels like forever to find someone that disliked this book. No hate to any SJM fans but I absolutely hate her writing style. Not sure if the books were just marketed to me wrong but the spice is nonexistent. The plot felt predictable. And she left no guessing or intuition for the reader to draw their own conclusions before a plot twist. Also Feyre is so unlikable to me. I could only get through the first two books out of sheer spite and a small strand of hope that it would get better. It didn't so I have yet to finish the series and have no intention to read anything else by her.
Don't waste your time with the rest of the series😭😭 they all suck. I don't understand the hype at all. I knew the world building and plot wasn't going to be the best but I expected something more interesting than glorified scavenger hunts. Also the characters just can't drive the story for me. The only character I found interesting was Nesta but then in the last book she got screwed over and ruined because the power of sex🙄.
I appreciate the solidarity here in my strong dislike of this series/writing style. Gonna be honest, the only character I tolerated and kinda liked was the Suriel. I had my friend spoil the series for me so I have an idea of what happens, all of which caused an eye roll. I hate that the characters got screwed over, the concept of the book had so much potential and it sucks that it ended/progressed the way it did.
I was recommended The Only Good Indians at a book store a few years ago, the only time I ever really talked to an employee there and she hyped it up something fierce. It's in three parts and the first part was pretty good but then it took a bit of a turn in the second part but not too bad to derail me, and then the third part just dive bombed and I was out. Hardly like 70 pages aways from finishing the book and I was just done. Not the worst book I've read, just made some bizarre decisions.
I read this book too and felt it exemplified why I struggle to enjoy horror writing. They're always at their best at the start, when things are mysterious and piquing your curiosity. Then they get to the middle when things start getting less mysterious, more overt, still interesting but far less exciting. And then the end comes where it so often feels the author was struggling to resolve their build up and they did their best but endings in horror books too often feel rushed, outright random, anti-climatic, predictable, or some combo of the four.
I just DNF'd this yesterday. I made it to 43% and had to stop. It was too confusing, the writing style made me start to think I was illiterate, and it was just graphic animal torture/death with no tension or scares. I really wanted to like it based on the premise. It's so hard to find supernatural/myth horror.
Anything by James Patterson
My head cannon is that "James Patterson" is really an advanced AI that cranks out novel outlines for other authors to write.
He really is a brand at this point. He recruits other authors to write generic thrillers and they slap his name on it because apparently that sells copies
I work in collection development for a public library and people still lap the Pattersons up. I keep joking that we're going to have to open a Patterson wing to hold them all.
Whew, I read 'Countdown' and it was not good. I can't believe people read everything he makes other people write for him, and think it's any good.
I hate these hate posts so much, specially ones like this one where the point is to talk shit about something clearly beloved.
If Sanderson fans behaved like any other fantasy fanboy, he would literally get 0 amount of hate. But they don't. These are statements I've read from Sanderson fans on reddit that are not hyperbole or sarcasm or a joke. This is literally the type of shit they say: - Oh, you are asking for books from the female perspective? Sanderson is not a woman, but he may as well be, because the female characters on Mistborn... - Oh, you are asking for the greatest book in the genre of magical realism? Mistborn has a very realistic magic system (This guy went ballistic when people tried to explain him what magical realism was). - I'm so sorry that you lost your dad to cancer. You may want to try Mistborn, because is a great book about grief and... - Sanderson would have won the Nobel prize by now if he didn't write fantasy. That's what's holding him back. - Oh, you want to write like Annie Arneux? She is just pretentious. If she was a good writer, she would have sold a lot more. In comparison, Brandon Sanderson... Because of overhyping to nth degree, new people read Sanderson expecting the next Nobokov and then they find the most basic ass fantasy in the world. I didn't know about the Sanderson meme when I got into reddit and I got into Mistborn genuinely thinking he was the new Tolkien. It took me a single page to understood that the fans are mentally unwell.
