So far I’ve read two books that people seem to
love. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding and What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall. I gave Bridget Jones a 1 star because I hated her entire personality. She cared way too much about what other’s thought of her and obsessed over her weight when she was only roughly 130 lbs. With What Lies in the Woods, I also couldn’t stand the characters. I felt like it was predictable and veered on the side of bland at points. I ended up giving that one 2 stars. I see all these great reviews for both books on Goodreads and I definitely don’t understand it. So what’s a book you’ve read that people rant and rave over that you don’t get the hype?
by skye_the_boss
8 Comments
While acknowledging that the fault is almost certainly mine, anything by John LeCarre. Never felt any of suspense.
A lot of those ‘neighbourhood’/domestic thrillers, like The Girl on Keller Way.
And yeah, What Lies in the Woods too. Any book where protagonists go back to their hometown, but some secret from 30 years ago (that will be doled out to the reader in the Big Reveal) returns to haunt them.
The writing style seems to be the same simple first person in every book, and I’m really not a fan of psychological thrillers to begin with. I prefer mysteries, since they keep me engaged trying to figure out who the killer/criminal is.
I can see why people enjoy them, because if you like twists you will respond to them. But they always feel dragged out to me and sound so much better on paper than they are in reality.
The ‘conflict’ in the domestic thrillers always seems to be “Is my husband the good guy or the serial killer/stalker?” There’s only a handful of times I can read that without going “Well, big surprise. It’s either one or the other!”
And the protagonist is mentally unstable in many of these books, which I’m not fond of either. I tried to read The Woman on Needless Street and the style was far too choppy for me because the narrative was dominated by the narrator’s fragmented thoughts. I am used to police procedurals where everything is laid out straight away and the narration is quite straightforward.
I’m consistently dismayed with how many people highly rate the Licanius Trilogy or call it their favorite series ever. It felt like condensing larger, better series down into 3 books for people who couldn’t be bothered to read something like Wheel of Time. Unfortunately that condensation process also left out any interesting characters and almost every interesting fight scene. What we are left with is very basic plot driven fantasy in a setting where I don’t care about the characters or the magic.
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton.
Truth be told I didn’t get very far in it before stopping.
It got rave reviews somewhere.
Maybe I’ll give it another try at some point.
I go into Goodreads or social media books by expecting them to be popcorn or subpar readings at this point, even in their own genre. Nothing wrong with just alright books but most of them get such high reviews for no reason.
The last one I remember is The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, like it was fine and all but absolutely just an okay read. Enjoyable, but not as good as that rating or award makes it out to be.
[Tryst by Hernan Diaz](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58210933) won the Pulitzer and received some great reviews. I found it confusing and on the boring side.
I just finished up Mistborn by Brandan Sanderson and I was not impressed. The prose was awful. When I saw ‘awful’, I don’t mean overly simplistic. Simple prose can be very engaging. Sanderson’s prose is erratic. There’s no natural rhythm to it. It’s like he uses all those en dashes and semi colons to try to appear more complex, but it makes his prose choppy. The plot, pacing, and characters are stiffled by a complex magic system. A big chunk of this book is the characters sitting around explaining the magic system to each other.
Bridget Jones is a satirical character. You, the reader, are not supposed to identify with her as an admirable Mary Sue stand-in; you’re supposed to be able to laugh at her many foibles, and those of the world she inhabits. If you didn’t get that basic premise then I’m not surprised that you didn’t enjoy the story, but that’s not the fault of the author, nor even of the character. The book got great ratings etc. because many, many other people *did* get the premise and enjoyed it as it was intended to be enjoyed.