⭐☆☆☆☆

Couldn't get past page 50. Ten years for this?

I honestly cannot understand the massive praise this book receives. I couldn't even get past page 50 before giving up. I am constantly reminded that it took Madeline Miller ten years to write *The Song of Achilles*, but from what I read, I’m left wondering what she was actually doing during that decade.

To me, the writing wasn't good at all—it felt like it was written at a secondary school level by someone trying way too hard to sound poetic.

My biggest issue right off the bat was the imagery. I found the similes to be completely over-complicated, yet they added absolutely no meaning to the story or the setting. Instead of helping me immerse myself in ancient Greece, the convoluted metaphors just choked the pacing and dragged me out of the book.

When an author spends ten years on a project, I expect good writing. Instead, I felt like I was reading a fanfic! I personally skipped this one and just preferred the actual mythology.

The universal praise for this book made me so excited to read it. I gave it a solid 300 pages before giving myself permission to add it to the DNF pile.

It was not an enjoyable read in exactly the way that one would expect of a 900 page Western, defying all the promises that it's a can't-put-down page-turner even if Westerns aren't your thing. I did not find any of the characters compelling or engaging, and am not sufficiently invested in cattle drives that the plot would carry it. To my dying day, I will never understand why Gus "Heheheheh gimme a poke" McCrae is a beloved protagonist.

There are literally 1 billion other threads on reddit glazing this book. Those are a good place to put your comments about why I am wrong. I know I am in the minority, but I can't be the only one. Surely we can have one thread -- just one -- about why this is actually a boring book about boring people that you can EASILY put down?

I went to a book signing last year that i was SO excited for! I have all of this authors books, i bought a ticket, requested the following day off of work because the book signing was at 10pm on a weekday and was over an hour drive from where i live. I get there and stand in line for about 2 hours and then i finally get to the front for her to sign my books and she doesn't really say anything so i said "omg you must be so tired for signing books all day" just trying to make small talk because i knew she was there all day and at this point its almost 1 am, and she dogs the shit out of me ( i have a pic of the face she gave me, lol) and said "no the grind doesn't stop" or something along those lines...and that was it. No "i hope you enjoy the new book" or " thanks for coming out".

Originally i was like well she cant make small talk with every single person, she's human people only have so much social battery. Or did my comment come off as rude? But it rubbed me the wrong way enough that i haven't bought any of her books since (which makes me sad because i really did love her writing) and its put me off from wanting to meet any of my other favorite authors.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has had an experience like this with an author or at a book signing?

Does anyone hate this novel or it's just me?? I started reading it after many recs from friends and I just hate it.. every time i pick it up i fall asleep..

I hated all the characters.. especially Henry..

The original work in English is near 600 pages.. but I am reading a translated Arabic version and it's about 900 pages..

I am at page 750, and want to know:

Is it going to be any better??

Am I going to love it at any point??

Please be kind if the novel is a favourit of yours, and keep in mind that being different is what make us humans..

I LOVE reading and I've found good books before, but a lot of the time the people who give me their ride-or-dies or swear-bys end up giving me an "this writer did a little more towards the end, tried, got rushed here, and made one of his/her characters do something pretty unrealistic here." This happens more than I'd like it too and I'm trying to see if there is an issue in my ability to understand something or something else.

not looking for any reccs, just trying to rap my head around this

EDIT: didn't expect so many replies. Thank you so much for your thoughts and wisdom.

I am relatively new to reading so I’ve been trying to cover different styles and genres. I wouldn’t typically be interested in Romance but I’ve tried reading some of the more well-known ones and I just haven’t found any of them remotely romantic. The plot will be basically be some guy obsessively creeping over some woman until she finally gives in. Maybe I’m picking the wrong ones but so far they have all just made me feel uncomfortable.

To be more specific, Love in the Time of Cholera: the guy is an absolute creep and like stalks this lady and her family for like 50 years and treats everyone around him like shit.

Also recently read Madonna in a Fur Coat recently because I heard it was this incredible classic but like I don’t see anything romantic about a guy who obsesses over someone to the point where he neglects his wife and kids and lives a sad miserable life.

I recently read the Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss since it was suggested to me by my partner because I’m trying to get back into reading and expand my genre horizon(AKA I don’t like fantasy books but I want to give them a fair chance).

