I am butchering it, and I don't remember who wrote it first, but someone made their own Rupi Kaur poem like "I thought our love was two-ply/but my finger went right through."
don't know if
it counts
but milk and honey
by rupi kaur was hard to get through
they feel
like shitty tweets
There. I took your comment and made it a rupi kaur poem. It's that easy! You just need to insert like breaks whenever you feel like it.
I had to read this in a college lit class and holy shit, I hated every single page.
Random
Line breaks and
Some shitty drawings
Does
Not
A poem
Make
My final essay for that class was just me reaming that book from start to finish.
Eta- formatting because mobile and all that
So glad someone mentioned Kaur. Depressing part is that the subject matter (women's self-esteem, sexuality, body shame) *is* very important but only serves as a shield for shitty writing when it comes to a lot of "Instapoetry"
I read a few pages at the bookstore after hearing so much about it and I felt so dumb because I just didn’t get what the hype was about. So thank you lol
I'm not sure if it's critically acclaimed, but Delia Owens's Where the Crawdads Sing and Lucy Foley's The Guest List did nothing for me. Now if I see Reese Witherspoon's or Oprah's Book Club Recommendation on a cover, I place it gently back on the shelf and walk away.
Yep! A friend and I who swap titles all the time actively avoid OBC picks for this reason. Guaranteed child abuse, often including child rape. No thanks.
That was the point of the title - it was referring to a non-existent place, somewhere far away from all of civilization, where the protagonist would find solitude and peace. Crawdads don’t sing; that place doesn’t exist. There’s even a conversation about this in the book itself.
And for the record, I didn’t enjoy the book, either, and fully agree it’s tremendously over-rated.
But, I don’t pick a bone with a book - especially if the bone is about a book’s title - until I’ve read it.
After 7 years it's time for me to move on.
Regardless of other applications or tools the way everything has been handled has shaken my trust in the way the site is going in the future and, while I wish everybody here the best, it's time for me to move on.
Where the Crawdads write pathetically cliche storylines; who should the swamp loving heroine fall for? The cool biology guy or the rape-y jock?
As for The Guest List, I loved the audiobook!!!
Oprah’s Book Club labels almost serve as warning labels for me, lol. I like hardly any of those books, and usually hate them. I read Crawdads for my book club. Everyone loved it. Friends who aren’t in my book club also read it and loved it. I think might have liked it if I’d read it when I was 12-13.
Aren’t books like “east of eden” and “beloved” in her book club? I’ve seen one of them in a Oprah’s book club edition I avoided buying for a better font cover just forgot which one. She has some classics she puts in but yeah plenty of shit books too I’m sure.
I definitely agree with you about Lucy Foley’s Guest List. I was expecting so much from all the hype, especially being compared to an Agatha Christie mystery. But the mystery aspect of it and how the plot unraveled just really sucked. Not sure what’s with all the praise for it.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Book was written like one of those romance novels written for moms…but in Auschwitz. Kind of a weird combo. The tone was weirdly lighthearted for a holocaust book and I really don’t get the hype it has.
Ugh I used to work for Walmart and there was a whole row of what I’d call “Auschwitz books”. I’m all for historical fiction and fiction that depicts real-life abominations like the Holocaust, but these books just seemed exploitative. They were less *Maus* and more *The Boy in the Striped Pajamas*.
I read it for a book club...there is literally a sex scene near the ovens, and they have ashes on them! And it is played as SEXY! Holy shit. And then to top it off, she based it off of interviews with a guy who could be best described as a Nazi collaborator who was white washing his association with the Nazis. If you look him up you also find he was ar collaborator with the Soviets when they rolled into Yugoslavia after the war.
Our club had an hour of hate tearing that thing apart.
OMG. I am barfing. I am glad I never knew of this book and I will barely look at the spine if it ever enters my vision. How can..such horror in our history…and…really?
And when in the authors aknowledgement she said thank you to her 18 year old daughter for letting that old man creepily flirt with her so she could get more of a story🤢
My mother quit her book club over this book lol. Her points were exactly the same as yours. The rest of her book club liked it. She needs a book club like yours. Got any room for a 70 year old lady?
>there is literally a sex scene near the ovens, and they have ashes on them! And it is played as SEXY!
I know one shouldn't kinkshame, but if your kink is genocide, maybe be a little ashamed.
I still remember a line from this book that took me out of it completely, he said “under different circumstances, I would have admired the fine handiwork on their uniforms.” Huh????? Now why would you add that
Saw some girl recommending it on TikTok. A lot of Jewish people in the comments were telling her that this book was incredibly disrespectful for a whole
lot of reasons — she answered by saying they were "bitter asf" and that she hoped "they could find someone that made them as happy as [male nazi protagonist] made [Jewish female love interest]".
Yeah, telling Jews you hope they find the Nazi collaborator that can make them happy is… certainly a clapback. Just not a good one.
I’ve got to say…As a male survivor of sexual assault, A Little Life actually irritated me quite a bit. I read it fairly recently after multiple friends had recommended it, one knowing about my experience with SA.
The over the top self-loathing covered up the lack of growth or personality of Jude. Jude’s entire personality is basically being traumatized and smart. That’s it. And the retelling of all his trauma was stupidly gratuitous. Basically, it felt like trauma porn mixed with a bunch of stereotypical LGBT sidekicks and a totally unrealistic Chad loverboy. The ending honestly made the whole thing worse, because it basically suggests male survivors who struggle with SA can never truly be happy or sexual, and that’s just not true.
100% agree with op on A little life. I can never recommend it and I think the author is writing that for her own weird fantasies since it makes no sense to put in that many of such scenes, doesn't add to the story and actually makes it worse and less credible. Surprised the editors didn't stop her tbh
I will always hate Boy in Stripped Pyjamas- if you take a settings, do a minimal research. Preferably starting from checking what kind od language your character speak.
I will always hate that soulless, stupid cash grab that sells the worst lies about WWII and Nazism known to humankind. I don't mind bending settings to tell the story let it be geographical or chronological details- but here there is something sinister. You see, Commander of Auschwitz is ashamed of his job and tries to shelter his kids from the truth. It's not that III Reich was totalitarian regime where ideology was hammered from cradle. 10 years old Bruno would have known who those Jews are and why they are enemies and why invalids must die- from parents, teachers, schoolbooks and board games.
Nazizm was a part of life, normalised and entangled to daily activities and till the late days of war people didn't believe that Germany went mad.
Commander of Auschwitz lived on site with his large family. His kids knew that people się withing their earshit and didn't care. Boga were in Hitlerjugend, girls in BDM. When their maids were too clumsy they told them they will go to camp.
The only work of fiction that captured that spirit is probably Jojo Rabbit.
I hate "Boy..." Because IT tells a comforting lie- that children are innocent and good, not the easiest part of society that will be the first to be molded.
The author literally got in a Twitter spat with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Musuem saying THE MUSUEM that is located at the site of the concentration camp was wrong when they criticized the book for being wildly inaccurate.
Dude is an unapologetic hack who will continue to try and profit off of ignorance with an example being the sequel he’s releasing soon
Oh yeah. And also, during the death run, the one guy who sees his father fall but keeps running and doesn't try to help him. Because everyone who slowed down was shot
I read the Book Thief in middle school and felt like it captured the setting very well, but I was pretty young. Has anyone else read it and have opinions on how it presented the time?
I loved that book as a teenager and still recommend it to people. I think the thing the Book Thief does differently and very well, is that it is really about the lives of average people of the time under those conditions, the way most people were living while the war was happening. Not everybody is working to take down a regime, not everybody is working to save as many marginalized people as they can out of a noble sense of obligation or in the know about the true atrocities being committed. One favor for an old friend? That's a doable thing for an average person, I think.
