forum What's a book you HATE and why

Started August 17, 2020 by @kiley_arrants Premium Supporter

tune

it's up on dbs!

I know I already said this, but fandom books are the bane of my existence. So often they read like these bratty fix-its of actual fandoms, the fandoms in them are so. bland. (mainly because 99% of the time they're just a ripoff of something popular in our world). Not to mention that a ton of them from the fan's POV normalize toxic fan behavior. One literally had the MC get mad at an actor who asked for his character to be killed off so that he could do other films he was more interested in and he's supposed to be seen as some selfish asshole for….putting his career and life over what fans want? Bullshit.
Please ma'am I don't want to read another book about our cishet protagonist crying about how her OTP of two cis white gay guys isn't canon. I cannot take it anymore.

Speaking of, also hate Harry Potter, mainly because of the blatant antisemitism in Goblins and the transphobia in Rita Skeeter. I'm just. So done with that series. Also JK could have confirmed Dumbledore as gay in-text but nooo, can't ruin your perfect cishet fantasy with the homos being openly homos. This book called me homophobic slurs. This book is responsible for everything wrong in today's world (kidding-). I am. I am so done with Harry Potter. Plus the worldbuilding was kinda crappy and Cursed Child was just… bad.

Harry Potter will always hold a place in my heart as a childhood favorite, but it will never be anything more. As an adult, without the nostalgia glasses, it isn't that great (esp the villain apologist sht with snape). It was the first of it's kind and the story of an author from nothing was inspiring. Now Harry Potter and even mentioning JK Rowling makes me cringe. I get everyone has the right to opinion or whatever, but retroactively shoehorning in representation? Forcing more to a complete story? Shock value like in the second Fantastic Beasts? I dunno But the more I think about it the dumber everything seems.

Another book I dislike I can't remember the name of (I think the author was Marie Lu or smth but im too lazy to look it up). It was a YA about a revolution in a utopian society and had some commentary on perspective and wealth. It was great, until the second book made the two protags have an awkward romance and the guy's "childhood-friend that he sees as his sister" also gets shoved in for the sake of a love triangle. gross.

Oh, Warcross, then Wildcard, I think? Because besides all of that shit, it was actually a decent series imo

Also I hate Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas. It's by far one of the worst books I've ever read.

Another book I dislike I can't remember the name of (I think the author was Marie Lu or smth but im too lazy to look it up). It was a YA about a revolution in a utopian society and had some commentary on perspective and wealth. It was great, until the second book made the two protags have an awkward romance and the guy's "childhood-friend that he sees as his sister" also gets shoved in for the sake of a love triangle. gross.

Oh, Warcross, then Wildcard, I think? Because besides all of that shit, it was actually a decent series imo

Ooh I might have to try those-
I've never read anything by Marie Lu, but I have a copy of The Kingdom of Back that I want to read at some point.

Another book I dislike I can't remember the name of (I think the author was Marie Lu or smth but im too lazy to look it up). It was a YA about a revolution in a utopian society and had some commentary on perspective and wealth. It was great, until the second book made the two protags have an awkward romance and the guy's "childhood-friend that he sees as his sister" also gets shoved in for the sake of a love triangle. gross.

Oh, Warcross, then Wildcard, I think? Because besides all of that shit, it was actually a decent series imo

Ooh I might have to try those-
I've never read anything by Marie Lu, but I have a copy of The Kingdom of Back that I want to read at some point.

I think it was "Legend", I ended up looking her up. I do love her Young Elites book. I think her writing improved a ton, I didn't realize they were the same author. Despite the super cliche magic powers story,

I really need to read the next two books, but I'm worried they devolve cause it was made into a trilogy during the age of "All YA have to be a trilogy"

I should read it.

Some other books on my hate list:

• Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin: Tries too hard to be aDuLt and eDgY and ends up coming off as childish, the characters are cliche and bland, the romance went from "I literally hate you and see you as less than human" to "wow let's bang" waaay too quickly, the main character says some TERFy shit that's never really called out, as far as I remember, and the ending is laughably bad. One character literally strips and sings a raunchy song and that's how their escape is able to be pulled off. One of the three characters of color is almost solely referred to as "the ebony witch"; one of the other's is named Coco and her skin is described with food metaphors and lots of focus on her "sinful curves", and the third is super jealous of his white friend's success. That's it that's his sole trait. And there were two parental reveal twists.
• Cadaver and Queen by Alisa Kwitney: Genuinely one of the worst retellings I've ever read; as a….fan of Frankenstein, I really hated the treatment of Clerval, who's made into a bland villain and it completely erases the connection between him and Victor for the sake of a cringey, instalovey Victor and Elizabeth romance.
• Frozen Beauty by Lexa Hillyer: Bland af, and weirdly victim-blame-y with how Kit dies. The actual killer isn't introduced until the book is nearly over, and the way the killer is revealed in genuinely laughable. It falls into that really awful thriller trope where there's a character so blatantly set up to be the killer that you know they aren't the killer, one of the MCs was a freshman but genuinely acted like a middle schooler, and the other MC had the personality of stale bread. She was supposed to be the not-like-other-girls tomboy, but she….really wasn't? She doesn't do anything remotely tomboy-like in the entire book.

