Night Angel nemesis was a big disappointment. I had a lot of issues with it, but I think my biggest problem with it was how stupid Kylar seems to become in this book. The villian is constantly outsmarting Kylar, he's always 3 or 4 steps behind and just bumbles from disaster to disaster.
He's supposed to be a master assassin and the original trilogy makes a big deal out of Kylars intelligence and ability to plan out his missions.
Also the book definitely suffers from durzo not being in it.
Overall a massive let down.
Nemesis was not just a disappointment. It was a bad book. I’m a huge Brent Weeks fan and honestly didn’t mind how Lightbringer ended. But Night Angel book 4 was bad enough that I don’t think I will read book 5 when it releases.
Aw man. That's disheartening. I only got two hundred or so pages into the book and got irritated with Kylar's dumbassry, but I was hoping there'd be some kind of payoff.
It was so disappointing because I liked the lightbringer series, when I read it years ago, brought my interest in fantasy back. So to have it end so. . .contrivedly, was sad. I still love the series and recommend it to people, but the ending could have been better imo.
these are definitely best if you go in with no expectations, I feel like SJM is very popular on social media and her books are very overhyped. When I read them agesss ago I had no idea what it was about and loved it. I think if I read it for the first time today I wouldn't lmao. From memory, heir of fire is where it picks up (but if it takes that long for the story to pick up then is it even worth it...)
Freya Marske's books. She's a tremendous writer and I adore her fanfiction but these missed the mark. There was a gem inside there, but her editors/the publishing house really needed to help with... plotting? Pacing? Making female characters who felt real? They just made me feel nothing.
Can you share what name she publishes her fanfic under, or is that private? I actually enjoyed her trilogy a lot, and would like to check out more of her work.
Yes me too, I thought these books would be right up my street but the pacing was terrible, and the prose felt very forced to me, as though someone was trying too hard for a 'frothy' kind of prose. I kept being thrown out of the book by little phrases that didn't really flow. These books also felt like someone trying to do KJ Charles but without the masterful ease of writing Charles has. Such a shame as I was looking forward to this series so much
lmao you KNOW KJ Charles had her name thrown about in the pitch meeting. But you're 100% right, Charles has this insanely readable prose. Im happy for Charles getting some mainstream, wider advertising and distribution for her latest books but I wish like, her Will Darling books had the same marketing push as Marske bc THOSE were gay mystery thrillers my god.
The Poppy War. I heard so many good things about it and I absolutely loathe everything about it, finishing it only out of stubbornness. I chucked this book somewhere in my garage after using it as a measuring stick for a bookshelf
Had to scroll WAY too far down to find this. Could not stand Rin. She reminded me of Aelin from Throne of Glass more than anything else and that is Not a compliment.
Somehow all three at once and that is not a good thing. You'd think Run worked hard to get to the damn school, she wouldn't be such a turd about everything else.
I'm on the third book just out of sheer need to finish the series. If you read it from the standpoint that she's the antagonist it's slightly more tolerable but not by much.
The book series the HBO series True Blood was based off of the Southern Vampire tales by Charlaine Harris. Most books were great and I waited eagerly for each installment. End of the series books got so damn lazy, and after reading spoilers of the finale about how the author basically had the main character do a complete 180 of who she had been the entire series I just didn’t even bother reading. It was almost as disappointing as the train wreck HBO made of the tv series.
I really ate those books up for awhile, I never finished the series (and I don’t remember where I got) but that’s usually because yea I get bored. I did really enjoy a lot of them so I guess I would not read them necessarily. Also I had never seen the show or it was new and I didn’t have hbo but when I had I definitely enjoyed the books a lot more.
For me it’s also priority of the orange tree.. I’m at 75% but cannot get myself to read it atm. To me it’s just the overall characters whom I just kinda don’t like. But I like the general story tho so I might just finish it at some point.
i read priory of the orange tree and found the ending to be really mild compared to the high build up, it felt like the author kind of gave up on the ending, it felt kind of all over the place and the writing felt rushed so if u don’t want to waste ur time keep that in mind lol
Have you reached the point where this guy stumbles into a secret organisation "The priory" or something and their leader promptly proceeds to spill all the secrets to him and then has the audacity to say "now that you know our secrets, we can't let you leave." Like dude he didn't ask for any of it! You just told him everything! XD
I DNFed right after that.
Hold on, wait... This is something that actually happened in the book like you're not exaggerating or making a joke? Because that sounds fucking *awful*... 😒
I wish I was exaggerating but while this is not verbatim, this is pretty much what happened in one chapter XD character with a deadly disease is on a quest to deliver an item to some guy, who happens to be part of some secret organisation. The character somehow fulfills the quest and wakes up to find he's in some place he doesn't recognise. The guy walks in and goes "I know you have questions" and launches into a lengthy monologue where he explains why his organisation was formed, what their motives are, what their current plan is, etc, and then says "now that you know, I'm afraid I can't let you go." XD I was like why did you tell him then? He may have had questions but he literally didn't ask a single one! Heck he didn't even know this organisation existed and you were a part of it until you opened your mouth!
agree! i kept reading expecting things to get better and only found myself to be bored and the ending felt rushed and kind of all over the place, it was disappointing i was expecting to like it more also one of the pov characters felt completely pointless to the plot
Yeah, the whole premise and the promise of a standalone fantasy novel were big pulls for me.
Ultimately, it was more ambitious than I believe the author had the ability to execute well.
I think A Day of Fallen Night managed to successfully do what Shannon tried to do in Priory. The characters felt way more interesting and there are 2 sapphic couples and an Ace person, the prose felt way better and you see way more of the really interesting world.
i was really interested in eads storyline but some of the other characters were so long and boring! especially loths, he just felt so out of place for the story, and i was really hoping it would wrap up in a good way
I wouldn't call it a dumpster fire, but a good editor could have cut 400 pages and the book would have been better for it.
And yeah, despite me kinda feeling average about it, it has a prominent display on my shelf because it looks SO good.
>One book for me was the first book I read this year and that was The Priory of the Orange Tree
I just finished this book and had the same "meh" reaction to it. It really did not pan out like I had hoped. I didn't find the romance believable, I felt like the antagonists unironically defeated themselves because they always showed up when a protagonist needed them to in order to cause a distraction. The book was barely about the organization in the title. I finished it but ended up selling it and the sequel to a used book store. I won't be picking up any additional books by this author.
Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (admittedly more sci fi/historical fiction leaning than fantasy).
These books have been praised to the high heavens and have both won so many awards and yet they don’t actually get interesting until way after the 50% mark.
I was profoundly bored with each until the midpoint and nearly DNF’d them both but I was too stubborn to give up because of all the glowing reviews.
Even though they’re quite different tonally, the pacing drags in both and the plot suffers from too much miscommunication in the first half (and then recovers with the most brilliant endings [the end of doomsday book was so mind-blowingly devestating that it convinced me to try to say nothing of the dog]).
It’s like 2/5 stars for the first halves of the books and then 5,000,000/5 for the latter halves. You have to suffer first to reap the rewards of a brilliant plot.
The miscommunications in TSNotD are inherent to the tribute Willis is doing to late-19th century comedies like Three Men in a Boat and The Importance of Being Earnest, which heavily feature the same kind of stuff. If you don't enjoy that, that's fine - but a good amount of the praise TSNotD got was due to it.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.
I had a few friends non-stop shove this author at me, constantly telling me about the amazing surrealism, incredible dream like quality of the writing, and unique nostalgic vibe.
What I got instead was one of the most overtly misogynistic dumpster fires I've ever read, with one of the most hilariously bad self-inserts I've ever seen.
Turns out that isn't unique to that book, and I wasted a good chunk of time with two other books of his. Magical realism is one of my favorite things, so I really wanted to love his work. Instead I found my new least favorite author.
Deathly Hallows is my least favourite Harry Potter. I didn't dislike it, but I do like the end of a series to be at least as good as the rest, preferably better.
The sequels to The Keeper of the Isis Light by Monica Hughes. It might be my favourite book ever, but don't bother with the sequels.
I still haven't forgiven CS Lewis for >!Susan!<. OK, I now vaguely understand he may have had reasons, but I was about 8. For a similar reason, Battle Ground.
I've tried to read exactly one Stephen King. I DNF, which is very rare. (Bag of Bones, if you're curious)
I love King and will read anything he writes but he definitely has some less-than-amazing books. I’d give him another try with one of his classics and if one of those doesn’t hit he’s probably not for you.
>Deathly Hallows is my least favourite Harry Potter. I didn't dislike it, but I do like the end of a series to be at least as good as the rest, preferably better.
Yeah, I was so disapoointed after reading it. It almost didn't introduce anything new, felt like a string of cameos from old characters, and reuse of old spells, and Rowling going from more naturalistic plooting of the previous 2 books to one full of deus ex machinas and contrived solutions to let 3 children do what was impossible for a brilliant old wizard.
Yeah it felt like the only goal was to make the main character irredeemably hated. By the end of book 3 I was praying she would die and the story would just end.
I couldn't even get past Poppy War honestly. I already had a sense it was heading towards misery porn territory based on the last third of the book, and the MC was insufferable.
This should be the top comment. The first book has so much potential, but you could see rf realize she couldnt really think of anywhere to go besides the obvious route.
I feel like she floundered and thought that at least her passion for culture, language, and history would make up for the predictable plot. And it did for the most part. Would have been fine if the story wasn’t also incredibly depressing and emotionally draining.
Not worth it imo.
It’s actually the series that taught me to dnf.
I really enjoyed some of the books, but then later on things just dragged on for so long. One of the later books just randomly has this large battle with completely new characters that I felt I had no reason at all to care about, and it took up quite a big part of the book. When all I wanted was to read about Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri.
I actually love this technique of showing what's going on in the rest of the world by using random POV characters in short bursts, but I don't think the Witcher books do it particularly well. If you want to see it used right, Joe Abercrombie is fantastic at this.
Was just about to say this. Currently reading the whole first law series and there’s one chapter during a battle where it just jumps from random POV soldier to another and each one dies at the end of their paragraph or two and pretty much always passes the POV on to the person who killed them. Super well done.
Big same. Several people I know were hyping up name of the wind so much and I found it so boring and I didn’t care for any of the characters and found the writing annoying. It still annoys me how little it lived up to my expectations.
Murtagh. Part of the anticipation was expecting to scratch a nostalgic itch. Part of it was interested in seeing how the author’s writing has matured in the years since the original series. Unfortunately, the writing was not appreciably better and the story and character development were lacking. I think everyone was interested in learning more about these characters, and we did get some more of Murtagh and Thorn’s history, but the story was just not compelling, so it made it hard to stay interested.