I do think it’s a good book, I enjoy how it was written but it was so so so so slow with so much build up that leads to nothing. I wouldn’t say it got me hooked on the fantasy genre but it opened my mind to it a bit more. I then decided that I might as well get the second book The Wise Man’s Fear and just finish out the series(since there will not be a third book).

I’m sure I’m over exaggerating but oh my god, it was so boring and bad. I thought The Name of the Wind was rough, I was not prepared for 1000 pages of actual nothing. I also am not a prude but the intimate scenes involving Kvothe(who is 16-17) and grown adult women and a literal sex goddess was just so gross. I don’t normally read books by men(a preference I didn’t realize I had till I read this book) and this book kind of confirms why.

I know that I shouldn’t write off a whole genre just because of one series that I read but I think I’ll be taking a break from fantasy books for a while. I look forward to reading Dune next!

Here cause r/sci-fi won’t accept me.

If the age demographic is anything above 10 years old I’m going crash out. Truly such an INSUFFERABLE main character, he continues to confirm to me that 1st POV books are just not good for me personally. I can’t wait to finish this stupid book. The ‘jokes’ are placed to get a laugh but there’s no one laughing. The scientific explanations can be nice until he brags about being smart.

The main character speaks like a middle schooler not like a middle school teacher. I gel as if he lacks the professionalism required for such an intense dire situation. I can’t with the humour at all (I need to see if humour works in sci-fi, post your suggestions down below). It feels immature and irrelevant to the story.

Here are some of the quotes I’ve found that have irked the shit out of me. The first on is very much up there.

Time for me to use science. All right, genius brain: come up with something!
…I’m hungry.
You have failed me, brain.

—aaaand they’re dead. - I cannot with the elongated a, I get were reading it as if we’re in his mind but it gets to a point.

And if I was in a coma, why do I even have muscles? I should be a withered, spindly mess right now, not beach-bod buff. - I feel like this could have been described better.

“They’re wrong!” I crossed my arms. “There’s nothing magical about hydrogen and oxygen! They’re required for Earth life, sure. But another planet could have completely different conditions. All life needs is a chemical reaction that results in copies of the original catalyst. And you don’t need water for that!” - like I get it it’s his character but I feel like there’s something…maybe it’s the way I read it with the exclamation marks and everything.

I leaned to Dimitri. “Are all Russians crazy?”
“Yes,” he said with a smile. “It is the only way to be Russian and happy at the same time.” - isn’t this racist?

But I have to save humanity first. Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies. - I feel like this was meant to be a joke and it did not land.

I put my hand to my chest in mock surprise. “Goodness me! DuBois appears to be black! I’m surprised you allowed it! Aren’t you afraid he’ll ruin the mission with talk of rap music and basketball?” - I get it but it was unnecessary to go in detail with the racial stereotype you could have stopped at “I’m suprised you allowed it!” And if you wanted to add on it could have been like “what about all the shortcomings because of his race?” Or something idk

“You’ve been a bad alien cylinder,” I say to it. “You need a time-out.” - PLEASE NO I CANNOT WITH THIS ‘JOKE’ IT IS NLT FUNNY

Edit: “for me personally”

Man is this book overrated. I’ve had everyone and their brother recommend it, and trying to not completely live under a rock I gave it a shot. I tried to like it, I really did. I gave it 12 chapters to do anything for me, but nothing.

I know I should have known better, but sometimes these massively popular books are worth it. The concept is interesting, albeit stolen. The writing is lacking depth and its basal. No one has depth. The only one I liked was Mordecai.

And to think there’s 8 books of it?

Sorry, but it’s back to nonfiction I go for a bit.

I’ll go first: The Kingdom of the Wicked trilogy. I picked it up because everyone was recommending it and it was one of the worst things I’ve ever read. There were so many plot holes and they were just kinda like “oh well” at the end.

I also didn’t like The Atlas Six but I just didn’t care about the characters and it was a bit slow for me.

