Books are awesome. Except when they suck.

[rogueslayer452]

Day 05 - A book or series you hate

It'd be too easy to say the Twilight series, wouldn't it? I think it's the world's most mocked and hated book series to date. Why it's praised and gets recognition when it advocates horrible messages to young girls and promotes terrible writing and endorses batshit fans and their lunacy, I will never understand. It's like a plague of stupidity that I hope will die out very soon.

Besides that, for a book that I actually have read I would have to say Cut by Patricia McCormick. I remember grabbing this book from the young adults section in the bookstore some odd years ago and thought it sounded interesting. It was the biggest waste of my time reading it. The characters were so contrived and stereotypical, it was almost insulting. It dealt with self-harm but it seemed like the author was trying too hard to make it relatable to anyone that it just fell utterly flat, especially when bringing in one character that was so cliched I was cringing. I actually wanted to throw away the book because I was kind of offended.

Other than those, there aren't many books that I have read that I ended up hating entirely. I might dislike certain parts, end up feeling disappointed, but never full-on hate.

Comments

[thefreshchuff.livejournal.com]

I'm the same, as far as it takes a lot for me to hate a book. Usually if it doesn't interest me, I'll give up a few chapters in, so I never give myself the chance to up to full-blown hatred. That being said, I remember I had to read this one book, The Day No Pigs Would Die (I think it was called) for school once, and I utterly, utterly hated it. Contrived plot, PIG RAPE FOR THE SAKE OF BEING ~DRAMATIC. It read like bad fic, but as I was the only one in the class who, you know, read fic, no one understood what I meant. But ergh, I still cringe just thinking about it.

And, of course, the Twilight series deserves all the rage in the 'verse. I only hope the fad will die out fast. It has to eventually... right?

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely. If I'm disinterested in a book or find myself getting bored I stop reading before the inevitable hating of it, which I would have brought upon myself for not stopping knowing that I wasn't enjoying it anyway. Hence why required reading for classes can really bum me out.

lol, it's always hard to try and explain badfic to people who don't read fic. Because anyone in fandom you mention how a book read like badfic they understand immediately and offer you sympathies. ;)

And, of course, the Twilight series deserves all the rage in the 'verse. I only hope the fad will die out fast. It has to eventually... right?

I think after the final movie comes out it will. Since the craze started once the movies were in a buzz (because I didn't really know what Twilight was until they did). So yeah, here's to hoping! *prays and crosses fingers*

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Oh God, that book sounds just horrific and insulting. D:

[carameltrap.livejournal.com]

It takes a lot to hate a book. The Twilight series, unfortunately, wins hands down for me as well. For everything in it and that people thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread.

The other book I hated was Walkabout which I mentioned in my previous comment. Not for being contrive or cliche but for being just about the dullest book I've ever had to read. So much that I actually threw it against a wall. It didn't help that I had to read for English Lit.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think it wins by default for many people for those exact reasons. I'll never understand why it's so popular to begin with, because they are just that bad.

Then again, I am reminded of a lot of fanfiction that gets so many comments and recommendations, but the story itself wasn't even that great whereas there are many other fanfics out there which are of amazing quality but are hardly ever recognized. This is just like that, only worse because it's publicized. :/

Required reading is also something I hated too. Nobody likes being forced to read something that they're not interested in.

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'It'd be too easy to say the Twilight series, wouldn't it? I think it's the world's most mocked and hated book series to date. Why it's praised and gets recognition when it advocates horrible messages to young girls and promotes terrible writing and endorses batshit fans and their lunacy, I will never understand. It's like a plague of stupidity that I hope will die out very soon.'
You and me both. Maybe now that Vampires have become a joke (see: Vampires Suck) that means the craze will die out. I just don't get how something that reads like bad fanfic can be so popular; I kind of understand why teenage girls like it (they just don't know it's bad) but I don't understand why their mom's do.

[secret-hotel.livejournal.com]

I kind of understand why teenage girls like it (they just don't know it's bad) but I don't understand why their mom's do.
They're probably the same moms who love really trashy, misogynist, bodice-ripping "romance" novels. (Although I'm not saying everything in the genre is terrible, but...)

