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Post by Alatariel on Nov 8, 2020 20:52:49 GMT -6
I hate Neal Stephenson!!! When I meet a dude-bro who gushes about him, I know to steer clear. Big red flag.
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Bird
Counselor 
Posts: 143
Custom Title: World Creator and Destroyer
Preferred Pronouns: they/them/their
HARD: 200
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Post by Bird on Nov 9, 2020 9:46:52 GMT -6
I hate Neal Stephenson!!! When I meet a dude-bro who gushes about him, I know to steer clear. Big red flag. Welcome to the Hate-Neal-Stephenson club! We got cookies and ice cream here.  |
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Post by RAVENEYE on Nov 18, 2020 9:33:54 GMT -6
Meh, what do you know? I never added my own. I was too enthralled by all your reading woes.
* Which book(s) did you despise?
David Copperfield
* Why?
Angelic boy who never does anything wrong is mistreated for no reason other than everyone else is an ass. "I am born..." Seriously? No shit, dude. So are we all. What makes your birth so astounding that you would even start a story with that? Charles, really?
* Did you muscle on and actually finish reading it?
I believe I quit at the halfway point when the thought of continuing actually caused me to sob.
(On the other hand, Great Expectations is one I'll read a million times, cuz Pip is a jerk who does some truly terrible things to good people and is therefore interesting. And Miss Havesham, dear God, what a great character.)
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Post by whaleworkforfood on Dec 7, 2020 6:42:05 GMT -6
To Kill A Mockingbird. I was forced to read it in high school and THEN write a 3-page essay on it. Either 3-page or 1k words. We got a choice between the two. Nope. Oh, I read the book, certainly. I was a good boy. But the essay? I couldn't handle it. I honestly don't remember what I wrote, but I ended up getting a disciplinarian notice because my essay was considered an "attack on the character and person of a beloved author". Which was made worse when I refused to apologize for my "disruptive, opinionated behavior" to the rest of the class, which frankly wasn't my fault. She wanted my opinion, and I gave it. Not my problem she insisted on reading it to the rest of the class. I believe she thought it would make me ashamed but nope, I was pretty proud of myself honestly and my teacher only reinforced my pride by reading my essay to the class. Needless to say, I hated the book and found the plot dull and predictable. I literally knew how the majority of the novel was going to turn out by the time I read through a third of it. There was nothing redeeming about it. The characters were so forgettable I couldn't tell you the name of any of them any longer. I got about as much enjoyment out of it as I would watching a pot of water boil repeatedly. (I do remember that line being in the essay actually) I was a controversial student though anyway. F--k you Harper Lee. I actually like the book, but I was slightly disappointed after reading it. There's so much acclaim around this book that I was going in, expecting a masterpiece. It was good, just not amazing. Although that could be because I'm not American, and I don't have the context/background to fully appreciate the book? I agree in that the plot was rather easy to guess and there was a kind of sentimentality(?) about the book that kind of irked me.
It's been a while, but I really, really loathe The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. It was the first (and last) Heinlein I've read.
I don't necessarily mind when a writer inserts their politics into a book, but Heinlein did not insert, so much as forcibly shove his ideology down my throat like I was a struggling child who didn't want to eat his veggies.
The protagonists were totally obnoxious. The plot existed solely to either let the protagonists smugly tell me how clever they were, or smugly shout Heinlein's politics at me. They were so annoying that by the end of the book, I was positively rooting for the entire moon to be blown up.
The infuriating thing was that I liked the premise. A moon base revolting against Earth? Yes! But whatever positive feelings I had for the world-building were just completely done away with by the nothing-to-write-home-about writing and the annoying politics/characters.
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Post by RAVENEYE on Dec 7, 2020 9:15:36 GMT -6
The infuriating thing was that I liked the premise. A moon base revolting against Earth? Yes! But whatever positive feelings I had for the world-building were just completely done away with by the nothing-to-write-home-about writing and the annoying politics/characters.
