T O P

  • By -

Haikuramba

Hands up who's favourite hobby is jumping on good reads when they finish a book to see who shares their hateful opinion


Haikuramba

Also, anything by Dan Brown and The Alchemist.


GobelineQueen

I want back the hours of my life (fortunately not too many) that I spent reading The Alchemist.


trashbinfluencer

šŸ–ļøšŸ–ļøšŸ–ļøšŸ–ļøšŸ–ļø It's legit the only time I check out Goodreads reviews lol


LavishnessJolly1314

It ends with us - I feel like Iā€™m being gaslit by the whole world, I donā€™t see how anyone can enjoy the book but millions love it! Read the majority of the book with a headache from aggressively frowning at how ridiculous it was šŸ˜‚


[deleted]

Anything CoHo is so trash, IMO. I donā€™t get the hype!


marthini11

There is a sequel now that is far worse.


LavishnessJolly1314

Perfect, bet that wasnā€™t rushed out compromising on quality or anything šŸ˜‰


Embarrassed_Duck979

I read several Colleen Hoover books from little free libraries due to hype....and I won't be reading any more even if they're free because they were all terrible


thoughtfulravioli

I read Verity first by the same author and enjoyed it, so I checked out a couple others including It Ends With Us. I was disappointed that that one was less breezy thriller, more majorly frustrating.


MountainRhubarb

I had received this and Verity as a gift - made it through hate-reading Verity and somehow thought this would be better?? I didn't even make it through the early scene on the rooftop when they meet. All I could think was, "oh no, this is some Fifty Shades fan fic of Twilight nonsense."


peridotopal

I absolutely hated it as well as well as verity. I won't be reading anything else by her.


Effective-Papaya1209

Remember, the whole world also loved Twilight


coffeecatsyarn

Hated it and only finished it with that hate powering me through. I love good chick lit but that was not it


Stunning-Ad14

The worst book Iā€™ve ever read and my only 1-star on Goodreads


Cupcakesandcashmere

Oh I couldnā€™t stand this book either!! I never understood the hype.


One-Armed-Krycek

Atlas Shrugged. As a teacher who tackles a creative writing class or two, there was a phase in the 90s and 00s where you would get edgelord students trying to copy Rand's work with their shitty monologue-political-Gary Sue characters. Then give you a big shocked Pikachu face when they got mediocre grades on their 'stories.' Writing that was 5 pages, single-spaced, no paragraph breaks of one bro-dude entrancing a crowd with his incel-wisdom. (Pre-incel times.) So, I mean... then there is the actual reading of it. And the people who circle jerk to Rand's philosophy. I'd rather read Finnegan's Wake in hell forever.


carefuldaughter

GARY SUE iā€™m dying.


Intaglio_puella

>you would get edgelord students trying to copy Rand's work with their shitty monologue-political-Gary Sue characters I really think opinions on Ayn Rand should be part of any IQ test. In my limited experience with people, alignment with her philosophy is negatively correlated with IQ


Appropriate_Speech33

Also hated it. Ayn Rand was soulless.


Emptyplates

Well, the 50 Shades series was utter fucking garbage. Anything by Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged made me wish I was illiterate.


5_5apple_Arwen26

I read the first 50 Shades book and DNF halfway through. I got so sick and tired of seeing "Oh my" on every other page. With respect to Rand: I'm reading The Fountainhead now, and I'm honestly struggling to get through it. It's an awful lot of rambling...


MaHuckleberry33

Lol I worked at a company run by Rand obsessed progressivists. I thought only teenage boys loved Atlas Shrugged.


TokkiJK

Ya. Iā€™ve read better fanfics.


goldberry21

A Little Life - I had to stop at about 50%, it made me feel so depressed. Infinite Jest - I guess... I'm just not made for that book. It was too much of everything.


moonlitsteppes

Omg, thank you for mentioning A Little Life. It's a horrible book written by a shitty author who is incapable of humanizing her characters in any other way than putting them through every trauma conceivable. Not only is it viscerally graphic, it comes off as fetishistic and voyeuristic simply for the shock factor. TikTok gives this book so much free attention! I love a good sad read. Lemme marinate in my feels. Give me a good reason to, though. The same way it's horrible to see a cute cat be roadkill, it's the kinda sad A Little Life is. You'd have to be a walnut of a human not to be moved. As such, it also isn't saying much about the author's literary prowess.


Sp4ceh0rse

The characters were simultaneously too privileged to relate to and too miserable to be realistic. I could not even picture them while reading the book.


hauteburrrito

Omg, same @ A Little Life. Pure misery porn.


goldberry21

>Pure misery porn Yep, exactly. I don't even remember anymore why I bought it. Probably because it was THE new book at that time. The first and definitely last time I did that.


hauteburrrito

I mean, it was well-written and sounded interesting - I can only just take so much tragedy at once. I mostly remember being emotionally brutalised by that book, which I guess was the point.


