Books You've Thrown Away

[Smilla]

Oh god, Alice Hoffman. Holy overratedness. I wasn't going to post again, b/c I'm about to go to sleep, but she's another writer who should be gently led into seclusion and weaned away from the keyboard, perhaps introduced to a nice hobby like crocheting.

Oh man, tmi, I see the mind-meld has finally worn off. Sort of. Alice Hoffman's books prior to a certain wretched piece of crap entitled Second Nature, are some of my favorite novels ever. EVER. Everything after Second Nature pretty much blows. Her downfall as a writer was painful to watch--in fact, that may be the hardest I've ever seen any artist tank. Though, hey, I guess that means I've got another submission for this thread: Alice Hoffman's Here on Earth. It's been a doostop at my house for several years.

[tmi]

Many books ago I liked Hoffman well enough (though not a big fan at all), then she went needlessly downhill. The same thing kinda happened with Alice Walker's novels over the years, but it was weirder.

(It needs to be said that I'm not comparing either writer-- or any writer of integrity-- to someone like Waller, who really does have his own level of unspeakablility. Sometimes I imagine special vigilante groups of talented, non-commercial, thus unpublished writers and indie booksellers, whose charge is to track down all Wallers and their ilk and send them to gentle retraining/re-education camps).

Ok-- I ranted about this at the other site, but I'd really like to put the collected works of Chuck Palahniuk on the catapult. Maybe I'd hang onto Fight Club-- but the relative ok-ness of that ONE book is outweighed by the ghastliness of everything else he's written. What really bugs me is a) how he's considered this edgy, po-mo genius when he just repeats/reuses the same tired b.s. every time and b) how influential he is on younger writers. I know we use the phrase "threw the book," but when I tried to read Haunted, his most recent, a while ago, I actually frisbeed the thing after 15 pages, I was that annoyed.

[Deleted]

I'll second the Chuckster, tmi. I loved Fight Club, actually (I think I read it at a certain time in my life where it really struck home). Everything else has just sucked. I read Choke. Bleh. The only thing I found redeeming in that novel was the sprinkling of medical terminology. That stuck out in my mind, anyway. Diary was awful, and made absolutely no sense. I'm afraid to even pick up Survivor.

ETA: Read at your own risk. Weak stomachs, do not enter.Of course, there's Guts. Yech.

{sorry, tmi. Bad Bones.}

[tmi]

Oh. . . .man. Words fail. I really really really wish I hadn't clicked on that. Of COURSE I did, b/c I'm a curious fool, and I didn't think it could be that bad, and it wasn't, until the end.

Or maybe I'm a wimp. So if anyone out there is a wee bit wimpy or feeling a little queasy think before you click.
Gaah.

[ BagofBones, ya got me. ]

[tinyshoes]

The Lovely Bones (glad others feel my sentiment here). The first third was good, then it became a schmaltz-fest afterwards ("Look at me Oprah! I'm depressing! Can I get on your book club list now?").

How to be Good. I liked Nick Hornby's other books, so it made me sad that I couldn't finish this one.

Milkrun. This book gives chicklit a bad name. I have a spot in my heart for fluff reads, but this wasn't even fun fluff. Just drivel.

[brinksteria]

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. She whines and eats and withdraws and vegges. She has the inner life of a slug. This book was so boring. Out of habit, I read to the end. But I might have skipped over many paragraphs just to be done with it.

[Smilla]

The Lovely Bones (glad others feel my sentiment here).

And how. I hate that novel.

The first third was good,

All except that sentiment, I guess. Did I mention I hate that novel?

then it became a schmaltz-fest afterwards ("Look at me Oprah! I'm depressing! Can I get on your book club list now?").

Snerk. Yes, I snerked at the crappy writing and questionable symbology of a novel about a serious tragedy affecting the young female protagonist and her family. Because that book is really that awful.

Milkrun. This book gives chicklit a bad name. I have a spot in my heart for fluff reads, but this wasn't even fun fluff. Just drivel.

THANK YOU. I escaped having to toss that piece of shit by skimming the first chapter before I bought it, laughing, putting it back on the shelf and continuing to laugh. I was in an airport, okay? Don't cut me.

[messageunit]

Apologies to you, Smilla, but I freakin' hated Smilla's Sense of Snow. It took me forever to wade through it and I still have no idea what was going on. Plus it had one of the worst sex scenes I've ever read.

I feel like I'm the only one who didn't like the His Dark Materials books. I bought them because amazon kept recommending them and hated them! I found out a few months later they were this big international phenomenon and was floored.

[vacationland]

I escaped having to toss that piece of shit by skimming the first chapter before I bought it, laughing, putting it back on the shelf and continuing to laugh. I was in an airport, okay? Don't cut me.

Hehheh...Smilla, you inadvertently brought up one of my dirty li'l secrets here. Whenever I fly (and I used to fly a lot), I use it as an excuse to read absolute dreck I wouldn't be cought dead reading anywhere else by anyone I know. Stuff that could charitably be described as "beach reading" or "genre fiction" or :: cough :: the latest opus by John Grisham or the latest stupid Chick Lit bestseller (to pluck examples out of what I swear is thin air...ahem...).

I purchase them in airport shops or the newsstand of the subway as I'm leaving. I read them during the flight. When I'm done (or when the flight is done), I toss them into the seatback or wedge them between the wall and seat or (if I'm feeling charitable and very far from home) I'll carry the offending tome out into the lounge and leave it on a chair so someone else can have it.

Once, I gave a Chick Lit book to a flight attendant who saw me reading it and told me that was one she couldn't wait to read (she didn't have to...buh-bye now, crappy paperback). Another time I left the book on the seat of the airport shuttle. Invariably, these airport books are thrown away or passed along. The farthest one of them made it was to the hotel, where it was left in a drawer next to the Gideon Bible. I admit I was kind of curious to discover how that one turned out...it was a mystery that ended up not being terribly mysterious.

[Deleted]

Has anyone read The Little Friend by Donna Tartt? I didn't literally throw it away, but I put it in a shelf we've got at work that's a kind of free library and pitied whatever fool might pick it up to give it a try. The young protagonist is irritating and, well, actually the only character in the book I really liked was her best friend -- who inexplicably disappears (nearly) from the last half of the book. Take a look at the Amazon reviews and you'll see that a lot of people felt outraged to plow through hundreds of pages to find out that there's really no ending... And it starts out as a murder mystery!

And don't get me started on Naked Lunch! Please don't tell me I "just don't get it". For years I meant to read it because I was aware it was a big cult classic from the 60's. I didn't get very far with it because it was making me (literally) nauseas. That one I did throw away.