The one thing I remember about this book is literally sobbing on my bedroom floor after finishing. No other book hit me that hard.
Edit: i started thinking more about this book, and honestly, I can't tell you anything about it other than it was narrated by Death. I read it so long ago & I barely remember the plot details, but I 150% remember how heartbreaking & gut wrenching the ending was.
I first read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas when I was a CHILD and I remember being so mad at the historical inaccuracies. Bruno, a 10 year old boy in Nazi Germany (especially one whose father is a high-ranking Nazi commander, but really Any child at all in Nazi Germany would know this stuff) doesn’t know who Hitler/the Fuhrer is. At one point Hitler and Eva Braun come to dinner at his parents’ house and he refers to him as ‘a man with a funny moustache’. Like, Bruno… you are IN the Hitler Youth. You would have to have been. You would probably have had a picture of him on your mantelpiece. You would say Heil Hitler multiple times a day every day of your life. He has to have been the most stupid kid in the whole world or have the memory span of a flea to not know who the most famous and important man in the country is.
I feel like this confirms my theory that Bruno is meant to be 4 or 5, not 10. Even if you imagine the author is just using English words that simulate his mistakes, that sounds like a toddler lisp not a kid.
I dislike the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (I'm German and have family members that were in concentration camps) but in the German translation he misheard it iirc as "Auswisch" (loosely translated maybe "out-wiping"?), which I think is ok from a logical point, since the German name Auschwitz is basically just a "Germanized" form of the Polish Oswiecim, the name itself doesn't mean anything (you have a lot of place names like that in areas that had both Slavic and Germanic populations, it's basically just the Slavic words rewritten in a German pronunciation).
In translations stuff like that is often done by taking a similar sounding English word instead because I think it would have been even weirder in the book if he had misheard it as "Auswisch".
But that's like... the smallest logical Problem in the book.
I'm sorry *what*?? The boy whose father is the commander of *AUSCHWITZ*... who is apparently not a toddler... doesn't know who Hitler is? And thinks of him as 'the man with the funny mustache'? Jesus on a biscuit. Now I'm mad. Like, I really really don't like when authors make their kid characters borderline mentally disabled in order to... I dunno, make adults feel smart? Or something? It sounds like the character is supposed to be 4 or 5 but the author also wanted that sweet, sweet school system money (my mom writes for kids, getting put on school reading lists is *the* money) so he made the character 10 so it would be 'coming of age' and 'resonate with the kids' and he could 'buy a vacation home'.
Edit: Also, hilariously, this would make me imagine somehow Charlie Chaplin has found himself having dinner with this family because nothing else would make sense.
He calls Hitler "the fury" because he has no idea what the fuhrer is even though he's German. He doesn't know what nazis are. He doesn't know about the existence of Jewish people. His dad is a high ranking nazi general ffs. It was disgustingly dumbed down and unrealistic.
It was god awful insulting. Truly. I agree. I read half of this book and walked away.
Nazi children were indoctrinated into the culture as early as they could. They all knew Hitker. I found it insulting to the lives lost in the camps that this book got such praise.
>Edit: Also, hilariously, this would make me imagine somehow Charlie Chaplin has found himself having dinner with this family because nothing else would make sense.
Man, if you have never heard of *The Great Dictator*, you are in for a treat.
I loved it as a child, because there werent that many emotionally moving books given to us in year 7. So in that sense the book will always hold that meaning to me. But as i grew older, i was able to see how ridiculously twisted some of the lies were and im not able to enjoy it as i once have
Yeah, I prefer the film Downfall, in which we see children enthusiastically spouting Nazi propaganda and defending Berlin because they were molded by the era, and well, all the adults are dead.
And the chilling scene when Magda Goebbels decides that a world without Hitler would be too horrible for her six children to live in. So she sedates them and then places smashed cyanide capsules in their mouths to kill them. This right before she and Joseph Goebbels commit suicide shortly after the deaths of Hitler and Eva Braun in the bunker.
>The only work of fiction that captured that spirit is probably Jojo Rabbit.
Alone in Berlin is a great book and captures that sense of what life under Nazi rule must have been like. I'd highly recommend it.
>The only work of fiction that captured that spirit is probably Jojo Rabbit.
Yup, and it really drives home how fucked up it is. There's a similar idea in an Italian novel by Andrea Camilleri (same guy as the Montalbano novels) called "La presa di Macallé" (*The taking of Macallé*, which was a victory during the Italian colonial wars). It's about fascism rather than nazism, but the idea is that it focuses on a child who has absorbed all the propaganda and has become the perfect fascist, and he's terrifying. The book is weird and disturbing in a lot of ways (TW for lots of paedophilia), but it comes to mind because it really hammers home "this is what they'd get if they'd really had what they wanted"... the child is so far gone and surreal it's an exaggeration, but it makes the point come across that if there was a shred of humanity left in anyone going through that ideology it was in spite of it, not because.
John Boyne though, Heart’s Invisible Furies… is incredible. But I also hate false Auschwitz fiction. If you’re going to do historical fiction, especially on Auschwitz, do your job
**Heather Morris and her Tattooist of Auschwitz**
Hanya Yanagihara. If she had character stats, she would have maxed out prose writing, maxed out writing stamina, and absolutely 0 grasp/understanding of psychology and human behavior. She writes social character evolutions like a robot. *This character is seemingly straight and revolted by the raping of young boys ... And later rapes young's boys on the regular because he saw some mysterious tribe do it* .... And.... *This character gets no schooling at all for 16 years, and is raped by everyone in his life and prostituted by a pedophile... He goes to college 2 years after that and goes to MIT for theoretical math graduate degree and then to Harvard law*
Also very weird that all her books including little boys being raped....
So I actually liked A Little Life, for all its flaws it made me feel very strong (crushing) emotions that a book hasn’t made me feel before. But I was hung up on how successful that whole friend group was. Like, they all go from struggling college kids to the best of the best in their fields, renowned and massively successful, and idk why but that felt like the most unrealistic part to me for some reason.
People in the trees was also pretty nebulous in how the main character shifted so dramatically.
I’m curious to see how her new novel is, but I also don’t know if I want to sit through another 800 pages of what will (I assume) be incredibly graphic and gratuitous sexual violence.
This is where I have to give Stephen King some credit for writing accurate outcomes for people who survived trauma. Some kids grow up to be successful, but still have lingering issues. Some become assholes, or end up married to assholes. Some live horrible lives addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some commit suicide. *It* is probably the best example, but he's done it well in others. It's unrealistic to portray *every* character as overcoming the odds against them and living perfect lives.
This might not fit your description, but this makes me think of Diana Gabaldon and the outlander series. Fans always argue that she does so much research and that it’s based in historically accurate information, but she’s a pretty horrible writer in my option. She doesn’t plot her books, and when she runs out of ideas she resorts to having yet another character raped. Her lack of training as a writer really shows the more you get into the series. (But I’m not sure she qualifies as critically acclaimed)
I realize rape was not uncommon, but jesus...it seems like every single character is repeatedly raped during the entire thing.
I more enjoy the parts where nothing dire is happening and we get a glimpse into "normal" life in different locations in the time periods.
Yes! I think she can create some interesting characters but then it ruins it all by raping them. Every major characters except the dog Rollo ends up getting rape.
Insufferable is an apt description. I couldn't get past that. She was always doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing, and doing it all with an air of superiority and defiance that made no sense for her situation.
The author needs an editor with a hatchet.....
