I’d like to hear about a book that you didn’t like but can see why the reason you didn’t like it would be the reason someone else did.
I mainly read fantasy, mystery, romance but open to anything especially for this rec! You might not like a horror because it was too fantasy leaning but that might be just the horror for me.
by groundfilteramaze
12 Comments
As long as lemon trees grow. Corny romance ended by taking a LOT of the pages of the book. I don’t know what the editor did for this book. The writing was quite juvenile and downright cringey for me. Maybe because I read Marjan Kamali’s Stationary shop book before picking up this one.
Vladimir Putin Life Coach. The title was worth a grin.
As long as lemon trees grow, Yellow Face, Can’t hurt me, Before the coffee gets cold.
The Art Thief by Noah Charney
The plot was good but it was badly written in my opinion, I think it would be a good movie for this reason because a good screenwriter could fix all the issues I have with it but no one’s gonna do that because it’s not a good or popular book.
The Woman in the Window (mystery/thriller).
I really struggled with the protagonist. I can understand how someone may find her sympathetic, but due in part to my own experiences she remained completely insufferable until the very end.
It ends with us… It was very popular so didn’t bother to even know what it was about and was unpleasantly surprised to say the least…
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave.
Tender is the Flesh, because I found the premise really interesting and can be type of reader that is left with about a 100 questions of how the worldbuilding would work in a world like this. It’s hinted that the whole virus that made it impossible for animals to be eaten and thus cannibalism was legalized, might actually just be a conspiracy. I found this really intriguing but nothing is really done with it. I guess I just wanted way more details/worldbuilding because it sounds so grissly and horrific but fascinating. And for the book to be a 600-900 page tome lol.
I also ended up not really enjoying Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. It starts with two half-sisters in Ghana. One of them remains in Ghana, the other ends up enslaved and transported to the US. We follow their descendants in the next 300 or so years. My main problem was that I found some of the stories just meh and others really captivating and kind of wanted to read a whole book about these characters. Others I needed to ease into but then poof they were over and the next generation took over. I saw a review that said it felt to them that this book was basically a notebook with short stories the author could probably work in to full novels later on. I also remember barely anything from it, and I read this about half a year ago?
And finally the whole YA Scholomance trilogy was really hit and miss for me. I really enjoyed it’s setting and how it worked but I think the writingstyle can be kind of off putting and it felt some characters weren’t given the proper time to develop.
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry – I felt that this book pulled its punches. I wanted more conflict, but I know that many people would love this book exactly because it was more “cozy.” The characters were likable, and no matter where you fall on the “science vs. religion” debate at the center of the book, you can come away from this book feeling good about yourself and your pre-existing opinions. I think I just prefer more abrasive story telling.
Wild Faith by Talia Lavin – This absolutely wasn’t a bad book, but it covered a topic (ultra-far right evangelical movements) that I have read several books on already, and it spent a lot of time covering basic background information that I was already aware of. However, if this is a topic that you aren’t already knowledgeable about, I would very much recommend this book as the most up-to date resource on the topic and an excellent introduction.
On a red station, drifting by Aliette de Bodard
It has a pacing that I don’t enjoy. There’s several books that has this pacing that I just can’t get into but maaany people enjoy (one I can think of right now is The Poppy War). It’s intriguing, has some mystery, an interesting world with interesting characters. I just couldn’t get into it. In the world poetry is used as a communication method, which is interesting, and like A Memory Called Empire, but this book was released first so it’s not a copy.
I thought All The Colours of the Dark was over-long, full of purple prose, could lose at least one storyline and, like a lot of literary thrillers, was neither literary nor thrilling.
But a lot of people seem to love it, so knock yourself out.
A thousand kisses for one boy
It was good but nothing more, a romantic romance book in my opinion…And I have the impression that the author repeats himself a lot. Afterwards I really liked it but nothing more, I had heard a lot of comments about this book saying that it was THE essential book and then ultimately I found that it was not that good.