What's All the Hype?

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What's All the Hype?

1Tess_W
mar 7, 2021, 3:51 am

What was one book that seemed to be wildly popular, yet was a dud for you?

2terriks
mar 7, 2021, 8:47 pm

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I alternated between boredom and a general sense of distaste/dislike.

Forced myself to finish it, simply because of the hype. I figured it had to pick up. But no.

Just not my cuppa, I guess.

3Tess_W
mar 7, 2021, 9:07 pm

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

1. She doesn't use quotation marks--difficult to tell who's speaking
2. She uses triplets all the time: It was a DARK, RAINY, QUIET evening............no ands, never changes anything up
3. Same ole same ole theme: Dystopian--US economy top heavy, govt. overthrown by a group of fundamentalist Christians who destroy the Constitution and set up a theocracy........sigh.........

4mckait
mar 9, 2021, 6:51 am

Much hyped books usually disappoint me, and I tend to ignore them, at least for a while. I hated The Road! I find myself reading a lot more fluff the last few years than I used to. Life is demanding enough, so books that are anything more than pure pleasure don't appeal.

52wonderY
mar 9, 2021, 7:26 am

The Road was logically silly. And it didn’t really go anywhere.

Carl Hiassen’s humor is mean; and it’s okay with him if the good guys break the law.

6vwinsloe
mar 9, 2021, 10:24 am

Conversations with Friends. Lots of handwringing about sex by young people.

7LadyoftheLodge
mar 9, 2021, 2:40 pm

>4 mckait: I agree, I rarely read the hyped books and try to read what I like, might as well enjoy reading since there is no "required reading" in retirement.

8terriks
mar 9, 2021, 7:48 pm

>4 mckait:
>5 2wonderY:

Finally! I'm not alone! 😅

9mckait
mar 10, 2021, 7:57 am

I'm glad to find others that read for pure pleasure. Nothing turns me off quicker than "this is an important read" ~

nope.

10haydninvienna
mar 10, 2021, 9:59 am

I automatically tend to pass on anything with "Bigtime Newspaper Best seller!!!" or equivalent on the cover.

11Tess_W
mar 10, 2021, 1:56 pm

>7 LadyoftheLodge: I agree, Cheryl. Since retirement, I read only what I wanna!

12mckait
mar 10, 2021, 7:14 pm

>11 Tess_W: exactly! A gift to ourselves in a way

13gmathis
mar 10, 2021, 7:20 pm

With few exceptions, I have not had a good track record with any of the contemporary titles in any celebrity or talk show "Reading Club" list.

14Tess_W
mar 10, 2021, 9:18 pm

If Oprah ever sponsors a book on her book club, I run fast, I run far, far away! (Except for Night, which I had read years before)

15MerryMary
mar 10, 2021, 9:46 pm

The woman never picks a happy book.

16gmathis
mar 11, 2021, 8:33 am

>14 Tess_W: (I didn't want to mention names, but yeah :)

17vwinsloe
mar 11, 2021, 9:06 am

Ursula LeGuin wrote a brilliant blog post about the amazon BS machine as she called it. The post still lives on the internet, here.

http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2015/06/01/up-the-amazon/

18Crypto-Willobie
mar 11, 2021, 10:19 am

>17 vwinsloe:

Amazing pushback in the comments on that post...

19vwinsloe
mar 12, 2021, 8:56 am

>18 Crypto-Willobie:. Reminds me of the pushback that I get when I recommend that people use Librarything instead of the Amazon-owned Goodreads. Some people apparently like sales pressure and manipulation.

20WholeHouseLibrary
mar 12, 2021, 9:38 am

Johnathan Livingston Seagull. Hands down, complete drivel. Yet, it was disappearing from the bookshelves faster that it took to stock them.

21gmathis
mar 12, 2021, 10:01 am

>4 mckait: I am right there with you. My standard line is "I read to be entertained, not to be disturbed."

22gmathis
mar 12, 2021, 10:11 am

Oh, yes ... some years back, I was thrilled to see the sequel manuscript to To Kill A Mockingbird--Go Set A Watchman--had been unearthed. I soldiered on through every last page and didn't like any of them.

23marell
mar 12, 2021, 10:46 am

>22 gmathis: Glad you added this stinker. Agree one hundred percent.