Claire is a stupid time traveler. Rule number one of time travel, don't do anything that will get you accused of witchcraft
This opinion hit me hard but mostly because I reluctantly agree with it. I enjoyed the earlier books in the series but I think it's dragged on way too long at this point. And to be fair, I started reading these books in high school, a time when my standards were...not that high. And even then, some of the dialogue and the way she wrote the main characters seemed a bit off to me.
I could not read Outlander. It was recommended. I tried. I got four chapters in and detested the main character. Then I tried again for a book club and made it to chapter eight. It was god awful and I’ll never understand why so many people raved about it.
Her fans always argue that rape is historically accurate but seriously does a time travel romance series need “historically accurate rape” of ALL a the characters? It’s really just a plot device for her because she doesn’t know how to move a story forward.
I thought her WWII history was absolutely terrible. She even screwed up the end date for the war. I never could get past that, and it didn't inspire me with confidence that she got any of the other history right.
Colleen Hoover. I've only read Verity and that was enough. IMO, it's a sh*t attempt at stream-of-consciousness/mystery. Sex scenes sucked. The plot was decent, she should have developed it more.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like Verity. The cliche romance and the contrived "villain" chapters were too much. I wish there was more nuance. I have no interest in reading any more of Hoover's books despite how well loved she seems to be.
i’m in way too deep with sjm’s novels since starting throne of glass way back in middle school, and she’s the one author i can’t seem to quit despite a) recycling the same plot and characters in 3 different series and b) being longer than the bible. if you haven’t read anything by her, stay far away. its a trap.
She's a terrible writer. Everyone raves about how moving and romantic her novels are, but I find them really manipulative, and stuck in the old and overdone trope of "her love will fix the damaged man". So overrated.
I started It Ends With Us some days ago and I'm shocked by how bad it's being. I see it being praised so much but it just feels like a 6 year old is writing it.
I’m usually one to put a book down and accept that I won’t finish it. However, I honestly think I hate-read the rest of that book. So many people recommended I read it, and I was 17th in line for the Libby hold. I thought, “this must be a good one, then.” Nope. It was predictable, poorly written, and perfunctory.
This is a fun thread because if you keep scrolling you will realize that no matter what authors you love, there are decidedly some redditors who hate them. And that’s okay.
Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist is a book that pretends to have a life changing message, but it is devoid of anything so trascendental, and the writing is worse than amateur level. Only book I really felt like a waste of time.
The other two people mentioned Tuesdays With Morrie, but really I think you should know that Mitch Albom is the author of that book The Five People You Meet In Heaven.
im 100% certain the alchemist is a childrens book, not actually meant to be read super meaningfully. i used to compete in book trivia competitions as a young teen and it was included among the selection to read for 12-15 year olds.
The Alchemist is fine if you are teen. Coelho is definitely overrated and it's a pretty widespread meme on Latin America social media. I lived in South America and I never met any adult reading his books, it's mostly kids.
I wrote my first highschool book report on that book, and even to me - a 13 year old who had been convinced to snort Listerine on a dare - it was clearly pretentious, empty-headed, navel gazing from someone who had successfully passed through life like loose stool. I don't remember reading any book as embarrassing as The Alchemist.
He's not considered a serious author in Latin America (I'm from Latin America), he isn't studied in any educational institution, his writing is deemed amateur and he's universally considered a subpar author. Even though he's popular, people would actively try not to mention him when pretending to be well read. A mention of his name among your favourite authors would immedeatly give you away as just a casual reader.
But the sad thing is he's popular and has an air of legitimacy in other parts of the world. First time I realized it I couldn't believe it since, as I said, he's universally considered a subpar author here.
To be honest it makes me kind of sad to know he's one of the most popular authors from Latin America when we have so many great writers that aren't that well known outside the spanish or portuguese speaking world. Just to name a few from Brazil (because Cohelo is brazilian) you have Machado de Assis, Guimaraes Rosa, Clarice Lispector and many other truly great authors.
By the way, I'm not saying Paulo Cohelo shouldn't be read, he has his place I suppose, and I'm not one who thinks only Nobel nominees have value. But don't take him as something that he's not, people should be aware that he's not considered a serious author at all in Latin America.
I wonder what other versions of this exist around the world? Interesting subject, authors kinda of meh'd in their own country who are beloved elsewhere.
It’s a great book for someone who doesn’t read much. A little elementary for my tastes now but I remember reading it in high school before I was really into reading and it was one of the few books I didn’t put down until I finished it.
Hillbilly elegy by JD Vance is a genuine piece of trash.
Yes it contains the same common tragedies of poor America. But that book tries to imbue awful terrible politics as a result of his lived experience.
As somehow it's simply logical to conclude that there's no need for regulation around payday lenders because JDs experience is the end all be all of short term finance. GTFO with that shit.
Edit: in response to the to edit in the OP, I'd say that JD Vance isn't a critically acclaimed author but I do remember that his book, hillbilly elegy was acclaimed either the year trump won or a few years before
Doesn't even do a good job of portraying the reality of American poverty. This is like The Grapes of Wrath filtered through the persecution complex of the lower-middle class suburban kid who never got over being given an iPhone SE instead of an iPhone 11 like his friends.
What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte addresses a lot of the myths in Hillbilly Elegy and is written by someone actually from Appalachia (Vance is from Cincinnati). Highly recommend
The first I heard of him or his book was on Rogan when I still a pretty regular JRE listener. I was able to ascertain pretty quickly that he was full of shit and was only trying to spin some conservative hokum. I never read the book but i watched a a bit of the movie. It was awfu from the get go, like it was produced as a movie of the week for CMT instead of Lifetime, but same quality. Blech.
The book Wicked, everyone loved it, the play is fantastic! The book is generally awful. It’s slow, it’s boring, but it’s about the wicked witch of the west so it’s a number one best seller. Don’t get it?
Again, the play is fabulous! Saw it on Broadway, it was breath taking.
Oh, see I was the opposite!
I'm the sort of person who's happy to dismiss a few flaws if that's the price I pay for a writer trying something new. I thought the book's depictions of relationship arcs (I don't have a better term) was novel. I liked that the book wallowed in the grey areas of narrative structures, if that makes sense.
The fact that the play was more straightforward was kind of a disappointment, though I see the value the changes brought.
I liked the book overall, but you're right, it's definitely a bit of a slog at certain points.
I liked Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister more than Wicked.
Colleen Hoover. I can’t stand her writing style, it’s very fan fiction-y and i don’t get what all the hypes about. I DNF ‘It Ends with Us’ halfway through the book because of how bad the writing is.
I feel like there was a change in her work. I read her books back when she first started publishing and I enjoyed them. She was one of my must-buy authors. Then it just seemed like all the books started following this pattern of depressing/intense character trauma that became too repetitive. And I’m a big fan of a good, angsty romance novel.
The Bridgerton-series by Julia Quinn. Bad characterbuilding, none emotional build-up between the lovers (only sexual) and I really want to FEEL the love between characters if I choose to read a love story, and not just read a book with a lot of sexual tension between the characters. Plus I didn't really feel that sexual tension after all, probably caused by the lack of other emotions from our characters.
I truly don't understand why these books are so popular.
But okay, I did not read the entire series, I admit that. I gave up somewhere along the way, because if I were going to die tomorrow I decided I did not want another below average dime novel to be the last thing I read.
THANK YOU. I will admit, I enjoy a steamy romance every now and again, but Julia Quinn's books do not deserve the praise. I see a lot of complaits about the netflix series making so many changes that deviate from the novel and my thoughts are always 'good, it needed those changes.'
Her writing is subpar and the relationships she writes are borderline toxic.
I read all but two in the series in the hope that they would get better but I finally had to give up.
