So I recently read three bestselling and critically well regarded books:
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Babel by R.F. Kuang
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The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
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Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
All very different books, but they each left me cold for the same reason. They were very preachy. They had a message to impart, and they pounded on this message with the subtlety of a lump hammer. The characters were cyphers for the message rather than real people.
I actually agreed with messages (sexism is bad, the British Empire was evil, you should be kind to children), but it was still offputting.
Babel came closest to having some nuance, but then the author would pause the story to tell you that this racist person is being racist and that is bad.
Is this a general trend in modern literature, or did I just pick 3 very preachy books in rapid succession?
by Honeyful-Air