Hmm, this is one of those kinds of disappointments that inspires some authors to write their take on a topic. If you were to write about a revolt on the moon, I'm guessing it wouldn't involve political grandstanding. What else would you do differently? And, yeah, I hadn't read Heinlein's stuff before I happened to watch the movie version of his Starship Troopers, and I hated that movie. Whether or not it was faithful to the book, I decided his work wasn't for me. |
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Post by ZukoMee on Dec 10, 2020 19:39:29 GMT -6
I liked the movie starship troopers...though only as the mindlessly cheesy bug-fest killer movie that it was. I'm kind of disappointed that it was even allowed to be a book. I wasn't aware the movies were based on books. Maybe I'm biased, but I always felt that movies can be just blah/dull and still be considered decent enough to watch. Sometimes even re-watch. But books have to the pinnacle of experience because whereas movies have some room to fail and still succeed...books don't. It's text, not moving pictures. Text has less room for weakness.
Dunno.
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Post by RAVENEYE on Dec 10, 2020 23:19:02 GMT -6
But books have to the pinnacle of experience because whereas movies have some room to fail and still succeed...books don't. It's text, not moving pictures. Text has less room for weakness. Dunno. Interesting take on that. I hadn't considered it from that angle. Just speculating on why this is the case, and I wonder if it's because movies move quickly enough that a viewer may not have time to catch the plot holes, inconsistencies, and breaks in logic/reality until the second or third viewing, but with books, the reader has time to catch all that stuff as they read it the first time. Hmm, just a thought. But yeah. |
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Post by Alatariel on Dec 21, 2020 13:18:55 GMT -6
So the YA series that I hate, Shadow and Bone, is getting a Netflix series. Sigh.
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Post by RAVENEYE on Dec 21, 2020 16:28:35 GMT -6
So the YA series that I hate, Shadow and Bone, is getting a Netflix series. Sigh. Blows the mind, doesn't it? Why do some books (and many bad books at that) get that sort of treatment/attention, while so many wonderful stories end up being neglected? |
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Post by Alatariel on Dec 21, 2020 18:15:12 GMT -6
So the YA series that I hate, Shadow and Bone, is getting a Netflix series. Sigh. Blows the mind, doesn't it? Why do some books (and many bad books at that) get that sort of treatment/attention, while so many wonderful stories end up being neglected? I keep wondering if I missed something? Did I read the book(s) correctly? Because it takes a lot for me to dislike a book. A lot. And yet I can rant about the failing of this series like it's my job. And yet it's utterly beloved by many AND getting a TV show?! Okay, so the prose was good and the world created was slightly interesting but THAT'S IT. The characters and plot were dismal. DISMAL I SAY. *huff huff* |
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Post by RAVENEYE on Dec 22, 2020 10:04:50 GMT -6
Blows the mind, doesn't it? Why do some books (and many bad books at that) get that sort of treatment/attention, while so many wonderful stories end up being neglected? I keep wondering if I missed something? Did I read the book(s) correctly? Because it takes a lot for me to dislike a book. A lot. And yet I can rant about the failing of this series like it's my job. And yet it's utterly beloved by many AND getting a TV show?! Okay, so the prose was good and the world created was slightly interesting but THAT'S IT. The characters and plot were dismal. DISMAL I SAY. *huff huff* Bahahaha!!! That's how I was with the Twilight series. It left my head spinning. I kept looking at this revolting reading phenomenon and saying "What the hell is happening???" But let's not dredge up that old topic again. Ugh.  I'm gonna go wash my eyeballs now b/c I can't look at the title without feeling soiled. |
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I'm gonna go wash my eyeballs now b/c I can't look at the title without feeling soiled.
I've missed being here.
Apr 3, 2021 10:06:18 GMT -6
I've missed being here.
Apr 3, 2021 10:06:18 GMT -6
Apr 8, 2021 16:24:08 GMT -6