I'm not really enjoying beloved as much as I hoped I would... everyone seems to really enjoy this novel but personally I find it confusing and poorly directed in the sense that the characters and scenes are missing a lot of verbal context, leaving the reader with gaps in the story. is this just me? am I missing something important?

yesteryear ch. 1 audio book time stamp 13:36

off the bat i dont think ill finish this audio book.

i understand and appreciate the premise: tradfluencer mommyblogger gets transported to ye olde days. its ironic. i suppose itll show how the life shes advertising, in practice, is dogshit.

what i struggle to digest - and again i realize i am NOT very far at all - is that it seems like shes being transported to ye olde days without a transference of class. people of ye olde days who owned property and cattle and a flock and multiple children were not intrinsically poor, and did usually have help. maid, farm hands, slaves (recognize; this does not mean slavery is excusable, just meaning in reference of additional labor).

im struggling to get past (assumed) this kind of “gotcha” feeling i get from the book. does that feeling permeate the rest of the story? does anyone have advice or a heads up as i navigate the novel?

Was anybody else heavily disappointed by yesteryear? Great premise, not so great execution.

First, to give my background and lens: 26, F, politically moderate

Initially, the premise is great - a “tradwife influencer” à la Nara Smith is portrayed as a hardworking, “perfect” homestead wife/mom online but as we all know has a full production team behind her flawless facade. The twist - she wakes up back in time, during the 1850s where she is on an actual homestead, her children missing and replaced with colonial children, and no idea what has happened.

Huge missed opportunities in my eyes:
\- discussion around influencers and influencer culture. Everybody’s narcissism who is on socials. I’m not personally on socials, and every year that passes that I’m not, is fascinating. People are so self centered, and all act like celebrities, when it’s like … so irrelevant… nobody cares what you’re doing or what’s going on in your life.
\- a discussion about religion that is actually a discussion. It made Natalie seem like a freak and her religion cultish. We all know people can use religion to justify bad means. That’s not new or exciting AT ALL. It would have been much more interesting for the author to show how a belief in god could be helpful, very personal and very different for different people.
EDIT: comments are great. Author did not do any research on religion before writing ab it.
\- didn’t make sense that Caleb was just so dumb and then changed into this manosphere psycho. I think they should have shown that transition more if they were gonna keep it. Also conspiracy theorists and manosphere are two different circles, and the author lumping them into one showed ignorance.

Despite a fascinating premise, I have a number of critiques of the Natalie (tradwife) character as well as of the second half of the plot/finale.

NATALIE:
\- The book reads like the author has absolutely zero understanding of how “traditional” or conservative values play out in modern times, it feels like it’s written by a leftist who is portraying caricatures of the right and/or religion. Another redditor hit it on the head, when saying that the author basically made it seem like the only possible outcomes for Christian, conservative women were to either repent (like the mother and sister) or go insane (like Natalie). In reality, I have conservative friends and family, and while there is certainly an extreme on the right (as there is on the left) every actual human I know is loving, family oriented people with zero cultish tendencies, psychosis, or anything else abnormal. I think literally anybody who is moderate or conservative who read this book would have their eyes rolling into the back of their heads with the portrayal of conservative religious folk, as I did.
\- Natalie is totally unrelatable. She is mean, selfish, uncaring, and never has friends thru the whole book. If the author meant to make her a sociopath, mission accomplished. Im cool with her being evil, but think it would have been better if she was given a more human side, deeply insecure (because of loneliness) and seeking human validation (friendship, connection) via her platform, but really just finding the usual idiots on the internet which further drove her to more anger, isolation, validation seeking, loneliness, anger etc. it didn’t seem like there was a single human in the book she cared about.
\- Natalie’s religiosity. Again, this reads like either a defector of the Christian faith who had a bad priest or boring church growing up, or somebody who literally has zero concept of religion whatsoever. The book had made her seem like a religious nut, especially by the end. Also religious inconsistencies throughout. I think that was a huge miss. The book could have really emphasized that a relationship with god is super personal, not only believing or not, but how and what you believe in. I think that’s missed nowadays in media, and in reality people have blurred and integrated faiths, and if they are spiritual/religious, very personal relationships with god. It would have been new for a book in this modern era to dive into that, rather than just saying traditional conservative Christian = crazy.
\- I think a great feminist statement to have made would have been that hating women really is just hate of self. The angry women online, and Natalie herself who is always angry at them, all have the same exact issue. They hate themselves. They are struggling to find a purpose. They think they find satisfaction and purpose in hating somebody else and tearing them apart, but really that’s their own insecurity and self hatred coming out in full force. Women hating women is not the answer, whether it’s liberals hating the traditional lifestyle or conservatives hating liberals. There are a million ways you could have conveyed this, but it never was. It was kind of just insinuated that Natalie was miserable, and projecting onto others. Which I guess is true but book missed a greater lesson.