242wonderY
Redigeret: mar 12, 2021, 11:32 am

>20 WholeHouseLibrary: Agree. But I really liked Illusions. Though looking at the work page now, I’m cringing.

25gmathis
mar 12, 2021, 11:38 am

Sorry, I'm on a roll now. At the time they were released, I read The Hunger Games and its follow-ups along with my high school son. I'd give the first one a "meh," but by the time we made it to #3, I was well past "done with this!"

26Tess_W
Redigeret: mar 12, 2021, 12:32 pm

>25 gmathis: I read only the first installment of the Hunger Games and I was also like "meh." Couldn't force myself to read the others, although I purchased them for my grandchildren....to me...if I can get kids to read then it's a win-win.

27gmathis
mar 12, 2021, 1:02 pm

>26 Tess_W: Indeed! For that reason, I'm embarking on a read through of Eragon, as requested by one of my 16-year-old "grown-up" church kids who still comes back to see me. I flew through it long ago and wasn't impressed at the time, but this time I am in no particular hurry and am enjoying it more than expected.

28MaquisMom
mar 15, 2021, 5:04 pm

How about Bridges of Madison County? The hype machine was on overdrive for that one. I couldn't be bothered to finish it even though it was so short.

29jtlauderdale
mar 15, 2021, 6:28 pm

My book club read Eat, Pay, Love a few years back and were more split on that one than anything else I can remember. Some loved it. I did not care for it at all

30Tess_W
mar 15, 2021, 8:23 pm

>28 MaquisMom: Oh I loved the Bridges of Madison County. I've read it twice; makes me sob!

31perennialreader
mar 15, 2021, 8:54 pm

Those darn Twilight books. Blech

32kdabra4
mar 16, 2021, 1:18 am

>30 Tess_W:
Me too!

33kdabra4
mar 16, 2021, 1:21 am

Bird Box was just awful for me.

342wonderY
mar 16, 2021, 6:16 am

Bird Box is one I’ve never heard of.

35John5918
mar 16, 2021, 6:27 am

I've never heard of most of the above. Hype seems to pass me by!

36Sheila1957
mar 16, 2021, 6:42 am

>29 jtlauderdale: I agree. Eat, Pray, Love was horrible. But there was a parody of it called Drink, Play, F*ck by Andrew Gottleib that was hysterical. It was so much better than hers. I laughed the whole way through it. Thought the reasoning behind the playing made a lot of sense.

37Lightfantastic
mar 16, 2021, 7:21 am

The Nightingale byKristen Hannah. Overwrought, predictable.

38bergs47
Redigeret: mar 16, 2021, 8:19 am

To be honest how many people have read Shakespeare voluntary. Any one I read was a school or University set work.

I once did 12 pages of Ulysses but gave it up.

I have to admit I have never read a Harry Potter book.

My biggest disappointment in the past few years is Lincoln on the Bardo, maybe it was the audible version

39Tess_W
mar 16, 2021, 9:01 am

>33 kdabra4: I liked Birdbox!
>38 bergs47: My real life book club read Lincoln in the Bardo, I thought it was average....I was expecting it to be bad, so maybe that's why I thought it average, maybe even mediocre.

40Crypto-Willobie
mar 16, 2021, 10:36 am

>38 bergs47:

Read all of Shakespeare a number of times not only voluntarily but joyfully. Eloquent dude. Also multi readings of Ulysses.

However, negatory on Moby-Dick, Look Homeward Angel and Tess of the Durbervilles

41potenza
mar 16, 2021, 11:16 am

Booker-winning Milkman, by Anna Burns. The aggressive word dump was triggering. Contrarily, Say Nothing is a brilliant book on Northern Ireland.

42potenza
mar 16, 2021, 11:20 am

Lincoln in the Bardo is one of my favorites! I thought it was so creative and heartfelt and good-natured. I'm reading more Saunders now. (If you didn't like Bardo, you probably won't like his other stuff - much the same style . . .)

43almin
mar 16, 2021, 1:39 pm

Two that I loathed....The Alchemist...highly recommended...I just didn't get it and Little Fires Everywhere...such lazy writing....one of the worst for me.

