While She Knits - Haters Gonna Hate

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

What are the books you love to hate?  Maybe a book had rave reviews but you thought it was awful.  Maybe you looked forward to a new release only to find it disappointing.  Maybe the book came oh-so-close to being awesome but then something happened to make you want to throw it across the room (yes, I'm talking about YOU, The Knife of Never Letting Go.  Manchee!!!)

What are the books you love to hate?

Edited to add:  You guys are awesome when you're hating.  Knew I could count on you.

Comments

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

For me it has to be Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett's Havemercy. It has a lot of tropes I really like, and a lot of concepts (mechanical dragons!) that should have been awesome. The romance was adorable and exactly my kind of thing - interesting gay relationship between a young and naive (but by no means stupid) tutor and a jaded older magician...
Also, dragons!

Unfortunatly, what spoilt an otherwise near-ideal book (for my tastes) was the complete and utter lack of women. The book was hardly set in a monastery; though one storyline depicted an extremely macho military culture, there wasn't plot justification to have about two female speaking characters, one of whom has maybe one line and the other is a Jealous ShrewTM whose sole narrative purpose is to create obstacles for the lovers. By the second book, there were eight point-of-view characters, all male and all (I think) unnecessarily so.
(And that's even before getting into the skeeviness of having one narrator a camp cross-dresser and another, described as being really feminine, having to disguise himself as a woman for a while. It's like, female characteristics are fine, but as long as they're on male characters?)

I might be over thinking this, but it did make me uncomfortable - I really, really wnated to like this series, but I just couldn't finish the second book.

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

A Countess Below Stairs.

Yeah, I know some of you love this book. The writing is what originally caught me and kept me reading, but honestly, for me the romantic relationship just got worse and worse as the book progressed, rather than better and better. One of the worst moments for me was (mild SPOILERS) when he forbids her from cutting off her hair. I mean, seriously? How could that ever be attractive or romantic? Let her make her own decisions for goodness sake. That wasn't the only moment that made me mad, but its the one that I remember most clearly.

Yeah. Ugh.

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

I don't like Kristen Cashore's books. I know lots of people do, but I'm not one of them. I couldn't even bring myself to read the third.

Another that a lot of people seem to love and I just don't get is Shadow and Bone. I feel like such a rebel because every review I read people rave and I can only shake my head thinking ???????

A book that I nearly threw across the room-would have if it hadn't been a library book-was The Hero and the Crown. I know. Again lots of people love it. But I was so furious at the end I could barely see the words through the red haze. My husband had to listen to me rant for a full fifteen minutes.

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this one! I haven't liked either of Ibbotson's historical romances I've read.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

I second that motion! :)

Ibbotson is a master of words, but her characters always feel highly idealized and thus bore me. Oh, yeah... And I remember the hair fiasco. It made me want to throw the book at the characters' heads. It's annoying, because in her blundering innocence and naiveté, Anna could've been an interesting, humorous character. However, she just seemed like a Mary Sue who was always the perfect picture of beauty, poise, and humility. //yawn

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Two books that I'd like to forget I ever read are Ghost Girl by Tonya Hurley and Hush by Donna Jo Napoli.

Ghost Girl mostly seemed to be about a recently deceased ghost girl stalking her high-school crush. It was creepy... and not because of the ghosts.

Hush started out on a good note, but quickly degraded into a depressing story about slavery that had no real ending, unless you count the protagonist resigning herself to a horrible future.

Also, I have a love-hate relationship with Maria V. Snyder's Insider series. I adored the first one, but the sequel...





You get my drift. XD

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I read Havemercy after hearing rave reviews and don't remember a single thing about it, except that it was ho-hum. (Ok, I'll admit to not being able to remember ANYTHING these days, but I do remember Havemercy being a big disappointment.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

I tried to read Graceling, but I didn't get very far. I'm not sure why, but I've never been able to connect to Cashore's books.

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

AH I LOVE YOU! I was just going to say the same, but I was kind of afraid because everyone loves the Graceling series! Honestly, I thought that the first book wasn't all that bad, but everything that I didn't like about Graceling was amplified in Fire. I couldn't even get through Fire. I was past halfway and I was bored and I just didn't like any of the characters. And it was so sad, because I was expecting it to be good and it turned out to be a waste of 25 bucks.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I am so glad that I'm not the only one who couldn't get through Mysterious Benedict Society. I started reading it to my oldest son and we both gave up around the 1/4 mark. I skimmed the rest to make sure I hadn't missed anything but... as far as I could tell, I hadn't.

I wouldn't say I hated it, just that I couldn't see the appeal.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Bounced off GRACELING (could see and admire some aspects, had problems with other areas of the book that spoiled it for me), loved SHADOW AND BONE (sorry!), was ambivalent about HERO (though I count McKinley as one of my formative inspirations, it was for BEAUTY and THE DOOR IN THE HEDGE rather than her other books of the time).

