I don't generally have violent physical reactions to books I dislike, but I threw Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse out a fourth-story window. At the time, I thought it was the most boring, least consequential thing I had ever read. I didn't want to read any more of it. With time, and context, I came to appreciate Woolf a lot more, but that was my first encounter with her.
I really hate it when authors I love get old and start producing second-rate stuff, but keep doing it because it sells. (I do not mean to suggest that old people can't write well. Some can, but some can't.) I loved Tony Hillerman's mystery novels set on the Navajo Reservation for years and years, and his best books were written when he was in his 60s, but after he turned 70 the quality dropped off precipitously, and kept dropping, while his frequency of publication increased. He published eight novels between the ages of 71 and 81. I don't know how bad the last ones were, because I stopped reading after the fourth.
Something similar happened to Mario Vargas Llosa, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (before he acknowledged he had Alzheimer’s and stopped publishing), and Alfredo Bryce Echenique. All great authors who published some real dreck towards the end of their careers (which in Vargas Llosa’s case seems to be ongoing).
Me Before You. Ugh! Formulaic, poor writing, unimaginative, junk.
Fwiw. Loved, loved Goldfinch!
Also loved French Lieutenant’s women, and recall while reading it in public, a young man commented to me that it was his favorite book of all time.
Yeah, I have to disagree with @doschicos about the Ferrante Neapolitan novels. My daughter told me she thought I would like them after she read the first two, and I was completely taken with them. I bought the fourth in Italian because I didn’t want to wait for the English translation, but it took me so long to read that I didn’t even get halfway through before it was published in English. (There was a day on the beach that summer when my daughter and I were – briefly – on the same paragraph in different languages. The difference was that she finished the book the next day, and it took me another two weeks.)
A lot of you seem to dislike books with characters, especially protagonists, who are not likable.
@thumper1 's post reminds me of another strong reaction: I really enjoyed The Time-Traveler’s Wife until the book’s last chapter, which almost completely wrecked the book for me. I was so upset I called my son’s ex-girlfriend, who had recommended the book, to complain about it.
The Goldfinch was a catastrophe of bad editing. The unearned Proustian musings on time at the end were particularly
hideous. A slightly less annoying but still toss-worthy tome is The Nix.
“A lot of you seem to dislike books with characters, especially protagonists, who are not likable.”
Nah, just poorly edited books. The Ferrante books could have easily been condensed down to 2 books and it would have improved the readability. To me, it was like reading the somewhat boring diary entries of a whiny person and very repetitious. There were parts I enjoyed addressing the culture and the time period of neapolitan Italy, but slogging through the rest to get to the interesting bits felt burdensome. People seem to either love them or hate them, though.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t like Ove, it was that he bored me. And the writing style annoyed me. And as soon as the neighbors moved in I felt a Hallmark movie coming on.
It was borrowed from the library on my Kindle, so I couldn’t throw it. But it’s the one that got me looking into how to return books early, just to get it off the device.
Big Little Lies. It’s pretty unusual for me to abandon a book after beginning it but that one was impenetrable. The characters were unlikeable and uninteresting. And people seem to love it and all her other books. I don’t get it.
@garland Hey thanks! My suggestion was in jest due to the surprisingly violent reactions to poor Elizabeth George (that fraud - how dare she be an American!). But it looks like the idea has taken off!
My nominations/opinions - Agree with the Da Vinci Code. The ending was just ludicrous. I did find the part where it talked about mathematical ratios etc found in nature pretty interesting.
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court - I was supposed to read it in both high school and college and just couldn’t get through it either time. I was a very avid reader back then, sometimes reading 3 or 4 books a week, but for some reason it could just not capture my interest after two attempts.
I tried to read both of these (and never finished either - which is rare for me) when I was pretty young, and probably the cultural, and historical references went over my head. Also while writing this, I looked up both in Wikipedia just now to try to figure out why I hated them so much and both have a higher than average number of characters in them, so I probably found it hard to keep track of them all - I was a speed reader in my youth and I didn’t have the patience to slow down and figure things out.
I did like Gone, Baby, Gone; Gone Girl, and the Goldfinch. I really liked the writing style in the Goldfinch - it captured me right away, and I actually liked the unbelievable heist scene towards the end.
I stopped reading “Love in the Time of Cholera” after Coelho described one of the male characters “urinating like a stallion”. Nope. That was enough of that.
I enjoyed Stephen King early in his career. He had a a couple of books of wonderful short stories (one of which became the Shawshank Redemption). Then came the evil dog, evil car, and finally “It”. King obviously did not take time to plan a coherent plot in “It”, it seemed to me like he just started out with a vague idea, took off writing, and the thing turned into a mess - I was embarrassed for him after reading it.
@JHS–I’m fine with awful protagonists or other characters, as long as there’s a sense that the book (and author) know they are. So, for instance, I know that a lot of the men in Diaz’s stories are awful, but Diaz knows that, too. You’re not meant to accept their actions.
But in, for instance, “The Goldfinch,” to me the Russian friend (Boris, I think?) is an awful person, but plainly loved by the protag, and I also think by the author. That’s when I get annoyed.
I am a big Stephen King fan but I agree about IT. Those eleven-year-old characters deserve better than inappropriate sexual activity as a plot point. I was horrified.
I can appreciate books with annoying protagonists (just finished The Stranger and The Fall), but I don’t generally enjoy the process. I’d prefer to spend more time with people I like or who seem redeemable at the very least.
Speaking of books I hated (largely because of the lack of sympathetic characters), I hated Vanity Fair.
I have more patience for post-modern tricks in movies than I do in books. I really liked how they dealt with the two ending problem in the filmed version of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, though it actually made it less post-modern. It’s also pretty easy to love something that features Meryl Streep prominently.
Fifty Shades of Gray. And I only finished it because it was for a book club. Made up of mostly way younger women. LOL. If nothing else, the writing was atrocious.
But I knew what I was getting into when I started it. And just thought it important to read.
Fifty Shades also has been important culturally, but I am too old to care enough to read it … and thus can’t say Ellis is better. I enjoyed some of his other books.
Adding… I’m not too old for erotica just for s/m, even if very well written
Ove, was mildly entertaining, if a bit easy to predict. I have known too many people like him and am less than entertained reading about them.
Second The Pilor’s Wife. I wondered why that was published.
Junot Diaz, is an upsetting and rather brilliant writer. The book was a bit painful, but a pleasure in other ways.
Franzen’s Freedom seemed a waste of time, so stopped reading.
Swamplandia was bizarre, though somehow I keep coming back to certain scenes when Florida is mentioned.
My dad was in a coma in a non English speaking country and I read Davinci Code in one sitting at his bedside. Trash writing, trash plot, but I have been curious about Opus Dei and some of the history of the Catholic Church mentioned in the book.
Different books appeal to different folks. The Ferrante books are masterpieces, imho. Because I am a pretty indiscriminate reader and willing to read just about anything, several friends give me what they have read so we can talk the books over together. One friend really enjoys a genre I’ve named to myself as “children in danger in times of war” and most are best sellers. I do not enjoy the subject matter and don’t find the authors amazing writers. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I’m about done with this. Too depressing for me.
The Kite Runner. I read a lot of biographies and non-fiction books which are just as disturbing in content, but that book I actually burned in my trash barrel.
I have been forced by organizations to read a slew of the “7 habits” type books. I never get past the first couple of chapters because of the awful anecdotes and quotes used completely out of context. My boss learned very quickly not to call on me during our meetings after he assigned one of these.