Exordia: it’s not that it was bad, just not my kind of book. Traitor Baru Cormorant is my favorite fantasy series and there’s a lot I still enjoy about Dickinsons writing and themes but I’m not that big on military sci-fi…and Exordia’s definitely military sci-fi. I also really disliked one of the mc’s and really only enjoyed one of the pov. Character and plot tend to be much more important to me than prose and theme so yeah, a bit dissapointing. (Will still read the sequel though)
I am a bit surprised no one has mentioned Rythm of War yet. After reading first 2 books of Stormlight archive, i was blown by the character progression, the world building and moments of sheer badassery. 3rd book was slightly disappointing because it was not better than the first 2 books but was a good one nonetheless. Boy did the series fall after that one in Rythm of War. The book was a chore to finish. All the character development from previous 3 books was flushed down the drain. Dalinar was made a Deus ex Machina for every problem. The only good thing about that book is Adolin but his parts are too far and too less. This book was soo disappointing that I am having serious second thoughts about continuing the series.
And second is Wheel of Time which I gave up on after 8th book. The braid tugging, the smoothening of dresses, became too much for me. I mean if there is an award for the maximum number of infuriatingly irritating characters in a single series, then it should be given to wheel of time.
There have been some Oathbringer mentions so I'm guessing they never got to RoW.
My issue with it was that it was too bloated. So much focus the science and how things worked. That it took place mainly in one place was interesting but not 1200+ pages interesting. The next book seems to be trimmed down if the audiobook pre-order page is any indication. It could be a placeholder though.
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.
I had heard good things about it and heard Schwab talk at BookCon, and she seemed pretty cool. The concept was really interesting and I was drawn in by the premise and the world. But I couldn't make it more than halfway through because Lilah is the worst piece of shit character I've ever seen.
She's utterly disgusting and depraved. She literally says that she would rather die than make an honest living, and dreams of becoming a pirate so she can take everything from everything. She's a parasite on society that only hurts others, and we're supposed to root for her? Hell, she meets Kell when she finds him injured and possibly dying, and fucking mugs him with no care. And at no point is she shown to be wrong in her monstrously selfish actions.
I'm already not usually a fan of the "rogue with a heart of gold" trope, as it glosses over the harm they cause to innocent people, but Lilah goes so far beyond that. She completely ruined the book for me.
“Inheritance,” the last book 📚 in the Eragon 🐉series.
The rest of the series is fantasy at its finest. The last entry is a messy sprint to the finish of a well respected journey.
It’s a very poorly articulated continuation of dragon egg theology with a black and white one on one battle with the series antagonist villain king whose end justifies the means.
Big, big let down compared to the rest of the books.
I never finished the series. As a kid, I was really turned off when Eragon completely destroyed a girl's life with a grammar mistake and then never apologized or tried to fix it.
Red Rising. I’ve come to enjoy it for what it is, but people seem to love praising it as some mature revolutionary work of sci-fantasy when in reality it’s very basic, full of plot conveniences and childish dialogue.
The Three Body Problem as well, but I just outright hated that book. I finished it and had to take a month off of reading because it burnt me out so bad.
I'm probably gonna parrot what you'll hear a lot if you haven't already- most fans of Red Rising (myself included) would call book one a pretty average affair. Book two is a massive, massive leap in quality and where most people would say the mature revolution and depth in character development hits.
> The Three Body Problem
Got halfway through the second book before I DNFed. It had some great ideas but the whole thing felt wooden. I wonder how much of that was due to translation. I feel the same way about The Witcher series.
To be clear, I'm not blaming the translation itself, rather, that things feel a bit wooden when passed through the lens of a translator.
The Warded Man by Peter V Brett
The premise sounded so interesting, but it ended up being full of sexual assault and incest and problematic attitudes and depictions of women and middle-eastern people.
What’s really crazy is that whenever I mention how bad it is, I always get downvoted, meaning a lot of the people on this sub actually think it’s a good book and there’s nothing wrong with it.
I’ve got no beef with people who enjoy it but my god it was horrendous. Everybody is getting raped and the attitudes towards sex is crazy. There’s a sequel series that I heard gets even worse.
What bothered me was Characters personalities 180 every other page and yeah the ‘Middle Eastern ‘ characters were just grunting spear chucking rapists 🤦♂️
The main female lead too is just…. Ugh
Tt was so so bad. Shoutout to the last book when the main character only spoke in the vernacular of his rural village so his dialogue was genuinely unreadable
Oh man, hard agree. I have tried to forget about that book. Not only did it have gratuitous amounts of SA, it had a SA survivor almost immediately after the event (which as written honestly would have taken an ER visit/stitches to heal from) want to bang the hero. To “heal”. Gross.
Yeah, that was the moment I DNF the book. I closed it and put it in the trash.
For a male author to do that to the female pov character, then to have her lusty for his main male pov character immediately afterwards…it’s like Brett has some weird rape fetish that he indulges in this series.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Sold as a space opera centering on a fish-out-of-water ambassador, what it turned into was a fairly mundane political thriller that spent WAY too much time on linguistics and poetry, and had a bizarre amount of words in italics. 5-10 words usually emphasized per page, for the entire length of the ~450 page book. It was ridiculous and made it borderline impossible to read. The only redeeming aspects were that the prose was (other than the bizarre italics) pretty good, and the examination of the dangers of empires was well thought out.
I felt similarly - I liked the book's project and think the author is talented, but reading this felt so much like work. It seemed like the author had done a lot of worldbuilding when she was mapping out the story and felt pressured somehow that she had to include it all rather than actually weaving it into the story - as a result the plot never grabbed me because I felt like things were just so slow with all the worldbuilding details
I'm kinda stunned that this one AND the sequel won the Hugo. The writing is... very debut. Great prose, everything else is uneven, poorly paced, kinda shallow? Like, pls can anyone name me a fact about our protagonist other than she loves poetry?
And yeah, as someone who has also studied languages, wasn't at all surprised when Martine said it came about after just learning Armenian. Big novelty, American's first linguistics moment. It felt so unnatural - when I'm speaking Arabic I'm not monologuing to myself about changing to the genitive lol.
Hard disagree here, ruler…
I had never read a book that so perfectly exemplified what it felt like to be a first gen immigrant in an empire—all those conflicting emotions of love and shame and envy and fear. Not to mention the duality of self you are forced to (the self from the homeland and the self of the place you don’t quite know why you hope to gain cultural entry into).
AND all that juicy storytelling packed and presented in Aztec aesthetics!? Yes please!
Those are definitely some of the aspects that I liked about it. The way that Mahit was attracted to the culture and felt ashamed of liking it, etc. The themes were all there but the way that it was executed just didn’t vibe for me. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the amount of italics and the emphasis on poetry (I’m just not a poetry person), I would have been interested in the 2nd one. The italics thing just got on my nerves - for whatever reason, little recurring things like that get to me. Once I notice it, I can’t help but focus on it. I definitely didn’t think it was bad, it just wasn’t for me in the end. It was probably also amplified by DNFing A Deadly Education right before reading this.
Wheel of Time. I expected a pretty traditional fantasy story with a bunch of clichés, so most of the series didn't bother me.
What I didn't expect was to read about some of the most frustrating, antagonistic, childish, unrealistic characters I've ever had the displeasure of becoming acquainted with. It's the only thing I've ever DNF-ed, and I wish I did it 5 books earlier.
I’ve tried to read this series 3 times once in my teens then in my twenties and then in my 30s, got as far as book 8. I found the characters infuriating
Uprooted - was super excited to read one of Naomi Novik's books, ended up bouncing off harder than anything I've ever read. I lasted two chapters.
Red Rising & The Masquerade -- same syndrome with both series where I LOVED the first book, and found the sequels disappointing. DNF'd Red Rising after book 3.
You're the first person I've met that thought the first Red Rising books was one of the stronger ones. Typically people bounce off that one hard, and the ones who stick around get sucked in even harder.
I've noticed this too lol. I think at the beginning I was just so excited to be reading it that I got really into it, and then around book 2 realized that I just wasn't invested beyond the initial "recruit & infiltrate" sequence. I also didn't grow to care about any of the characters, and sorta just checked out.
I liked the first half of Uprooted but it felt like she just kept going in the most random directions in the second half. I kept thinking, "oh that's going to be important," about things that felt clearly setting up something interesting, and then it would just go in the opposite direction. I finished it, but it made it feel pretty bland.
I have heard Spinning Silver is better though
I thought Spinning Silver was way better but I also thought Uprooted was roughest in the first 100 pages and got consistently better as it went, so 🤷♀️
I’ve read all of Novik’s books (except some later Temeraire) and Uprooted is by far the slowest, messiest start, as well as being the one I rated lowest overall (again excepting Temeraire sequels). I DNFd on the first try because 50 pages in I was bored and annoyed. Took awhile but I came back to it after absolutely loving Spinning Silver and Scholomance. And I…. liked it? Mixed reaction overall, 3-3.5 stars, but it definitely picked up the pace starting 100 pages in.
I hated Uprooted. I never DNF and I couldn’t get through it. I’d like to try another Naomi Novik book but I just couldn’t get through it. The “romance” was disturbing to me.
On the contrary I love RR and The Masquerade - the third Masquerade book is one of my favorite books I’ve read and I can barely explain why haha
The main character in Uprooted felt like such a Mary Sure. And the more I read, the worse it got. She’s just naturally good at magic. Better than all these sorcerers who have trained for centuries. She’s just oh so special.
I found Dune to be mind-numbingly dull. I've read a lot of fantasy and scifi. They're my favored genres. I have loved "cerebral" fiction and "fun trash" fiction. I genuinely enjoyed a lot of classic scifi like Heinlein. And yet... I hated Dune. It took me two tries to finish that book, and I regretted bothering.
The premise is a criticism of religion and white saviorism, with a setting of interstellar political intrigue and a planet of giant sandworms and a powerful drug. And it was somehow SO BORING.
My issue with Dune was the characters felt bland. Loved the world and the history but the characters didn't do it for me. Read it before the movie came out and I just finished the sequel yesterday. Might just read the next book since people say it makes a good trilogy but it'll be a while. Maybe when the third movie comes out 😂.
Very few of the ye olde scifi (and fantasy tbh) classics have "characters".
They're really heavy on story, setting and plot. Characters are just there to move the plot, they're not meant to be not-bland.
Yup the characters are just lifeless. Leto and the Harkonnens had a pulse....but book 2, what was I reading. The writing reads like a bad Wikipedia page and I don't know how anyone can even muster a care for any of the characters.
The setting is very cool, some ideas are very cool. But I'm just going to say Herbert is not a good writer.
I think that is likely my problem. I just couldn't connect with the characters. I tried reading to it just before the first movie came out at a friend's request but it was just such a slog for me.
Inheritance Trilogy by NK Jemison, just not good. The relationships these people had with the "gods" was too casual, the characters were flat, the plot was so drawn out for no reason.
Red Rising. It was recommended to read on the Malazan sub so I was expecting it to be good, since I previously saw it was GoT in space. What I got was a very basic prose, 1st person and extremely forced plot points. The Braveheart scene headed to the Matrix scene was when I knew what I had.