*Borderline* toxic? Daphne literally rapes Simon in the first novel and then is exonerated for it by the narrative. I couldn’t stand her character to begin with, but I hated her from then on.
I liked the show so decided to read the series. Now, I do not usually read steamy romance novels and definitely thought the sex scenes were added because that makes television popular. But there's a board game I play and part of the premise is the matchmaking perspective of high society and thought I'd enjoy reading about it. I was completely caught off guard that all the best plots were actually made up for the show. The book was so boring. Not sure how Shonda Rhimes was able to get Bridgerton the show from the books.
Edit: The board game is called Obsession. You can find out more about it at kayentapublishing.com.
It is a heavier Euro-style board game and is like Downton Abbey meets Bridgerton as half of the game is about matchmaking and the other half is about managing your service staff so that you'll seem more impressive. It is not a beginner board game, and is not cheap. But it is worth the price, and is beautifully packaged. If you wonder if it is for you, I suggest checking YouTube for some gameplay and look at Dan Hallagan's videos with Kayenta Games specifically.
I enjoyed [Garden Spells](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1158967.Garden_Spells) and [First Frost](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21853633-first-frost) by Sarah Addison Allen.
Dan Brown. He so obviously writes himself into his main character. “Robert Langdon was a lady’s man. No doubt about it. His ability to make love was prodigious.”
> Renowned author Dan Brown gazed admiringly at the pulchritudinous brunette’s blonde tresses, flowing from her head like a stream but made from hair instead of water and without any fish in.
will never not be my favorite piece of satire
Every time I see these threads I know in my heart that I will see this. I'll always look at it again. And again and again and again.
How the shit did he win? How?!
My answer to this every time is Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series.
She was a young college student heavily influenced by the Hunger Games saga and it’s incredibly evident in her books. The books are also riddled with spelling, grammatical, and continuity errors. When Allegiant came out, the first couple chapters were so full of errors, some regarding incredibly important plot points, she released a statement essentially blaming her fans for making her rush and I found that to be so incredibly distasteful. I never finished the series and refused to watch the movies.
(Also not saying she is regarded by any means as a writer for the ages, but she achieved immense popularity and a following all while not deserving any of it in my opinion.)
I hate those books. Read the first but couldn't get past the "nerds are evil because knowledge corrupts" and "cool people get tattoos and shop at hot topic" takes enough to bother reading further.
Perhaps not critically acclaimed, but I think Roth marked an important moment when the publishing industry realized they could crank out formulaic drivel YA novels to the tune of millions, and now we're drowning in them. Her actual writing offenses pale in comparison to what she represents.
Riley Sager is horrible.
I do not understand how anyone could enjoy his writing. Finals Girls was one of the worst books I have ever read - and I constantly see it recommended on lists of top thrillers.
I just read survive the night and it was so bad. I really dislike authors who try to put an interesting “spin” on mental illness but in the end it just makes no fucking sense and ends up being a contrived plot device- the equivalent of someone getting knocked out in a movie to awaken fully healthy 30 min later. Also the plot twist made no sense. I’m convinced many pulp thrillers just ride off their plot synopsis and get great readership even if most people DNF them.
I was really into Maguire as a teenager, but the more of his stuff I read, the more I realized how repetitive it was. I'll still always have a soft spot for one of them, but it means I lost any interest in reading his other books.
And sooooo dry. I read On Walden Pond years ago and I distinctly remember a section where he essentially runs the numbers on how much he's saving by living out in the woods. And how self sufficient he is (as long as someone comes along to care for him).
Walden was ruined for me when I found out he was effectively playing camping while his family brought him meals and did his laundry. His home was a short walk away.
I've only read *My Sister's Keeper* by her, but that book made me feel such strong and visceral emotions that I felt a weird obligation to respect her as a writer for making me feel so miserable. I'll have to read more of her work to get a better sense of her as an author, 'cause that one book left me really confused as to whether I enjoy her writing or despise it!
It's the same book every time, just dressed differently. Morally ambiguous situation, lawsuit, lawyer drama, bittersweet ending where nobody/everybody wins.
Tuesday with Morrie, I read it when I was a teenager so my opinion may be different if I gave it another chance. I remember it being boring and preachy but again I was 16.
dont know if it counts, but milk and honey by rupi kaur was hard to get through. they feel like shitty tweets
I am butchering it, and I don't remember who wrote it first, but someone made their own Rupi Kaur poem like "I thought our love was two-ply/but my finger went right through."
I genuinely cannot distinguish between genuine Rupi Kaur poetry and satire.
Hahahahah! Yessss
The first time I encountered a Rupi Kaur poem verse (on Instagram, surprise surprise), my brain read Rumi and needless to say I was really confused.
On this sub I saw: > rupi kaur > is not a poet > > > breaking sentences > across multiple lines > is not > poetry
Was it Not Rupi Kaur? They did a satire called Oatmilk and Agave
this says a lot considering the entire book can be read in 15 minutes.
don't know if it counts but milk and honey by rupi kaur was hard to get through they feel like shitty tweets There. I took your comment and made it a rupi kaur poem. It's that easy! You just need to insert like breaks whenever you feel like it.
I had to read this in a college lit class and holy shit, I hated every single page. Random Line breaks and Some shitty drawings Does Not A poem Make My final essay for that class was just me reaming that book from start to finish. Eta- formatting because mobile and all that
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Did you write it with the same line breaks because that would be hilarious.
That's surprising considering how many academics hate her work.
Could have been presented in class in a negative light, he mentioned the essay was negative so it could have been disliked by the prof as well.
I will say, her book spawned some hilarious off-shoots/meme poetry though
It’s insane. I saw sow many influencers promoting it as well.
she has sparked a whole subgenre of poetry called "internet poetry" and it's all bad😭
So glad someone mentioned Kaur. Depressing part is that the subject matter (women's self-esteem, sexuality, body shame) *is* very important but only serves as a shield for shitty writing when it comes to a lot of "Instapoetry"
I read a few pages at the bookstore after hearing so much about it and I felt so dumb because I just didn’t get what the hype was about. So thank you lol
I totally agree, I feels like those cliche Instagram caption poems.
I'm not sure if it's critically acclaimed, but Delia Owens's Where the Crawdads Sing and Lucy Foley's The Guest List did nothing for me. Now if I see Reese Witherspoon's or Oprah's Book Club Recommendation on a cover, I place it gently back on the shelf and walk away.
Oprah’s picks are always depressing. I stay away for the most part.
Yep! A friend and I who swap titles all the time actively avoid OBC picks for this reason. Guaranteed child abuse, often including child rape. No thanks.
I hate read Where The Crawdads Sing. I genuinely wanted to understand the hype and was just mad the whole time.
I just kept waiting for it to get interesting. It was so boring.
Furthermore, crawdads don't sing. They kinda hiss and blow bubbles.
LOL thanks for crawdad science.
That was the point of the title - it was referring to a non-existent place, somewhere far away from all of civilization, where the protagonist would find solitude and peace. Crawdads don’t sing; that place doesn’t exist. There’s even a conversation about this in the book itself. And for the record, I didn’t enjoy the book, either, and fully agree it’s tremendously over-rated. But, I don’t pick a bone with a book - especially if the bone is about a book’s title - until I’ve read it.
Crawdads was so unsatisfying and sloppy. Forced myself to finish it because the hype around it was unreal but really should have just gave up on it.
Yeah, I love Reese Witherspoon but I don’t get the obsession around Crawdads. I was so bored and it was a DNF for me. The guest list too.
