I don’t mean angry in the way a book can intentionally make you angry, like a hateable character. I want to know the last book that pissed you off because of wasted potential, bad writing, or even just happening to read it on a bad day.
If I had to pick one from my recent reads, it’d be The Only One Left by Riley Sager. I was really optimistic that it wouldn’t turn into a hot mess at the end only to be massively let down by the utter mess it turned into. (Sorry if you enjoyed it- it was just not for me!) There was also The Horror at Pleasant Brook, which had me so irritated at some parts with how trite and repetitive it got.
So, which books have gotten your blood boiling?
by yougococo
28 Comments
The Couple Next Door and The Seven and a Half Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle both really pissed me off because of their respective endings
The ending of Seven and a Half Lives of Evelyn Hardcastle – basically the mystery itself was pretty good and if he tied it up there, it would have been awesome. Instead he tried to explain the 7 days plot device and IMO it went off the rails in a wtf >!genre bending, “welcome to the Matrix, Neo”!< way in the last 10 pages.
The Couple Next Door pissed me off for a different reason. Actual spoiler alert for both the twist and the ending >!the stepfather and the next door neighbor turn out to be the other villains and get their just deserts but WHAT THE FUCK about Marco, the selfish moronic husband who still IN FACT arranged for the kidnapping of his own kid to get money out of the wife’s family due to his own pride, messed up, and did not fess up during the investigation even after knowing the plan went haywire and his kid is ACTUALLY missing and gaslighting his wife/watching her have a literal breakdown throughout. What about that fucking asshole? Instead the twist was the IMO overdone trope of “turns the rich successful people are the biggest assholes” but hello? What Marco did?! If I were the wife, I would have killed him first.!<
Christine. It was cool and all but the ending… ugh.
The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewel. I will never read another thing from her.
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
The Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, Driver Licensing Guide.
I rant about this one a lot but I bought the Atlas Six because it was one of those rare cases of a self-pub book that was acquired by an actual publisher later, and… woof, Tor, oh no baby, what is you doin??
I mostly read fantasy, and I’m in it for the characters, not the worldbuilding or magic systems or what have you – IMO fantasy is at its best when it uses alternate settings and worlds to explore the human condition. And this book is about six characters and is light on the worldbuilding – what’s not to love?
But the characters were weak and unevenly defined, and some of them were samey; I also found the world undefined enough to be distracting – I am still unsure of whether magic is secret or not in that universe! I don’t think it is because the first two characters are introduced at a graduation ceremony for magic degrees at NYU, but besides that there’s little indication of whether the characters were outsiders for having grown up with magic or whether it’s commonplace outside the secret society they’re pulled into and it makes it hard to reconcile their new experiences with what they would have known previously.
The ending also comes out of nowhere and feels lazy.
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. I really liked Fourth Wing. I thought it was a fun idea with some cool characters and while it definitely had its flaws I felt like there was a lot of potential and was excited to see what she would do with the next book. Unfortunately, I hated Iron Flame. The worldbuilding did not improve. The main characters were obnoxious and tedious to read about. Once again she didn’t flesh out any of the side characters who seem like they have potential to be really interesting. I did finish it but it took me two weeks and felt like a chore every time I picked it up.
I have moved past my anger now that I found Fireborne by Rosaria Munda which is just everything I wanted Fourth Wing to be but so so much better.
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh annoyed me so bad. Barely anything happened throughout the whole book.
Well, I read Jaws recently. Chief Brody’s wife
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean. Felt like a setup for a long series. Some world building about bookeater society and the rules of the world. The fact that they ate books was very irrelevant to the story. It’s like someone wrote a vampire book and then edited it to be about people who eat books.
Last Argument of Kings because all 3 books were absolutely incredible and the ending (to me) was awful. In the last few chapters I found myself not caring who lived or died or what happened.
The Cat Who Saved Books
I read it last month and found it really poorly written and so completely up it’s own tail with moralizing that it completely failed to make any point effectively. The entire thing is about how the only good and moral way to read is to reread the classics over and over again. Any deviation from this (including the publication of new books) is an actual evil act that must be rectified by a young boy telling you that you’re enjoying books wrong and then you will have a revelation that will completely turn your life around because you can finally enjoy classic books in a good and moral way.