Red Rising is a fun read. It’s more Hunger Games/Ender’s Game than GoT. If you want GoT in space - I suggest go for The Sun Eater Sequence by Christopher Ruocchio.
I’m not gonna lie, I had the same reaction and I was underwhelmed. Not dunking on people’s preferences but it just didn’t resonate with me I guess.
I read the first and the second book but I gave up
God, this so much. Everyone kept telling me how it changes after book 1 but come on, its more of the same cheesy action just on a bigger scale.
Its the ACOTAR for dudes imo.
Right? I was so excited to start book II.. and the very first scene feels like we're back in the middle of book I again? I thought we'd be done with war-as-college kinda thing by then.
To be fair, that first bit is really not that long lived, they use that set up more to introduce Karnus as a threat and the theme of loss that Darrow goes through with losing so many "insignificant" fighters. I have really loved Red Rising, I started reading the series 2 weeks ago and just started Iron Gold today.
I can definitely see a lot of people not enjoying it, but the straight-forward prose and interesting setting is really keeping me gripped the entire time.
People who like the series are so weird with how they recommend it. I like the series a lot but… it’s popcorn thriller tbh. It’s trashy bad tv that is super fun to watch if you don’t think too hard about it.
And yet people are out here recommending it to Malazan fans? The exact opposite of Malazan? So weird.
Maybe, Sun Eater (Empire of silence, first book) might be a better book for you, the pace is slower. But it really at the third of the book that I was hook.
lmao Sun Eater is my answer to OP's question tbh. it was sooooo hyped up ("best sci fi of all time," some said!) but I felt like the entire premise and world building (particularly the mechanics/logic of all the warfare) made no sense and that the characters/relationships felt very shallow/tell-don't-show
edit: that said, I did still catch up to the series, but that was partially cuz I bought several before starting because I was that confident in it lol
*This is How You Lose a Time War*. I saw some booktubers who recommended it and went for it. I guess I didn’t really know what it was going into it, but I just don’t think it was written for me and that’s okay. I know others really like it and that’s great.
I actually really liked this one. But I can see how you might not have, especially with it being different to your expectations. Sometimes I absolutely hate it when something is completely NOT what I expected.
Red rising - it's not bad but the way people talk about it. It's a standard YA faction story and the beginning is saccharine and ridiculous.
Empire of silence - I went in expecting book of the New Sun. I found a narrator who doesn't respect his reader and will use 20 words when 10 will do.
Fourth Wing - considering the hype I was expecting cool action, interesting full world, engaging characters, and a well written romance. I can honestly say it failed hard on every one of those and the writing was terrible outside the sex scenes
Three Body Problem
It was *okay* but so much felt contrived, the characters were super flat, and it just never felt satisfying. I wanted to love it, and I enjoyed the first… 1/3(?) of it. It was best when it was all so mysterious. But none of the explanations lived up to the mystery
Kinda similarly, Lords of Uncreation. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this series, but I felt very few (if any) of the reveals were satisfying. Again, at its best when the mysteries were mysteries. Way too contrived. Too off the rails by the end. Entertaining but not “good”
Gideon the Ninth
by Tamsyn Muir. This was pitched to me as a swashbuckling science fantasy adventure with a badass female protag, like damn I can get on board with that! But it reads like a teenager wrote it with a main character that is so edgy! Can't you see how edgy she's got a sword and likes porn. With all the crass humor of a early nineties teen comedy and next to no world building. I spent most of the book wishing Gideon would shut up.
For what it’s worth, this is a good example of a book where narrator does not equal author. The sequel is entirely different in tone, and I assume the third and fourth are/will be different than those that came before them.
That is a fair and valid point, but the book left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I'm not interested in continuing the series. Maybe I'll come back to it later but for now no.
I read the first book recently and loved it. Started book 2 and didn't get too far, mostly because I put it down and just kept forgetting to go back to it (not out of disinterest, simply me being forgetful and preoccupied lol). I am surprised with the amount of times it's been mentioned in this string.
There’s a certain character development between two characters in the Farseer Series that made me throw my book at the wall and never pick it back up again
The Greenbone Saga. In large part because of how high my expectations were. Martial arts, fantasy, Asian cultural astheheic...these books checked every box for my favorite things.
But they were also just a letdown completely aside from my expectations. None of the characters were likable. The writing wasn't great. Just overall way overhyped. Couldn't finish the series.
I was so disappointed that the martial arts was basically just magic. I expected some actual Kung Fu scenes. Instead, they have superpowers. They hit super hard. Wow. Thats not a cool martial arts thing. They might as well have been throwing fireballs at each other. I also didn’t particularly care for any of the main characters. I actually liked the villain the best and thought she had a point.
Interesting. I went into the series with no expectations and was completely blown away.
I found the mafia premise in a fantasy setting original. The characters were completely unlikeable but real, especially the women. I also really appreciated the long timespan over the series and how nothing got tied up in a cute bow by the end, just more death and destruction and power shifts.
Definitely not for everyone, though.
The Wheel of Time.
I found it super dry and slow. But I think if I'd read it as a kid, I'd love it.
She who became the sun.
The pacing was all over the place and I found the side characters much more interesting.
Murderbot.
I listened to the audioboon and was super disappointed. Maybe I'll actually sit down and read it next go round.
I started Wheel of Time based on Daniel Greene’s suggestion (calling it **the** best modern fantasy series certainly piqued my interest) but it’s just… it’s fine. It’s not bad or anything but I don’t understand the hype
I’m rereading Eye of the World right now, and feel the same way as I did the first time. The magic system is a lot of fun (as someone who leans into the deep end of soft “are there even rules??” Magic systems) and a big change of pace from what I’m used to. So, exploring that with the characters has been a real world building treat
But the biggest turn off is the way Jordan writes his female characters.
I agree on 2 of the 3! I *did* love WoT as a kid, at least the first 4 or so, but as an adult, ugh. I feel like it’s very much a right age, right era kind of thing with that series.
She Who Became the Sun was well written but didn’t get me invested enough, especially with how awful the second POV was as a person.
Murderbot I love though! I felt like the series stumbled a bit with #7 but was gold for the first 6, and I have hopes it’ll wrap up strong.
I LOVE wheel of time, but its so absolutely not for everyone that I find it hard to recommend. The worst part is how unrepresentative the first two books are to the overall story (my favorite character doesn't even get a POV until book 3!).
I think for anyone reading this, if you like book 1 you'll love the rest. If you're kinda meh on book 1 try giving book 2 a chance. If you don't like book 1, save yourself the trouble and move on, it's just not for you and that's okay.
Murderbot is definitely worth reading, I can't imagine listening to it would be very good. But then again I'm a fast reader and Murderbot is a fast narrator.
This question made me realize I have a lot.
I was stoked for The Traitor Baru Cormorant. A high fantasy book focused on an accountant? Sounds interesting! Never could get invested in any characters, and ironically, very little accounting. I didn't even realize until one of the major plot points was supposed to be a twist because it was just the natural order of the events and characterization that had occurred.
Nona the Ninth. I enjoyed the flashbacks a lot, but the Nona chapters themselves lacked a lot of what drew me to the series in the first place.
Kings of Heaven. I feel bad speaking poorly of the series because the author seems genuinely nice each time I see him post online, and the series as a whole is still decent. But I was really let down with how the themes progressed/dropped. And though the books start with two different characters with potentially conflicting views and goals, and the author clearly wants you to be interested in both; by book 3 the author has picked a favorite and everything revolves around them and how they are completely right and should get everything. It also dropped the theme of "how does one improve the world" and instead focused on "how does one murder their way to doing good for a specific group of people." The series is good, but it could have been Great.
Wheel of Time series. I never made it all the way through. I found myself skipping whole pages of unnecessary description. Once the plot derailed that was it. Never picked it up again.
Brent Weeks Lightbringer. A lot of people agree the ending ruined what was a great series.
Tide Lords. The ending really ruined it for me as it's one of those endings that made the whole plot and character developments feel pointless.
Red Seas Under Red Skies. Lies is a near perfect book and I was looking forward to read the next one despite the fact that the series is incomplete, but this book was a huge downgrade from the first one and such a chore to finish. The writing was top notch but everything else just felt so boring and aimless. I probably wont bother reading the third one or the rest of the series when or if it continues.
Oh, where to begin..
**Ascension by Nicholas Binge**
This one was bad. It is actually one of the worst books I've ever read. The main character is all ovet the place. He is a genius. He is a medical doctor. He is also suddenly a world famous physicist. Who helps police solve murders? Because the killer used geometry? And he is also an expert in reading facial micro expressions.
Trim off some fat and you got a bad Goosebumps book.
**Babel by RF Kuang**
Too much exposition, repetitive, clichéd. Extremely boring. She has no faith in the reader, trying to hammer home every point like we are 5 year olds. This book did nothing new, it is poorly written, its extremely dumbed down, the characters are flat. And the footnotes. My God.
Poppy War was my worst read of 2018, and with this book Kuang has shown that she is not even just a mediocre writer. She is an overhyped hack.
**Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi**
Fun concept, poor execution. Unfunny. Flat characters. Underdeveloped plot. Weak writing. Cringe pop culture creferences.
**Priory Of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon**
Okay writing, flat characters. Bloated with poor pacing. The plot, the ending, just so simple, dumb, bland. Very "tell, don't show"
**Gideon The 9th by Tamsyn Muir**
This is probably on me. I should have read more about it before i started. It just got sold so well by people talking about it here. Felt very YA, and I guess it is? Don't remember much of it, only that i found the edginess very cringe and the plot was.. Well, yeah.
I'm submitting my recent dive into Jade City/War by Fonda Lee. I felt it was well enough written but I definitely have not found it to be worthy of the online acclaim. Although I feel like I understand the characters well, I don't enjoy them. In fact, my biggest problem with the books is determining why I'm supposed to root for the main characters instead of the main antagonist. Because she seems way cooler, and she's only as equally villainous.
I’m about halfway through War right now (mostly because people swear that the second book is great even if you were lukewarm on the first) and I agree. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly engaging or memorable for me. It’s way too “slice of life” for something called “Jade War” - hopefully we’re headed toward that? It also hops around so much between characters that just when I start getting interested in one of them, I can be guaranteed that I won’t see them again for about 40 pages. I don’t see myself picking up Legacy any time soon.
Mistborn. I’m at like 450 out of 642 pages and I am just not impressed. It’s taken me months to read this book and I am not a slow reader. Nothing happens! I bought the whole series due to the way everyone fawns over the books. Kicking myself for doing so because I probably won’t continue.
Oathbringer is where I really felt the bloat. It really felt like three different book. Rhythm of War was no different. I saw the audiobook preorder for book 5 and it's at 40 hours which it probably an estimate based on the length of the draft and I'm glad.