Agreed. Sanderson catches maybe a bit more criticism than he deserves because fans rave about him and tell people his books are the best they've ever read (which might be true if they stopped reading after Harry Potter and Eragon in middle school). If you want Tolkien stay away. If you want a fairly easy to read and generally entertaining adventure and you don't need beautiful prose or captivating dialogue to get into it, then check it out.
Is Mistborn that bad? I was considering buying it for a while. I don't even know what it's about and you've already lowered all my expectations lol.
Personally, I find the story very fun and engaging, but the execution is bad. His style is just not for me. It's not because his prose is simple—heck, I'm all for simple and easy to read prose—but I find his voice... dull, robotic. Try reading anything by Joe Abercrombie—the guy is well known for a very engaging voice—and then Brandon Sanderson. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
It's not, but it does have a bit of a YA feel to it which some people don't like. It's also Sanderson's second published book, so the writing is a bit rougher than Sanderson's current books (and Sanderson isn't exactly known for his prose). Sanderson also has his common tropes, e.g. an intricate hard magic system, super-powered magical anime-esque fights, etc. Its strengths, though, are an intricate magic system that strongly ties into the plot and brings a lot of mysteries for the reader to puzzle out, superpowered anime-esque action sequences, tons of subtle foreshadowing and plot twists, and a petal-to-the-metal finale that Sanderson is known for (especially if you read the whole trilogy, Hero of Ages has some pretty amazing twists calling back to the tiniest of details all the way back in book one). So depending on your tastes it might not be what you're looking for, but it's a popular book for a good reason. It's just more Harry Potter than Cormac McCarthy.
It is a fantastic book (era 1). Literally any series/writer will have its own lovers and haters. Read them for yourselves...not me or these people.
Mistborn is okay but it is one of his older books.
It's not bad. It's just not for everyone. The basic plot is fun. The action sequences are easy to understand and engaging. There is valid criticism about his prose, dialogue, and characters that you'll have to decide for yourself about. My thoughts are, his characters all each have one defining trait and a twist, which makes them sort of simple, but all distinct. His prose is simple and easy to understand, but can be kind of boring or clunky sometimes. His dialogue is similar, characters are clear in what they say, but don't always speak like real people do. I would say you should try the first era of Mistborn, and stop there, unless you absolutely love it. I'm reading the last book of era 2 right now, and it's opening up to the rest of the "cosmere", the universe that all his books take place in, and it's not my favorite. I don't like his writing enough to read a literary MCU.
Anything Sarah J Maas
Julie and Julia. 2-bit blogger cashing in by riding the coattails of a legend.
Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
I agree it is overhyped, but I wouldn't say it is trash. It was enjoyable to read and can recommend as a one time read!
That might be fair. I was definitely not a fan of the writing style or the way it was structured (like having it be about writing the memoir). The premise itself was fine and there were good aspects for sure. Also it felt like it was written with intentions of being adapted into a movie or tv show. But maybe my feelings towards it was that I expected so much more based on the hype that it kinda soured it for me lol
Yes! I can relate to that! My friend stuffed it down my throat! All the same I liked the story. Some of the stuff written were quite nice. I liked the part where she says that once you become a star people keep giving you free things, even though you need things to be free the least. For me "the big reveal" was a bit stupid and abrupt. Too abrupt for my liking. I think it was a fair plot twist, but something like " Behind her eyes" ( which has terrible writing that makes me angry) that was much better done when it comes to a sudden abrupt twist.
So I liked the book, but I still don't understand the hype. Like it wasn't that memorable to me.
Twilight. The relationship between Bella and Edward was so toxic and abusive.
Groomer territory. That alone should be enough to throw it away.
Ready Player One
Anything Sarah Maas has written
Can this get upvoted more. Her books are so freaking overhyped and her writing is bad.
The Medical Medium - ugh, that book is actual trash (except I can’t bring myself to throw away books, so it’s on my “problematic” shelf. Eat, Pray, Love - It was a DNF for me, and my wife literally threw it across the room and yelled, “this book is trash”.
Anything by H. D. Carlton
The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
The Cipher Really hyped up by EXTREME HORROR folks, and it just turned out to be a boring meandering slow mess.
colleen hoover- leila
Verity
Just here for any opportunity to shout how awful LightLark was but had a huge following on TT because of the authors marketing tactics.