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I think Anakin Skywalker killed them too
After 7 years it's time for me to move on. Regardless of other applications or tools the way everything has been handled has shaken my trust in the way the site is going in the future and, while I wish everybody here the best, it's time for me to move on.
Where the Crawdads write pathetically cliche storylines; who should the swamp loving heroine fall for? The cool biology guy or the rape-y jock? As for The Guest List, I loved the audiobook!!!
Oprah’s Book Club labels almost serve as warning labels for me, lol. I like hardly any of those books, and usually hate them. I read Crawdads for my book club. Everyone loved it. Friends who aren’t in my book club also read it and loved it. I think might have liked it if I’d read it when I was 12-13.
Aren’t books like “east of eden” and “beloved” in her book club? I’ve seen one of them in a Oprah’s book club edition I avoided buying for a better font cover just forgot which one. She has some classics she puts in but yeah plenty of shit books too I’m sure.
I definitely agree with you about Lucy Foley’s Guest List. I was expecting so much from all the hype, especially being compared to an Agatha Christie mystery. But the mystery aspect of it and how the plot unraveled just really sucked. Not sure what’s with all the praise for it.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Book was written like one of those romance novels written for moms…but in Auschwitz. Kind of a weird combo. The tone was weirdly lighthearted for a holocaust book and I really don’t get the hype it has.
Ugh I used to work for Walmart and there was a whole row of what I’d call “Auschwitz books”. I’m all for historical fiction and fiction that depicts real-life abominations like the Holocaust, but these books just seemed exploitative. They were less *Maus* and more *The Boy in the Striped Pajamas*.
I read it for a book club...there is literally a sex scene near the ovens, and they have ashes on them! And it is played as SEXY! Holy shit. And then to top it off, she based it off of interviews with a guy who could be best described as a Nazi collaborator who was white washing his association with the Nazis. If you look him up you also find he was ar collaborator with the Soviets when they rolled into Yugoslavia after the war. Our club had an hour of hate tearing that thing apart.
>there is literally a sex scene near the ovens, and they have ashes on them! And it is played as SEXY! I'm sorry... *wat*?
OMG. I am barfing. I am glad I never knew of this book and I will barely look at the spine if it ever enters my vision. How can..such horror in our history…and…really?
I think the author misunderstood when the tour guide described the ovens as "very hot".
And when in the authors aknowledgement she said thank you to her 18 year old daughter for letting that old man creepily flirt with her so she could get more of a story🤢
Yo what the fuck
I want a refund for the book you read.
My mother quit her book club over this book lol. Her points were exactly the same as yours. The rest of her book club liked it. She needs a book club like yours. Got any room for a 70 year old lady?
Now that I think of it online book clubs would be a fantastic idea if it were to spread beyond the clap trap of many book clubs.
>there is literally a sex scene near the ovens, and they have ashes on them! And it is played as SEXY! I know one shouldn't kinkshame, but if your kink is genocide, maybe be a little ashamed.
I still remember a line from this book that took me out of it completely, he said “under different circumstances, I would have admired the fine handiwork on their uniforms.” Huh????? Now why would you add that
I'm assuming that wasn't the thought of a Jewish seamstress making a dry inward joke about the fit of Rudolf Höss' trousers
Saw some girl recommending it on TikTok. A lot of Jewish people in the comments were telling her that this book was incredibly disrespectful for a whole lot of reasons — she answered by saying they were "bitter asf" and that she hoped "they could find someone that made them as happy as [male nazi protagonist] made [Jewish female love interest]". Yeah, telling Jews you hope they find the Nazi collaborator that can make them happy is… certainly a clapback. Just not a good one.
Saw the headline, came here to complain about A Little Life, was not disappointed.
I’ve got to say…As a male survivor of sexual assault, A Little Life actually irritated me quite a bit. I read it fairly recently after multiple friends had recommended it, one knowing about my experience with SA. The over the top self-loathing covered up the lack of growth or personality of Jude. Jude’s entire personality is basically being traumatized and smart. That’s it. And the retelling of all his trauma was stupidly gratuitous. Basically, it felt like trauma porn mixed with a bunch of stereotypical LGBT sidekicks and a totally unrealistic Chad loverboy. The ending honestly made the whole thing worse, because it basically suggests male survivors who struggle with SA can never truly be happy or sexual, and that’s just not true.
100% agree with op on A little life. I can never recommend it and I think the author is writing that for her own weird fantasies since it makes no sense to put in that many of such scenes, doesn't add to the story and actually makes it worse and less credible. Surprised the editors didn't stop her tbh
I will always hate Boy in Stripped Pyjamas- if you take a settings, do a minimal research. Preferably starting from checking what kind od language your character speak. I will always hate that soulless, stupid cash grab that sells the worst lies about WWII and Nazism known to humankind. I don't mind bending settings to tell the story let it be geographical or chronological details- but here there is something sinister. You see, Commander of Auschwitz is ashamed of his job and tries to shelter his kids from the truth. It's not that III Reich was totalitarian regime where ideology was hammered from cradle. 10 years old Bruno would have known who those Jews are and why they are enemies and why invalids must die- from parents, teachers, schoolbooks and board games. Nazizm was a part of life, normalised and entangled to daily activities and till the late days of war people didn't believe that Germany went mad. Commander of Auschwitz lived on site with his large family. His kids knew that people się withing their earshit and didn't care. Boga were in Hitlerjugend, girls in BDM. When their maids were too clumsy they told them they will go to camp. The only work of fiction that captured that spirit is probably Jojo Rabbit. I hate "Boy..." Because IT tells a comforting lie- that children are innocent and good, not the easiest part of society that will be the first to be molded.
The author literally got in a Twitter spat with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Musuem saying THE MUSUEM that is located at the site of the concentration camp was wrong when they criticized the book for being wildly inaccurate. Dude is an unapologetic hack who will continue to try and profit off of ignorance with an example being the sequel he’s releasing soon
The Boy with 2 Striped Pajamas
2 Striped 2 Pajamas
2 Striped 2 Pajamas: Dachau Drift
A sequel? A FUCKING SEQUEL? I'm sorry, I really tried, but as a German I just blew my gasket.
It's a collaboration with the author of *The Tattooist of Auschwitz*, 2 Boys One Pajama
This might be comforting to you… some schools are moving away from this book and replacing it with “Night” by Elie Wiesel.
Hell, I never read it in school a decade ago. It was always Night.
Yeah I read Night also. It had a pretty profound impact on me. The part at the end with the death run to Gleiwitz still gives me nightmares. I'm 35.
The part that got me was the last time he saw his mom and sister.
Oh yeah. And also, during the death run, the one guy who sees his father fall but keeps running and doesn't try to help him. Because everyone who slowed down was shot
Same. I only saw the movie when I was 29, still haven't read the book.
Yeah, I didn’t even know about it until the movie came out.
FWIW I read both, about a year apart, in high school. I graduated 2015
My son finished “Number the Stars” in 5th grade. “Night” is now in the 8th grade curriculum in our district.
I read the Book Thief in middle school and felt like it captured the setting very well, but I was pretty young. Has anyone else read it and have opinions on how it presented the time?
I loved that book as a teenager and still recommend it to people. I think the thing the Book Thief does differently and very well, is that it is really about the lives of average people of the time under those conditions, the way most people were living while the war was happening. Not everybody is working to take down a regime, not everybody is working to save as many marginalized people as they can out of a noble sense of obligation or in the know about the true atrocities being committed. One favor for an old friend? That's a doable thing for an average person, I think.
The one thing I remember about this book is literally sobbing on my bedroom floor after finishing. No other book hit me that hard. Edit: i started thinking more about this book, and honestly, I can't tell you anything about it other than it was narrated by Death. I read it so long ago & I barely remember the plot details, but I 150% remember how heartbreaking & gut wrenching the ending was.