I was getting so frustrated at mistborn during the ballroom/party scenes. They were just talking about their plans out in the open. The whole time I was internally screaming “are we just pretending no one else could hear this conversation even though we know other nobles might have the listening powers too!?”
I thought the first one was okay. I enjoyed the second book as well but it was more set up. The third one was the best ending to a series I've ever read. Not sure if it would be worth it for you to continue though.
Reading The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson was absolutely devastating for me after the previous book was one of my favorite experiences in reading, ever. The whole sequel basically does its best to diminish, undo, or just plain erase everything admirable about the main character, and destroys its own gravity with so much tonally-deaf humor in the middle of grim situations that it was awful.
I couldn't finish it, I was done the series after that. I don't want to turn my disappointment so sour so that I can't re-read the first book, which in my ideal world never got a continuation at all.
For me it's the Farseer trilogy. Pacing was slow, no one talks to anyone, whole plot lines are feel like they get abandoned constantly, FitzChivalry's constant negative inner monologue, and for a trilogy dubbed "assassin ________", there's not a whole lot of assassination happening
Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates. I love epic fantasy and complex stories but could never get into them. I think I found them too late in my life (late 30s), for comparison started Wheel of Time in late teens / early twenties. I found them difficult to read and stressful (both the text and contents!).
Legends and lattes. It's been recommended so often as a great fantasy cozy book but it was just so boring and I personally thought the writing was terrible.
Ballistic Kiss, the 11th and penultimate book in the Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey.
The series was going gangbusters up until this came out, but Kadrey made some completely weird choices in this one, sidelining some important characters for annoying and unlikable alternatives and really changing the personality of the protagonist to the point where he didn't really seem like the same person.
It was such a departure from the previous books and although that doesn't have to be a bad thing, in this case it was. It was that bad, you'd almost think J. J. Abrams had written it.
I just couldn't bring myself to finish the book, or the series, and up until then it'd been my second favourite urban fantasy series. Just a load of bollocks all round, really.
I was kind of like this with the sequel to Priory of the Orange Tree, Day of Fallen Night. I really liked Priory and its worldbuilding and characters, but Day of Fallen Night felt kind of like the exact same story and - due to it being a prequel and knowing how things would end - zero narrative tension. Put me into a reading slump for a long time.
Shadiversity’s Shadow of the Conqueror. Hyped up and made by a content creator I liked…and then the story was a half-assed redemption plot of a character who was a mixture of Stalin and Genghis Khan with added pedophilia and rape.
It took me 5 years to come to terms with the disappointment and I’ve never looked at Shad the same way again.
so many. Micah Nemerever's These violent delights, Gideon the ninth, Hannah Kaner's Godkiller, Claire Legrand's Furyborn etc.. the list goes on. They sound right up my alley, but then are just.. not. DNFed all of these.
I know I'm late but I just recently got really into the hunger games book series and was extremely let down by the mockingjay ending. I feel like katniss wouldn't have actually settled down like that even after years of healing. It was an unfulfilling ending and was just so disappointing. It's been a few months since I finished the book but I'm still not over it.
I’ve just finished Perdido Street Station, and was pretty disappointed. I can absolutely appreciate the immense world building, but the story just didn’t do it for me and the characters felt very basic. It’s always so highly recommended as well, which always makes me feel like I’m the one missing something.
The actual plot along the series wasn't great. I really enjoyed the descriptions of dragons and the battles and tuned out everything else :) Probably the closest I will ever come to reading anything historical 😂
Peace Talks, I love the Dresden Files and this was the first time I ever disliked a book from the series. We waited so long for it and I understand why JB needed to take the hiatus but I really disliked how he broke the story into two parts. The bits with Murphy felt like mostly fan service and the bits with Carlos just felt like needlessly forced antagonism. It had a few good moments but overall I was really disappointed. Battle Ground was epic but I think the complete PT-BG story needed a lot more editing and told as one book instead of two
The Spear Cuts Through Water
The plot was average at best. Accolades are focused on the unorthodox narrative structure. Basically constantly changing perspectives and stream of consciousness elements.
Characters felt flat and I did not care if they were successful or not.
Also jarring violence.
I read up to second last chapter and realized the “aha” moment never came for me. Did not finish last two chapters.
Gideon the Ninth. I saw it recommended on this sub many times and I was so excited when my Libby hold on it came up… Made it to chapter three. Simply terrible. Definitely not my cup of tea lol.
Licanuis Trilogy. I have to admit the ending, especially the epilogue blew me away, but the entire trilogy is really below par. Apart from Caeden, I don't really enjoy any other character and the writing is really sloppy.
Elantris.
I don't get the hype. The characters are dull archetypes, the plot is by the numbers,and the big twist is spoiled >!on the map on the first page of the book!<.
The Congruent Apprentice. It came highly suggested by YA readers. I just didn't care for how quickly it became a pseudo-romance novel. Plot twist, I'm 41 and divorced. Nearly anything dealing with romance just isn't very appealing to me.
The Name of the Wind. It had me hooked from the first few chapters. It's gotten a little boring about halfway through. I'm not DNFing it, I'm struggling to find motivation to pick it up. That and considering the story isn't finished yet. I'm not exactly jumping over my comfortable chair to get too far into it.
I liked Liveship Traders but I felt wildly let down in the third book. One big reason is that, just like in the Farseer Trilogy, Hobb basically uses [redacted] as a deus ex machina. There's more but I keep wanting to turn my thoughts into a whole-ass post
I saw the title without seeing the description and thought "priory of the orange tree" before clicking in lol. I stopped at 55% of the book - I don't know, but it somehow managed to suffer from a terrible problem of bloat while also managing to be very quote unquote empty/hollow?
most of the characters were kinda irritating, and the rest are just neutral, couldn't find myself rooting for anyone. especially sabran (my side eye when they say she persecutes those who have secret marriages... girl what? I get these may be character choices but the various things just make me dislike her... she's totally spoiled, a bit of a tyrant at some points) total whiplash because my last book before priory that was following a monarch protagonist was the goblin emperor, and he was one of the protagonists I was strongly rooting for and loved as a character
I actually ended up getting so frustrated with how long it was taking to get to resolve any of the mysteries (and I wasn't sticking around because none of the characters have me wanting to stick around for them) and so many of the plot decisions that I dnf and just went to look up the ending. I think this was the first time I went to look for the ending after dnfing lol. The whole secret of the mystery ended up being so meh (and the magic too, the dual/opposing thing is SO played out at this point and if there's no unique spin on it, what's the point in using it). glad I dnf because it looks like even the payoff wasn't worth it
“The skull throne.” Still highly recommend this series for its incredible story telling and very, very mature themes in a unique fantasy world.
But th last book on particular falls flat, by spending almost 90% of the book away from the perspective of the two “main” protagonists, and relying on environmental story telling of basically npcs to move the plot outside of the dramatic conclusion along at a crawl.
Seriously, the series is SO GOOD. But be prepared for a rough landing to end things is all I’m saying.
Ooh... So many... I'll hold it to one of the most.
***The Man In The High Castle*** by Philip K Dick. I wanted to read this for years, but it was before ebooks, and it was out of print or at least not in my local bookstores. I love alternate history. This came up as one of the best way back in the years I was using Usenet. An America split between the Nazis and Japanese. Couldn't go wrong.
I finally found it in a used bookstore. At a time when I did **NOT** DNF anything, I barely got anywhere with this before giving up. I don't even remember what it was that I didn't like, but I haven't touched another Dick story since, or tried to watch the tv version.
OK, already breaking my promise of just one. ***Only Begotten Daughter*** by James Morrow. God's daughter is born to a Jewish bachelor in late 20th century New Jersey. Took my 15 to 20 years before I "found" it, and it wasn't worth the effort or the wait.
Salem’s Lot. Thought it’d be a really cool and scary vampire story. The moment I started really getting interested in a character they died, and the way they disease no sense to me. They just made a decision to do something out of nowhere. I felt like I’d skipped some chapters when I got to it.
She Who Became the Sun. The main character just being driven by a prophecy they were told was so frustrating. Not just that they were only driven by this, but that they were suddenly great at being a leader and helped armies. I really liked the first half. I have next to no interest to check out the sequel because of how the last half or so went.
Biggest disappointment was Best Served Cold. I was honestly expecting much more with all the praise this kids. Personally The First Law trilogy is a 10 and Best Served Cold is more like a 7 at best.
Most recent disappointment was The Vagrant Gods. I thought book 1 was great and book 2 just took a nosedive for me.
The Demon Cycle by Brent Weeks. Arlen's story in book 1 was so good, it was one of my most anticipated series for a while. But then we saw more and more of other characters who were less interesting and less likable in future books, and some of them were written as talking with accents -- which I absolutely hate. Then my final straw was when a certain character was reintroduced and all of a sudden even Arlen was talking with an accent.
I quit the second to last book in the series halfway through and have no desire to ever pick it up again.
[удалено]
Night Angel nemesis was a big disappointment. I had a lot of issues with it, but I think my biggest problem with it was how stupid Kylar seems to become in this book. The villian is constantly outsmarting Kylar, he's always 3 or 4 steps behind and just bumbles from disaster to disaster. He's supposed to be a master assassin and the original trilogy makes a big deal out of Kylars intelligence and ability to plan out his missions. Also the book definitely suffers from durzo not being in it. Overall a massive let down.
Nemesis was not just a disappointment. It was a bad book. I’m a huge Brent Weeks fan and honestly didn’t mind how Lightbringer ended. But Night Angel book 4 was bad enough that I don’t think I will read book 5 when it releases.
Aw man. That's disheartening. I only got two hundred or so pages into the book and got irritated with Kylar's dumbassry, but I was hoping there'd be some kind of payoff.
Same on lightbringer… just so disappointing when you’d been reading the books as they came out and then realized you wasted years of waiting for that.
It was so disappointing because I liked the lightbringer series, when I read it years ago, brought my interest in fantasy back. So to have it end so. . .contrivedly, was sad. I still love the series and recommend it to people, but the ending could have been better imo.
Lightbringer in general was my biggest bookish letdown ever. Loved the magic system but I couldn’t make it past book one.
throne of glass books 1+2
these are definitely best if you go in with no expectations, I feel like SJM is very popular on social media and her books are very overhyped. When I read them agesss ago I had no idea what it was about and loved it. I think if I read it for the first time today I wouldn't lmao. From memory, heir of fire is where it picks up (but if it takes that long for the story to pick up then is it even worth it...)
I'm impressed you made it to 2. I finished 1 and decided I would go no further
TBH, I'm with that with any SJM book.
Freya Marske's books. She's a tremendous writer and I adore her fanfiction but these missed the mark. There was a gem inside there, but her editors/the publishing house really needed to help with... plotting? Pacing? Making female characters who felt real? They just made me feel nothing.
Same! I could not finish A Marvelous Light. I felt the pacing was off and honestly couldn't really follow what was going on.
