Getting by, Yes, hate is a strong word. I am a passionate person. I love books. I spend my time reading and don't like to be fooled. I dislike many books, hate only a few. I dislike books that promise a good read, then let you down at the end like some mysteries which are my favorite genre. I just read a memoir "A movable Feast," by Hemmingway that had gorgeous writing but was mean spirited using innuendoes to tear people down but never spelled anything out, not one thing. I hate some books that disparage other cultures and religions and memoirs that prove to be fake like "3 cups of tea" "100 million pieces" or "fragments." I am not alone in this hate. Why did I hate scissors. It was nasty and crude and proved to be fake in certain aspects. How can I hate a book. Let's just say, "Mein Kamph" which was hate filled from beginning to end. However the list of books I love is as large as the world and the books I hate very small.
I don't even hate Mein Kamph. It's an extremely valuable books, it's filled with incredible insight, and it tells a story we should all want to hear. As for Movable Feats, seriously. You're right is saying it spells nothing out, but I found nothing in it at all that was the least bit mean-spirited. Hemingway simply tells the truth.
You should, however, know that it is not a memoir, it's a novel disguised as a memoir.
This aside, if you are not heavily influence by the writing style of other writers, you will never, ever become a good writer yourself.
And I would never consider a complement from James N. Frey to be a good thing.
No one will ever convince you to read more books, and to appreciate them for what they are, but I think it was Mark Twain who said, "The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
In modern parlance, this translates to, "The man who does not read is just as ignorant as the man who cannot read."
Even Mein Kamph is a book everyone should read at least twice. It's fine to hate Hitler, though it doesn't help anything, but the only reason to actively hate a book is because it's horribly written.