44CAGEYM
mar 16, 2021, 1:58 pm

>29 jtlauderdale: Agreed! Eat, Pray, Love was so self-indulgent! I gave up in the middle of Pray and frankly wondered what I didn't "get" because so many thought the clothes were lovely but all I saw was a naked emperor.

45librorumamans
mar 16, 2021, 2:39 pm

>34 2wonderY: Bird Box is one I’ve never heard of.

Best keep it that way!

Siddhartha. I tried it back in the sixties when everyone was reading it and bailed after a short while. Picked it up again last year to see if I or it had changed and bailed again.

46jpaschal
mar 16, 2021, 2:50 pm

The Twilight books: At the height of their popularity, a colleague at work (we worked in an academic library) asked me if I had read any of them. He suggested I would like them. I read a summary in Amazon about the first book and came away with a definite "No way!" I do not enjoy books where the females are so needy and unable to take positive action on their own. This viewpoint may have been the way women were expected to be in the '50s and '60s, during my youth, but I have grown to dislike this view immensely.

47erj-rnc
mar 16, 2021, 4:25 pm

Dr. Strange and Mr. Norell was wildly praised 10 or 12 years ago and sounded like something I’d enjoy. The style was so soporific and the plot moved so slowly that I finally gave up.

But I did like the TV adaptation! So it must have been the presentation, not the concept.

48Crypto-Willobie
mar 16, 2021, 4:38 pm

>47 erj-rnc:
Dr Strange was slow-moving but I loved it anyway. But then I did have it read to me, by my tape player...

49malarkeyus
mar 16, 2021, 7:46 pm

I'll just say that Shuggie Bain, which won the Booker Prize and was chosen by my book club had some guys saying it gave them the sheer pleasure of reading and they rated it highly. I found it average and, at no point, did I find myself reading it to see how something would end up, In fact, toward the end, my motivation to finish it was our upcoming meeting.

50CassandraRobinson
mar 16, 2021, 9:22 pm

Room by Emma Donaghue and The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Movies were equally awful.

51c_why
mar 17, 2021, 12:29 am

> Room and The Help are 2 of my favourite books, along with "Life of Pi"
This is a very depressing line of postings. Stick with Erma Bombeck - she's very fun.

52BobVTReader
mar 17, 2021, 6:59 am

William Golding's Lord of the Flies. I first read it when it came out in Paperback (early 60's). I found it somewhat disturbing; however did finish the book and read many of his other books. After he received the Nobel the Nobel Prize I tried to reread the book again and found it to be really bad. It was definitely a book for its times and I do not think that it has survived the test of time. Golding's other works were interesting; however, I have no desire to reread them.

53Walter_Stoffel
mar 17, 2021, 9:07 am

>40 Crypto-Willobie: Beware! They're coming to get Shakespeare! You know, that dated stuff written by a white male...

54MM_Jones
mar 17, 2021, 10:15 am

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. Best part was the physical descriptions of living in the wind. But didn't improve on the tale already told in Grapes of Wrath.
I see Kristin Hannah was mentioned previously in this string for a different book. Maybe a trend here.

55TerrieWeaverWied1683
Redigeret: mar 17, 2021, 10:59 am

>52 BobVTReader: I agree about Lord of the Flies. It was required reading in high school, and describing it as “disturbing” is a kinder term than I would use.

56TerrieWeaverWied1683
mar 17, 2021, 11:02 am

I read the first three books in the Outlander series back when they first came out. It was so disappointing to see each book descend further into smut, to the point that I vowed not to read a sequel if it came out. Diana Gabaldon’s historical fiction is among the best, but I just can’t get past the blatant sex, and even graphic rape in her books.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I read all the Twilight books, and enjoyed them. They seem so superficial now. But I loved the Harry Potter books! Fantasies like that transport me to other worlds, and they’re one of my favorite genres.

I see that many books I’ve passed on were duds. I’m happy to find that I didn’t waste my time with them.

57jeannecrisp
mar 17, 2021, 11:27 am

Where the Crawdads Sing is in my top 5 of overrated books.

