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Maybe hate is a strong word, but whatever. Are there any authors whose books you try to read and you just HATE everything they write? Last week I was at Goodwill and they had two of Emily Giffin's newer books on the shelf, so I picked them up for mindless pool reading while on vacation. I finished them both in about 3 hours each and when I was done, I realized that I cannot STAND Emily Giffin's books. She has the most amazing ability to write women as completely unbelievable characters even though she IS a woman. NONE of her female characters are likeable; I think she thinks she's trying to make them all "complex" by giving them good sides and bad sides, but their bad sides ALWAYS overrule any good she writes into them and they are just not likeable people! So I really dislike Emily Giffin because even though she is writing stories ABOUT women FOR women, she can't write a realistic, genuine woman to save her life.
What about the rest of you? Any authors whose books you just cannot stand?
I actually just got a book at the library by Charles Baxter. I really hate this book. I am just reading it becaue I want closure. He sounds like a pompous jerk. imo
Jennifer Weiner. I cannot get into any of her books. I've tried several times and as much as I hate putting books down once I start them, I've only been able to finish one of her books. And it took me almost a month to read it. ugh.
Ha! I saw the title and I thought Emily Giffin. I feel exactly the same way you do!
Lisa Jackson. I've read one book of hers (supposedly she writes mystery books, but they are basically just romance novels disguised as mysteries/thrillers) and it was just awful. I even wrote a blog post about how terrible it was. Linda Howard is the exact same way. Sometimes Tami Hoag is too. Tami Hoag has like 15 mystery novels out, and 2 of them were just excellent, and the rest sucked.
I hate to sound all sexist, but as a rule, I don't care for mystery/thriller books written by women. It seems like the majority of the time, the female authors truly want to write romance novels, but know they won't be as well received, so they disguise them as mysteries/crime novels, with maybe 10% dedicated to the actual crime, and the remaining 90% a completely predictable, trite love story between the main female character and that guy that gets under her skin but always shows up when she needs him. So lame.
Also, I have read my fair share of chick lit, and while it's still one of the first places I gravitate towards at book stores, many of them are sorely lacking in character development. Way too many modern novels are plot driven, not character driven. How can you enjoy reading a book when you can't stand the main character? I too am no fan of Emily Giffen.
You know who else pisses me off? Dean Koontz and Tom Perrotta. Two very different authors, but they have the same issue. They write these books that are really interesting and engaging in the first half, and then it's like they just run out of steam halfway through and phone it in for the rest of the book.
Actually, I could go on and on about the authors that annoy me, but this post is getting long enough already.
I hate any aurthor that rattels out the same book with different character names like every 6 months like Ann Rice or John Grisham.
@LetsGoPens: agreed!
And I'm going to throw this out there...Nicholas Sparks.
I generally don't like romances. My FMIL reads a lot of books by Nora Roberts and Kristin Hannah. I tried to read a few and just couldn't do it. I also started to read the first Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evonovich and couldn't get into it. Besides "Little Women" those are the only 3 books I haven't been able to finish. Ironically, I love Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. I totally acknowledge that her writing is terrible from an academic standpoint... but something about those books really sucked me in.
LOL I knew somebody was going to say her eventually.
@ohheavenlyday: of course someone was going to say her... I personally love her and think she is a good writer but not everyone will lke everyone- Oh Well!
Herman Melville. I've never attempted to read Moby Dick, but Billy Budd was enough to scare me away!
Candace Bushnell!
I really enjoyed the Sex and the City TV show, so I figured I'd give her books a try. I only read one of them (although it wasn't the one SATC was based on), but oh my gosh, I swear it was the worst book I've ever read. She's not descriptive, her story lines are lacking, and I swear that she has rocks for brains. I heard her in an interview, and she just sounds dumb. How does that type of person write so many books?!
@msgiraffe Don't even bother reading SATC the book. I was massively disappointed in SATC the book. I chalked it up to being a collection of columns because it made no sense. You didn't care about any of the characters and it was just sad and depressing. I get that the 30-something single, liberated New York girls idea was originally groundbreaking in the genre of chic-lit, but I think a lot of other writers have done it much better since then. You might check out Lipstick Jungle though--it's better than SATC, but I think both of these books turned out much better on TV.
My "hated" author... probably going to get shot for this... Danielle Steel. Yep, I said it. Perhaps it was the book I read (Coming out) but I really disliked the present tense tone. It was just odd. And the whole book was really predictable.