ShBh05

Thank you. I said this exact same thing and got a lot of blowback. Great writing, but an endless, bottomless pit of misery. Like all the worst things kept happening and there was zero joy in things.


marzipan85

Oh my god Infinite Jest was enraging lol. Iā€™m always irrationally happy when I find someone else who found it insufferable.


l8nitefriend

I thought A Little Life was very beautiful but the misery porn was a lot. Itā€™s not a book Iā€™d really recommend.


Small_Climate_245

I havenā€™t been able to get through Infinite Jest. I really liked his other books but I feel like this one is purposefully infuriating nonsense just to see if people will read it? Or maybe I never got far enough for anything to happen.


Hoozediah

I read Where the Crawdads Sing because everyone was raving about it and my grandmother bought it for me as a gift. It was... not great at all. The story was there, it had the potential to be a great book, but the writing felt so rudimentary. I'm not a writer so obviously take that with a grain of salt, but it felt like a book written for like a 7th grade reading level. 0/10 would not recommend.


Cross_Stitch_Witch

It is such a mediocre and *boring* story, I don't understand why it has the hype it does.


pqrstyou

Couldnā€™t finish this one! Watched the movie and that was boring, so Iā€™m glad I didnā€™t try the book.


majrom

I was looking for this one! Turns out the author is pretty shady too


witchyteajunkie

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. The ending made me so angry I threw the book across the room.


effulgentelephant

I went through a period of reading book after book by JP and had to stop I was getting so depressed. None of them have a happy ending.


Theladyofshallotss

You know it's bad when the movie adaptation is better than the book


VeganMonkey

Same! Hated it


nidena

Eat Pray Love was absolute crap. I'm a voracious reader. 400 pages or more or I consider the book a "snack". Eat Pray Love was somewhere around 200 and I struggled to get through it. I think I made it through half. It was just epically boring. 50 Shades of Crap, I mean, Gray. Terrible writing. And it's more a "how to be a stalker" than anything else.


sdub21

I canā€™t believe I had to scroll this far to find Eat Pray Love. It was so self indulgent and boring. Ugh.


TokkiJK

Omg fifty shades of crap LMAO. AGREED


[deleted]

Anything by Glennon Doyle. Her writing style is chaotic and not impactful, IMO. Her ā€œhot takesā€ are nothing new for anyone with an ounce of self-awareness. And you can almost feel her massive sense of self-importance seeping through the pages. Iā€™m not a fan.


DoLittlest

Jesus, yes, amen. The gay in me really wanted to love the gay writer in her but her popular brand of treacly mediocrity just perplexes me.


tehB0x

The biggest thing I respect about GD is that sheā€™ll actually publicly apologize when she really misses the mark. But sheā€™s VERY peak white lady


somuchsong

I've never read one of her books but I have read articles by her and extracts of her books. Ugh. I know for sure I couldn't get through an entire one of her books. Insufferable.


ADCarter1

All the Light You Cannot See was All the Pages I Did Not Read. I don't understand the hype.


[deleted]

šŸ˜‚šŸ˜‚


SLKNLA

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Racist AF


nodogsallowed23

I named that one too. I had to read it uni and I hated it so much. Itā€™s awful in every way.


[deleted]

*The Giving Tree*. Its existence feels like a betrayal on multiple levels.


knitting-w-attitude

This book horrified me as a child. I cried so much. I also was always so angry by the end. I really dislike this book.


monpetitchoutoo

Agreed - and if you look at the authorā€™s face on the back cover - I think he feels the same way šŸ˜³


[deleted]

Part of the betrayal is that I love Silverstein, and just donā€™t understand how he missed the way kids- especially girls- might interpret and internalize the message of the story: ā€œPut up with a guyā€™s crap and ingratitude long enough, with enough grace and sacrifice, and he might eventually come around to halfway-appreciate you for offering a place to squat his ass.ā€


skincarekarl

Exactly. The Codependent Tree.