58Lightfantastic
mar 17, 2021, 12:21 pm

Agree about Shuggie Bain. Though well-written, it’s just not holding my interest. I’m listening, however. It might improve upon reading

59LyndaInOregon
Redigeret: mar 17, 2021, 2:12 pm

Almost everything that is a Booker prize winner turns out to be not my cuppa. Don't know who votes on these things, but I'm beginning to believe it's the same guy who posts those "Nobody Owns These Any More" lists on FB.

Worst Offender in My List, Not Already Mentioned Category: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt.
Runners-Up: Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro, and -- gasp! Rebecca, by Daphne duMaurier. I was so revolted by the spineless insipid heroine that I Could. Not. get through it.

Extra votes for titles already mentioned: Where the Crawdads Sing, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and ... omigod, the Grand Champion -- Bridges of Madison County.

60Tess_W
mar 17, 2021, 11:12 pm

I have read 200+ books on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before you Die...and liked about 1 of them. I gave up on the list...no, I don't need to read them before I die; in fact, I would prefer not to!

61SuzRa1
mar 18, 2021, 4:54 am

>38 bergs47: Twelve pages? Not bad! I actually had Ulysses as reading for a class, but I worked my way around it somehow. 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' is a more reasonable read.
I read the first three Harry Potter books only because I was so sick with the flu I couldn't handle anything heavier. Too bad I didn't like them since the whole Potter Universe became a popular topic of discussion. I was a YA librarian and there are so many better worlds built in Young Adult science fiction and fantasy.

62SuzRa1
mar 18, 2021, 4:58 am

>59 LyndaInOregon: The Newberry Award is usually for a book an author wrote who had written a really good book in the past. Seems they were making up for a work they missed by awarding a lesser novel.

63SuzRa1
Redigeret: mar 18, 2021, 5:18 am

'Anna Karenina' is not the greatest novel. It had its moments. I was surprised at the suicide scene because Leo Tolstoy created an amazing "Modernist stream of consciousness technique" before other authors more known to employ it.
It's important to remember that it was initially released in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in a periodical. It becomes apparent in how the tone of the writing shifts and characters morph without good reason! I imagine he was influenced by the reception of each installment and that made him go in certain directions.
Why is it always voted "THE BEST" novel ever? It's just not "all that!"

64SuzRa1
Redigeret: mar 18, 2021, 5:25 am

>3 Tess_W: The Handmaid's Tale wasn't very good so naturally they made it into a TV series.
And what the heck was 'The Mists of Avalon'? Its being from the "perspective of the female characters" but lacking any real feminist ideals. So disappointing!

65Tess_W
mar 18, 2021, 5:48 am

>62 SuzRa1: The Newberry Award is given yearly for the best children's book.

66John5918
mar 18, 2021, 7:43 am

>61 SuzRa1:

I enjoyed the first Harry Potter book as it took me back to my childhood, reading Enid Blyton's books in which boarding schools featured prominently - indeed I believe she had a whole series about a girls' boarding school (Malory Towers) which my sisters read. I thought J K Rowling had quite cleverly found a way of merging the boarding school theme, which is generally out of fashion these days, with a new twist, namely magic. The second book wasn't bad - my first car was a Ford Anglia, although mine wouldn't fly no matter how hard I put my foot down. But after that they just got sillier and sillier, more and more pretentious, wordier and wordier, longer and longer, and frankly boring.

67DylanTucker
mar 18, 2021, 8:02 am

Denne bruger er blevet fjernet som værende spam.

68GraceBookclub
mar 18, 2021, 9:15 am

I've taken a few runs at All the Light We Cannot See. My friends love it. Why don't I? If I could unlock the mystery of why some books sweep me in and why others (often "well written") leave me meh, it would save so much time.

69Sharew
mar 18, 2021, 1:44 pm

50 Shades of Grey - even the sex scenes were poorly written.

70lauriecallen
mar 18, 2021, 5:23 pm

I'm with many of you. I rarely read best sellers or Oprah choices. I still find lots to read. As I have grown older, I have subscribed to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50. Once you've reached page 50, and you don't like the book, just quit.
In her words, when she was over 50, she said: "I realized that my Rule of 50 was incomplete. It needed an addendum. And here it is: When you are 51 years of age or older, subtract your age from 100, and the resulting number (which, of course, gets smaller every year) is the number of pages you should read before you can guiltlessly give up on a book. As the saying goes, "Age has its privileges.""