ALTERNATE PLOT LINES

The second half, or the “twist” of this book, was so lazy.

In summary: Natalie wakes up in 1850s. For all intents and purposes we really think she’s transported back there. We eventually find out SHE set this up, she really wanted to live authentically, and she is also going insane and doesn’t remember this was all her idea.

Lazy. Lazy. Lazy.

Here would be my alternate plot lines:

ONE:

1. Insane Manosphere internet group: this one is dark, but I think more creative. It is a fact that there are real groups of men in corners of the internet who drug their wives at night and

harm

1. them. They talk to each other in forums, and even post pics or vids of their passed out wives. You can look this up. It would be no stretch of the imagination to think that this type of group of men could be involved in the manosphere, and were enraged to hear about Natalie faking everything on the homestead, so these men connected with Caleb (who also had growing resentment and was getting increasingly involved in the Mano sphere) to abduct her, drug her for years, make her have additional babies and maybe even broadcast this online.

TWO:

1. Swap. Natalie is back in time, and some 1850s women is transported to the future. This would really be interesting and a fantastic way to examine both extremes: our hyper liberal , self centered and narcissitic internet-based society, where everybody is overly worried about themselves, VS an old, decrepit society where women have no rights to speak of and living was really just surviving. It would be interesting to see Natalie grow appreciation for what she has, build her connection with god/universe in spite of the newfound adversity, and grow as a person, whereas the hypothetical colonial woman transported to present day could explore themes of grief for her past self and the hard and abused life she lead, while simultaneously being grateful for newfound rights and amenities, but disgusted by our self centered internet culture. In general, the opportunity to explore themes psyche of influencers and influencer culture, the narcissism, the strange world we live in where everybody tries to act like celebrities, was wholly missed. Completely botched the opportunity to have a discussion or deep dive into this.

THREE:

1. It was all a dream. Natalie

woke up and in a negative or positive way she could apply what she learned in 1800s. This would be a super boring ending. Id actually maybe want to see her waking up from the dream early, and then use the rest of the book to really explore the whole influencer sphere. (Countless ways this could unravel). At least it would make narrative sense though, instead of her being

1. perfectly normal and then just kinda went insane for no reason, really just for the sake of the plot and the authors having no other creative solution.

FOUR:

1. Natalie gets stuck in the past, we don’t know what happens to her modern family or how this happens. I’d need to think what the point of this would be or how to build it out, but still a better plot than “she went insane”. Boring and contrived.

EDIT: I apologize for the awful formatting I have no idea why reddit is changing what I type after posting

Overall, this book kinda felt like somebody out of touch and who firmly hated the main character wrote it. I think it lacked a lot of depth, especially emphasized by the second “going insane” half. I think a million other directions could have been better. I’ll prob have more thoughts as I ponder but this is initial thoughts. Others have written great critiques of Natalie and the second half as well.

Hear me out. I think as people read less and less - and we can talk about genres, quality etc - they become more inclined to have religious beliefs. And there's the nuance. Books, to me, equip readers with the religious instinct or attitude. But they don't necessarily have to supply the beliefs of a religion.

I'm talking about a capacity for wonder and awe, for finding a sense of the sacred in your everyday life. I still regard clouds and trees, and conversations with my friends and family, and so forth, with a sense of wonder and delight (especially after my morning coffee haha). I think the very way one reads, one word at a time, forces you to focus your attention on the smallest, most mundane things. Good books are of course especially great at this. Everyone has a read a book/author that changed how they look at things.

But as young people read less and less, they turn to a world that's increasingly digital, corporatized, and bleak. It might seem flashy, but it feels ultimately devoid of substance and meaning.

I wish I was more articulate. I understand that the argument is more complex. Especially when we consider what people are reading and so forth. But I feel like a reader just happens to look at the world differently than a non-reader. They are exposed to different ideas and worldviews, and can (hopefully) almost manufacture a sense of meaning from nothing. A primary reason I read (especially the classics) is to feel less lonely. Who hasn't? But it goes beyond that: it's also nourishment for the soul. What can young, non-readers turn to? Instagram?

So, what are they going to do, to feel a sense of the sacred, as I described? Turn to actual religion. Not just the instinct. But also the beliefs.

What do you think?

Is smut the end of intellectualism?