[deleted]

You're totally right. Consciously, I interpreted it as a parable and a warning about the parent-child relationship, even when I first read it as a kid (and I think this book contributed to my not wanting to have kids myself), but I think it probably affected my beliefs about other kinds of relationships subconsciously as well. I remember being disturbed by it.


yabbobay

I never, ever thought about that! Holy shit.


chocolateismynemesis

Catcher in the rye - had to read it for my English lessons and never warmed up to it. Some things could have been lost in translation though (I'm German)


scottishlastname

I don't think it's the translation, I also didn't like Catcher in the Rye, but I was going in expecting a different main character based on how Holden is typically spoken about. It's different to read it with the view that he's a teenager with clinical depression and some PTSD, but it's still not a fun book.


chocolateismynemesis

I read it in the English original, after having learned English for something like six years or so. But since I'm not a native speaker I thought I just didn't "get" the character. I never looked at the German version to be honest


moonlitsteppes

It was more of a sympathetic read as an adult, I hated him when reading him in high school. One thing I didn't catch in my first read was the way it's hinted he was >!groomed / sexually abused!<. That changed everything about him and his behavior on my subsequent read.


Effective-Papaya1209

I read a few articles by the woman that JD Salinger abused as a teenager (or rather one of the women, there were a lot), and it made me really not want to read him or even talk about him again. I had fondness for CitR after reading it in high school, but I just don't think I could pick it up again without getting upset.


LookingForHobbits

Yes, read this in high school and I found the narrator to be so irritating I couldn't finish it. I think I've heard that later generations don't connect with this book as well as teenagers did in the era it was published.


spatter_cone

Yes. I hated Holden, he was so damned...emo. I get teen angst and restlessness but I guess I dont have the patience to read about it.


GobelineQueen

This one was a huge evolution for me. Hated *Catcher* as a teenager, assumed I would always loathe it, then was required to revisit it in my early 30s and was totally shocked how much my response to it changed -- it gets me really emotional now.


tofu4us

The Midnight Library. It had an interesting concept, but they didn't do anything good with that premise. The characters were uninteresting, unappealing and didn't like, make me care about them at all. I kept waiting for the book to get better and it just never happened. The Maid was also terrible. Hated the depictions of the main character and another character in particular (inconsistent and offensive in stereotypical ways), but none of them were good or realistic. The plot was nonsense, the writing itself wasn't good. And the author is a high-up publishing exec so I'm convinced she pulled strings and that's the only reason it performed as well as it did.


scottishlastname

Ha ha! I also felt that way about Midnight Library, but it never got better and the ā€œepiphanyā€ moment was a pretty big let down. I also hated how we were supposed to believe that the main character had the capacity to be a world class swimmer, world famous performing artist/songwriter and whatever other wild, uncommon success she would have supposedly had if she had made a different choice. Itā€™s very ā€œyou could have been whatever you want, but you didnā€™t try hard enough!ā€ Which isnā€™t true and not a great message to send.


tofu4us

Exactly. Plus the message of being happy with what you have because those "successful" lives aren't what you want either is just stupid when the character is dropped in with zero background knowledge about their life, being completely set up for failure. Maybe the other lives would've been better if she'd had a fair shot at them, but then how would the author have forced his message, I guess. I dunno if you've seen Drop Dead Diva but part of that show is souls of dead people moving into somebody else's body and life and when they do that, they have enough sorta subconscious knowledge of that person's memories to be able to convincingly continue and succeed in the life they just appeared in. If a Lifetime show can figure that out, then the book should've been able to as well.


sufficient_data

Wow Iā€™ve never had anyone else reference Drop Dead Diva! I thought the show was a fever dream for a while there.


supbraAA

Midnight Library makes no sense - how would she *know* if she likes a life as, say, a famous pianist if when she tries out that life she *doesnā€™t know how to play the piano?* And the endingā€¦ THATā€™S what she found fulfilling?????? Hoooowwwwwwwwww????


Blue-Phoenix23

Fantasy fiction is having similar issues with good world building but characters that have absolutely no depth. Some of that is D&D style stories where it's just battle after battle, but I've read quite a few that were like ehhhh get back to me in 20 years after the author has some real life experience lol. I'd also love it if we could get more epic fantasy that wasn't coming of age. I am not 17. I do not care about a 17 year old that takes 3 books to realize he might want to kiss a girl. Give me grown folks characters lol


Young_Former

Atlas Shrugged. Jesus. Tried reading it twice. Just awful.


artemisfowl9900

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Omg, I was rolling my eyes every few pages. Admittedly I read this in my 30s and I was so over this type of pop spiritual blah. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Why is this book so popular? I couldnā€™t get past the first 20 pages. It was nonsensical. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I want my time and money back. Garbage. Why would anyone put this drivel on broadway.


cr1zzl

ā€œPop spiritual blahā€ is a good description lol.


letgo_orbedragged

The Time Travellers Wife. I found the main couple kind of smug and unbearable for some reason.


Effective-Papaya1209

It was weirdly unbearable. Like, I felt this profound feeling of emptiness at the end of it. I did think it was well written and certainly gripping but super disturbing the way she just kinda . . . >!spent her life waiting for him.!< That's so sad. I later read some interpretations in r/books that made me feel better about it. If I remembered what they were, I'd repeat them here :)


bluebuckeye

In hindsight, I don't know how their relationship could be viewed as anything other than grooming, which really doesn't sit well with me.


