Books you thought you would like but didn't?

Elle. · May 3, 2018

Eliza Robertson's Demi-God — I was really looking forward to this book, the blurb describe it as unsettling and compulsive, and an escalation into dark behaviours but I found it quite flat and nothing really that unsettling, and not much development in terms of the main character. I was more interested in her mother and sister.

Paula Hawkins The Girl on The Train — couldn't care for any of the characters (apart the woman who was murdered) and the plot was a bit too straightforward.

Atlantic12 said:
I actually started reading Atonement pretty recently. It's so well written but really really (really!) slow.......

Ian McEwan's books are extremely character-driven with very little plot. I personally love his books, especially The Cement Garden but I completely understand why people wouldn't like them.

DanielSTJ · May 3, 2018

I LOVED Atonement.

I do hope you enjoy it! Keep at it!

@Elle:

Any other McEwan recommendations, coming from one that only finished Atonement? What's my road map?

Elle. · May 3, 2018

DanielSTJ said:
I LOVED Atonement.

I do hope you enjoy it! Keep at it!

@Elle:

Any other McEwan recommendations, coming from one that only finished Atonement? What's my road map?

I haven't read all of his books because he's a very prolific writer but my favourite is The Cement Garden, it's got this eerie atmosphere throughout the book, almost dreamlike. I also love The Comfort of Strangers, it has this unsettling atmosphere that I found compelling. My less favourite so far is On Chesil Beach, but still a very interesting character study. Next on my reading list is Nutshell.

DanielSTJ · May 3, 2018

Thanks Elle! : D

Verboten · May 8, 2018

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Supposed to be a classic. Read it all the way through with my sister for our nook club, but didn't like it at all. The only book I can think of where I didn't like ANY of the characters.

Kjbartolotta · May 8, 2018

Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Not so much that I thought I'd enjoy it as everyone around me did and plugged it constantly. Then I read it and was like 'LOL, WUT?' Maybe if it was 1978 and I was sitting naked in a hot tub I'd appreciate its life lessons more fully, but as it is I just found pointless and unreadable.

Also, On the Road, which is low-hanging fruit. Tropic of Cancer even moreso.

DanielSTJ · May 8, 2018

The Recognitions by William Gaddis.

Like....WHAT? It had SO MUCH going for it and then it took a big smelly....

Well, you get the idea.

Emermouse · May 8, 2018

Kjbartolotta said:
Also, On the Road, which is low-hanging fruit.

Eh, much of the Beat Poets’ works are irritating as heck once you realize that it’s about a bunch of well-off White Dudes who spend all their time traveling, drinking, doing drugs, siring kids with a various string of different women, which they took a hands off approach to raising, whining about how their lives suck. I mostly feel sorry for the women who had to put up with them. Yeah, it must really suck, being young during a nightmarish era of peace and prosperity where even an entry-level worker could afford something of a middle-class standard of living. My heart truly bleeds.

Plus, they were allegedly rebelling against the stifling Conservatism of the Eisenhower administration, which makes me want to invent time travel, so I can show them the Conservatism of today and be like, “You still think Eisenhower is that bad?!” It’s something I repeat a lot: Eisenhower is the last Republican President who didn’t leave his country in worse shape, than it was when he took office. I don’t know if I will ever stop saying this.

BenPanced · May 8, 2018

Artemis Fowl. It reminded me of so much self-insertion fanfic.

Emermouse said:
Eh, much of the Beat Poets’ works are irritating as heck once you realize that it’s about a bunch of well-off White Dudes who spend all their time traveling, drinking, doing drugs, siring kids with a various string of different women, which they took a hands off approach to raising, whining about how their lives suck. I mostly feel sorry for the women who had to put up with them. Yeah, it must really suck, being young during a nightmarish era of peace and prosperity where even an entry-level worker could afford something of a middle-class standard of living. My heart truly bleeds.

Plus, they were allegedly rebelling against the stifling Conservatism of the Eisenhower administration, which makes me want to invent time travel, so I can show them the Conservatism of today and be like, “You still think Eisenhower is that bad?!” It’s something I repeat a lot: Eisenhower is the last Republican President who didn’t leave his country in worse shape, than it was when he took office. I don’t know if I will ever stop saying this.

And I will die on the hill defending HOWL as an amazing book of 20th Century poetry.

DanielSTJ · May 9, 2018

Finnegan's Wake.

Mr. Joyce, WHAT!?

blacbird · May 9, 2018

DanielSTJ said:
Finnegan's Wake.

What demon made you think you would actually like this book in the first place?

caw

DanielSTJ · May 10, 2018

blacbird said:
What demon made you think you would actually like this book in the first place?

caw

Maybe Beelzebub.

:greenie

Makeshift Bubbles · May 10, 2018

The biggest one I can think of is It by Stephen King. I'd liked it for the most part, actually—right up until the, uh, preteen gang bang.

Before It I'd assumed the people who said they felt betrayed by authors who'd disappointed them were just exaggerating, but now I understand them completely.

writergirl1994 · May 13, 2018

I wanted to read "I Smile Back" by Amy Koppelman because I really liked the movie, so I read it on my mom's Kindle. It turned out that Sarah Silverman lent a certain measure of humanity to the character of Laney in the movie that the book Laney just didn't have. The novel is directionless and self-indulgent and the main character is unbearably self-centered and obnoxious, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

writergirl1994 · May 13, 2018

I've never read that book but when I heard someone online mention a scene with a 'child orgy in the sewers' I assumed they were making some kind of weird joke. Imagine my awkwardness typing 'it child orgy in the sewers' into Google. Yeah, not for me; the only book I've read by Stephen King was "Pet Semetary," and I was a little underwhelmed.

DanielSTJ · May 15, 2018

Lady Chatterley's Lover- D.H Lawrence

I think Lawrence is talented, but not as much in this work. I don't know what I expected, but it was certainly not THIS.

Books you thought you would like but didn't?

Elle.

DanielSTJ

The Wandering Bard

Elle.

DanielSTJ

The Wandering Bard

Verboten

Kjbartolotta

Potentially has/is dog

DanielSTJ

The Wandering Bard

Emermouse

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)

DanielSTJ

The Wandering Bard

blacbird

DanielSTJ

The Wandering Bard

Makeshift Bubbles

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writergirl1994

writergirl1994

DanielSTJ

The Wandering Bard

Books you thought you would like but didn't?

The Wandering Bard

The Wandering Bard

Potentially has/is dog

The Wandering Bard

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)

The Wandering Bard

The Wandering Bard

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The Wandering Bard

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