ok ok you said fandom books and I immediately thought of "Cinder and Ella" by whatsherface Oram. it's this really weird fandomy retelling of Cinderella and I just. ugh.
it tries to tackle a lot of heavy subjects - physical disability! depression! crappy families! - while also being stuffed with the most tropey tropes in existence (blackmailed into a fake relationship! fan and celebrity meet anonymously online! popular character falls in love with someone because they're "so different" for having a single critical thought about him!). so it ends up being incredibly melodramatic and cringy.
it's been a while since I read it, so I'm probably forgetting a lot, but I just remember going out of it like

Oof that sounds like a hot! mess!

i simply must mention it, but there was a book i tried reading forever ago that had been super hyped up to me and i can't remember anything due to blocking it out, but i got maybe a few pages in and was like 'this really isn't that good'

i wish i could remember something about it????

i know that i really didn't enjoy the uglies series as much as a lot of my friends, i just felt like it kept getting more and more unnecessarily wild for the sake of plot twists or whatever, and i didn't like the characters that much. now, take this with a grain of salt because it's been years since i've read it, but also so many of the characters changed suddenly, without the build up to any sort of natural change? they just were suddenly different people making different choices? and that was stupid

i've only read the first uglies book and i was kinda disappointed with the end tbh

My math and chemistry books, lmao, i hate them

cant remember the name and dont want to but i was perusing the reverse harem genre for kicks and because i've read a couple good ones from there(self indulgent thing, i crave attention)

and i read this one that was literally, i kid you not, an almost word for word copy of mean girls(the og movie) but fantasy and with multiple love interests. except the sidekicks were really cool characters. i fucking hated realizing it was straight up a fantasy mean girls

Every time someone posts in this thread I always want to rant about some books that I hated, so here's a couple of rapidfire reviews.

• The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye My first impression of this book was "Oh, so it's like the Hunger Games but with magic. Cool!" But in reality, it's more like "It's like the Hunger Games but if the romance subplot took the forefront, and Katniss and Peeta just kinda forgot they were in a fight to death until the very last minute. Featuring the dumbest characters ever and more instalove."
• Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell This book might have been ok if they hadn't revealed the identity of the killer in like the 3rd chapter :/
• The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken Someone on this site recommended this to me. I forget who it was but sorry to that person. This book was interesting up until the MC escaped from Thurmond and that happens in like the 2nd chapter.
• Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter If you like training montages then you might actually like this book because that's literally all that happens.
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore I could write a whole essay about why I hated this book, but basically I brought this book on a trip to Europe to keep myself entertained on long travel days. But turns out I'd rather just sit and stare out a window for 6 hours because anything that you'll see in the Austrian countryside is more entertaining than this book.

• The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye My first impression of this book was "Oh, so it's like the Hunger Games but with magic. Cool!" But in reality, it's more like "It's like the Hunger Games but if the romance subplot took the forefront, and Katniss and Peeta just kinda forgot they were in a fight to death until the very last minute. Featuring the dumbest characters ever and more instalove."

so you mean the hunger games movies

• The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye My first impression of this book was "Oh, so it's like the Hunger Games but with magic. Cool!" But in reality, it's more like "It's like the Hunger Games but if the romance subplot took the forefront, and Katniss and Peeta just kinda forgot they were in a fight to death until the very last minute. Featuring the dumbest characters ever and more instalove."

so you mean the hunger games movies

I really wanted to like Bloom, but it ended up just pissing me off. The main character was whiny and awful to his love interest, he literally leads to

I HATED A Very Large Expanse of Sea,, i feel like the mc was trying too hard to be edgy and quirky and was so annoying. Her only personality trait is being angry and rude to everyone then she gets surprised when they're rude to her?? Second off, the romance was so cringy and came out of nowhere. Like it was trying to be deep and all but they barely knew each other and suddenly they're making out in his car. The boy had no personality and pretty much assualts her and it's shrugged off as cute. Like the mc tells him she can't be in a relationship and he kisses her to "shut up"??? Also, I felt like the mc didn't even represent islam well. The whole plot of the book is about her facing islamophobia but everything this girl does is against all the principles of islam. There's no indication of her faith besides her wearing a cloth on her head. The entire book was just such a poor representation of islam and just spreads more misinformation. Why can't we have an mc who is proud of their faith?? I would just like to read a book about a muslim character who doesn't throw away all their beliefs for the musty white boy ughh.

Dude saaame. I was pretty disappointed w An Abundance of Kathrines in that regard. If it was going to involve struggling in faith I wish that was a conflict that was explored instead of “oh he’s Muslim ig”.