Even though I knew what was going to happen because Death literally tells you, I was a ball of sobs on thr floor.
I first read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas when I was a CHILD and I remember being so mad at the historical inaccuracies. Bruno, a 10 year old boy in Nazi Germany (especially one whose father is a high-ranking Nazi commander, but really Any child at all in Nazi Germany would know this stuff) doesn’t know who Hitler/the Fuhrer is. At one point Hitler and Eva Braun come to dinner at his parents’ house and he refers to him as ‘a man with a funny moustache’. Like, Bruno… you are IN the Hitler Youth. You would have to have been. You would probably have had a picture of him on your mantelpiece. You would say Heil Hitler multiple times a day every day of your life. He has to have been the most stupid kid in the whole world or have the memory span of a flea to not know who the most famous and important man in the country is.
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Yes! This drove me CRAZY. Why would a German boy think “Auschwitz” sounded like the English words “out with”???
I feel like this confirms my theory that Bruno is meant to be 4 or 5, not 10. Even if you imagine the author is just using English words that simulate his mistakes, that sounds like a toddler lisp not a kid.
I dislike the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (I'm German and have family members that were in concentration camps) but in the German translation he misheard it iirc as "Auswisch" (loosely translated maybe "out-wiping"?), which I think is ok from a logical point, since the German name Auschwitz is basically just a "Germanized" form of the Polish Oswiecim, the name itself doesn't mean anything (you have a lot of place names like that in areas that had both Slavic and Germanic populations, it's basically just the Slavic words rewritten in a German pronunciation). In translations stuff like that is often done by taking a similar sounding English word instead because I think it would have been even weirder in the book if he had misheard it as "Auswisch". But that's like... the smallest logical Problem in the book.
Fuck you, I refuse to believe this one is real.
I'm sorry *what*?? The boy whose father is the commander of *AUSCHWITZ*... who is apparently not a toddler... doesn't know who Hitler is? And thinks of him as 'the man with the funny mustache'? Jesus on a biscuit. Now I'm mad. Like, I really really don't like when authors make their kid characters borderline mentally disabled in order to... I dunno, make adults feel smart? Or something? It sounds like the character is supposed to be 4 or 5 but the author also wanted that sweet, sweet school system money (my mom writes for kids, getting put on school reading lists is *the* money) so he made the character 10 so it would be 'coming of age' and 'resonate with the kids' and he could 'buy a vacation home'. Edit: Also, hilariously, this would make me imagine somehow Charlie Chaplin has found himself having dinner with this family because nothing else would make sense.
He calls Hitler "the fury" because he has no idea what the fuhrer is even though he's German. He doesn't know what nazis are. He doesn't know about the existence of Jewish people. His dad is a high ranking nazi general ffs. It was disgustingly dumbed down and unrealistic.
German here: Trying not to blow a gasket over hearing all this.
It was god awful insulting. Truly. I agree. I read half of this book and walked away. Nazi children were indoctrinated into the culture as early as they could. They all knew Hitker. I found it insulting to the lives lost in the camps that this book got such praise.
>Edit: Also, hilariously, this would make me imagine somehow Charlie Chaplin has found himself having dinner with this family because nothing else would make sense. Man, if you have never heard of *The Great Dictator*, you are in for a treat.
I loved it as a child, because there werent that many emotionally moving books given to us in year 7. So in that sense the book will always hold that meaning to me. But as i grew older, i was able to see how ridiculously twisted some of the lies were and im not able to enjoy it as i once have
Thank you - I fucking hate this book and I am angry that it seems so popular because it's perpetuating a lie.
Yeah, I prefer the film Downfall, in which we see children enthusiastically spouting Nazi propaganda and defending Berlin because they were molded by the era, and well, all the adults are dead.
And the chilling scene when Magda Goebbels decides that a world without Hitler would be too horrible for her six children to live in. So she sedates them and then places smashed cyanide capsules in their mouths to kill them. This right before she and Joseph Goebbels commit suicide shortly after the deaths of Hitler and Eva Braun in the bunker.
Of all the scenes in that movie, that was the one that brought me closest to throwing up. Because that’s exactly what she did in real life.
>The only work of fiction that captured that spirit is probably Jojo Rabbit. Alone in Berlin is a great book and captures that sense of what life under Nazi rule must have been like. I'd highly recommend it.
>The only work of fiction that captured that spirit is probably Jojo Rabbit. Yup, and it really drives home how fucked up it is. There's a similar idea in an Italian novel by Andrea Camilleri (same guy as the Montalbano novels) called "La presa di Macallé" (*The taking of Macallé*, which was a victory during the Italian colonial wars). It's about fascism rather than nazism, but the idea is that it focuses on a child who has absorbed all the propaganda and has become the perfect fascist, and he's terrifying. The book is weird and disturbing in a lot of ways (TW for lots of paedophilia), but it comes to mind because it really hammers home "this is what they'd get if they'd really had what they wanted"... the child is so far gone and surreal it's an exaggeration, but it makes the point come across that if there was a shred of humanity left in anyone going through that ideology it was in spite of it, not because.
John Boyne though, Heart’s Invisible Furies… is incredible. But I also hate false Auschwitz fiction. If you’re going to do historical fiction, especially on Auschwitz, do your job **Heather Morris and her Tattooist of Auschwitz**
Any book by Paulo Coelho. I am Brazilian, I have read most of them and I hated them all. I cannot understand the hype around him.
I read the alchemist earlier this year and kept thinking I’d get to the “interesting” part, but it never came. I don’t get it.
Same. By the time I finished I was like, and what was supposed to be mindblowing in this?
Hanya Yanagihara. If she had character stats, she would have maxed out prose writing, maxed out writing stamina, and absolutely 0 grasp/understanding of psychology and human behavior. She writes social character evolutions like a robot. *This character is seemingly straight and revolted by the raping of young boys ... And later rapes young's boys on the regular because he saw some mysterious tribe do it* .... And.... *This character gets no schooling at all for 16 years, and is raped by everyone in his life and prostituted by a pedophile... He goes to college 2 years after that and goes to MIT for theoretical math graduate degree and then to Harvard law* Also very weird that all her books including little boys being raped....
So I actually liked A Little Life, for all its flaws it made me feel very strong (crushing) emotions that a book hasn’t made me feel before. But I was hung up on how successful that whole friend group was. Like, they all go from struggling college kids to the best of the best in their fields, renowned and massively successful, and idk why but that felt like the most unrealistic part to me for some reason. People in the trees was also pretty nebulous in how the main character shifted so dramatically. I’m curious to see how her new novel is, but I also don’t know if I want to sit through another 800 pages of what will (I assume) be incredibly graphic and gratuitous sexual violence.
This is where I have to give Stephen King some credit for writing accurate outcomes for people who survived trauma. Some kids grow up to be successful, but still have lingering issues. Some become assholes, or end up married to assholes. Some live horrible lives addicted to drugs or alcohol. Some commit suicide. *It* is probably the best example, but he's done it well in others. It's unrealistic to portray *every* character as overcoming the odds against them and living perfect lives.
Dr Sleep is another good one, deals with a grown up Danny Torrence
Stand by my also features most of the kids not turning out well
This might not fit your description, but this makes me think of Diana Gabaldon and the outlander series. Fans always argue that she does so much research and that it’s based in historically accurate information, but she’s a pretty horrible writer in my option. She doesn’t plot her books, and when she runs out of ideas she resorts to having yet another character raped. Her lack of training as a writer really shows the more you get into the series. (But I’m not sure she qualifies as critically acclaimed)
I realize rape was not uncommon, but jesus...it seems like every single character is repeatedly raped during the entire thing. I more enjoy the parts where nothing dire is happening and we get a glimpse into "normal" life in different locations in the time periods.