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'(Although I'm not saying everything in the genre is terrible, but...)'
I hear you.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

You and me both. Maybe now that Vampires have become a joke (see: Vampires Suck) that means the craze will die out.

Except I think Vampires Suck was more promoting Twilight rather than making fun of it, as I've heard from some people that it was just an unfunny parody. But I do think you're right, because of the series vampires have become less threatening than they should be. I want real vampires to come back into style again, the scary types that want to drink your blood. Not the emo-vegan-whiny-sparkly ones.

I kind of understand why teenage girls like it (they just don't know it's bad) but I don't understand why their mom's do.

I think it's something to do with fulfilling that void with such romances, which makes no sense because there are tons of adult romance novels they can dive right into. Why does it have to be about sparking vampires? I don't get that either. Then again, I've stopped trying to understand why people even get involved in those books. The TwiMoms are something else altogether, it's disturbing.

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'But I do think you're right, because of the series vampires have become less threatening than they should be. I want real vampires to come back into style again, the scary types that want to drink your blood. Not the emo-vegan-whiny-sparkly ones.'
Me too. Someone over at AfterElton.com compared Anna Rice Vampires to True Blood vampires and he put it better than I ever could:

'Well, the difference was that Anne Rice was establishing her vampires as post-human "others" who were fundamentally different from humanity and ultimately incompatible with them.

Thus the journey of her characters involves learning to accept their post-human condition and how to exist in a world where their point of view will forever be different from that of humans. Rice "humanized" the vampires only inasmuch as her stories were written from their perspective, rather than that of humans interacting with them. She also tended to explore human social issues from the outsider's viewpoint of the vampires, whose heightened senses, intellect and ability to read minds allowed them to deeply examine the human condition in a godlike way.

But what Rice never did was try and cast her vampires as ideal boyfriends for human women. Her stories really aren't romances in the classic sense. Lestat is a romantic character but their is always the underlying clarity that he, nor any other vampire, could never have a non-destructive relationship with a human. The closest Lestat ever found was Rowan Mayfair, a powerful psychic "witch" whose own experiences left her closer to the vampire's world than the human one. Otherwise the stories always hinged on the idea that vampire/human relationships always ended in the human becoming a vampire, tragedy, or both.

This is the exact opposite of newer genre pieces like the Southern Vampire Mysteries or Twilight, which try to make vampires seem more compatible with humans. Or at least in Twilight's case which try to remove some of the moral impediments to relationships between humans and vampires.

While Rice's vampires were nearly-alien post-humans, almost science fiction creatures rather than supernatural ones, the newer vampire genre stuff tries to make vampires into ordinary people who happen to drink blood, don't age and have super powers. Being romantic wish fulfillment, they will never be as deep as the Vampire Chronicles.'
***************************

'I think it's something to do with fulfilling that void with such romances, which makes no sense because there are tons of adult romance novels they can dive right into. Why does it have to be about sparking vampires? I don't get that either. Then again, I've stopped trying to understand why people even get involved in those books. The TwiMoms are something else altogether, it's disturbing.'
The only thing I can think of is that Bella is so flat as a character that it's very easy for readers to self-interest themselves into the story. Stephenie Meyer has all but said that Bella is her self-insert. Twimoms just make me shudder.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

It's more of the major publicity and popularity it gained in a short period of time once the movies came out that spawned all of this, because I honestly never heard of Twilight until they sprung out. Plus all the loud and obnoxious fangirls just rampaging everything, creating drama, being just irritating and annoying just like the franchise they're obsessed with. Never mind the many issues it has but hardly ever gets acknowledged in the open public. That's why all the hate, which it does bring upon itself (and the author, who makes matters even worse with her level of immaturity either).

I have no doubt there are probably worse books out there, but none which have reached this level that is Twilight and the insanity it has created which got old incredibly fast.

[blualbino.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even make it more than a few chapters into Cut, honestly. And I read the entire Twilight Series -____-;

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

I really should have stopped, quite honestly, but I was compelled to see where it was heading and it was a short read anyway. But it was so bad with how the author wrote it, just ugh.