Maybe you pick up a book with an exceptionally interesting premise, maybe a book that doesn’t necessarily have a unique premise but a premise that sounds enjoyable to you. Maybe a book has a premise so painfully simple that you wonder how the author could’ve messed it up to begin with. A lot of books have felt like ‘wasted potential’ to me, but I’m going with the ACOTAR series because I’m shocked at Sarah J.Mass’ talent in somehow making something that could’ve easily been so fun so bitterly boring. The book missed the mark for me in the sense that I *wanted* it to be unapologetically trashy. I’m a sucker for Beauty & the Beast retellings, now you’re setting it in a fae land and incorporating folklore? And the cover of the book has a beautifully detailed illustration on it??? Sign me up. Instead the book was painfully dull, it didn’t even give me anything to be upset or angry about. Come the end of the novel I silently prayed for the lead’s death. Can someone else do a fae themed Beauty and the Beast retelling? Please? With actually enjoyable smut? What books felt like a missed potential to you? What books do you feel you really could’ve loved if only some changes were made, or if the concept had been magically thought up by a different author… :,)
by According_Bat_8150
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The Postman by David Brin
Its a post apocalypse book about a man that finds a postmans uniform and decides to use it to travel to different settlements. He uses lies and manipulation to gain access and favour in different settlements but starts creating something worthwhile as he goes.
Unfortunately, this plot point soon gets dropped and it goes in a strange direction that I just couldn’t find any interest in. A good book but could have been great for me if it had stayed with the original plot point.
The Witcher books feel like this to me. Incredible characters and world but a very disjointed and meh story. Thankfully CD Projekt Red bought the rights to it for the game and we were able to see what an amazing story with these elements really looks like.
Ready Player One. Actually a very interesting premise that could have been great. Holy hell, what a horrific, badly written book it is, though. The main character has to be the biggest Mary Sue in all of literary history as he strides from one deus ex machina to another.
Alright, when I say this, I don’t mean “literary masterpiece,” but the Divergent series could have been a lot better for YA than what it ended up being. I read the series, and the third book differs pretty well from what the first two are. The narrative is split between two main characters, and you actually get answers to questions from the two books prior, including the big answer of why people have this stupid single-personality-syndrome nonsense. The entire style goes from “generic YA dystopian” to a more Chrichton-esque thriller for teens and tweens, and I liked that delivery a lot.
Now, I’m not saying this explanation and new style, *over 1000 pages into the series* suddenly justifies the whole series, but I think if they had been able to introduce the contents and style of book 3 much sooner, I think the delivery would have been better overall.
*Parasite* by Mira Grant is a compelling examination of identity, personhood, and disastrous corporate negligence, stapled unnecessarily to a lamentably generic zombie thriller.
Doubly lamentable because Grant had already written the Newsflesh series, which I consider to be one of the best works of zombie fiction in any medium. There was no reason to do zombies *again* when there was already a solid core premise to work with, and if you’re going to do zombies again anyways, there’s no excuse for doing such a mediocre job of it when you’ve already proven that you can do better.