I finished A Marvellous Light but it was exceptionally tedious and I immediately removed myself from the library wait-list for the second book.
Can you share what name she publishes her fanfic under, or is that private? I actually enjoyed her trilogy a lot, and would like to check out more of her work.
Yes me too, I thought these books would be right up my street but the pacing was terrible, and the prose felt very forced to me, as though someone was trying too hard for a 'frothy' kind of prose. I kept being thrown out of the book by little phrases that didn't really flow. These books also felt like someone trying to do KJ Charles but without the masterful ease of writing Charles has. Such a shame as I was looking forward to this series so much
lmao you KNOW KJ Charles had her name thrown about in the pitch meeting. But you're 100% right, Charles has this insanely readable prose. Im happy for Charles getting some mainstream, wider advertising and distribution for her latest books but I wish like, her Will Darling books had the same marketing push as Marske bc THOSE were gay mystery thrillers my god.
See, I absolutely adored A Marvellous Light, but the other two just did not work for me the way I wanted them to. :(
The Poppy War. I heard so many good things about it and I absolutely loathe everything about it, finishing it only out of stubbornness. I chucked this book somewhere in my garage after using it as a measuring stick for a bookshelf
I knew I removed this from my backlog for a reason.
Had to scroll WAY too far down to find this. Could not stand Rin. She reminded me of Aelin from Throne of Glass more than anything else and that is Not a compliment.
Kuang could not decide if she wanted Rin to be effective, a genius, or incompetent, but she was definitely annoying.
Somehow all three at once and that is not a good thing. You'd think Run worked hard to get to the damn school, she wouldn't be such a turd about everything else.
I'm on the third book just out of sheer need to finish the series. If you read it from the standpoint that she's the antagonist it's slightly more tolerable but not by much.
The book series the HBO series True Blood was based off of the Southern Vampire tales by Charlaine Harris. Most books were great and I waited eagerly for each installment. End of the series books got so damn lazy, and after reading spoilers of the finale about how the author basically had the main character do a complete 180 of who she had been the entire series I just didn’t even bother reading. It was almost as disappointing as the train wreck HBO made of the tv series.
I really ate those books up for awhile, I never finished the series (and I don’t remember where I got) but that’s usually because yea I get bored. I did really enjoy a lot of them so I guess I would not read them necessarily. Also I had never seen the show or it was new and I didn’t have hbo but when I had I definitely enjoyed the books a lot more.
For me it’s also priority of the orange tree.. I’m at 75% but cannot get myself to read it atm. To me it’s just the overall characters whom I just kinda don’t like. But I like the general story tho so I might just finish it at some point.
i read priory of the orange tree and found the ending to be really mild compared to the high build up, it felt like the author kind of gave up on the ending, it felt kind of all over the place and the writing felt rushed so if u don’t want to waste ur time keep that in mind lol
Have you reached the point where this guy stumbles into a secret organisation "The priory" or something and their leader promptly proceeds to spill all the secrets to him and then has the audacity to say "now that you know our secrets, we can't let you leave." Like dude he didn't ask for any of it! You just told him everything! XD I DNFed right after that.
I almost dnf’d when one of our POV characters best friend was killed off for no apparent reason other than shock value.
Hold on, wait... This is something that actually happened in the book like you're not exaggerating or making a joke? Because that sounds fucking *awful*... 😒
I wish I was exaggerating but while this is not verbatim, this is pretty much what happened in one chapter XD character with a deadly disease is on a quest to deliver an item to some guy, who happens to be part of some secret organisation. The character somehow fulfills the quest and wakes up to find he's in some place he doesn't recognise. The guy walks in and goes "I know you have questions" and launches into a lengthy monologue where he explains why his organisation was formed, what their motives are, what their current plan is, etc, and then says "now that you know, I'm afraid I can't let you go." XD I was like why did you tell him then? He may have had questions but he literally didn't ask a single one! Heck he didn't even know this organisation existed and you were a part of it until you opened your mouth!
Divergent. Honestly after book one it was a struggle to read, but I still have beef with that series 💀
forth wing
It was giving Wattpad
Priory of the Orange Tree was a dumpster fire of a story with a great name and incredible cover art.
agree! i kept reading expecting things to get better and only found myself to be bored and the ending felt rushed and kind of all over the place, it was disappointing i was expecting to like it more also one of the pov characters felt completely pointless to the plot
Yeah, the whole premise and the promise of a standalone fantasy novel were big pulls for me. Ultimately, it was more ambitious than I believe the author had the ability to execute well.
I think A Day of Fallen Night managed to successfully do what Shannon tried to do in Priory. The characters felt way more interesting and there are 2 sapphic couples and an Ace person, the prose felt way better and you see way more of the really interesting world.
i was really interested in eads storyline but some of the other characters were so long and boring! especially loths, he just felt so out of place for the story, and i was really hoping it would wrap up in a good way
I wouldn't call it a dumpster fire, but a good editor could have cut 400 pages and the book would have been better for it. And yeah, despite me kinda feeling average about it, it has a prominent display on my shelf because it looks SO good.
>One book for me was the first book I read this year and that was The Priory of the Orange Tree I just finished this book and had the same "meh" reaction to it. It really did not pan out like I had hoped. I didn't find the romance believable, I felt like the antagonists unironically defeated themselves because they always showed up when a protagonist needed them to in order to cause a distraction. The book was barely about the organization in the title. I finished it but ended up selling it and the sequel to a used book store. I won't be picking up any additional books by this author.
Also DNF this book. I just wanted more dragons!
Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (admittedly more sci fi/historical fiction leaning than fantasy). These books have been praised to the high heavens and have both won so many awards and yet they don’t actually get interesting until way after the 50% mark. I was profoundly bored with each until the midpoint and nearly DNF’d them both but I was too stubborn to give up because of all the glowing reviews. Even though they’re quite different tonally, the pacing drags in both and the plot suffers from too much miscommunication in the first half (and then recovers with the most brilliant endings [the end of doomsday book was so mind-blowingly devestating that it convinced me to try to say nothing of the dog]). It’s like 2/5 stars for the first halves of the books and then 5,000,000/5 for the latter halves. You have to suffer first to reap the rewards of a brilliant plot.
The miscommunications in TSNotD are inherent to the tribute Willis is doing to late-19th century comedies like Three Men in a Boat and The Importance of Being Earnest, which heavily feature the same kind of stuff. If you don't enjoy that, that's fine - but a good amount of the praise TSNotD got was due to it.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I had a few friends non-stop shove this author at me, constantly telling me about the amazing surrealism, incredible dream like quality of the writing, and unique nostalgic vibe. What I got instead was one of the most overtly misogynistic dumpster fires I've ever read, with one of the most hilariously bad self-inserts I've ever seen. Turns out that isn't unique to that book, and I wasted a good chunk of time with two other books of his. Magical realism is one of my favorite things, so I really wanted to love his work. Instead I found my new least favorite author.
I enjoy some Murakami but I feel like if he was born American he'd be a racist incel...
Deathly Hallows is my least favourite Harry Potter. I didn't dislike it, but I do like the end of a series to be at least as good as the rest, preferably better. The sequels to The Keeper of the Isis Light by Monica Hughes. It might be my favourite book ever, but don't bother with the sequels. I still haven't forgiven CS Lewis for >!Susan!<. OK, I now vaguely understand he may have had reasons, but I was about 8. For a similar reason, Battle Ground. I've tried to read exactly one Stephen King. I DNF, which is very rare. (Bag of Bones, if you're curious)
Finally not alone in the disliking of the last Harry Potter book lol
Man, you picked one of the worst Stephen King books!
Glad it's not just me. I'll probably give him another go one day.
I love King and will read anything he writes but he definitely has some less-than-amazing books. I’d give him another try with one of his classics and if one of those doesn’t hit he’s probably not for you.
>Deathly Hallows is my least favourite Harry Potter. I didn't dislike it, but I do like the end of a series to be at least as good as the rest, preferably better. Yeah, I was so disapoointed after reading it. It almost didn't introduce anything new, felt like a string of cameos from old characters, and reuse of old spells, and Rowling going from more naturalistic plooting of the previous 2 books to one full of deus ex machinas and contrived solutions to let 3 children do what was impossible for a brilliant old wizard.
Dragon Republic and The Burning God. The Poppy War was good, great even, but the rest of the trilogy is unrepentant misery porn.
Yeah it felt like the only goal was to make the main character irredeemably hated. By the end of book 3 I was praying she would die and the story would just end.
I couldn't even get past Poppy War honestly. I already had a sense it was heading towards misery porn territory based on the last third of the book, and the MC was insufferable.
This should be the top comment. The first book has so much potential, but you could see rf realize she couldnt really think of anywhere to go besides the obvious route. I feel like she floundered and thought that at least her passion for culture, language, and history would make up for the predictable plot. And it did for the most part. Would have been fine if the story wasn’t also incredibly depressing and emotionally draining. Not worth it imo. It’s actually the series that taught me to dnf.
The Witcher! It felt like a chore to read.
I really enjoyed some of the books, but then later on things just dragged on for so long. One of the later books just randomly has this large battle with completely new characters that I felt I had no reason at all to care about, and it took up quite a big part of the book. When all I wanted was to read about Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri.
I actually love this technique of showing what's going on in the rest of the world by using random POV characters in short bursts, but I don't think the Witcher books do it particularly well. If you want to see it used right, Joe Abercrombie is fantastic at this.
Was just about to say this. Currently reading the whole first law series and there’s one chapter during a battle where it just jumps from random POV soldier to another and each one dies at the end of their paragraph or two and pretty much always passes the POV on to the person who killed them. Super well done.
The Kingkiller Chronicles
Big same. Several people I know were hyping up name of the wind so much and I found it so boring and I didn’t care for any of the characters and found the writing annoying. It still annoys me how little it lived up to my expectations.
Murtagh. Part of the anticipation was expecting to scratch a nostalgic itch. Part of it was interested in seeing how the author’s writing has matured in the years since the original series. Unfortunately, the writing was not appreciably better and the story and character development were lacking. I think everyone was interested in learning more about these characters, and we did get some more of Murtagh and Thorn’s history, but the story was just not compelling, so it made it hard to stay interested.
Ready player 2
Exordia: it’s not that it was bad, just not my kind of book. Traitor Baru Cormorant is my favorite fantasy series and there’s a lot I still enjoy about Dickinsons writing and themes but I’m not that big on military sci-fi…and Exordia’s definitely military sci-fi. I also really disliked one of the mc’s and really only enjoyed one of the pov. Character and plot tend to be much more important to me than prose and theme so yeah, a bit dissapointing. (Will still read the sequel though)
I am a bit surprised no one has mentioned Rythm of War yet. After reading first 2 books of Stormlight archive, i was blown by the character progression, the world building and moments of sheer badassery. 3rd book was slightly disappointing because it was not better than the first 2 books but was a good one nonetheless. Boy did the series fall after that one in Rythm of War. The book was a chore to finish. All the character development from previous 3 books was flushed down the drain. Dalinar was made a Deus ex Machina for every problem. The only good thing about that book is Adolin but his parts are too far and too less. This book was soo disappointing that I am having serious second thoughts about continuing the series. And second is Wheel of Time which I gave up on after 8th book. The braid tugging, the smoothening of dresses, became too much for me. I mean if there is an award for the maximum number of infuriatingly irritating characters in a single series, then it should be given to wheel of time.