71gmathis
mar 19, 2021, 10:52 am

>70 lauriecallen: Love it. Consider that principle adopted at my house.

72Sohilib
mar 19, 2021, 7:00 pm

This was the funnest page I've read all day! I also did not like the Hunger Games series, I do read Shakespeare on my own, did love Harry Potter, and have never read an Oprah book. I also loved >70 lauriecallen: lauriecallen's rule!

73LyndaInOregon
Redigeret: mar 19, 2021, 9:56 pm

>70 lauriecallen: I didn't realize that was a "rule". :-)

In a demonstration of The Theory of Parallel Development, I decided at 60 that I wasn't going to live long enough to read every book ever written. (Gasp!!) Therefore there was no point in forcing myself to plow through EVERY book I happened to pick up. It has been remarkably freeing.

But for some reason, I'm having problems invoking that rule for Agaat. This is a very, very difficult book. Guess I'm like the little kid who found a "gag gift" of a ton of manure under the Christmas tree and just kept shoveling because "I think there's a pony under there somewhere."

Has anybody else read it? And is there a pony under there?

74Tess_W
mar 20, 2021, 1:43 am

Unless it's just horrendously awful, I try to read 20-25% of each book. Last year I DNF seven books--not bad, out of 157 books read.

752wonderY
mar 20, 2021, 4:03 am

I’m tossing more books than ever it seems. Just don’t have the patience when there are so many good books to get to.
So, maybe someone here can advise. I already can’t stand any of the characters in Like Water for Chocolate. Does it improve over the arc of the year?

76Tess_W
mar 20, 2021, 9:02 am

77John5918
mar 20, 2021, 9:35 am

It has never even occurred to me to read books recommended by the likes of Oprah, Richard and Judy (in UK), or other TV pundits. I don't watch their shows and I don't read their book reviews and recommendations. I was vaguely aware that they do recommend books from time to time, but I always assumed that their book choices would not be the same as mine. Seems I was probably right.

78LyndaInOregon
mar 20, 2021, 5:05 pm

>75 2wonderY: - You'll realize very quickly whether Magical Realism is for you. Sounds like it's not, so you have my permission ;-) to give up on Like Water for Chocolate.

I DNF 15 books last year, and read 122, so almost one in ten was a dud for me.

79Tess_W
mar 20, 2021, 6:43 pm

No magical realism for me! I read one of Isabelle Allende's books (which I did finish) and then Like Water for Chocolate and never again. I DNF The Night Circus because when I started reading I was unaware that it was magical realism--and thankfully it appeared in the first chapter so I did not invest a lot of time on it.

80dustydigger
mar 20, 2021, 8:04 pm

>79 Tess_W: Oh dear,I have Night Circus to read for a challenge next month. It has perched on my bookshelf for 14 months looking at me reproachfully,sadly aware that I just dont want to read it at all. Lol.
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez nearly killed me. I literally forced myself each morning to read a short chapter while eating my porridge.It was only 200 pages long and took me almost a month!.There are no less than 17 characters who have the same name. I once spent a wonderful afternoon reading reviews of the book by innocent bewildered schoolkids who bitterly bewailed their enforced purgatory!
Yeah,I know it is supposed to be a masterpiece of world literature,but it did nothing for me. :0)

81terriks
mar 21, 2021, 8:19 pm

>68 GraceBookclub: Don't feel bad about All the Light You Cannot See. I actually did enjoy that book, and was encouraged enough by the writing of Anthony Doerr to pick up a second one by him - About Grace.

Good heavens, what a garbled stinker. I could hardly believe it came from the same author.

83tarmina
apr 2, 2021, 6:16 pm

>41 potenza: Reading Say Nothing at the moment. Absolutely agree, explains a complicated subject brilliantly.

84tarmina
apr 2, 2021, 6:20 pm

Couldn't finish The Night Circus or The Time Traveller's Wife. Neither held my attention for very long. I went on to read All the Light We Cannot See, which I loved.

85Tess_W
apr 2, 2021, 9:21 pm

>84 tarmina: With you on Night Circus and Time Traveller's Wife---I don't like anything with magical realism. I absolutely loved All the Light We Can Not See.