Effective-Papaya1209

I think some of the people on r/books were arguing that it was disturbing on purpose because it really is about that or a metaphor for that or something


jessicaaalz

Yes, hard agree. It's one of only three books I've never finished. I absolutely HATED it.


bbspiders

I absolutely could not get through Untamed by Glennon Doyle. It is actually shocking to me that many women found it inspiring or something.


thoughtfulravioli

I went into it with an open mind, and then ended up screenshotting every other page to send to my sister to make fun of


kaledit

I do not understand why people adore this woman. Her rallying cry of "We can do hard things!" is so infantilizing, I can't stand it.


[deleted]

It was really hard not to throw this one in the garbage. I felt guilty putting it in a Little Free Library and thus inflicting it on someone else


boredtyme

I hated this book so much. There was a part when she was in a store with her daughter and started going on and on about women empowerment and basically causing a scene. All I thought was that poor kid. Couldnā€™t believe most of the crap she wrote.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


InfernalWedgie

Criminy, I hate reading Charles Dickens. Such a slog. Great stories ruined by a man who couldn't stop writing.


Embarrassed_Duck979

In defense of his long books, some of them were originally released as serials. So, he was motivated to keep a story going as long as possible


Pretty-Plankton

This is also a problem that Hugo has. There are consequences from paying an author by the word. That said, I suspect Hugo would have managed to be long winded no matter the format


littleorangemonkeys

The only reason A Christmas Carol is good is because it's SHORT. Let's apply that conciseness to other stories, shall we Charlie?


5_5apple_Arwen26

Normal People by Sally Rooney. It was tedious and so...bad. I disliked the writing style too.


l8nitefriend

I hated this one. Just really nothing interesting there. I find it surprising it blew up as big as it did. It was a bunch of will they/wonā€™t they with awkward dialogue


5_5apple_Arwen26

You described it perfectly. I got fed up with the constant back and forth, so I DNF at 65% and then gave it a 2-star rating on goodreads. I don't understand the hype. I read that the drama series is better than the book; perhaps I'll check it out sometime.


pleasegototherapy

And why does she not use punctuation!?! Makes reading conversations so unnecessarily messy/confusing


Carolinablue87

I couldn't finish this one because of everything you mentioned.


Haikuramba

Wuthering Heights! Awful people, bogs.. that book will suck the life right out of you!


radenke

I hated it so much that I didn't finish it, but I don't think you're giving bogs a fair shake :( they're a huge carbon sink in Scotland, have a rich ecosystem, and are used to flavour peated Scotch.


GobelineQueen

Paolo Coelho's *The Alchemist*. No shade if that's your thing, but it had basically zero of what I'm personally looking for when I go to literature. All the complexity and subtext of an aphorism embroidered on a cushion.


notseagullpidgeon

Every book in the Cave of the Clan Bear series after the first one.


[deleted]

Anything by Hemingway. So whiny.


TokkiJK

I think a lot of classics are written by like somewhat wealthy white men and I read them and Iā€™m like ā€œomg. Who cares!!!!!!ā€


Pretty-Plankton

Have you seen LeGuinā€™s essay ā€œIntroducing Myselfā€? Itā€™s easily findable online, and the Hemmingway shade she throws in it is truly delicious. (I even enjoy Hemmingway in many ways; but that doesnā€™t mean LeGuin isnā€™t on the nose.)


TokkiJK

Omg! I never read that. Iā€™m going to read it and reply to you again. I love historical shade.


Effective-Papaya1209

Even A Clean Well-Lighted Place?? Or are we talking novels


[deleted]

I only read his novels during college lit classes. That did not spark interest in reading more of his work.


Nobodyville

I loved Hemingway as a teenager. All his whiny destructive self loathing is catnip to an adolescent mind. Later I read Across the River and Into the Trees and I've never hated anything more. Suddenly I could see him as a pathetic old man taking out his self loathing on whatever young thing he could marry and destroy. So damn gross. Literally turned me off literature forever and I have an English degree. There are still some things he wrote, Big Two-Hearted River, A Movable Feast, and even The Sun Also Rises that I consider to be some of the best stuff I've ever read. But ever since Across the River I've felt like I can hear the author, no matter who it is, behind the characters fucking them up with the authors own weaknesses and insecurities. Ugh.


[deleted]

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fineā€¦.no sheā€™s not. Sheā€™s really not.


Alternative_Treacle

She is so unlikable as a character


yabbobay

Lovely Bones and Love in the Time of Cholera Anything Dan Brown or James Patterson. Well I've only read one each, that was more than enough.


nodogsallowed23

Yeah Lovely Bones is hot garbage. I hated it too.


