/lit/ - Literature

قال غابرييل ماركيز لصديقه جوفروا "أنا آت بكل سرور, شرط ألا ينتحروا"
كيف تسنى لثدي الأنثى البشرية وحدها من بين جميع الحيوانات أن يتخذ بعد تطوّر طويل, هذا الشكل الرائع.
أليس الجمال الذي بلغه نهد المرأة المثال الأبهى لتطور الانسانية؟.


goddamit it.

i'd like to review the stuff i read on there but i'm afraid the boffins will laugh at me :(

Dune:

>I made it to approximately 20 pages from the end of this book, and just couldn't take it anymore. Before "Dune" I always finished every book I started, but this was so terrible it made me break my streak.
>It was just bad: the writing, the plot, the characters. Bad.

You tasteless bitch.

>The Brothers Karamazov
>Not a single bad review
And not a single fuck was given that day.

>treasure island

>Wish I could say I loved it, but that would make Baby Jesus cry.
>one of the worst books i have ever read
>HORRIBLE BOOK I HATE IT!!!!
>This is a classic? Boring.
>I found it exceedingly boring and difficult to understand.
>We had to read this book for English class and I never really understanded the book. And it was boring.
>BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS THE WORST BOOK EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not planning on re-reading this book. Ever
>This book is one messy poop after another. Only it's so boring!!!!! One star is one too many.
>I hate this book! It was obviously written for boys - yuck!

Manifold: Space

>This is one dumb book. I forced myself for about 3 hours and realized I better read in the "just how big a train wrack is going" sort of way instead of a decent sci-fi novel.
>And man do I hate the voice of the guy who read it. He sound like he will drop dead in any minute. The "last hur-rah" of a voice acting old man.

So, you didn't even read the book, you grabbed the audio version, and couldn't handle a task as simple as "sit and listen." This is revealed following calling the "book" dumb, making a few spelling errors, then complaining about the voice of the reader instead of the content.
Insulting this person would be an impossible task; once I started, I'd be unable to finish. An eternity spent devising new words for idiot would be entertaining, but unexciting.

Fellowship of the Ring
>After starting this one I discovered that I really can't handle stories about trolls & fairies & elves & such, written about as if "real" in some strange way. I'm not a hyper-realist either, but visualizing little elves running around in scruffy clothes expounding Lilliputian profundities just ain't my cup O joe.

Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

>it all makes me want to tear my hair out when brilliant thinkers waste their lives trying to reconcile the contradictions of religious myths, to make sense of utter nonsense, hoisting themselves on petards that needn't exist if Ockham's razor were to be employed. To quote the bus, there's probably no God, now stop worrying and GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE.

>It's about despair, but not a modern despair. It seems quaint, and solipsistic.

mfw

>People don't like what I like

and not a single fuck was given that day

Candide

>I should like to light this book on fire and throw it in a pit of dung.

Watership Down:
>We started to check this book out but found the movie instead. It was really scary. We need to do more research before bothering with the book, but so far, it was a grim depiction of battling rabbit warrens.

>Not a sweet, bucolic picture being painted that we typically conjure up when thinking of country hares!

mfw
Well I hope they never venture to watch a nature documentary.

East of Eden

>I hate this book. Hate. Ponderous, pretentious, melodramatic, self-satisfied, patronizing to its readers, with ultimately nothing to say. Can be summarized thus: a bunch of people with no formal education whatsoever sit around discussing the time they read the Old Testament in Hebrew. They then tell us all how to live. Uh...right. I knew we were in trouble with the unbelievably lame introduction -- some forced, self-congratulatory metaphor about a box, if memory serves -- but it's hard to believe it actually got worse from there. In any event, with its smug aura of "Here you will find WISDOM," it's certainly no wonder that it's right up Oprah's alley.

>The fact that people worship this misbegotten mess of a book as they might worship pieces of the True Cross is just plain depressing. Apparently the way to literary immortality is to give 'em a decent narrative, throw in some breathless nonsense about free will and the Bible, and don't forget to puff out your chest and tell everyone that you've written a masterpiece. Gack. For this they gave him the Nobel Prize

Fuck you, Laura. FUCK YOU.

>>1360584

Actually I looked it up and there were quite a few negative reviews, but most are just "lol didn't like it"

Which is cool.

>It is not about what I thought it would be about. Um.

>Also, something about a chick (waitress?) with greenish skin who is the object of someone's affection, and poverty, and it just goes downhill from there. Look, I had to cram this whole nasty-ass novel in one weekend, and I am a SLOW READER, so it was freakin' painful, and it was too late to change books since I was reading it for... English class? I guess? I don't even know. I wanted to say history or government, but I think I'm thinking of the horrible Last of the Mohicans.

WUT

>>1360798

book is of human bondage by the way

From the Earth to the Moon
>fairly boring bad ending no good violence or even science for that matter! (one star)

No violence on a book! UNACCEPTABLE!