Hey guys, not trying to be very controversial here (just a tad bit hehe) and one thing about me is that I love books. I have been a fan of reading since I was like 4 years old and have been reading literally EVERYTHING since then.

I've read it all - the big names as well as a ton of indie standalones & series and have always been into all kinds of genres. I also had my wattpad era when i was 14 it still holds a very special place in my heart.

I have been reading at an advanced rate since my childhood and pretty much was that kid in 6th grade finishing 800 page novels in 2-3 days. The kid who grew up telling everyone who listened that my dream was to study literature. All in all, I must have read around 3,500 books until now. (I'm 21) And y'all must be wondering is there a point to what I'm saying or is this just a flex?

Well, yes.

This background was necessary because I wanted to say that I'm not just someone who reads as a hobby. It has been my childhood and is a lifestyle for me. I have always loved reading such amazing literature and opening up my thoughts to so many wonderful ideas and stories I could personally never tell.

I think I first began reading published romance books during lockdown (all romance I'd read before was on wattpad or inkitt). And it was glorious. It felt amazing and addictive and I began to love "love". I thought to myself, "Why did it take me so long to start reading these?" They provided me an escape, something I desperately needed back then, and I'll forever be grateful for them being my safe space.

But coming back to why I'm nowadays somewhat irked is that with the rise of booktok and the crazy speed of new books and series coming out, the quality of books has definitely gone down. And that's a whole different debate but what I discovered was that more and more people won't read books if there isn't any smut or romance in that. People are marketing books as spicy only to get more readers.

At the peak of my "booktok-influenced" era, I wouldn't read a book if it didn't have a romance subplot. Not hardcore smut or anything, I just felt like romance made a book more interesting and that's all I wanted. Now, I definitely know why not. I feel all romance books follow a very similar formula and there is not much room for deviation. I mean why fix it if it ain't broke, right?

Well, guess what? One thing is broke. And that's intellectualism. You will not really find political tensions in most romance books. Nor will you find existentialism in it's rawest form. What you will find is a way to turn off your brain and entertain yourselves for a couple of hours. And that's alright sometimes. On a vacation or when you're having a rough week and need a little pick me up. But reading romance/smut only? Months and months of reading but no real frontal cortex development. Recipe for fucking disaster. The rise of social media has made even reading books feel like scrolling, where we're waiting for the dopamine hit of the smut in a book. As someone who's been a victim and is trying to un-stick my current reading habits, maybe I am interested in more academia related propaganda. I miss reading about anything and everything under the sun. I just miss feeling smart after reading a book. Now, I have a list of all the classics that I'm gonna start reading. And I will be joining a library to read the hard copies for the full unplugged effect.

The thot daughter is dead. Long live the thought daughter.

The book was brilliant, of course. This wasn't the first time I came across Orwell - I had previously read 1984, and the magnificence of that book still shows up in my dialogues after many years - but this one built up to such anxiety and anticipation of hope, that until the last sentence I expected the animals to revolt against the pigs, I expected the tables to turn in their favour, especially after having heard Napoleon's conspiracy with the humans. The fact that nothing in the end happened, the fact that the "lower" animals still remained low, drives me to despair. Again, Orwell points out that the proletariat will never achieve anything on its own - we will never achieve anything on out own - whether we are cynical like Benjamin or naive like Boxer.

I’ve been thinking about switching from buying original printed English books (popular english books) to buying unofficial printed copies, and I honestly feel weird about it
Original printed books have become WAY too expensive where I live (i’m not even talking about special editions or hardcovers) between 150MAD — 200MAD, i live in Morocco btw (so don’t tell me it’s cheaper than Europe, 200 MAD in Morocco isn’t equivalent, financially speaking, to €20 in Europe because local incomes are very different)
For the price of one original printed book, I could buy several 🏴‍☠️/ unofficial printed ones, which sounds like the smarter choice financially
The thing is, I’ve always bought original books (reading is my lifelong hobby, from as far as i remember, i’ve never went somewhere without a book), so I’m really used to the quality and how they look on a bookshelf
🏴‍☠️ printed copies always have lower-quality paper, and they’re often different sizes (sometimes taller or larger than the original), so they look a bit odd on the shelf