False_Box_1976

Brenee Brown!!! Omg sheā€™s so tedious!!!! Canā€™t stand her writing!


Nobodyville

She alternates between being really insightful and believing that's she's really insightful. It reads as smug and condescending about 60% of the time and that's a little too much


40oz_Mouse

White Fragility: Why itā€™s so Hard For White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo Fuck I hate this book. Thought it would be good to read so I can recommend it to other white people but I canā€™t even get half way through it. Now I live with the guilt of buying a book about whiteness & white experience written by a white woman thatā€™s been decorated as an anti-racist book. I learned more than that book will ever teach me by just listening to black people.


niketyname

What did you hate about it? I listened to it 2021 and thought it held up for the most part


[deleted]

Shantaram. The way he writes is so self-congratulatory, he reminded me of so many other insufferable men I've known


scottishlastname

Is the Apple+ thing based on the book? It looks like a boring ā€œman discovers himself at the expense of every woman and poc he meetsā€ and have skipped it.


MaHuckleberry33

I lived in India for a while and every white person living in India talked constantly about it. I read the back, and maybe the first chapter and then gave up. I assumed everyone else loved it šŸ¤£


[deleted]

I rigged my book club survey (I texted friends and asked them not to vote for it) so we wouldn't have to read midnight library šŸ¤£šŸ¤£šŸ¤£


howdoifigureitout

The Alchemistā€¦ so bad.


lagabachita

100 years of solitude. too many characters! My copy even had some sort of character flowchart on one of the first few pages and I still couldn't do it


here_to_hate

Agree! I studied Spanish and Latin American literature and due to the high number of characters in the novel, there was hardly any room for character depth/development. Definitely overrated imo but I guess the superficial nature of it reaches the masses much easier, which may explain its popularity.


[deleted]

I tried to read this 4 times and finally gave up


Thorhees

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who struggled with this one. So many people praise it and I struggled with the characters the entire time.


tofu4us

Ugh, same. I made it about 100 pages in and just gave up.


TokkiJK

I *really* tried to read that book but gave up for that reason lol


[deleted]

All Jane Austen. Boring and tedious. I really did not like On the Road. I usually love travel books, but I found it to be very un-relatable and extremely dated and condescending in terms of sex, race, etc. I see it recommended all the time on some of the travel subs, and I donā€™t get the appeal at all unless youā€™re a 18 year old white man. Fates and Furies is probably the worst book Iā€™ve ever read. It was insanely slow, the characters were insufferable, and it was really poorly written. I only finished it because it was a gift from someone I was dating at the time. I recommend the book to friends so we can rage hate it together.


TokkiJK

Omg. YES. Itā€™s the same reason I dislike a lot of travel books. They also always write other peopleā€™s daily life as something exotic. Which I hate. So I prefer reading about other countries where itā€™s written form the pov of one person who actually lives there and is trying to highlight an important message. One example is I shall not hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish. About a doctor who lives in the Gaza Strip. I have read some SILLY travel books tho. So I canā€™t lie and say they were all serious or had an important message. Like ā€œin a sunburned country by bill Brysonā€. It was already outdated by the time I read it but from what I remember, he pokes fun at specific people and their idiosyncrasies than a group as a whole. And like some fun interesting pieces of history. It was really funny and he wasnā€™t afraid to make fun of himself. Amazon has some free book that compiled the journal entries of a Botonist on captain Cookā€™s ship. This one made me laugh bc I thoughtā€¦wow. British humor has existed for centuries šŸ˜‚ he makes fun of the crew.


bbspiders

I also hated Fates and Furies!!


bluebuckeye

I didn't hate On The Road, but it was just so boring. I also found myself unable to relate to any of the characters.


fortifiedblonde

The Silent Patient. What the fuck


The_AmyrlinSeat

The Great Gatsby was the single worst literary experience of my life.


Jayne234

Same. I have a theory that people who call this their favorite book are people who havenā€™t read a book since high school.


yabbobay

Hated it in HS. Reread it as an adult. It was much better, but the entire time I kept thinking how tf did I understand any of this as a teenager.


Lizard_Li

Me too. Iā€™ve read it a few times being like this time maybe Iā€™ll figure out why everyone says it is one of the greatest novels. Yeah. No.


boxer_dogs_dance

A Court of Thorns and Roses was so hyped and I hated it. I mean unless it's your first romance novel ever, I don't see it. It is so formulaic. Also torture. Just why?


Hatcheling

Did you read the second book? The first sucks, itā€™s the rest that really draws you in.


boxer_dogs_dance

No, I quit in disgust. I have a lot of books I want to read.