Even considering that the book was probably intended for teens and had cultural modes that were lost on me for reading a translation and being from another culture, the book is bad. Frustratingly bad.
It’s a bit dumb but “Throttled” by Lauren Asher. I’m not too far yet, but gosh.
The main character is from Barcelona, which means, she studied there. What did she study? Prelaw. Which, afaik, doesn’t exist anywhere in Europe. You don’t have to have a bachelor’s degree at a college in anything to study law at a university, you start at an university directly with law and there’s no way to crossover to law without completely restarting your university career.
And, she named a German character Liam. Give me a name that’s less German than Liam, I’ll wait. And there are a lot of German names that are international. Nick, Tom, Michael, even Leo(n). But not Liam.
Airframe by Michael Chrichton. I got so POed at the beginning I never finished it.
Earth’s Children Series. Started great. Total disappointment by the last book.
Wizard’s Butler. I had such high hopes, and then couldn’t even get past the first chapter for the objectification. Every time I read the description I get mad bc I want to read the book that’s described.
A Confederacy of Dunces. I had to read it for a book club. I’ve never felt like I was somehow punishing myself by reading a book before.
Anything by James Patterson.
The first law.
Technically the end of book 2. 40 hours of my life wasted. never will listen to that author again
I’m with you about The Only One Left. I’ve enjoyed other Riley Sager books, but this one was was off-the-rails ridiculous. Every time I see someone talk about how much they loved it, I’m flabbergasted.
The Lost Apothecary made me angry as well. Great concept, awful execution. Probably one of the most shallow books I’ve ever read and just an overall snoozefest.
If We Were Villains. I got the recommendation from Goodreads but had a slightly wrong sense of the story. I also hadn’t heard yet how bad of a trending mess it was. And I had DNFed so many books leading up to it that I really wanted to finish something. But ugh that was the wrong one to bear down on.
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore, and Douglas Gillette
This book has popped up a number of times over the past couple of years and since I found the premise interesting, I decided to give it a whirl. To me, it lacked the substances it needed to get its point across, and I walked away not convinced of any of the arguments the authors were making. Maybe I hyped it up a bit too much in my head, but I grew increasingly angry throughout the book and left wondering why it’s as popular as it seems.
The Turn of the Screw. The writing was so overly convoluted that I could barely understand entire paragraphs. It starts with a man reading the story to a group around a fire, but this setup is never mentioned again, so I’m not sure why it was put there in the first place.
In addition, the ending was one of those >!“did it really happen, or was it all in her head?”!< things that I understand some people like, but to me it feels like a cop-out.
***The Kaiju Preservation Society*** – the story was cute and fun but Wil Wheaton narrated the audiobook and completely ruined it (for me). He was so over-the-top goofy/stereotype-nerdy that he flattened all the characters to be the same caricature.
***Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality*** or ***Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke****:* Both are pretty mid horror short story collections, but one of them (I can’t remember which) had the most annoying endings. The stories would just abruptly END. Sometimes the plot was wrapping up, sometimes it was halfway to resolved, but every story in the book would just end out of nowhere. At first, I thought it was a hoaky device to make it edgy but then kept happening, and happening, and happening. It was so irritating.
Wall of Winnipeg and me – it was about 100 pages too long. The characters were cute and so was the story, but I DNFd it and literally threw it across the room when the two had yet another misunderstanding blocking them from actually accepting their feelings.
It needed serious editing IMO.
thats easy, the Pendragon series, they used to be advertised alot so i picked up the first book and it was soooo bad. not the writing style, but the things that went on, it was so random, just one thing after another that made no sense. I was so angry thinking how can this be published? there was nothing to be learned from the book
I’ve just finished ‘Before We Were Innocent’ by Ella Berman. It’s set up as this exploration of toxic female friendship and…doesn’t take it all the way to its logical conclusion. It was infuriating.
Naked Lunch. I can deal with some lack of coherence if it adds up to anything at all. This didn’t and was obnoxious to read.
I ended up skimming most of it because I have a scratch-off poster of “100 essential novels” and I wanted to say I’ve read it so I could scratch it off.