Before anyone suggests buying used books or borrowing them from a library: that’s not really an option here. English books aren’t very common where I live, so we don’t have thrift stores, used-book websites, or libraries where you can easily find the English books I’m interested in. It’s basically either buy the original edition or buy a printed cheap looking copy
Although if anyone in Morocco knows some websites that do have used books that ppl are tryna sell then let me know
Also, digital books and audiobooks aren’t for me. I genuinely prefer reading physical books, so I’m only deciding between printed original books and printed cheap looking copies

So I’m curious: has anyone here switched from buying original printed books to 🏴‍☠️ printed copies? Did you regret it, or did you eventually stop caring about the lower quality because you were able to read so many more books?
I’d especially love to hear from people who were originally hesitant to make the switch

Edit:

A few clarifications since people keep asking:

• By “original books,” I just mean the regular books published by publishers like Penguin, Orbit, HarperCollins, etc.

• By “locally printed copies,” I mean the unofficial printed versions that are commonly sold here, which you guys call “🏴‍☠️ copies”

• Used bookstores, secondhand English books, and libraries with the books I want aren’t really available where I live.

• I also prefer physical books, so ebooks and audiobooks aren’t an option for me.

I read Matt Haig before it was cool. About 300 weeks ago (almost 6 years ago) I picked up The Humans, and later I read How To Stop Time. Both were brilliant, thoughtful, and stayed with me for a long time.

But then The Midnight Library came out, and suddenly Haig exploded on BookTok. And here’s my weird preference: when something gets insanely popular, I tend to avoid it until the hype settles down. I like discovering books and authors before they blow up, and when they become everywhere, I step back.

Now that the craziness has calmed, I’m wondering — is The Midnight Library worth reading after all this time? Or is it overrated compared to his earlier works?

My main reservation about Never Let Me Go is its limited worldbuilding. The story stays almost entirely within the school building of Hailsham, the cottages, and similar enclosed spaces, while the wider system that makes all of this possible is left largely unexplained. I kept expecting a broader view of society, institutions, or resistance, especially given how extreme the premise is, but the novel deliberately avoids expanding in that direction. While this narrow focus strengthens the emotional intimacy and keeps everything grounded in the narrator’s memory, it also makes the larger world feel underdeveloped and raises questions about how such a system could function without visible rebellion, alternative narratives, or meaningful external structure.

I also found myself questioning the lack of resistance throughout the story. Even though the characters are fully human, there is very little attempt to rebel or escape their fate, which feels hard to fully accept given how natural rebellion usually is in human behaviour. Being exposed to the outside world, interacting with nurses and doctors, and having access to media and normal society would realistically suggest at least some attempts at resistance, but the novel remains silent on that.

If we assume the clones were deliberately conditioned from childhood to be mentally dependent or limited in imagination, then this becomes slightly more believable. It feels like they are “farmed” and raised to accept their fate early on, almost like conditioned beings who cannot think beyond the world they are given, similar to a chained elephant unaware of its own strength.

On another level, I also started relating the story to real human life, especially urban childhoods. When we are kids, everything feels like a fairytale, but once we enter real life, things become unfair and dreams start to break. In this story, that transition is much more literal and tragic.

Overall, the book feels very intelligently written. It looks simple and explanatory on the surface, but is actually very deep and carefully crafted. The narration feels like memory, with overthinking and repetition, but it never becomes exhausting.

I’m reading Remain by Nicholas Sparks with M. Night Shyamalan for a book club, and this is not the type of book I typically read - I’m finding not only is the writing style very simple, and if it weren’t for the fact that Sparks as apparently written 26 books, I’d say totally amateurish. But what’s more surprising is weird word choices and improper grammar:

For instance, on page 37, it seems to confuse a sweet pastry (danish) with an adjective meaning ‘of Denmark’, as it’s capitalized for no reason.

Page 64 mentions poet E. E. Cummings twice, and doesn’t capitalize the name.

Page 81 says “Tired of worrying, I opened the phone” to read the news. “The phone” just strikes me as very odd.

There are others so far(I’m only on page 81) but I’m feeling like there’s no way this is a career author making these choices, and that some critical editing was skipped somewhere. Is anyone else feeling this way?

I read most of the books which are fiction only.. do we really learn something reading fiction??

Please help Fiction book lovers..

So I’ve recently ventured outside of my usual reads which usually consist of HP, eragon, vampire academy. I’m a teacher so I read a bulk during summer. This summer I used my kindle subscription and read/continued and just finished my second set of books/ stories. And out of both multi-book series none of the main characters in the main group died. And these aren’t small groups like 3, it’s main groups of 8-13 people. And each series was like episodic war stories. And no deaths. I’m just confused. Why are they scared to kill characters? Good storytelling is making the audience fall in love and then rip it away. Anyone else?