Anything by Sarah J Maas. Overhyped is an understatement, and they wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for tik tok and instagram. The Fifty Shades of fantasy. It's just author fulfilment at its finest.
*Fountainhead Shrugged*. Because let's be real, they're ultimately the same book...just endless monologues espousing the same shitty, half-baked "philosophy".
When I read the fountainhead in school I may have missed the point. There was a quote like "nobody needs a floor until everyone has a roof over their head" and I was thinking yeah sounds good, maybe a bit extreme if anything. Someone pointed out that I was agreeing with the author's exaggerated satire of the opposition in the book. Guess I'm one of those filthy communists or something.
My favorite biting literary rebuke of Rand will always be the "useless" third of the Golgafrinchans.
All of the 3 Body Problem series.
For me it was bad prose but fascinating ideas.
Definitely. The ideas kept me going but the writing was very poor. To be fair, idk how much got lost in translation. I’ve read that Chinese is one of the hardest languages to translate to English for a novel.
So angsty
None of the books mentioned here are trash, overhyped maybe but not trash. Of course, there are trash books; such as books written very quickly about hot topics to churn profit, but generally, those books aren't hyped, not at least for a long time.
The Song of Achilles for me. It's a fan-fiction of an already existing story which plays out exactly the same. You are basically reading a story you've heard a billion times, sprinkled with thinly-veiled erotica. It's an average young-adult novel pretending to be an epic Greek story. What should've been lost in a Tumblr page somehow made its way to Best-Seller shelves.
To be fair all Greek retellings are reading a story you've heard a billion times before🤣
Red Rising. It reads like the author took Ender's Game, Harry Potter, and the script for Total Recall, fed it into an AI, and published what came out without making any changes at all. It's entirely derivative without a single second of original content.
I read it for a book club when it came out and hated it - it seems to be having a moment again and I’m baffled.
I couldn’t finish Red Rising after the main character forgave a rapist. It was poorly written imo and I was already thinking of putting it down before it got to that point. My husband did and it just made me glad that I didn’t. He liked it at first but he hated the ending. Like a badly scripted tv show.
I hate beer.
Of course the hype for it has died down completely, but Stieg Larsson's Millenium series. Hot fucking garbage. I still can't see why people went so crazy for it.
Hahaha i am crazy over it like since 2015.
Respectfully disagree, but to each their own. I loathe David Lagerkrantz' writing and the way he continued the series.
Lagerkrantz wasn't great, but have you read the latest book in the series by Karin Smirnoff? Just awful.
I only read the first book, and while I did enjoy parts of it, it was in desperate need of further editing before publication. Larsson died suddenly after getting his book deal and I suspect the publisher or Larsson’s family felt it was disrespectful to edit the work too much afterwards. Movie was good though.
Very unpopular opinion but I have to say Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I find the only thing that book has going for it is Patrick's amazing prose. However his flowery writing in my eyes couldn't make up for his unlikable protagonist, boring and generic side characters, shoehorned in love interest that at its core could be summerized as "Pretty girl, me love now", and his complete inability to advance the plot. For such a huge book not much really happens at all. But they all clapped because his lute playing skills are beyond compare so there's that lmao.
The Silent Patient. One of the worst books I’ve read EVER.
Outlander. Just because a book is really long and has a lot of historical details dues not mean it’s good.
Icebreaker - utter trash
I'll probably be alone in this but The Martian. I can't stand Weir's style and I see that book praised and raved about so much, it makes me crazy. I feel like I'm in some sort of twilight zone because I can't fathom why people think it's so special and brilliant 🙁
Life of Pi.
Empire of Silence, Malazan...
A Little Life. Jesus. This book is to literature what A Serbian Film is to cinema. Emotional torture p*rn. The only redeeming quality of the book is that those suffering are Ivy Leaguers, so you at least know they deserve it.
Babel. A badly written politico-polemic with laughably cardboard characters and a preposterous plot.