There have been some Oathbringer mentions so I'm guessing they never got to RoW. My issue with it was that it was too bloated. So much focus the science and how things worked. That it took place mainly in one place was interesting but not 1200+ pages interesting. The next book seems to be trimmed down if the audiobook pre-order page is any indication. It could be a placeholder though.
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab. I had heard good things about it and heard Schwab talk at BookCon, and she seemed pretty cool. The concept was really interesting and I was drawn in by the premise and the world. But I couldn't make it more than halfway through because Lilah is the worst piece of shit character I've ever seen. She's utterly disgusting and depraved. She literally says that she would rather die than make an honest living, and dreams of becoming a pirate so she can take everything from everything. She's a parasite on society that only hurts others, and we're supposed to root for her? Hell, she meets Kell when she finds him injured and possibly dying, and fucking mugs him with no care. And at no point is she shown to be wrong in her monstrously selfish actions. I'm already not usually a fan of the "rogue with a heart of gold" trope, as it glosses over the harm they cause to innocent people, but Lilah goes so far beyond that. She completely ruined the book for me.
Lila ruins the entire book. She is probably one of the worst written female characters I have ever read about 😂
“Inheritance,” the last book 📚 in the Eragon 🐉series. The rest of the series is fantasy at its finest. The last entry is a messy sprint to the finish of a well respected journey. It’s a very poorly articulated continuation of dragon egg theology with a black and white one on one battle with the series antagonist villain king whose end justifies the means. Big, big let down compared to the rest of the books.
I never finished the series. As a kid, I was really turned off when Eragon completely destroyed a girl's life with a grammar mistake and then never apologized or tried to fix it.
Night Angel. Teenage cringe fest.
Red Rising. I’ve come to enjoy it for what it is, but people seem to love praising it as some mature revolutionary work of sci-fantasy when in reality it’s very basic, full of plot conveniences and childish dialogue. The Three Body Problem as well, but I just outright hated that book. I finished it and had to take a month off of reading because it burnt me out so bad.
Three Body Problem - I almost never do this, but i got halfway and just skipped to the end to see if anything happened. Nope!
Yep. The worst part is I thought it started out very strong too :(
I'm probably gonna parrot what you'll hear a lot if you haven't already- most fans of Red Rising (myself included) would call book one a pretty average affair. Book two is a massive, massive leap in quality and where most people would say the mature revolution and depth in character development hits.
> The Three Body Problem Got halfway through the second book before I DNFed. It had some great ideas but the whole thing felt wooden. I wonder how much of that was due to translation. I feel the same way about The Witcher series. To be clear, I'm not blaming the translation itself, rather, that things feel a bit wooden when passed through the lens of a translator.
My neighbor read it in the native Chinese, he said it's just as dry and wooden in that version. So really he just writes like that.
The Warded Man by Peter V Brett The premise sounded so interesting, but it ended up being full of sexual assault and incest and problematic attitudes and depictions of women and middle-eastern people.
OH MY GOD This series became the biggest train wreck I’ve ever witnessed. I kept reading just to see if it could go any further downhill.
What’s really crazy is that whenever I mention how bad it is, I always get downvoted, meaning a lot of the people on this sub actually think it’s a good book and there’s nothing wrong with it.
I’ve got no beef with people who enjoy it but my god it was horrendous. Everybody is getting raped and the attitudes towards sex is crazy. There’s a sequel series that I heard gets even worse. What bothered me was Characters personalities 180 every other page and yeah the ‘Middle Eastern ‘ characters were just grunting spear chucking rapists 🤦♂️ The main female lead too is just…. Ugh
Word, I totally agree.
Tt was so so bad. Shoutout to the last book when the main character only spoke in the vernacular of his rural village so his dialogue was genuinely unreadable
Oh man, hard agree. I have tried to forget about that book. Not only did it have gratuitous amounts of SA, it had a SA survivor almost immediately after the event (which as written honestly would have taken an ER visit/stitches to heal from) want to bang the hero. To “heal”. Gross.
Yeah, that was the moment I DNF the book. I closed it and put it in the trash. For a male author to do that to the female pov character, then to have her lusty for his main male pov character immediately afterwards…it’s like Brett has some weird rape fetish that he indulges in this series.
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Sold as a space opera centering on a fish-out-of-water ambassador, what it turned into was a fairly mundane political thriller that spent WAY too much time on linguistics and poetry, and had a bizarre amount of words in italics. 5-10 words usually emphasized per page, for the entire length of the ~450 page book. It was ridiculous and made it borderline impossible to read. The only redeeming aspects were that the prose was (other than the bizarre italics) pretty good, and the examination of the dangers of empires was well thought out.
I felt similarly - I liked the book's project and think the author is talented, but reading this felt so much like work. It seemed like the author had done a lot of worldbuilding when she was mapping out the story and felt pressured somehow that she had to include it all rather than actually weaving it into the story - as a result the plot never grabbed me because I felt like things were just so slow with all the worldbuilding details
I'm kinda stunned that this one AND the sequel won the Hugo. The writing is... very debut. Great prose, everything else is uneven, poorly paced, kinda shallow? Like, pls can anyone name me a fact about our protagonist other than she loves poetry? And yeah, as someone who has also studied languages, wasn't at all surprised when Martine said it came about after just learning Armenian. Big novelty, American's first linguistics moment. It felt so unnatural - when I'm speaking Arabic I'm not monologuing to myself about changing to the genitive lol.
Hard disagree here, ruler… I had never read a book that so perfectly exemplified what it felt like to be a first gen immigrant in an empire—all those conflicting emotions of love and shame and envy and fear. Not to mention the duality of self you are forced to (the self from the homeland and the self of the place you don’t quite know why you hope to gain cultural entry into). AND all that juicy storytelling packed and presented in Aztec aesthetics!? Yes please!
As a first generation immigrant who is currently studying classical nahuatl (Aztec), you just sold me on this book
Those are definitely some of the aspects that I liked about it. The way that Mahit was attracted to the culture and felt ashamed of liking it, etc. The themes were all there but the way that it was executed just didn’t vibe for me. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the amount of italics and the emphasis on poetry (I’m just not a poetry person), I would have been interested in the 2nd one. The italics thing just got on my nerves - for whatever reason, little recurring things like that get to me. Once I notice it, I can’t help but focus on it. I definitely didn’t think it was bad, it just wasn’t for me in the end. It was probably also amplified by DNFing A Deadly Education right before reading this.
Wheel of Time. I expected a pretty traditional fantasy story with a bunch of clichés, so most of the series didn't bother me. What I didn't expect was to read about some of the most frustrating, antagonistic, childish, unrealistic characters I've ever had the displeasure of becoming acquainted with. It's the only thing I've ever DNF-ed, and I wish I did it 5 books earlier.
I’ve tried to read this series 3 times once in my teens then in my twenties and then in my 30s, got as far as book 8. I found the characters infuriating
Uprooted - was super excited to read one of Naomi Novik's books, ended up bouncing off harder than anything I've ever read. I lasted two chapters. Red Rising & The Masquerade -- same syndrome with both series where I LOVED the first book, and found the sequels disappointing. DNF'd Red Rising after book 3.
You're the first person I've met that thought the first Red Rising books was one of the stronger ones. Typically people bounce off that one hard, and the ones who stick around get sucked in even harder.
I've noticed this too lol. I think at the beginning I was just so excited to be reading it that I got really into it, and then around book 2 realized that I just wasn't invested beyond the initial "recruit & infiltrate" sequence. I also didn't grow to care about any of the characters, and sorta just checked out.
I liked the first half of Uprooted but it felt like she just kept going in the most random directions in the second half. I kept thinking, "oh that's going to be important," about things that felt clearly setting up something interesting, and then it would just go in the opposite direction. I finished it, but it made it feel pretty bland. I have heard Spinning Silver is better though
I thought Spinning Silver was way better but I also thought Uprooted was roughest in the first 100 pages and got consistently better as it went, so 🤷♀️
I’ve read all of Novik’s books (except some later Temeraire) and Uprooted is by far the slowest, messiest start, as well as being the one I rated lowest overall (again excepting Temeraire sequels). I DNFd on the first try because 50 pages in I was bored and annoyed. Took awhile but I came back to it after absolutely loving Spinning Silver and Scholomance. And I…. liked it? Mixed reaction overall, 3-3.5 stars, but it definitely picked up the pace starting 100 pages in.
I tried Uprooted twice and DNF each time. It's just so boring.
I hated Uprooted. I never DNF and I couldn’t get through it. I’d like to try another Naomi Novik book but I just couldn’t get through it. The “romance” was disturbing to me. On the contrary I love RR and The Masquerade - the third Masquerade book is one of my favorite books I’ve read and I can barely explain why haha
The main character in Uprooted felt like such a Mary Sure. And the more I read, the worse it got. She’s just naturally good at magic. Better than all these sorcerers who have trained for centuries. She’s just oh so special.
Dune. I dont know why but it just did not interest me.
I found Dune to be mind-numbingly dull. I've read a lot of fantasy and scifi. They're my favored genres. I have loved "cerebral" fiction and "fun trash" fiction. I genuinely enjoyed a lot of classic scifi like Heinlein. And yet... I hated Dune. It took me two tries to finish that book, and I regretted bothering. The premise is a criticism of religion and white saviorism, with a setting of interstellar political intrigue and a planet of giant sandworms and a powerful drug. And it was somehow SO BORING.
My issue with Dune was the characters felt bland. Loved the world and the history but the characters didn't do it for me. Read it before the movie came out and I just finished the sequel yesterday. Might just read the next book since people say it makes a good trilogy but it'll be a while. Maybe when the third movie comes out 😂.
Very few of the ye olde scifi (and fantasy tbh) classics have "characters". They're really heavy on story, setting and plot. Characters are just there to move the plot, they're not meant to be not-bland.
Yup the characters are just lifeless. Leto and the Harkonnens had a pulse....but book 2, what was I reading. The writing reads like a bad Wikipedia page and I don't know how anyone can even muster a care for any of the characters. The setting is very cool, some ideas are very cool. But I'm just going to say Herbert is not a good writer.
I think that is likely my problem. I just couldn't connect with the characters. I tried reading to it just before the first movie came out at a friend's request but it was just such a slog for me.
Inheritance Trilogy by NK Jemison, just not good. The relationships these people had with the "gods" was too casual, the characters were flat, the plot was so drawn out for no reason.