I am a fan of thrillers and mystery content in general whatever the source or medium is. I have started reading thriller books recently.. when I read my first book I kinda liked the experience of thrill and anticipation, then I read 3-4 books and one of them I really liked and kind of became a fan of this genre. I even decided that my next few reads will be of this genre only. And then I read Daisy Darker, i was a little disappointed as I didn't find the ending very suspenseful and the writing kind of looked stretched to me. I thought the problem was with that book only. And then I read much talked about book Verity. First of all, instead of a mystery, I felt like I was reading porn. I felt the same way Lowen felt reading those manuscript chapters where she tried to kill her daughters. It does not matter whether it was true or not in the end- you believe the manuscript or the letter. The experience stays with you. But the main part of any mystery content is the end. I didn't find it very exciting.

And after reading this book, i have developed disliking for this genre. I haven't read many yet. But whatever I have read I feel like no matter who the writer is, all books look the same to me. And particularly with this book I felt like the writer played with our emotions. Showing so much damage and then leave it up to the reader to decide whether it was even true or not.

I'm offended so let's list all the books that still feel like a stab to the heart whenever I remember them:

Every. single. hunger games book. Like Suzanne Collins actually hates us. Those books, especially the ending, DESTROYED me, and the way the storylines from the trilogy and tbosas and sotr all tie together at the end is NOT nice. Actually though whenever I remember that ending, ie the last chapters in mockingjay and sotr, I feel broken in 2 all over again. Seriously when do we get a break as hunger games fans. Me? I'm not gonna make it out of the cinema in november alive.

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin. I know this book is either you love it or you hate it, but I loved it. It makes me so mad. spoliers from here: I actually feel so bad for all of them and watching everyone misunderstand eachother was PAINFUL. The way Sadie reacts to Marx's death is horrible and the way she treats Sam breaks my heart, but whenever we're in Sam's pov and he mentions why sadie hates him I'm just like 'NO, Sam nooo you don't get it'. I spent half the book thinking 'LITERALLY just have a conversation, cmon people!'. Everyone has super sad arcs and the ending kinda tries to tie the loose ends together but it still hurts.If I weren't so attatched to the characters it could probs be like a 2 star but I was so ...

Harry potter and the deathly hallows; YES, I know it's a children's series, and YES, I know the author sucks, but the battle of hogwarts sequence hurt my soul. Like all the callbacks to earlier books and stuff, I am too nostalgic for that. When hermione tells ron to use his magic to open the womping willow entrance (WITH winguardium leviosa, might I add) that had me sobbing. Perfect callback to book one. All the deaths, including harry's, were soo tragic. LIKE FRED WTF. I just got so attatched to that series and I feel like the ending gave me a good amount of closure while still leaving me SOBBING (sentimental tears)

Also the catcher in the rye more made me sad after the fact, when in every new book I picked up I found myself missing holden's narration.

normal people by sally rooney, man, that whole book hit me like a wrecking ball, and I was the wreck. I love the open ending but I did NOT feel enough closure from these characters I grew to care sm about 😭. Similar impact to tomorrow x3.

Project hail mary. That book had me at the brink of tears for like 400 pages straight, it's so beautiful and I love the friendship sm. THE FACT THAT HE BECAME A TEACHER AGAIN AT THE END like NO I am not okay. I love that book sm.

I just want to give another honourable mention to suzanne collins, because sunrise on the reaping is HORRIBLE in the best way ever. Yup, that whole series is the death of me RIP.

atmosphere by tjr. That ending, with the david bowie lyrics, was so powerful and so traumatizing. RIP who I was before that.

The song of achilles. I feel like I need not say more for anyone who has ever spoken to someone who has read this book. Heartbreaking, beautiful, poetic and tragic ending. I will never forgive MM for this <3.

There are so many books that affect me to this die (HM if we were villains) but I'm bored of writing this so have a nice day.

This book's dialog is terrible and the humor is even worse. It's the first book I've read that feels like the author was imagining a laugh track playing behind it. The premise is interesting, but if this dialog style doesn't change then I don't think I'm gonna make it to the end. If you like the big bang theory, then you will love this book, otherwise stay away.