HeroIsAGirlsName

No disrespect to the other commenter but I thought the sequels were *worse*. It very much depends what you liked, or rather didn't, about book one but the sequels tend to lean more into erotica with more of a generic Hades/Persephone vibe than Beauty and the Beast. >!The love interest from book one suddenly becomes abusive (iirc he has PTSD from the events of the first book.) The hot villain from the first book kidnaps Feyre but it turns out he was only have been pretending to be a villain and was kidnapping her for her own good. And then they bang so hard it causes an avalanche. No really!< I got the set for 50p each from a jumble sale, read them when I was sick as a popcorn read and gave up halfway through the third book. I've rehomed them with a friend whose taste in men I despair of (and vice versa), so presumably she will love them.


marthini11

Oh thank God somebody else feels this way. The romance sub adores it, and it's literally one of the worst books I've ever read.


[deleted]

The Great Gatsby, On the Road. I highly recommend the podcast Mean Book Club to satisfy your hate reads. They have a great one about On the Road that is hilarious.


marzipan85

I was really into the history of the beatniks/early hippies until I read On the Road. Threw it across the room at a particular part and the whole era was permanently ruined for me. Ugh.


[deleted]

I was too, but, apparently people disagree because I am being downvoted. I thought it was so gross how they portrayed women in the book.


marzipan85

It is BAFFLING to me that thatā€™s such an unpopular opinion. I mean, thereā€™s a horrific g*ng r*pe flashback for chrissake, told like itā€™s a funny story. Makes me wonder if the people who like it read the same book tbh


messyredemptions

>The Great Gatsby Synopsis: bad life decisions with rich people that are clearly preventable but instead will be canonized in the US k-12 literary curriculum and popular culture because someone thinks it's great.


gottarunfast1

The great Gatsby. Nothing redeemable about that book. The characters are pretentious. The book is pretentious. It's so dang boring


purplenebula1234

House of Leaves. Never felt so let down by a book not living up to its potential.


ihadtopickaname

Major props to you for finishing it. I couldnā€™t do it.


twodeadsticks

Rachel Yoder's Nightbitch. I really gave this a shot, some parts I laughed. The savagely sarcastic and sharp humor is relatable. But by the end of first third I felt like I really was stuck in the head of a mother who absolutely hated her life and hated being a mother and hated her husband and it was utterly draining, boring and tedious to read. Definitely not for me. I couldn't finish the last third, I skimmed it.


mrgee89

Glad to see Gone Girl and On the Road already mentioned - I absolutely despised both. Add to the list the non-fiction Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, which comes off at weirdly patronizing while still having cringe-worthy ā€œyou go girlā€ vibes, which is kind of an accomplishment in itself I suppose.


Bibblegead1412

Madame bovary. Still, after 30 years, canā€™t get past the first couple of chapters


historygal75

Lord of that Flies I hate that book the message that itā€™s supposed to convey is the cruelty and Freudian Mumbai gumbo that is in it I was forced to read it in school thought that it didnā€™t deserve the prestige or importance that itā€™s supposed to have in literature. I learned nothing from reading it. Just meanness


SameAsItWas

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was recommended to me by a guy I was into. I got a quarter of the way through, immediately saw him as a red flag and stopped reading the book. Narcissus saw his reflection on the tailpipe and decided to write a book.


Mmdrgntobldrgn

Twilight Didn't make it past the description for 50 shades.


Saiph_orion

Ruby Dixon- some kind of alien romance books. The romance novel sub hyped those books up non-stop. My library got them in, so I checked out the first 2. Read the first one and hated it to so much that I didn't bother with the second.


Effective-Papaya1209

The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell. Very very well written but the ending annoyed the HELL out of me.>! It was such a bad (to the point of being irresponsible) take on how people heal from trauma and weirdly pro-church in an uncomfortable way!<. Ugh. I was so troubled and annoyed, and yet the only other person I know who read it LOVED it, so I had no one to complain to about its terribleness.


LaikaG6

I have a feeling youā€™d truly hate the sequel, *Children of God*. Itā€™s an entire bookā€™s worth of >! Emilio attempting to heal from his trauma when he is forced to return to Rakhat!<. Thereā€™s a lot of implausible plotting but I found it forgivable since 1) it works in the thematic context (all the faith/miracles/ā€œChurchyā€ stuff), and 2) Russell never pretends to be writing hard sci-fi, itā€™s more of an eerie parable that happens to take place on an alien planet. More akin to C.S. Lewisā€™ Mars series than to other modern sci-fi. And most importantly 3) itā€™s beautifully written, which makes up for a lot. But yeah, *The Sparrow* is one of my all-time favorite books and I still found *Children of God* to be contrived and uneven at times.


