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I wouldn't exactly term it a disappointing read; instead the book I am talking about is one of the most fantastic reads and tops my list of favorite books - Little Women. The problem I have with it is that the story is sad and disappointing in so many ways - gentle Beth passes away due to an unexpected illness, Jo and Laurie were meant to be a couple but end up not being one, amongst other things. Every time I read the book, I inadvertently end up shedding tears. So beautifully written, and yet the characters all end up haphazardly in the end. Or so I feel.
I wrote my Master's thesis on "Little Women" as a subversive autobiography. Louisa May Alcott was very complex psychologically, and had major issues with her father and her society. She hated writing that book (she did so for the money) and all those elements you find sad are made intentionally so by Alcott. In one of her letters she wrote "I won't marry Jo off to Laurie to please anybody"!
Last edited by calgirlinnc; 06-01-2017 at 08:43 AM..
About 20 years or so ago, I came to the realization that just because I bought (or borrowed) a book, didn't mean I had to finish it.
Since then, whether I lose interest on page 2 or page 402, I'll stop reading and try another. Life's too short to self-inflict boredom.
I always want to give the book a chance to get better. Surely it will get good eventually, it is so popular. I even read all the ya through Da Vinci code waiting for ti to have some merit.
Only a few I could not get through and put down or threw away:
Wicked
Dune
Kant Philosophy ( I do not remember which one, some of them I could get through, one book I just got the cliffs notes).
There was a book series my daughter loved, it was about kids who were genetically altered to have wings and other features, then they ran away from the experimental place and the bad scientists were trying to track them down or kill them. The books were just drivel and horridly preachy. By about the third one, I had it and gave up part way through. Then I tried the next one an it was worse.
That is all I can remember.
My wife found the Thomas Covenant series unreadable. She found the main character so detestable, she could not read the books.
I really disliked Amityville: House Of Lies by London Knight and Patrick Kearney: The True Story Of the Freeway Killer by Jack Rosewood. I prefer my nonfiction reading to be more than just a slapdash collection of someone else's research.
City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg was really disappointing for all the hype it got. It would have been much better had it not dragged on needlessly for 900+ pages. The author also used a never-ending avalanche of overly-complex words and descriptions that made reading it incredibly difficult and clunky. When it finally got to the big, culminating event at the end, I could have cared less what happened to any of the characters. The book did an amazing job of describing late 1970s New York, but that was about it.
City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg was really disappointing for all the hype it got. It would have been much better had it not dragged on needlessly for 900+ pages. The author also used a never-ending avalanche of overly-complex words and descriptions that made reading it incredibly difficult and clunky. When it finally got to the big, culminating event at the end, I could have cared less what happened to any of the characters. The book did an amazing job of describing late 1970s New York, but that was about it.
The Guardian thought it would have benefited from 200 fewer pages.
The long earth is one that comes immediately to mind. I cannot believe there are sequels to that book, it was so uneventful and unsatisfying.
My book club picked The Goldfinch and it was 800 plus pages that I forced myself to read. I was not a fan at all and wish I had those hours of my life back.
I totally agree about The Goldfinch. Ugh!! Terrible.
King himself has admitted that he often suffers from, and I quote, 'diarrhea of the typewriter'.
If he wasn't a publishing leviathan , that wouldn't happen. And it didn't happen early on (the original version of The Stand had over 400 pages excised at the command if the publisher). But he eventually became so successful, he could ignore his admonition that 'the editor is always right'.
I enjoyed 11/22/63 (his only post-The Green Mile book that I've read), but his early writing is his strongest. It's tighter and he was still cherry-picking from his best ideas.
I stopped reading Stephen King decades ago. I thought he was great in the 70s, then he just started churning out the books left and right.
For some reason I can never get into an Ann Rice book.
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