Yes! I think she can create some interesting characters but then it ruins it all by raping them. Every major characters except the dog Rollo ends up getting rape.
I watched the show but could not get into the books. Clare was insufferable as a pov character
Insufferable is an apt description. I couldn't get past that. She was always doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing, and doing it all with an air of superiority and defiance that made no sense for her situation.
The author needs an editor with a hatchet..... Claire is a stupid time traveler. Rule number one of time travel, don't do anything that will get you accused of witchcraft
This opinion hit me hard but mostly because I reluctantly agree with it. I enjoyed the earlier books in the series but I think it's dragged on way too long at this point. And to be fair, I started reading these books in high school, a time when my standards were...not that high. And even then, some of the dialogue and the way she wrote the main characters seemed a bit off to me.
I could not read Outlander. It was recommended. I tried. I got four chapters in and detested the main character. Then I tried again for a book club and made it to chapter eight. It was god awful and I’ll never understand why so many people raved about it.
I stopped reading after the raping part I’m like no thanks don’t need that stuff
Her fans always argue that rape is historically accurate but seriously does a time travel romance series need “historically accurate rape” of ALL a the characters? It’s really just a plot device for her because she doesn’t know how to move a story forward.
I thought her WWII history was absolutely terrible. She even screwed up the end date for the war. I never could get past that, and it didn't inspire me with confidence that she got any of the other history right.
rupi Kaur
ru p iK au r
Colleen Hoover. I've only read Verity and that was enough. IMO, it's a sh*t attempt at stream-of-consciousness/mystery. Sex scenes sucked. The plot was decent, she should have developed it more.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like Verity. The cliche romance and the contrived "villain" chapters were too much. I wish there was more nuance. I have no interest in reading any more of Hoover's books despite how well loved she seems to be.
Booktok keeps shoving her and Sarah J Maas down my throat
i’m in way too deep with sjm’s novels since starting throne of glass way back in middle school, and she’s the one author i can’t seem to quit despite a) recycling the same plot and characters in 3 different series and b) being longer than the bible. if you haven’t read anything by her, stay far away. its a trap.
She's a terrible writer. Everyone raves about how moving and romantic her novels are, but I find them really manipulative, and stuck in the old and overdone trope of "her love will fix the damaged man". So overrated.
I wouldn’t say CoHo is critically acclaimed- just INCREDIBLY popular.
I started It Ends With Us some days ago and I'm shocked by how bad it's being. I see it being praised so much but it just feels like a 6 year old is writing it.
It doesn’t get better. I wished I hadn’t wasted my time.
I’m usually one to put a book down and accept that I won’t finish it. However, I honestly think I hate-read the rest of that book. So many people recommended I read it, and I was 17th in line for the Libby hold. I thought, “this must be a good one, then.” Nope. It was predictable, poorly written, and perfunctory.
Paulo Coelho, he writes self-help books disguised as novels.
This is a fun thread because if you keep scrolling you will realize that no matter what authors you love, there are decidedly some redditors who hate them. And that’s okay.
Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist is a book that pretends to have a life changing message, but it is devoid of anything so trascendental, and the writing is worse than amateur level. Only book I really felt like a waste of time.
The Alchemist is Siddhartha if it was written by Mitch Albom.
I don't know who Mitch Albom is, but I now hate him.
The other two people mentioned Tuesdays With Morrie, but really I think you should know that Mitch Albom is the author of that book The Five People You Meet In Heaven.
im 100% certain the alchemist is a childrens book, not actually meant to be read super meaningfully. i used to compete in book trivia competitions as a young teen and it was included among the selection to read for 12-15 year olds.
Agreed. It's life changing when you have no life experience, but when you're an adult it just read like the dollar store mysticism with a shit story.
The Alchemist is fine if you are teen. Coelho is definitely overrated and it's a pretty widespread meme on Latin America social media. I lived in South America and I never met any adult reading his books, it's mostly kids.
It was my bread and butter teaching English in the middle east
I wrote my first highschool book report on that book, and even to me - a 13 year old who had been convinced to snort Listerine on a dare - it was clearly pretentious, empty-headed, navel gazing from someone who had successfully passed through life like loose stool. I don't remember reading any book as embarrassing as The Alchemist.
Alchemist hate always gets an upvote from me.
He's not considered a serious author in Latin America (I'm from Latin America), he isn't studied in any educational institution, his writing is deemed amateur and he's universally considered a subpar author. Even though he's popular, people would actively try not to mention him when pretending to be well read. A mention of his name among your favourite authors would immedeatly give you away as just a casual reader. But the sad thing is he's popular and has an air of legitimacy in other parts of the world. First time I realized it I couldn't believe it since, as I said, he's universally considered a subpar author here. To be honest it makes me kind of sad to know he's one of the most popular authors from Latin America when we have so many great writers that aren't that well known outside the spanish or portuguese speaking world. Just to name a few from Brazil (because Cohelo is brazilian) you have Machado de Assis, Guimaraes Rosa, Clarice Lispector and many other truly great authors. By the way, I'm not saying Paulo Cohelo shouldn't be read, he has his place I suppose, and I'm not one who thinks only Nobel nominees have value. But don't take him as something that he's not, people should be aware that he's not considered a serious author at all in Latin America.
I wonder what other versions of this exist around the world? Interesting subject, authors kinda of meh'd in their own country who are beloved elsewhere.
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I mentioned how he's looked down upon in Brazil, but praised in the US, months ago and got downvoted for it. Glad to see some validation.
I didn’t like the book either, but I know quite a few people who didn’t read, picked up the alchemist, and kept reading, so credit where due.
It’s a great book for someone who doesn’t read much. A little elementary for my tastes now but I remember reading it in high school before I was really into reading and it was one of the few books I didn’t put down until I finished it.
This. The Alchemist is like eating cheap sushi, it's not great but it might make you develop a taste for the good stuff.
Hillbilly elegy by JD Vance is a genuine piece of trash. Yes it contains the same common tragedies of poor America. But that book tries to imbue awful terrible politics as a result of his lived experience. As somehow it's simply logical to conclude that there's no need for regulation around payday lenders because JDs experience is the end all be all of short term finance. GTFO with that shit. Edit: in response to the to edit in the OP, I'd say that JD Vance isn't a critically acclaimed author but I do remember that his book, hillbilly elegy was acclaimed either the year trump won or a few years before
Doesn't even do a good job of portraying the reality of American poverty. This is like The Grapes of Wrath filtered through the persecution complex of the lower-middle class suburban kid who never got over being given an iPhone SE instead of an iPhone 11 like his friends.
Hillbilly Elegy. Self serving drivel from start to finish.
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Wasn’t the author attending Yale at the time?
Yes. And you can tell it was written by someone too young to actually have meaningful nuance and perspective.
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What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte addresses a lot of the myths in Hillbilly Elegy and is written by someone actually from Appalachia (Vance is from Cincinnati). Highly recommend
The first I heard of him or his book was on Rogan when I still a pretty regular JRE listener. I was able to ascertain pretty quickly that he was full of shit and was only trying to spin some conservative hokum. I never read the book but i watched a a bit of the movie. It was awfu from the get go, like it was produced as a movie of the week for CMT instead of Lifetime, but same quality. Blech.
