i kinda wanna say atomic habits. the concepts it presents are functional but it presents them in an extermly forgettable and uninteresting way.
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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It's probably "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". If you're interested in any personal finance book, there is already nothing to learn.
The bible. Set aside any religious connotations and just look at it as a piece of literature: it's terrible.
Ready Player One
The cringe is massive with that one.
The entire thing is the author wanking himself silly over his knowledge of pop culture references from his childhood. Some of it reads like it was written by a 14 year old who isnβt all that into books.
The bit about the gaming suit that wanks the user off but also means youβre exercising so you get fit from wearing it was honestly one of the cringiest things Iβve ever read. If I thought the author was capable of the level of self reflection required, Iβd have thought writing that part of the book was him acknowledging that the book is literally a work of literary masturbation.
It should have received the same response as The Room; a bad book only made into a cult classic by the people laughing at it.
I enjoyed Ready Player One at the time even though some of it was just ridiculous. Re-enacting Ferris Buellers Day Off for example.
Armada, Cline's next book was awful. So many references on every page, I stopped reading. I remember a line that was something like, "my mum wouldn't let me past, like Gandelf in the mines of Moria." Sheesh! Let it go!
I fully read Ready Player Two but the guy has no story telling abilities. Every time the main character encounters a problem, e.g. I need a level 49 sword to get past this problem, but there's no way to get one, it was always solved with the same solution, "oh, I own the game and all Admins have level 1000 swords because we do!"
I think I reached my limit when he managed to shove in a Shaun of the Dead reference just because he mentioned a cricket bat!
An introduction to organic chemistry
I feel you. Sorry you had to go through that experience.
Mein Kampf. I read it when i was still a succdem, expecting some genius rant that converted people en masse to nazism. Instead it was barely coherent disgusting racist drivel. I guess this book didn't make anyone into nazi, it just given nazis what they would like to read. This and the fact nazi state bought huge amounts of it to distribute, making Hitler richest writer in Germany.
Ayn Rand's fountainhead, by a fat mile. I was young and didn't know better
I listened to Atlas Shrugged as an audio book and it was ok at best. One massive criticism of communism and how it doesn't work but suggested anarchist society as the solution. Weird rape-y sex scene in the middle also. Should have stuck with the social criticism instead of anarco capitalism utopia stuff and it'd have been good.
God, me too. I thought I was too dumb to "get it".
The Great Gatsby.
I've read a lot of books, but that one I literally remember nothing about. Not a quote, not a character, not the plot... All I remember is the cover was some weird abstract art piece with creepy eyes, my brain purged everything else about it book. Probably for my own sanity.
I'm sure I've read worse but one that stands out as making me question the time I put into reading it is Out of the Dark by David Weber. I go into it expecting a military sci fi, and for the vast majority of the book that's what you get - aliens invade Earth and plucky humans resist etc etc. The aliens however have more reserves and air superiority so are slowly winning as the end of the book approaches, at which point you expect the main characters to pull a rabbit out of the hat and do something different. Except that's not what happens.
spoiler
What actually happens is that Count Dracula appears out of (almost) nowhere and flies with a bunch of vampires up to the alien spaceships to kill the aliens, winning the battle for Earth.
I was definitely not satisfied with this ending, even if there was some foreshadowing earlier in the book that made sense after knowing this was a possibility in this universe.
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It's been quite a while since I've read it, so this may not be a fair assessment. But, I fucking hated The Catcher in the Rye. I wasn't even required to read it for school or anything, I just did. Perhaps I just found Holden to be insufferable. I think that was the point, but it did not make it a particularly enjoyable or insightful read at all, save for the overwhelming supertext of DO NOT BE LIKE THIS GUY. The part where he hires a prostitute and just cries in front of her really stuck in my mind. That was when it really sunk in for me that someone read this book and decided that Holden's views were so accurate that he had to go shoot John Lennon with a gun for being phony. Almost unbelievable.
I'm curious at what age you read it. Because I first read it at 15 and thought it was the best book ever. I would even recommend it to people for years.
Then I read it again in my late 20s and had the same reaction you did. I thought he just came off as a whiny little shit. I still feel embarrassed that I recommended that book to people for over 10 years.
I remember telling my wife this after I reread it (she was someone I recommended it to) and she was like, "yeah, I didn't want to say anything at the time, but I hated it."
When I was 13 I thought "You go Holden! Tell off all those phonies!" At 18 I thought "This whiny asshole won't stfu." Then as an adult I realized "Oh, poor kid was dealing with a lot of unaddressed trauma."
Then as an adult I realized "Oh, poor kid was dealing with a lot of unaddressed trauma."
I hadn't thought of that angel before. That's actually a really good way to look it.
It was the end of 9th grade, so I was 15 or 16. I read it immediately after To Kill a Mockingbird, which did not make it look good in comparison π
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War and Peace. Heard so many good things about it. Despite everything, went in not having super high expectations.
The whole book turned out like a reality tv show. All the characters had some petty drama that they blew out of proportion. Hundreds of pages where nothing really happens, people just complain or bad mouth other characters.
I had to stop half way through.
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The third Twilight book ended by dumping everything which was built up to in the previous book out.
50 Shadesβ¦ terrible writing and the sex was boring AF. The books were recommended to me. I couldnβt get through the first one. Time Iβll never get back.
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. I am usually a huge SciFi fan, but I like the genre for it's ability to reflect on humanity by extrapolating on current technologies/trends or comparing our culture to unique alien ones.
Revelation Space was technobabble and descriptions of weapons for pages upon pages, and it was totally devoid of any philosophy or reflection on humanity. I never DNF a book, but this one I almost gave up on.
A fan translation of the Redo of Healer light novel.
If you know you know.
"Meteor" by Dan Brown (could be a different name in the original language). It was the first time I read something that was bad. Up until then book were cool and fun and interesting. It was a puzzling experience.
Edit: it's called "Deception Point" in the original.
The Alchemist, I had to read it for a community college class. It's probably the most predictable book I've ever read, but not in an entertaining way. Just painfully boring.
I read Siddhartha for highschool a couple years before, I would say that the books are almost identical, except I liked Siddhartha more.
You want a book with similar themes but actually amazing? The wizard of Earthsea.
I know the books aren't literally the same. But the vibes feel very similar. I want to say they have very similar structure, but my memory doesn't work that great.
I finished Battlefield Earth.
The thing is, I remember enjoying it. I mean, it wasn't literature, but it was a lot of dumb fun.
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Anything by David Foster Wallace. Smug, preachy stream of consciousness garbage that is then annotated to oblivion by more stream of consciousness smug preachiness.
The Casual Vacancy
I forced myself to finish it at the time, but I hated every single moment. They were all bad people and I had zero sympathy for any of the kids or adults, except for the one girl who died at the end. Obligatory Rowling can jump off a cliff too.
I tried reading two different series from Stephen R. Donaldson, and it seemed to me he was somehow unable to write a book without a horrific rape. I just stopped reading the first book in each case because I felt like they were salacious and hateful.
'How to write with style'
me, clueless thinking its going to be a good resource to help with my fiction writing
Author in the first 50 pages;
So heres why the USSR was evil
bro who asked
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