>The Dice Man

>I could not enjoy this book at all. In fact I enjoyed it so little I could not even muster up the energy to finish reading. I stopped reading about 200 pages in, so if it suddenly became awesome after that you can just ignore this review.

>Dice Man is obviously written by a fairly sad man gripped by midlife crisis. I know nothing about the author but I am going to make some bold presumptions based on the book. Correct me if I'm wrong.

>-He was around 50 when wrote this
>-He hated his life
>-He hated his wife
>-He was very horny/lecherous

>This seeps through in every aspect of the book. It feel like listening to a pathetic old man whining about how he could have been this or done that. How he wishes he could do whatever he want and screw whoever he wants.

>Since I didn't read the whole thing I can't say anything about what point it's trying to make. I'm guessing it is a pretty stupid one though.

Demian

>It was hard to get behind Emil as the book begins with him being bullied and he doesn't fight it - he just gives in and suffers. But instead of feeling low self-esteem, he goes the other way, and starts to feel superior to the rest of his family and most of humanity.

It's a coming of age story you stupid fuck, what did you expect his self-esteem to be like

The Sun Also Rises

>I gave this one star because I wasn't old enough to drink or really enjoy much of anything when I first read it, and I haven't read it again since.

>I'm almost certain I'd still hate it though.

Congratulations, you are a cunt.

>>1360843
You liked The Dice Man, D&E?

>>1361030
Quite a bit.

>>1361034
Me too! Wanna rub our testicles together!?

What did you think of A Confederacy of Dunces? Similar humor, I think, in a lot of ways.

>>1361039
have not read it, has been on my list for quite some time now. Is it worth a read? I get the impression from threads here it is just about some butthurt dude with an axe to grind against society

So the characters aren't well developed, many elements are so dated they're disconcerting... as far as I can tell, the only things this book really has going for it are its laurels -- its reputation.

So I can't recommend it. Much like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, the book was famous/notorious in it's day, but hasn't stood the test of time.

Neuromancer :<

what are some good fantasy books that arent lame like eragon

>>1361042
Oh, it's great man, incredibly funny mix of high and low-brow humor.
>butthurt dude against society
Oh yes, it's definitely about that, but a ridiculous satire of that. Pretty ingenious how the author makes the point that some non-conformists are just plain fucking whackos. If you liked The Dice Man you'll probably enjoy A Confederacy, like I said, similar humor, I loved how The Dice Man would go from screwball to depressingly accurate with the jokes.

>Old Man and The Sea

"Oh, my good lord in heaven. Cut your line, land your boat and go to McDonald's! Just as in the case of The Great Gatsby, I understand the book. Yes, I know it changed the way American writers write. I also understand that it celebrates the ridiculous American idea that you're only a REAL man if you've done something entirely purposeless, but really dangerous, in pursuit of making yourself look like the bull with the biggest sexual equipment. Get over it, already! Go home and clean out the refrigerator, or wash the curtains, or vacuum under the furniture. Pick your kids up from school or take your daughter bra shopping. THAT would impress me. Being too dumb to cut your fishing line? Not the mate I would pick... "
Useless bitch.

>>1361042
The most narcissistic and robust fellow who causes /lit/'s notorious elitism to pale in comparison. The juxtaposition of the of reality versus how the protagonist inaccurately views himself and the world around him makes it quite funny.

I like eating out women who aren't alive

The Sun Also Rises

>If I were Hemingway's English teacher (or anyone's any kind of teacher) I'd say, "This reads more like a screenplay than a novel. Where are your descriptions, where is the emotion??"
>And he would say something like, "The lack of complex descriptions helps focus on the complexities and emptiness of the characters' lives, and the emotion is there, it's only just beneath the surface, struggling to be free!"
>And I'd say, "OK, I'll move ya from a C to C+."

I am speechless.

>mfw my favorite book of all time doesn't have a negative criticism made about it until page 4 of the reviews.

>Celine's misanthropic, semi-autobiographical ramblings and wanderings may have been innovative in it's day, but I've become jaded with constant exposure to more modern, but no less self-indulgent stylists, that I expect a stronger and more fluid narrative, and a few characters that some how grab me and pull me through a road story lacking both Bob and Bing. It was kind of funny in a quasi surrealist way, but I found my self laughing more at Celine's frenchness than the his intended satire. Translation issues?? Perhaps.(less)
This post reeks of shit not stinking.

>>1361070

I skipped that one but it also made me rage, very, very hard.

>>1361070
Usually I am largely unaffected by these kinds of negative reviews.

Not this time! I actually want to kill that person.

read as far as page 574 (of 974) and would have given up a lot sooner if I wasn't reading it for a bookgroup discussion. The concepts and plot of this book would be interesting but the writing style made me nauseous. There is just too much unnecessary detail and irrelevant additions to make it interesting. It also makes it confusing and interferes with the main themes and plot.

It would be a good exercise for someone learning English to take parts of this book and summarize them down into less words. (If someone did that with the whole book it might be an enjoyable read.)

