Big Named Authors That Disappointed You?

Emermouse said:

I have weird issues with Neil Gaiman. Now before anyone says anything, I love, loved The Sandman series. Those comics pretty much introduced and cemented my love for Neil Gaiman. I also love Coraline and The Graveyard Book, but for some reason, I just can't get into his adult books. I've tried both American Gods and Good Omens because everyone was praising them to high heavens, but I just couldn't get into them. Don't know why; there wasn't anything specific I could point to where I said he lost me.

I have a similar thing with Kurt Vonnegut. I like his eight rules for writing and all the quotes I've seen attributed to him make him seem like the kind of guy I'd really like to read, but I cannot get into his fiction.

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Ah, you've hit multiple points near my heart!

Gaiman: I'm the exact opposite of you. I loved American Gods and Anansi Boys, and Neverwhere not as much but still enjoyed it. I wish I had the guts to write like this and pull it off. His kids stuff? Not a fan. Coraline was cute but not awesome, and I couldn't get into Stardust at all.

Vonnegut: I truly believe Vonnegut's strength was in short stories and not novels, although I would still read every single novel he wrote if he wasn't "up in Heaven now." (If you read Vonnegut deeply you'll get the joke.) I also think he wasn't that good of a sci-fi writer. His best stuff was modern day contemporary such as Dead Eye Dick, Mother Night and Bluebeard. I don't remember any of the Billy Pilgrim unstuck in time stuff from Slaughterhouse 5, but remember the WWII stuff vividly. Interesting tidbit: Player Piano, his first book, wasn't written as sci-fi, but as satire of General Electric. The publisher had him make some changes and billed it as dystopian sci-fi because they thought nobody would believe that real companies act this way.

blacbird said:

You're not alone. I've tried Gatsby about three times, because people keep telling me I should, and I have exactly your reaction, for exactly the same reasons. As reader, I'm supposed to empathize with the adulation for the wealthy that oozes from Fitzgerald's writing? Just can't do it.

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I thought Gatsby was OK when I read it for my college American Lit course back in the 1980s, and once again thought it was OK when I reread it a few years ago. It's not on my Top 10 list, or even in my Top 100, but definitely somewhere on my "OK" list.

As far as rich fictional characters go, three of my all-time favorite characters are incredibly wealthy: Scrooge McDuck, Rich Uncle Pennybags (aka "Mr. Monopoly" or "the little guy with the top hat on the Monopoly board game") and, last but not least, Thurston Howell III.

The Historian. Anyone? I expected Dracula with a modern understanding of science/style of writing. What I got was a tour of Western Europe and a history lesson. I enjoyed parts of it, but it definitely was not what I expected. And that ending.

jodiodi said:

I kinda got tired of the chick that writes the Kay Scarpetta books. The characters became completely unsympathetic and the last time I read about Lucy or whatever her name was, I was SO hoping she'd get killed. If they'd stick with Kay and leave the brat and others out of it, I'd enjoy it more.
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I agree. The series started out good, but then each book got more and more depressing. A slob of a cop drooling the MC, a neurotic niece, and chain smoking MC who was supposedly hot. It was like a slow descent into hell.

I stopped reading halfway through Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind, during the university chapters, when I realized that I was bored and hated the narrator.

Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth was another disappointment. Cartoon characters dressed up as medieval people, and not in a fun way.

Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was actually well written, but the mysogyny was a turn-off. Every one of the inmates was there because of a woman, whether a mother or wife or underage tease.

Hunter S. Thompson. I sort of enjoyed Hell's Angels, but recently I read 2 other books of his – or tried, because I got them from a friend – and they felt so dated... and the misogyny and animal cruelty made them unbearable.

Also, GoT.

which other two, just out of curiosity?

Wow. I thought there was something wrong with me because it has taken me 5 years to read GRRM's A Game of Thrones (by that I mean, that actual book. I have been on book 1 for 5 years. No lie). But I love the show. Good to know I am not alone in finding it difficult to finish.

William Haskins said:

which other two, just out of curiosity?

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Rum Diary and Generation of Swine.

anastasiareeves said:

I thought there was something wrong with me because it has taken me 5 years to read GRRM's A Game of Thrones

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The farthest I got was three chapters. Not kidding. The characters were too annoying or too out of place. And "ser" instead of "sir" didn't help. You see, "ser" means "cheese" in my native language. I just couldn't... yeah.

anastasiareeves said:

Wow. I thought there was something wrong with me because it has taken me 5 years to read GRRM's A Game of Thrones (by that I mean, that actual book. I have been on book 1 for 5 years. No lie). But I love the show. Good to know I am not alone in finding it difficult to finish.