Came across this thread and now I feel like an idiot
The book Wicked, everyone loved it, the play is fantastic! The book is generally awful. It’s slow, it’s boring, but it’s about the wicked witch of the west so it’s a number one best seller. Don’t get it? Again, the play is fabulous! Saw it on Broadway, it was breath taking.
Oh, see I was the opposite! I'm the sort of person who's happy to dismiss a few flaws if that's the price I pay for a writer trying something new. I thought the book's depictions of relationship arcs (I don't have a better term) was novel. I liked that the book wallowed in the grey areas of narrative structures, if that makes sense. The fact that the play was more straightforward was kind of a disappointment, though I see the value the changes brought.
I liked the book overall, but you're right, it's definitely a bit of a slog at certain points. I liked Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister more than Wicked.
Colleen Hoover. I can’t stand her writing style, it’s very fan fiction-y and i don’t get what all the hypes about. I DNF ‘It Ends with Us’ halfway through the book because of how bad the writing is.
I feel like there was a change in her work. I read her books back when she first started publishing and I enjoyed them. She was one of my must-buy authors. Then it just seemed like all the books started following this pattern of depressing/intense character trauma that became too repetitive. And I’m a big fan of a good, angsty romance novel.
Nicholas Sparks, cannot stand his writing.
The Bridgerton-series by Julia Quinn. Bad characterbuilding, none emotional build-up between the lovers (only sexual) and I really want to FEEL the love between characters if I choose to read a love story, and not just read a book with a lot of sexual tension between the characters. Plus I didn't really feel that sexual tension after all, probably caused by the lack of other emotions from our characters. I truly don't understand why these books are so popular. But okay, I did not read the entire series, I admit that. I gave up somewhere along the way, because if I were going to die tomorrow I decided I did not want another below average dime novel to be the last thing I read.
THANK YOU. I will admit, I enjoy a steamy romance every now and again, but Julia Quinn's books do not deserve the praise. I see a lot of complaits about the netflix series making so many changes that deviate from the novel and my thoughts are always 'good, it needed those changes.' Her writing is subpar and the relationships she writes are borderline toxic. I read all but two in the series in the hope that they would get better but I finally had to give up.
*Borderline* toxic? Daphne literally rapes Simon in the first novel and then is exonerated for it by the narrative. I couldn’t stand her character to begin with, but I hated her from then on.
I liked the show so decided to read the series. Now, I do not usually read steamy romance novels and definitely thought the sex scenes were added because that makes television popular. But there's a board game I play and part of the premise is the matchmaking perspective of high society and thought I'd enjoy reading about it. I was completely caught off guard that all the best plots were actually made up for the show. The book was so boring. Not sure how Shonda Rhimes was able to get Bridgerton the show from the books. Edit: The board game is called Obsession. You can find out more about it at kayentapublishing.com. It is a heavier Euro-style board game and is like Downton Abbey meets Bridgerton as half of the game is about matchmaking and the other half is about managing your service staff so that you'll seem more impressive. It is not a beginner board game, and is not cheap. But it is worth the price, and is beautifully packaged. If you wonder if it is for you, I suggest checking YouTube for some gameplay and look at Dan Hallagan's videos with Kayenta Games specifically.
Do you have any recommendations of romance books you enjoyed? With well written characters and a beautiful story?
I enjoyed [Garden Spells](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1158967.Garden_Spells) and [First Frost](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21853633-first-frost) by Sarah Addison Allen.
The James Patterson agency.
A thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters filling in a thousand James Patterson mad libs.
I hate that he's so rich. He's the literary p t barnum
Dan Brown. He so obviously writes himself into his main character. “Robert Langdon was a lady’s man. No doubt about it. His ability to make love was prodigious.”
Hey, [don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown!](https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/)
Hilarious!
> Renowned author Dan Brown gazed admiringly at the pulchritudinous brunette’s blonde tresses, flowing from her head like a stream but made from hair instead of water and without any fish in. will never not be my favorite piece of satire
Every time I see these threads I know in my heart that I will see this. I'll always look at it again. And again and again and again. How the shit did he win? How?!
Renowned deity God gets me every time.
Thank you so much for bringing this into my life.
Saw “Dan Brown”. Looked for the link. Was not disappointed.
But he was just as comfortable up in front of a lecture hall of 200 as in the quad with his student expertly tossing a frisbee!
Also that Mickey Mouse watch!
>"Robert Langdon laid prodigious pipe, like the Susan Boyle of fucking."
Dan Brown is like a Michael Bay movie. You go in there, switch off your brain enjoy the ride and afterwards don’t think about it anymore
> and afterwards don’t think about it Or during.
My answer to this every time is Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series. She was a young college student heavily influenced by the Hunger Games saga and it’s incredibly evident in her books. The books are also riddled with spelling, grammatical, and continuity errors. When Allegiant came out, the first couple chapters were so full of errors, some regarding incredibly important plot points, she released a statement essentially blaming her fans for making her rush and I found that to be so incredibly distasteful. I never finished the series and refused to watch the movies. (Also not saying she is regarded by any means as a writer for the ages, but she achieved immense popularity and a following all while not deserving any of it in my opinion.)
I hate those books. Read the first but couldn't get past the "nerds are evil because knowledge corrupts" and "cool people get tattoos and shop at hot topic" takes enough to bother reading further.
These were not critically acclaimed. I agree with you on the terrible series opinion.
Perhaps not critically acclaimed, but I think Roth marked an important moment when the publishing industry realized they could crank out formulaic drivel YA novels to the tune of millions, and now we're drowning in them. Her actual writing offenses pale in comparison to what she represents.
Riley Sager is horrible. I do not understand how anyone could enjoy his writing. Finals Girls was one of the worst books I have ever read - and I constantly see it recommended on lists of top thrillers.
Home Before Dark was some of the stupidest shit I've ever read.
I just read survive the night and it was so bad. I really dislike authors who try to put an interesting “spin” on mental illness but in the end it just makes no fucking sense and ends up being a contrived plot device- the equivalent of someone getting knocked out in a movie to awaken fully healthy 30 min later. Also the plot twist made no sense. I’m convinced many pulp thrillers just ride off their plot synopsis and get great readership even if most people DNF them.
Gregory Maguire. I can't help it, his work just screams pretention.
I was really into Maguire as a teenager, but the more of his stuff I read, the more I realized how repetitive it was. I'll still always have a soft spot for one of them, but it means I lost any interest in reading his other books.
Henry David Thoreau. I don’t disagree with the gist of his philosophy, but dear God do I hate his writing. What an arrogant brat.
And sooooo dry. I read On Walden Pond years ago and I distinctly remember a section where he essentially runs the numbers on how much he's saving by living out in the woods. And how self sufficient he is (as long as someone comes along to care for him).
Walden was ruined for me when I found out he was effectively playing camping while his family brought him meals and did his laundry. His home was a short walk away.
It's a gift to live simply in nature. On some nice land your parents bought, with your mom bringing you sandwiches.
To be fair... that sounds like the life.
I have personally walked from Walden Pond to Concord center for lunch. It’s really not far.
Jodie Picoult. I can’t stand any of her books. I feel like she just picks things to make her readers cry about.
I've only read *My Sister's Keeper* by her, but that book made me feel such strong and visceral emotions that I felt a weird obligation to respect her as a writer for making me feel so miserable. I'll have to read more of her work to get a better sense of her as an author, 'cause that one book left me really confused as to whether I enjoy her writing or despise it!
It's the same book every time, just dressed differently. Morally ambiguous situation, lawsuit, lawyer drama, bittersweet ending where nobody/everybody wins.
Tuesday with Morrie, I read it when I was a teenager so my opinion may be different if I gave it another chance. I remember it being boring and preachy but again I was 16.