Have you read SERAPHINA? I loved that one.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

The one that drives me nuts is THE MORNING GIFT. I do love a lot about Ibbotsen's writing, but in that story the main plot twist hinged upon the heroine being so incredibly naive and stupid that my suspension of disbelief went whoosh out the window and she lost all my sympathy at once.

But Ibbotsen hit one of my hot buttons there. I hate conflicts that depend on misunderstandings that could have been easily cleared up with a five-minute conversation.

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

I read "The Hero and the Crown"...I don't remember much (which is a commentary in itself!) but I do remember feeling like it dragged for a long while, punctuated by brief, gorey scenes of dragon slaying. I wouldn't reccomend it based on the little of it that I remember.

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

*looks around furtively*
Game of Thrones. No, I know, I know, I know. I know. Everyone loves it. I read the first book, and stopped. Here's the thing: I like (a)reading about sympathetic characters, not just complete assholes, and (b)having them survive at least sometimes. GoT killed off every character as soon as I started to like them, which was apparently the point.

Do I even have to mention Twilight? What about Eragon?

Even Twilight doesn't annoy me that much, though. For whatever reason, I very rarely have a strong negative reaction to books. Strong positive reactions, on the other hand... well. The list of really awesome books just keeps getting longer and longer. For example, I recently (very recently) discovered Martha Wells. She's not quite the best thing since sliced bread, but she is, very possibly, the best thing to happen to me since I discovered Lois Bujold. Wait, no, I've also discovered Lymond since then. Whatever. Point being, I don't dwell on books I feel meh about, so I don't work up negativity.

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

I actually got tons of books that fit the bill, but one of them is Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. The thing is I loved Heart's Blood so I couldn't wait to hop on to her more popular series. Oh boy, was I in for a surprise. Not the good kind. Maybe it's just me though; I'm quite sensitive to sexual content, and that thing that happened to the MC in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the book, by some random characters that have no relevance to the story whatsoever who showed up for two pages in order to just do that to her, yeah that thing bothered the crap out of me. And oh wait, the worse part is when this lady of the forest or some such decided it was time for the MC to stop sulking around and told her to get over it. Best motivational speech ever.

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

What made you furious about The Hero and the Crown? I was rather meh about it both times I read it, years apart. (The first time, I hadn't read The Blue Sword, and I didn't, because Hero was so uninspiring. Then, years later, I finally did read it, liked it, and said, "I should read the other one. That book I didn't like must have been something else." Nope. Same book.) But still, I wasn't angry, I was just bored.

I kind of like the Graceling books, though I'm not ecstatic about them. What exactly do all you folks dislike about them? Bitterblue did have a severe shortage of plot, but it sounds like your issues with the books started before then.
[Edited to clarify: Ok, that sounds like I have issues with you disliking them, which is not at all what I meant. I'm just curious.]

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

(to the tune of "John Brown's Body")

Dan Brown's story is a-moldering in my brain…
...

tl;dw

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's basically my recollection. It truly puzzles me, because The Blue Sword is a really good book! And all the other McKinley I've ever read has been good. There is weirdness afoot.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed it, and its... presequel?* The Blue Sword, and have reread them both.

* looking for an opposite to "prequel". "The Hero and the Crown (1984) is the prequel to The Blue Sword (1982)" (WP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_and_the_Crown)), so TBS is TH&TC's what?

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

XD Well I still have to admire those of you who liked The Blue Sword. I didn't get through even that. T__T

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

Pegasus (by McKinley) is quite possibly THE most plotless and downright boring book I've ever read. I only made it to the end because I told a friend I would read it. I used to devour McKinley's books but have been disappointed with her later works. I didn't make it through Chalice. :(

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot about Pegasus (which, as booksrgood4u said, tells you something in and of itself). Yeah, that was boring. Wasn't it supposedly Part 1? Not intended to be complete in and of itself? Not that's an excuse.

[peanut13171.livejournal.com]

Yes! LOVE LOVE LOVE Martha Wells!! She has a new YA book out, Emily and the Hollow World. Intrepid heroine ends up on a ship that travels to the center of the earth and encounters adventures.

[bluejayfic.livejournal.com]

Yay! I've read (devoured) the Ile-Rien books and the Raksura books so far. And all of the fanfic that exists for them on AO3. Which is ... not very much. Humph. I do not understand fandom sometimes.

Maybe once her Star Wars book comes out more people will read her other things?

[peanut13171.livejournal.com]

I wish, sigh. Just don't understand why she's not a bestseller. I love her characters, she's a fabulous world-builder, and her plots are go-go-go. Best of all, she's got my sense of humor :-).

I didn't know there was Martha Wells fanfic! I've never read fanfic. Can you recommend any??