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I found it tough going at first, when the prologue with the encounter beyond the Wall ended and the relatively slower, less tense first chapter began. Plus, there seemed way too many names to remember. Then I read all the Daenerys chapters, one after another, and started getting more into it.

Tocotin said:

Rum Diary and Generation of Swine.



The farthest I got was three chapters. Not kidding. The characters were too annoying or too out of place. And "ser" instead of "sir" didn't help. You see, "ser" means "cheese" in my native language. I just couldn't... yeah.

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I am 20% through. And that is listening to it on audiobook, reading it on Kindle and reading the paperback. I thought switching around would help. Nope.

By the way you cannot get through the audiobook at all once you've seen the show. I am sure the man reading to me is a lovely gentlemen, but Arya and Sansa Stark should not sound like 80-year-old men who smoke too much. Also, he cannot decide whether it is Joffrey or Jeffry.

Just a mess all around.

It was Jon Snow and his constant whining about people calling him a bastard and looking at him funny. Really? You're living in a supposedly harsh, cruel world, and that's all you complain about? Count your blessings.

I couldn't take the story seriously after that. Then his stepmother, a feudal lady with scores of people depending on her, threw a tantrum or something and refused to do her duty just because, then the king showed up and I just closed the book. These guys shouldn't have lasted five minutes in that kind of world.

Hate Nicholas Sparks, did not like Gatsby (didn't hate but didn't like), Faulkner? OMG.. the agony of those endless sentences! Dislike Richard North Patterson (interesting ideas but wooden, earnest, totally flat characters). I love Scott Turow but Identical was awful (IMO, no disrespect to those who love it). I did like Jonathon Kellerman (dislike his wife's writing very much) but don't like his later stuff. I adore Carl Hiaasen but didn't love Star Island. Am hoping Monkey Business is better, but I 'll still love him even it sucks!

Frank Herbert. I read Dune and thought it was all right, but the writing felt klunky and the world building more akin to fantasy than the hard SF it was billed as being. I could not read the sequels, though.

Orson Scott Card. I read Ender because a couple of friends told me it was the best SF book ever, and thought it was all right, but just one more story about a boy genius with almost no interesting girls in it, and a while later, I read Speaker For the Dead (which I liked a bit better). Nothing else of his has grabbed me at all (I couldn't finish the first Alvin book), and to be fair, this was before I knew anything about his politics.

Stephenie Meyer.
Adolf Hitler.
And I hate to be that person, but Jane Austen's style simply didn't seem to hook me. Too many words for tool ittle action, or at least that's how I felt.

Faulkner didn't appeal to me at all, but I don't think that's unusual. From what I can tell, he's very much a "you either love him or hate him" kind of author.

I've never understood the hype around George RR Martin. I just don't find anything in GoT appealing.

Also, Jane Austen. I'm indifferent to her work, but I don't understand the love I see with other people.

KatieRoman said:

Also, Jane Austen. I'm indifferent to her work, but I don't understand the love I see with other people.

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I was recommended her works by a friend who suggested, if I was serious about being a writer, I should read some of Jane Austen's books and get a sense of how she writes characters/story development... For the life of me I just can't get through the books. I've tried Pride & Prejudice as well as Persuasion thus far. I keep being told how great they are, but I can't find anything to connect with in them. However, this one may just be me.

um, a lot actually.

the first one that came to mind would probably be tolkien, though. he has a pretty solid story set in a fascinating world, but he tends to go off on these long, nature-description tangents that constantly drew me out of the story. i don't mind description and prose by any means, but it was just really distracting and i guess maybe my own expectations were my downfall in that situation, too.

i'm also a little mad at rowling for her handling of the slytherins.

TheCthultist said:

I was recommended her works by a friend who suggested, if I was serious about being a writer, I should read some of Jane Austen's books and get a sense of how she writes characters/story development... For the life of me I just can't get through the books. I've tried Pride & Prejudice as well as Persuasion thus far. I keep being told how great they are, but I can't find anything to connect with in them. However, this one may just be me.

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I don't feel like there's a lot to connect with either. I know several people who adore her works and I just don't see it. They're sort of dry and dull to me.

shivadyne said:

um, a lot actually.

the first one that came to mind would probably be tolkien, though. he has a pretty solid story set in a fascinating world, but he tends to go off on these long, nature-description tangents that constantly drew me out of the story. i don't mind description and prose by any means, but it was just really distracting and i guess maybe my own expectations were my downfall in that situation, too.