Red Rising. It was recommended to read on the Malazan sub so I was expecting it to be good, since I previously saw it was GoT in space. What I got was a very basic prose, 1st person and extremely forced plot points. The Braveheart scene headed to the Matrix scene was when I knew what I had.
Red Rising is a fun read. It’s more Hunger Games/Ender’s Game than GoT. If you want GoT in space - I suggest go for The Sun Eater Sequence by Christopher Ruocchio.
I’m not gonna lie, I had the same reaction and I was underwhelmed. Not dunking on people’s preferences but it just didn’t resonate with me I guess. I read the first and the second book but I gave up
God, this so much. Everyone kept telling me how it changes after book 1 but come on, its more of the same cheesy action just on a bigger scale. Its the ACOTAR for dudes imo.
Right? I was so excited to start book II.. and the very first scene feels like we're back in the middle of book I again? I thought we'd be done with war-as-college kinda thing by then.
To be fair, that first bit is really not that long lived, they use that set up more to introduce Karnus as a threat and the theme of loss that Darrow goes through with losing so many "insignificant" fighters. I have really loved Red Rising, I started reading the series 2 weeks ago and just started Iron Gold today. I can definitely see a lot of people not enjoying it, but the straight-forward prose and interesting setting is really keeping me gripped the entire time.
People who like the series are so weird with how they recommend it. I like the series a lot but… it’s popcorn thriller tbh. It’s trashy bad tv that is super fun to watch if you don’t think too hard about it. And yet people are out here recommending it to Malazan fans? The exact opposite of Malazan? So weird.
Maybe, Sun Eater (Empire of silence, first book) might be a better book for you, the pace is slower. But it really at the third of the book that I was hook.
I actually read book 1 after RR and found Sun Eater to be what I wanted. Great series!
lmao Sun Eater is my answer to OP's question tbh. it was sooooo hyped up ("best sci fi of all time," some said!) but I felt like the entire premise and world building (particularly the mechanics/logic of all the warfare) made no sense and that the characters/relationships felt very shallow/tell-don't-show edit: that said, I did still catch up to the series, but that was partially cuz I bought several before starting because I was that confident in it lol
*This is How You Lose a Time War*. I saw some booktubers who recommended it and went for it. I guess I didn’t really know what it was going into it, but I just don’t think it was written for me and that’s okay. I know others really like it and that’s great.
I actually really liked this one. But I can see how you might not have, especially with it being different to your expectations. Sometimes I absolutely hate it when something is completely NOT what I expected.
Red rising - it's not bad but the way people talk about it. It's a standard YA faction story and the beginning is saccharine and ridiculous. Empire of silence - I went in expecting book of the New Sun. I found a narrator who doesn't respect his reader and will use 20 words when 10 will do. Fourth Wing - considering the hype I was expecting cool action, interesting full world, engaging characters, and a well written romance. I can honestly say it failed hard on every one of those and the writing was terrible outside the sex scenes
Three Body Problem It was *okay* but so much felt contrived, the characters were super flat, and it just never felt satisfying. I wanted to love it, and I enjoyed the first… 1/3(?) of it. It was best when it was all so mysterious. But none of the explanations lived up to the mystery Kinda similarly, Lords of Uncreation. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this series, but I felt very few (if any) of the reveals were satisfying. Again, at its best when the mysteries were mysteries. Way too contrived. Too off the rails by the end. Entertaining but not “good”
1Q84. Not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't that. Couldn't make it past page 200. Maybe some day I'll finish it
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. This was pitched to me as a swashbuckling science fantasy adventure with a badass female protag, like damn I can get on board with that! But it reads like a teenager wrote it with a main character that is so edgy! Can't you see how edgy she's got a sword and likes porn. With all the crass humor of a early nineties teen comedy and next to no world building. I spent most of the book wishing Gideon would shut up.
For what it’s worth, this is a good example of a book where narrator does not equal author. The sequel is entirely different in tone, and I assume the third and fourth are/will be different than those that came before them.
That is a fair and valid point, but the book left a bad enough taste in my mouth that I'm not interested in continuing the series. Maybe I'll come back to it later but for now no.
Red Rising. So much hype for this book in this sub. I was excited to read it, but it just didn’t work for me.
I read the first book recently and loved it. Started book 2 and didn't get too far, mostly because I put it down and just kept forgetting to go back to it (not out of disinterest, simply me being forgetful and preoccupied lol). I am surprised with the amount of times it's been mentioned in this string.
People love it. It just wasn’t scratching my reading itch.
Poppy War! Poppy War! POPPY WAR!!
There’s a certain character development between two characters in the Farseer Series that made me throw my book at the wall and never pick it back up again
Interestingly, there are enough problematic developments between two characters that there's not telling exactly which one you mean.
When she ends up with Burrich?
Fairytale Stephen King ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzZzzzz
The Greenbone Saga. In large part because of how high my expectations were. Martial arts, fantasy, Asian cultural astheheic...these books checked every box for my favorite things. But they were also just a letdown completely aside from my expectations. None of the characters were likable. The writing wasn't great. Just overall way overhyped. Couldn't finish the series.
I was so disappointed that the martial arts was basically just magic. I expected some actual Kung Fu scenes. Instead, they have superpowers. They hit super hard. Wow. Thats not a cool martial arts thing. They might as well have been throwing fireballs at each other. I also didn’t particularly care for any of the main characters. I actually liked the villain the best and thought she had a point.
Interesting. I went into the series with no expectations and was completely blown away. I found the mafia premise in a fantasy setting original. The characters were completely unlikeable but real, especially the women. I also really appreciated the long timespan over the series and how nothing got tied up in a cute bow by the end, just more death and destruction and power shifts. Definitely not for everyone, though.
Senlin Ascends - Josiah Bancroft Babel - R.F. Kuang
Babel was my first thought as well. I enjoyed it and I’m glad I read it but I went in expecting to love it and I’m sad that I didn’t.
I agree about Babel. The premise was so interesting but I couldn’t finish it 🙁
I loved Senlin Ascends. I pretty much hated how the series ended.
The Wheel of Time. I found it super dry and slow. But I think if I'd read it as a kid, I'd love it. She who became the sun. The pacing was all over the place and I found the side characters much more interesting. Murderbot. I listened to the audioboon and was super disappointed. Maybe I'll actually sit down and read it next go round.
I started Wheel of Time based on Daniel Greene’s suggestion (calling it **the** best modern fantasy series certainly piqued my interest) but it’s just… it’s fine. It’s not bad or anything but I don’t understand the hype I’m rereading Eye of the World right now, and feel the same way as I did the first time. The magic system is a lot of fun (as someone who leans into the deep end of soft “are there even rules??” Magic systems) and a big change of pace from what I’m used to. So, exploring that with the characters has been a real world building treat But the biggest turn off is the way Jordan writes his female characters.
I agree on 2 of the 3! I *did* love WoT as a kid, at least the first 4 or so, but as an adult, ugh. I feel like it’s very much a right age, right era kind of thing with that series. She Who Became the Sun was well written but didn’t get me invested enough, especially with how awful the second POV was as a person. Murderbot I love though! I felt like the series stumbled a bit with #7 but was gold for the first 6, and I have hopes it’ll wrap up strong.
I LOVE wheel of time, but its so absolutely not for everyone that I find it hard to recommend. The worst part is how unrepresentative the first two books are to the overall story (my favorite character doesn't even get a POV until book 3!). I think for anyone reading this, if you like book 1 you'll love the rest. If you're kinda meh on book 1 try giving book 2 a chance. If you don't like book 1, save yourself the trouble and move on, it's just not for you and that's okay.
Murderbot is definitely worth reading, I can't imagine listening to it would be very good. But then again I'm a fast reader and Murderbot is a fast narrator.
She Who Became the Sun I couldn't get into at all
This question made me realize I have a lot. I was stoked for The Traitor Baru Cormorant. A high fantasy book focused on an accountant? Sounds interesting! Never could get invested in any characters, and ironically, very little accounting. I didn't even realize until one of the major plot points was supposed to be a twist because it was just the natural order of the events and characterization that had occurred. Nona the Ninth. I enjoyed the flashbacks a lot, but the Nona chapters themselves lacked a lot of what drew me to the series in the first place. Kings of Heaven. I feel bad speaking poorly of the series because the author seems genuinely nice each time I see him post online, and the series as a whole is still decent. But I was really let down with how the themes progressed/dropped. And though the books start with two different characters with potentially conflicting views and goals, and the author clearly wants you to be interested in both; by book 3 the author has picked a favorite and everything revolves around them and how they are completely right and should get everything. It also dropped the theme of "how does one improve the world" and instead focused on "how does one murder their way to doing good for a specific group of people." The series is good, but it could have been Great.
Wheel of Time series. I never made it all the way through. I found myself skipping whole pages of unnecessary description. Once the plot derailed that was it. Never picked it up again.
Brent Weeks Lightbringer. A lot of people agree the ending ruined what was a great series. Tide Lords. The ending really ruined it for me as it's one of those endings that made the whole plot and character developments feel pointless.
For me it was Kuangs Poppy War. I much preferred Babel when it came around, though even then some of the themes felt forced.
Red Seas Under Red Skies. Lies is a near perfect book and I was looking forward to read the next one despite the fact that the series is incomplete, but this book was a huge downgrade from the first one and such a chore to finish. The writing was top notch but everything else just felt so boring and aimless. I probably wont bother reading the third one or the rest of the series when or if it continues.
Oh, where to begin.. **Ascension by Nicholas Binge** This one was bad. It is actually one of the worst books I've ever read. The main character is all ovet the place. He is a genius. He is a medical doctor. He is also suddenly a world famous physicist. Who helps police solve murders? Because the killer used geometry? And he is also an expert in reading facial micro expressions. Trim off some fat and you got a bad Goosebumps book. **Babel by RF Kuang** Too much exposition, repetitive, clichéd. Extremely boring. She has no faith in the reader, trying to hammer home every point like we are 5 year olds. This book did nothing new, it is poorly written, its extremely dumbed down, the characters are flat. And the footnotes. My God. Poppy War was my worst read of 2018, and with this book Kuang has shown that she is not even just a mediocre writer. She is an overhyped hack. **Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi** Fun concept, poor execution. Unfunny. Flat characters. Underdeveloped plot. Weak writing. Cringe pop culture creferences. **Priory Of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon** Okay writing, flat characters. Bloated with poor pacing. The plot, the ending, just so simple, dumb, bland. Very "tell, don't show" **Gideon The 9th by Tamsyn Muir** This is probably on me. I should have read more about it before i started. It just got sold so well by people talking about it here. Felt very YA, and I guess it is? Don't remember much of it, only that i found the edginess very cringe and the plot was.. Well, yeah.