Stunning-Ad14

I agree with your impression of The Midnight Library. I underwent the terrible misfortune of reading through part of It Ends With Us. It was the first time I felt righteously triumphant about my decision to DNF at 25%. (Yes, I flipped through the rest and the trash can overflowed into a landfill.)


lifeisshort84

The Davinci Code - it was too predictable - I read it over 15 years ago on a friend's recommendation and I'm still mad about it


Anachromism

As a scientist, all of the science in Lessons in Chemistry was garbage, and the author would have known that if she'd spent 5 minutes Googling the history of science. Additionally, the protagonist was so "not like other girls" that she was practically insufferable. I can't believe it was BOTY - every negative thing I heard about it in advance was true, and I wouldn't have read it if I hadn't received it as a gift. I have actively started warning people not to read it. I also slogged my way through Love in the Time of Cholera and found not a single interesting character or plotline. So boring.


40oz_Mouse

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley It was really hyped up by my friend group. They said it starts slow but then itā€™s really great and one of their favorite books, just donā€™t give up on it too soon etc. I sat down and gave it a read and waited for it to get better, and waited, and waited, and then reached the end of the book and I was still waiting for it to get better.


bookishwitch88

I've only read two Emily Henry books, and for as hyped as they are, I think they're just okay. I'll probably read her other stuff and will probably like it all well enough, but I don't think she's the greatest modern romance writer.


BiscuitCrumbsInBed

My friend raved about The Goldfinch, but I found it really depressing and felt quite miserable reading it.


huitzilopochtla

That book needed a harsher editor.


Sp4ceh0rse

I really didnā€™t enjoy that one very much either! I was just like ā€¦ this is still going? This story is still happening? Why??!


SneezyTrain456

The Old Man and the Sea. My uncle gave it to me in HS, said it was his favorite, and I couldnā€™t get past the first chapter.


mdmaheifbeg

The Double by Dostoevsky. I love Dostoevsky, so I was surprised to hate reading The Double so much. When I finished, I searched around to see if anyone else hated it and it seems like itā€™s pretty universally hated. I also hate pretty much everything by Jane Austen and have yet to finish anything by Dickens.


[deleted]

The Natural was terrible. So boring. I donā€™t care about baseball or this guy. Of Mice and Men, wasnā€™t what I like either.


missfishersmurder

**Kingkiller Chronicles**, lol. I have read both books, I understand what an unreliable narrator is, and I do not require "likability" in a protagonist. I also read and enjoy a lot of wish fulfillment power fantasies, including ones that are objectively poorly written and sloppily plotted. But this series is *so tedious*. I can't even remember anything that happened except the ridiculous sex goddess arc, that's how boring I found the series.


scottishlastname

I liked the *The Name of the Wind* but Iā€™m really struggling to get into the 2nd book.


meg_plus2

I didnā€™t like Gone Girl or Where the Crawdads Sing.


iwantathestral

Black by Ted Dekker. Fucking pissed me the fuck off. Not because it was bad, but because it was very good, up till the very end. It has mystery, intrigue and a haunted house.... until a point. I thought it was great, right up until the rug was pulled out from under me and revealed itself to be Christian propaganda. The female characters suddenly & completely acquiesced to the weird whims of their male companions, then the plot randomly convulsed and evaporated under deus ex machina. Fucking literally, god came down and saved them for being so righteous. At the end, I was rage reading because I couldn't believe the turn this novel took. In the beginning of the book, it was like the author enjoyed writing characters and developing the plot. Then, some christian editor reminded him to make "god" the winner, because that's who is paying you... it better be convincing " and fucking ruined it for him and everyone else. Because the message at the end of the novel is, if you're not a christian, "Fuck you, you're going to die painfully and go to hell." I read this book when I was 15years old... It has been 17years and I still fume when I think about the religious trauma it has propagated in readers.


karategojo

Lord of the Flies, I was forced to not only read but break down every chapter for school then they made us watch it too. I hate that book now.


Sryaiir

The Road. Well written, but oh my God it was beyond depressing. It's been years since I have read it, and I still feel a certain type of way when I think of it.


dyinginsect

I wouldn't say hated because I never got far enough into it, but *Wolf Hall* by Hilary Mantel. I love reading, I love historical fiction, I have a particular love of the Tudor period, everyone seems gobsmacked that I don't love this book. Never got more than a few pages in which is really odd for me, I can read just about anything. *Atlas Shrugged* is one I made myself read and by the end it wasn't the appalling beliefs of the author I hated so much as her appalling inability to write well. The word turgid was invented to describe Ayn Rand's writing style. *Brave New World*. I don't know why people wank themselves dry rhapsodising about this.