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As a Tolkien fan, I can understand your criticisms. Tolkien may have been a truly great world-builder in that Middle Earth feels so palpably real, unlike so many other fantasy worlds, but he wasn't so great when it came to characters. Some of his characters, like Legolas and Gimli, still come across more as archetypes rather than characters.

And it really pains me to say this, but while I know it makes me a bad Tolkien fan, I have never ever made it through The Silmarillion. It's just so dense...plus, I was the type of fan who was more about the Hobbits (especially Sam) rather than the elves. The elves are just so above humans that it's hard to relate to them. Whereas the hobbits...Tolkien may not have succeeded in everything he set out to do, but he made sure you could feel how Frodo and Sam were suffering on their journey.

As a huge fan of YA books, I had always heard good things about James Patterson's Maximum Ride series and was told by a handful of trusted sources that the books were "must-reads". However, I just couldn't get into them and what little of the series I did read gave me the impression that Mr. Patterson was trying WAY too hard to appeal to the YA target teen audience.

Needless to say, I was so unimpressed by James Patterson prose in the Maximum Ride books that I have yet to read his adult-focused works. >_>

Am I the only one that loves the Great Gatsby? I usually like anything Stephen King writes, but I thought Under the Dome was tedious, and the ending was awful. I don't remember what the ending was, just that I hated it. I skipped through a good chunk of the book just to find out how it ended too.

Ravioli said:

And I hate to be that person, but Jane Austen's style simply didn't seem to hook me. Too many words for tool ittle action, or at least that's how I felt.

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I have to be in a particular mood to enjoy Austen, but when I'm in that mood that's exactly why I like her.

Mine are, let's see... Veronica Roth. Allegiant is the only book I can clearly remember wanting to burn. It didn't help that I know so much more about how a world like hers should have worked than she did. Same with the Chemical Garden trilogy, which aren't all that big but I see in airport bookstores.

James Patterson. I've tried Witch and Wizard and would have thrown it across the room if it hadn't been a library book on my brand-new Nook. Maximum Ride I found dull and just couldn't get into.

I've tried Dean Koontz, and never got very far in his books. My rule is "you have until I stop reading." Meaning, if I stop reading because I have to go home, I'm going to keep reading. If I stop reading because I'm bored, you're done, you don't get a second chance. There are too many books I want to read to waste time on big names I "should" read. That usually gives a book about two to five pages to hook me. Koontz never hooks me in that amount of time.

Finally, Seven Wonders. Rick Riordan wrote the blurb for them, the first one was decent, and the second one I only finished because I'd already paid for it. It was awful. Among other fatal flaws, the main character is so incredibly useless he could be removed from the book and the rest of them would get on fine. This was only hammered in by another character suddenly gaining MC's one ability (he's a natural McGuyver) at a critical moment. He doesn't even bring a unique sense of humor to the narration.

shivadyne said:

the first one that came to mind would probably be tolkien, though. he has a pretty solid story set in a fascinating world, but he tends to go off on these long, nature-description tangents that constantly drew me out of the story. i don't mind description and prose by any means, but it was just really distracting and i guess maybe my own expectations were my downfall in that situation, too.

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I started LOTR twice and never got beyond chapter 4. I'm wondering if it's worth a third shot, but I've so many other books in my TBR pile.

smp1218 said:

Am I the only one that loves the Great Gatsby?

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No, I love all FSG's work. It probably helps that I wasn't forced to read him at school but discovered him in my 20s.

JetFueledCar said:

Mine are, let's see... Veronica Roth. Allegiant is the only book I can clearly remember wanting to burn. It didn't help that I know so much more about how a world like hers should have worked than she did. Same with the Chemical Garden trilogy, which aren't all that big but I see in airport bookstores.

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I only read the first Divergent book and was never tempted to continue. Was put off by (a) the idea that "bravery" meant doing stupid stunts and getting tattoos and (b) having more than one defining trait made you super-special instead of just human.
The summary of the Chemical Garden world put me off. So men die at 25 and women at 20, but for some reason this leads to polygamy ( I would have imagined the opposite, since there are now more men than women).
I did like The Hunger Games and The Lunar Chronicles, so it's not like I'm totally allergic to teenage dystopias!

I've tried Dean Koontz, and never got very far in his books.

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I read one Koontz book, From the Corner of His Eye. I remember a kid who could read adult books at age 3 before he lost his sight, and a child called Angel who was predictably angelic, and a Mexican woman who spoke broken English as no one ever has spoken. Was never tempted by another.