i kinda wanna say atomic habits. the concepts it presents are functional but it presents them in an extermly forgettable and uninteresting way.
It’s probably “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. If you’re interested in any personal finance book, there is already nothing to learn.
that’s an easy one, Atlas Shrugged
That is, still, to this day, the only book I could not finish.
Got about 2/3rds of the way through it and violently set it down. I love books too much to set it on fire, but I wanted to. It was the worst pile of shit I’ve ever read in my life. Completely divorced from reality.
And she died penniless and depending on the support of the same social services that she demonized in her book to convince people that capitalist leaders are paragons of humanity and the rest of us are just peons.
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 isn’t all that into books.
The bit about the gaming suit that wanks the user off but also means you’re exercising so you get fit from wearing it was honestly one of the cringiest things I’ve ever read. If I thought the author was capable of the level of self reflection required, I’d 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!
Left Behind. I’m probably a huge idiot for not realizing for the entire thing without knowing before hand what the context was, but I read it with the idea that it was some kind of apocalyptic sci-fi, and then only in the very last few pages of the book did it finally hit me in the face that it was religious doomsday bullshit. I do have to compliment it for the storytelling and world setting, but holy shit was I disappointed with the end direction 🤦
You should see the movie. It stars nic cage and he did it as a favor to a friend. It’s fucking awful. funny thing though, my story is identical to yours. Had no idea until it was too late lol.
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.
Three Body Problem.
I just had a friend tell me he loved the whole series (with caveats), why didn’t you like it?
It really puts your suspension of disbelief to the test, and all the characters are terrible. I actually thought the netflix show was better than the book because the characters were alot more relatable.
Yah, totally forgot to mention how horrendously bad the characters were. Like 50’s SF bad.
Yeah same here, I thought it was one of the few cases where the adaptation was better than the book. It cuts out a lot of the waffle from the books and patches up lots of holes, especially with characters like you said.
Oh yeah this one was really bad.
Absolutely agreed. Three body problem is overhyped garbage.
“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.
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 😂
Well 15 year old you had much better taste than 15 year old me
It’s gotten worse over the years, don’t worry ;)
My top recommended movie right now is Freddy Got Fingered
50 Shades… terrible writing and the sex was boring AF. The books were recommended to me. I couldn’t get through the first one. Time I’ll never get back.
“The Cat Who Walked through Walls” by Robert Heinlein…
Now Heinlein is usually kind of obnoxiously sexist so having a book that opens with what appears to be an actual female character with not just more personality than a playboy magazine centerfold, but what seems like big dick energy action heroesque swagger felt FRESH. Strong start as you get this hyper competent husband and wife team quiping their way through adventures in the backwoods hillbilly country of Earth’s moon with their pet bonsai tree to stop a nefarious plot with some promised dimensional McGuffin.
Book stalls out in the middle as they end up in like… A swinger commune. They introduce a huge number of characters all at once alongside this whole poly romantic political dynamic and start mulling over the planning stage of what seems like a complicated heist plot. Feels a lot like a sex party version of the Council of Elrond with each of these characters having complex individual dramas they are in the middle of resolving…
Aaaand smash cut. None of those characters mattered. We are with the protagonist, the heist plan failed spectacularly off stage and we are now in his final dying moments where we realized that cool wife / super spy set him up to fail like a chump at this very moment for… reasons? I dunno, Bitches amirite?
First time I ever finished a book and threw it angrily into the nearest wall.
I feel that a lot with Heinlein. Starts good with an interesting premise, becomes weirdly sexual, and the ending leaves you wondering whether the premise even mattered.
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is one of my fave books in the genre if I just ignore 1/3 of it.
The first 5 or so of Trump’s books. No meaningful lessons in business to be had. Just him bragging about people he knew, people he’d screwed over, how good he thought he was at pretty much everything. How he got back at anyone who crossed him. Insufferable. I knew he was one of the worst people ever before he even mentioned getting into politics.
And in those 5 books, he probably name-dropped every New York socialite he ever met. It’s consistent with his whole image of self-worth and needing to look and feel important. You know who he didn’t mention? Someone we’ve seen him with in several photos? Who he definitely would have mentioned if there wasn’t a reason not to? Jeffrey Epstein.
the Piers Anthony novelization of the movie Total Recall. it’s very bad!
I haven’t read that, but his original novel Firefly is the only book I ever threw away instead of adding it to my collection shelves or trading it back to the used book store. It’s horrifically gross. One of the main characters is shown in a flashback enthusiastically participating in her rape as a five year old. Anthony is a problematic writer already, but this was way worse than I could have guessed.
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.