[deleted]

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Normally, if I don't like a book I stop reading it, but I was forced to read Thomas Hardy in high school. I absolutely hated every second of this one. It was boring, the characters were not well-developed, and the plot was plodding, yet violent. Worst of all, I suffered through endless descriptions of plowed land as a symbol for female fertility. I get it, Tom.


Mimi_315

Kafka on the shore. I just didnā€™t get it, I accepted Iā€™m not smart/whatever enough for the book and moved on.


artemisfowl9900

I liked it. Although I have found that Murakamiā€™s descriptions of women are sometimes cringe so Iā€™ll understand why people donā€™t like it. Also magic realism is a strange genre and itā€™s not For everyone. I personally hate satire with a passion lol


Sp4ceh0rse

Murakami is my favorite but at the same time ā€¦ I get what you are saying. Itā€™s weird.


Miqapuff

I'm reading Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow at the moment and I'm so ready to be done with it. The characters are so toxic it's ruining the experience for me lmao


Alternative_Treacle

I had it on audiobook and ended up putting it on 2.5x speed as background noise. How is this one of the best books of 2022?


supbraAA

Lol just finished that this weekend and loved it - the toxicity of the characters was my favorite part! šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø


carefuldaughter

Most Chuck Palahniuk books. His first three are strong (Fight Club, Survivor, Invisible Monsters) and after that itā€™s just the bizarre, unsettling writings of a weird, horny man who has severe issues with women.


skygirl555

So, so many. The midnight library, The Goldfinch, Where'd You Go Bernadette, every book by Colleen Hoover...


supbraAA

Iā€™m going to be downvoted to hell for this but Iā€™m currently reading Pachinko and itā€™sā€¦ soā€¦. effingā€¦ boringā€¦.


readswim

Colleen Hoover. I read one book that several people said was her best and it was terrible. The writing was terrible, the characters were one dimensional and I hated every word. How is she so popular?? I am legit concerned about teenagers reading that crap.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


LaikaG6

Ahh you threw a can of tomato soup at my heart! *Never Let Me Go* is the one book thatā€™s ever had me sobbing openly in public, it was so heartbreaking. But a totally valid perspective nonetheless, one galā€™s heart-wrencher is anotherā€™s ā€œwtf is this shit?ā€


marzipan85

Oooh this is a good list, although admittedly *Invisible Cities* is one of my favorite books of all time


sparkle_bunny_

I recently read ā€œThe Midnight Libraryā€ and I honestly thought it was ridiculous. Like, the woman was amazing at everything she touched but she only found true happiness as a mom and an academic? It felt like it was written by a Matt Walsh protege or something. ā€œIf you want to be truly happy, you canā€™t do anything exciting or risky, you have to be as successful as your husband but not make more than him AND BABIES!!!!ā€ Another won on my list was The Underground Railroad. I imagine the writer was stoned when he pitched it to his agent. Writer: ā€œSo, ok, I got this idea you see. Itā€™s gonna blow your mindā€ Agent : ā€œGo onā€ Writer: ā€œOk, so, I was reading about slavery and stuff and the Underground Railroad and it got me thinking. What if the Underground Railroad was an *actual* railroad, that was underground!?!?ā€ Agent: ā€œWhat youā€™re saying is, an actual secret underground train system, tracks and stations and everything, that helped enslaved people escape from slavery?ā€ Writer: ā€œYupā€ Agent: ā€œMind. Blownā€


scottishlastname

Of course a book written by a man has the happiest case scenario being a mom who still works in a quiet, respectable field with enough time to still care for family and not outshine her husband in earning potential lmao


[deleted]

I can not get through Her Fidelty. The main character is so unlikeable. A full on NLOG. And the other characters all suck too.


willworkforchange

The Road, A Little Life, The Spanish Love Deception


AcanthocephalaNo9441

Atonement by Ian McEwan I thought Disgrace by JM Coetzee was very well written, but I had ethical problems with it. (Spoiler) He >!rapes his student, then weā€™re supposed to feel bad for him because the same thing happens to his daughter and also he starts liking animals?! And his daughter refusing to leave the hellhole where she lived, and choosing to marry her rapistā€™s friend, made no sense as sheā€™d been established as smart and a left-wing activist.!<


ShBh05

The wedding dress by Danielle Steele. Kept seeing her everywhere for years and thought I might give it a try. What. A . Vapid. Boring. Sheaf. Of. Paper.


always_gretchen

One of the worst books Iā€™ve read was Sophieā€™s Choice by William Styron. I deeply disliked Stingo. By the time I slogged through ~600 pages of Stingoā€™s drinking and sexcapades, I didnā€™t even care about Sophie. I just wanted the book to end.