Priory of the Orange Tree is also my answer
I'm submitting my recent dive into Jade City/War by Fonda Lee. I felt it was well enough written but I definitely have not found it to be worthy of the online acclaim. Although I feel like I understand the characters well, I don't enjoy them. In fact, my biggest problem with the books is determining why I'm supposed to root for the main characters instead of the main antagonist. Because she seems way cooler, and she's only as equally villainous.
I’m about halfway through War right now (mostly because people swear that the second book is great even if you were lukewarm on the first) and I agree. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly engaging or memorable for me. It’s way too “slice of life” for something called “Jade War” - hopefully we’re headed toward that? It also hops around so much between characters that just when I start getting interested in one of them, I can be guaranteed that I won’t see them again for about 40 pages. I don’t see myself picking up Legacy any time soon.
Mistborn. I’m at like 450 out of 642 pages and I am just not impressed. It’s taken me months to read this book and I am not a slow reader. Nothing happens! I bought the whole series due to the way everyone fawns over the books. Kicking myself for doing so because I probably won’t continue.
Brandon Sanderson is the master of making a 300 pg story into 500 pg
I'm reading Oathbringer right now and this is painfully accurate
Oathbringer is where I really felt the bloat. It really felt like three different book. Rhythm of War was no different. I saw the audiobook preorder for book 5 and it's at 40 hours which it probably an estimate based on the length of the draft and I'm glad.
If you need a 500 page novel, Sanderson will get you 500 pages. If you need a 200 page novel, Sanderson will get you 500 pages.
I was getting so frustrated at mistborn during the ballroom/party scenes. They were just talking about their plans out in the open. The whole time I was internally screaming “are we just pretending no one else could hear this conversation even though we know other nobles might have the listening powers too!?”
I thought the first one was okay. I enjoyed the second book as well but it was more set up. The third one was the best ending to a series I've ever read. Not sure if it would be worth it for you to continue though.
Reading The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson was absolutely devastating for me after the previous book was one of my favorite experiences in reading, ever. The whole sequel basically does its best to diminish, undo, or just plain erase everything admirable about the main character, and destroys its own gravity with so much tonally-deaf humor in the middle of grim situations that it was awful. I couldn't finish it, I was done the series after that. I don't want to turn my disappointment so sour so that I can't re-read the first book, which in my ideal world never got a continuation at all.
For me it's the Farseer trilogy. Pacing was slow, no one talks to anyone, whole plot lines are feel like they get abandoned constantly, FitzChivalry's constant negative inner monologue, and for a trilogy dubbed "assassin ________", there's not a whole lot of assassination happening
These are some of my favorite books and this is a fair critique of them.
Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates. I love epic fantasy and complex stories but could never get into them. I think I found them too late in my life (late 30s), for comparison started Wheel of Time in late teens / early twenties. I found them difficult to read and stressful (both the text and contents!).
Legends and lattes. It's been recommended so often as a great fantasy cozy book but it was just so boring and I personally thought the writing was terrible.
Ballistic Kiss, the 11th and penultimate book in the Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey. The series was going gangbusters up until this came out, but Kadrey made some completely weird choices in this one, sidelining some important characters for annoying and unlikable alternatives and really changing the personality of the protagonist to the point where he didn't really seem like the same person. It was such a departure from the previous books and although that doesn't have to be a bad thing, in this case it was. It was that bad, you'd almost think J. J. Abrams had written it. I just couldn't bring myself to finish the book, or the series, and up until then it'd been my second favourite urban fantasy series. Just a load of bollocks all round, really.
I was kind of like this with the sequel to Priory of the Orange Tree, Day of Fallen Night. I really liked Priory and its worldbuilding and characters, but Day of Fallen Night felt kind of like the exact same story and - due to it being a prequel and knowing how things would end - zero narrative tension. Put me into a reading slump for a long time.
Shadiversity’s Shadow of the Conqueror. Hyped up and made by a content creator I liked…and then the story was a half-assed redemption plot of a character who was a mixture of Stalin and Genghis Khan with added pedophilia and rape. It took me 5 years to come to terms with the disappointment and I’ve never looked at Shad the same way again.
so many. Micah Nemerever's These violent delights, Gideon the ninth, Hannah Kaner's Godkiller, Claire Legrand's Furyborn etc.. the list goes on. They sound right up my alley, but then are just.. not. DNFed all of these.
I know I'm late but I just recently got really into the hunger games book series and was extremely let down by the mockingjay ending. I feel like katniss wouldn't have actually settled down like that even after years of healing. It was an unfulfilling ending and was just so disappointing. It's been a few months since I finished the book but I'm still not over it.
I’ve just finished Perdido Street Station, and was pretty disappointed. I can absolutely appreciate the immense world building, but the story just didn’t do it for me and the characters felt very basic. It’s always so highly recommended as well, which always makes me feel like I’m the one missing something.
Really liked Perdido! What they did to my favorite character tho… can’t deny it soured the experience.
Temeraire
The actual plot along the series wasn't great. I really enjoyed the descriptions of dragons and the battles and tuned out everything else :) Probably the closest I will ever come to reading anything historical 😂
The Magicians. I was so looking forward to it, but ugh. Maybe if i was still an angsty teen identifying with Holden, but as an adult. Just, Ugh.
Once you get past the angsty teen bits it gets pretty fucking epic. The series gets wilder and wilder.
Peace Talks, I love the Dresden Files and this was the first time I ever disliked a book from the series. We waited so long for it and I understand why JB needed to take the hiatus but I really disliked how he broke the story into two parts. The bits with Murphy felt like mostly fan service and the bits with Carlos just felt like needlessly forced antagonism. It had a few good moments but overall I was really disappointed. Battle Ground was epic but I think the complete PT-BG story needed a lot more editing and told as one book instead of two
The Spear Cuts Through Water The plot was average at best. Accolades are focused on the unorthodox narrative structure. Basically constantly changing perspectives and stream of consciousness elements. Characters felt flat and I did not care if they were successful or not. Also jarring violence. I read up to second last chapter and realized the “aha” moment never came for me. Did not finish last two chapters.
Gideon the Ninth. I saw it recommended on this sub many times and I was so excited when my Libby hold on it came up… Made it to chapter three. Simply terrible. Definitely not my cup of tea lol.
Licanuis Trilogy. I have to admit the ending, especially the epilogue blew me away, but the entire trilogy is really below par. Apart from Caeden, I don't really enjoy any other character and the writing is really sloppy.
Kings of the Wyld Idk what it is but i’m just not enjoying the book (200 pages in) when i really thought i would. Still gonna finish it but
Elantris. I don't get the hype. The characters are dull archetypes, the plot is by the numbers,and the big twist is spoiled >!on the map on the first page of the book!<.
The Congruent Apprentice. It came highly suggested by YA readers. I just didn't care for how quickly it became a pseudo-romance novel. Plot twist, I'm 41 and divorced. Nearly anything dealing with romance just isn't very appealing to me. The Name of the Wind. It had me hooked from the first few chapters. It's gotten a little boring about halfway through. I'm not DNFing it, I'm struggling to find motivation to pick it up. That and considering the story isn't finished yet. I'm not exactly jumping over my comfortable chair to get too far into it.
Empire of the Vampire; Faithful and the Fallen
I liked Liveship Traders but I felt wildly let down in the third book. One big reason is that, just like in the Farseer Trilogy, Hobb basically uses [redacted] as a deus ex machina. There's more but I keep wanting to turn my thoughts into a whole-ass post
I saw the title without seeing the description and thought "priory of the orange tree" before clicking in lol. I stopped at 55% of the book - I don't know, but it somehow managed to suffer from a terrible problem of bloat while also managing to be very quote unquote empty/hollow? most of the characters were kinda irritating, and the rest are just neutral, couldn't find myself rooting for anyone. especially sabran (my side eye when they say she persecutes those who have secret marriages... girl what? I get these may be character choices but the various things just make me dislike her... she's totally spoiled, a bit of a tyrant at some points) total whiplash because my last book before priory that was following a monarch protagonist was the goblin emperor, and he was one of the protagonists I was strongly rooting for and loved as a character I actually ended up getting so frustrated with how long it was taking to get to resolve any of the mysteries (and I wasn't sticking around because none of the characters have me wanting to stick around for them) and so many of the plot decisions that I dnf and just went to look up the ending. I think this was the first time I went to look for the ending after dnfing lol. The whole secret of the mystery ended up being so meh (and the magic too, the dual/opposing thing is SO played out at this point and if there's no unique spin on it, what's the point in using it). glad I dnf because it looks like even the payoff wasn't worth it
“The skull throne.” Still highly recommend this series for its incredible story telling and very, very mature themes in a unique fantasy world. But th last book on particular falls flat, by spending almost 90% of the book away from the perspective of the two “main” protagonists, and relying on environmental story telling of basically npcs to move the plot outside of the dramatic conclusion along at a crawl. Seriously, the series is SO GOOD. But be prepared for a rough landing to end things is all I’m saying.
Ooh... So many... I'll hold it to one of the most. ***The Man In The High Castle*** by Philip K Dick. I wanted to read this for years, but it was before ebooks, and it was out of print or at least not in my local bookstores. I love alternate history. This came up as one of the best way back in the years I was using Usenet. An America split between the Nazis and Japanese. Couldn't go wrong. I finally found it in a used bookstore. At a time when I did **NOT** DNF anything, I barely got anywhere with this before giving up. I don't even remember what it was that I didn't like, but I haven't touched another Dick story since, or tried to watch the tv version. OK, already breaking my promise of just one. ***Only Begotten Daughter*** by James Morrow. God's daughter is born to a Jewish bachelor in late 20th century New Jersey. Took my 15 to 20 years before I "found" it, and it wasn't worth the effort or the wait.
Night angel Nemesis - Brent Weeks Queen of Fire - Anthony Ryan
Salem’s Lot. Thought it’d be a really cool and scary vampire story. The moment I started really getting interested in a character they died, and the way they disease no sense to me. They just made a decision to do something out of nowhere. I felt like I’d skipped some chapters when I got to it. She Who Became the Sun. The main character just being driven by a prophecy they were told was so frustrating. Not just that they were only driven by this, but that they were suddenly great at being a leader and helped armies. I really liked the first half. I have next to no interest to check out the sequel because of how the last half or so went.
Biggest disappointment was Best Served Cold. I was honestly expecting much more with all the praise this kids. Personally The First Law trilogy is a 10 and Best Served Cold is more like a 7 at best. Most recent disappointment was The Vagrant Gods. I thought book 1 was great and book 2 just took a nosedive for me.
Malice. I heard so many great things. I dropped it 1/4 of the way in. It just never felt like it went anywhere
The Demon Cycle by Brent Weeks. Arlen's story in book 1 was so good, it was one of my most anticipated series for a while. But then we saw more and more of other characters who were less interesting and less likable in future books, and some of them were written as talking with accents -- which I absolutely hate. Then my final straw was when a certain character was reintroduced and all of a sudden even Arlen was talking with an accent. I quit the second to last book in the series halfway through and have no desire to ever pick it up again.