General Discussion

explODES

Name THE HARRY POTTER SERIES
Pros Quidditch is original, Luna Lovegood is cool...
Cons Boring characters, cliche plot, uninteresting villains, sloooow pacing
Rant DEAR GOD DO I DESPISE THESE BOOKS. Firstly, all of the books could've been under 400 pages but noo, we have to waste six chapters watching Harry eat frogs or something. Harry, Hermione, and Ron are all boring, cliche characters. Every character, save Luna, never caught my interest. The whole premise makes me wanna fall asleep. Good vs evil. Gifted wizard vs troubled Voldemort. Horcruxes are the obstacles, those are fixed. It's plain. There are few plot twists. AND THE HOUSES. Gryffindor is represented as the courageous, Slytherin the eeevilll, Hufflepuff the losers, and Ravenclaw the cocky smart kidz. So many people like HP and I'm like!! Enrich yourself!! Read good books!! Burn the HP series!!

Any other Dan Brown haters? I tried reading Angels and Demons and couldn't even stand to finish it. All the characters are two-dimensional idiots with a marginal understanding of their supposed area of expertise, and the book makes the whole scientific community and society in general look really dumb. Plot: this lone terrorist breaks into CERN, steals a container of antimatter (because they've totally found a way to safely store the stuff), kills the Pope, kidnaps four cardinals from the Vatican, and starts killing them off in ritually significant ways. Oh, and he intends to use the antimatter as a bomb to blow up the city. And he's part of the Illuminati. Duh. Our two heroes: a world-renowned "symbologist" and a scientist from CERN who keep failing to track the guy down, despite him having left a trail of clues to his whereabouts. Also, the writing style is at like a fifth-grade level.

Also hated I am Number Four. Selfish, dislikable main character, stereotypical girlfriend, and unoriginal plot with aliens trying to take over the world and a kid with superpowers trying to stop them. Again, very low writing style.

I'll think of more eventually; I don't read much lately...

There aren't many books that I hate per say because if I don't like a book, I don't get past the fourth chapter. The only book I remember really disliking is a book called More Than This by Patrick Ness which I spent alot of money on and ended up being very disappointed in. I had really high hopes for it and was actually engrossed in the story until I hit the half way mark, only to have it pulled a M. Night Shyamalan-esque crappy plot twist on me about the whole world being a simulation and how nothing was real. It was basically a Matrix rip off, and I hate the Matrix. As a little kid I had really bad problems with unreality and general feelings of dissociation (which I still have by the way) and stuff like the matrix always kinda set off that part of me and it makes me really uncomfortable. This book just felt like a waste of potential, money, and my time.

Alright i dont usually hate books and rarely vocalize said hate but i gotta put this somewhere because this books is getting more and more popular.

Name: Elanor and Park
Pros: One of the main characters is a girl consistently described as fat which doesnt happen often in the books for teens ive read
Cons: boring characters, boring plot, almost zero development of relationships
Rant: THIS BOOKS WAS SO ANTI-CLIMACTIC FOR ME. It came so highly recommended to me when i was trying to get rid of what was essentially a book hangover of "i need more of this amazing book but its over so give me something similar and equally as good asap". And boy was i let down.

It seemed like nearly an entire books of the characters doing nothing in particular and me waiting for it to get good. The characters emotions were so underdeveloped and dry that it felt like poking a dead animal with a stick to see what it might do. Like Elanor spends most of the time whining (which i guess i understand because her life sucks and all) and apparently Park thinks thats attractive? At least he put some kind of effort into the relationship unlike elanor who went along for the most part and then got mad at.... idk herself? park? whatever. And it's not even like she gets over it or develops past it, no she literally stays the same for the entire book and so does park for the most part.

And the other characters might as well have been scarecrows for all the thought and personality put into them.

maybe im not seeing the bigger picture or meaning of the book....... but im still disappointed

@Bluejey OH MY GOD I KNOW. The first three? GREAT. Fourth? Whaaaa?????? Fifth? T fRICk???? I never went on.

As for mine

Name: Beautiful Creatures (and series, I guess, but I never read the rest) (spoilers for the first one/movie)
Pros: ???
Cons: Everything? Okay, more specificity needed. I started with the movie; I wasn't interested, and only saw it because my friend wanted to.

The only reason I didn't walk out half an hour in was because I was there with a friend.

The story of the first one is that, god I can't even remember her name now, is a witch who, due to a family curse, is going to go Dark, guaranteed. She Meets A Boy who has been dreaming about her, and her about him, and he Inspires Her to find her will to live. They turn out to be reincarnated lovers from the CIvil War (I think?)

During a Civil War reenactment (which happens to be her sixteenth birthday, and her Claiming day) her cousin, who was Claimed by the dark, and her mother, who she doesn't know, kill her boyfriend, leading her to reject the dark and choose neither. But he wasn't her boyfriend- he was her UNCLE who was disguised as her boyfriend, knowing it was going to happen.

She bewitches the boyfriend to forget about her and leave town, and he Remembers Her Magically and runs back to sweep her into his arms.

Oh, and the flashback of her cousin being Claimed by the dark in the movie (don't remember the book exactly) was her in an innocent summer dress, who in a heartbeat lures two teenage boys to their deaths on a railroad.

It was all so... none of the characters were fleshed out, the lead girl needed her boyfriend to hold her hand through literally all of the story and to MOTIVATE HER TO NOT GIVE IN TO THE CURSE, it was ****-shamey and.

Terrible.

Badly written as frick too, but that's actually a secondary concern the content was so bad, and I'll pass up on otherwise good books because of bad writing because I'm a snob.

Name: Memiors of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Pros: Entertaining

Cons: Ruined the greatest Geisha in histories career as she swore Golden to secrecy and he printed her name and published their interview. Made up "facts" about the Geisha and slandered their history, for example they don't sell their virginity, created a stereotype that is HIGHLY inccorect.

Rant: Look at cons, pretty much my rant



Name: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Pros: YA novel that got teens into reading (yay!)

Cons: Highly unrealistic (though the book is supposed to be set in a realistic setting)

Rant: This book comes off as so pretentious and psudointellectual. Gus is honestly a pretentious jerk, and Hazel is SO uninteresting. What ever happened to their blind friend? He was the ONLY one I cared about.

@Shadowlark
Just curious if you actually watched the maze runner. I haven't read it but it seems due to your description that the movie is better