I'd say I hate Stephenie Meyer, but I did read all the Twilight books in a week and enjoyed them. I wouldn't read them again, but she did have me hooked. Don't get me started on analyzing the messages she sends through vapid, weak, dependent Bella and stalker Edward though... In real life a guy like that would not be desirable! Do yourself a favor and avoid these books on audio--the reader is uber annoying.
I'm also not as much of a fan of Nicholas Sparks as I would like. I like the movies that come out of his books, but all--save Dear John--are so similar that I can't tell them apart. I'll start to read one and wonder if I've read it before... all the same.
@lindseyrose: I tried to read Moby Dick. It was good until I got to a huge chapter on the genealogy of whales... I gave up.
Foucault and Faulkner both give me headaches. Also not a huge fan of Dickens.
And I second Nicholas Sparks.
Laurell K Hamilton! I used to love the Anita Blake series until all the characters started getting it on every other chapter... all of them... together...
@LetsGoPens: I agree. I really enjoyed reading the Twilight series, but my GOD was she a terrible author. Her syntax made me cringe.
@Miss Damask: Oh I totally agree about NOT listening to the Twilight Saga on audio.... it is HORRIFIC! I tried to listen to Breaking Dawn AFTER I had already read it & couldnt get through the first chapter! Good thing I didnt buy the audio since it was like $60 I just got it at the Library~ but I do love her books; Im still hooked on em... oh well what can I say I will be the self-proclaimed Twilight dork! haha
Although I know he is very talented and iconic writer, I'm not a huge fan of Hemingway and some of his work. I find him distasteful.
@LetsGoPens: Ditto. The Twilight books are the most horrible literature I have ever attempted to read.
I hated Eat, Pray, Love too. I can't stand her writing style at all.
@msdamask- ditto on the messages that the Twilight characters send. I really wish I hated those books, but they hooked me. Still, Stephenie Meyer is not literature, and doesn't pretend to be. The books aren't even written for adults. I agree that the writing is still bad compared to other books in the genre.
@jenewitt: Oh my god, Nicholas Sparks' books are all the same, and what's more, they're really terribly written. I wanted to read The Notebook before the movie came out, and I had the hardest time just getting through it, because his writing sounds like a 4th grader's. "Then he said this, then she said then, then he said this, and she replied with that." I think I tried one more of his books before I gave up for good.
Anita Shreve, Jodi Picoult, any of the authors of those hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing, Huge Crisis Every Page (except when punctuated by totally awkward sex scene) books.
Also, JD Salinger. See hand-wringing etc. above.
I agree with everyone who is saying Nicholas Sparks. I've read a lot of them, and they are all set in North Carolina with some girl who has been hurt in the past...but she meets mysterious loverboy who has a dark secret that could tear them apart! GASP! They're all the same!
And Danielle Steele just writes trash. I can't stand any of her books either.
Many of mine have been listed - Jodi Picoult, Danielle Steele, Nicholas Sparks, Elizabeth Gilbert, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, James Frey, Lauren Conrad (if she counts as an author). And I have tried so hard to like Dickens over the years, but I just don't.
@Lindsay12.31.2010: Every time I flipped the page in twilight, I thought "ok, this is the page were it's going to get as amazing as everyone said it was". and it didn't. She seriously needed a thesaurus, and uh... talent.
@Lindsay12.31.2010: I hated Eat, Pray, Love also....I thought I was the only one! I had heard such great things about it but couldn't even finish reading it. I tried watching the movie and it was just awful.
I'm reading my 2nd Anita Shreve book right now...and Im not a fan. I want to know what happens but this book is just brutal.
I did not like Eat, Pray Love at all. Which was odd because I love Italy very much and I enjoy Yoga...
@.twist.: Yeah, I borrowed it from a friend, and only made it through half. It was so terrible. I shook my head through the whole thing.
@Bostongrl25: I finished it, but man, it was a struggle. Terrible. She is a horrible author, and such a whiner.
@Lindsay12.31.2010: You're lucky to have borrowed it. I was in the market for a new book to read when I noticed TONS of girls squealing and clutching their twilight books. I had never heard of it so I asked one of the girls (I shouldn't say girl, she was an ADULT), and she told it was "like the best book EVAR" and I was like "hm. What the hell, I'll give it a try". Read the back, it was about vampires (which I LOoOOVE) so I bought it. Dumbest thing I've ever done.
LOL, I was at Walmart the summer Twilight came out and I just casually picked up the book and was flipping through it trying to decide if I wanted it and two girls came STOMPING over to me and were like, "I'm a Lit major, she's a Writing major, and if you like to read, we cannot let you buy this book." Then they went through and pointed out terrible writing errors in it and shamed me into not buying it.
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