This was my first attempt at reading Dostoevsky and probably my last.

:(
>>1360584
this is one of many bad reviews of the brothers Karamazov which happens to be my favorite book of all time

Blood Meridian

"Books which exist for long periods of time without proper adherence to punctuation - whether they are stream-of-consciousness books, or, like this one, books that simply eschew quotation marks - are not books that I can tolerate for long periods of time. I can't find myself drawn into a narrative where I have to stop and figure out who is talking, or where the narrator's voice ends and a character's speech begins. Not even as an occasional device but as the style of the entire novel. It's off-putting even more than the 90 pages of plotless violent meandering that open the novel. I could slog through it, but why? On the whole I've enjoyed the Time 100, but I can't find anything good to say about this particular choice"

Idiot.

>The Trial

"I know we're supposed to love Kafka and appreciate him as the singular, german literary achiever of his time, but let's live dangerously and call this what it is-

crap.

It's not existential or surreal or any other "al" ending philosophical vocabulary word used by some of the lonelier of Kafka translators (read: borderline psychotic "enthusiasts). No, a story is not deep just because it's difficult to understand, sometimes it just doesn't make sense. The book is the picture of ad hominem argument and absurdity. This is to say nothing of the fact that the wunderkind's grip on simple concepts such as "time" is, at best, loose.

Ok, over it now."

>he mad

>The Sound and the Fury

"I did not appreciate this novel. Perhaps it was the stream of consciousness format, but there it is. I empathized with Jason for most of the novel, and for purely mechanical reasons - his section had consistent punctuation. What few interesting phrases were present had to be excavated from the muck of the rest of the text, and it didn't feel worth the effort.
I would not recommend this book to anyone."

Jason Compson is the only literary character that has made me fucking rage. And the fact that this individual "liked" Jason because "his section has consistent punctuation" makes me rage even more.

Nearly every asshole who didn't like the book didn't actually finish it because apparently stream-of-consciousness is 2deep4u. As far as I'm concerned, you don't have a right to an opinion if you don't finish the fucking book.

>The Stranger
>Only one bad review
>He used the word 'guesstimation'
>Youropiniondoesn'tcount.jpg

>mfw the twilight series are in the best books ever list

DUNE - FRANK HERBERT

Christina rated it · review of another edition
The author writes as if the reader is extremely dense. The writing is often redundant and much of it is so extraneous that the book can probably be condensed by half and still lose nothing of its story, which isn't that interesting or insightful to begin with.

The characters are also undeveloped. The author describes the characters' personalities while failing to sufficiently writing in actions, speech, and thoughts that correlate with those supposed characteristics. The main character, as well as all the other characters, are too lacking in personality for the story to maintain suspense or illicit curiosity and emotional attachment from the reader


WTF is this? I mean... seriously?

OH GOD THIS IS JUST TERRIBLE:

Melissa He
May 24, 2010
Melissa He rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition
Shelves: 9th-grade-advisory
I thought this was an ok kind of book. I mean, there were definitely times where it got really boring and I didn't want to read anymore. Though I had to because it was for school. The book was written in like different format compared to the books of today. I think it was some poem format. We also had to skip some parts of the book because it was uneventful. I feel like commending Homer for writing this, because he was blind, yet the way he described the scenery and the characters were as if he ...moreI thought this was an ok kind of book. I mean, there were definitely times where it got really boring and I didn't want to read anymore. Though I had to because it was for school. The book was written in like different format compared to the books of today. I think it was some poem format. We also had to skip some parts of the book because it was uneventful. I feel like commending Homer for writing this, because he was blind, yet the way he described the scenery and the characters were as if he could really see. I wonder how he was able to know what things looked like even though he was blind. I wouldn't really recommend this book to others unless they are able to handle reading really slowly, because if you don't, you most likely won't be able to understand what's happening at the moment. Overall, I somewhat enjoyed the book, although I wouldn't read it again if I had to.

>>1361302
>>1361302
Also that is supposed to be Homer's Odyssey, my mistake.

GOODREADS IS FULL OF WOMEN WHO READ 'PARANORMAL ROMANCE'

HONESTLY, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

>1 Star
>Reader enjoyed the exploration of the meaning of life, but could not "ignore the author's disgusting portrayal of women. Apparently, women are "characterized as evil, materialistic, unreasonable, tempermental*, and sex-crazed nymphomaniacs. Not sure if I'd want to read any other works by this author."

*of course, she spells this wrong

>>1361302
>mfw

Slaughterhouse Five
"I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, as you know. But I do like time-travel stories. Billy is nothing like Henry from The Time Traveler's Wife. For a start, not even a second seems to pass in "real" time while he is travelling - no one ever notices. It seems less like time-travelling than like reliving the past, present and future of your life, all at once, because it's his consciousness that does the travelling. What isn't clear, at all, is which is the real Billy? He moves so much, you have to wonder how he doesn't become completely dislodged from his own corporeal self and go mad."
"I was unaware that she was not a huge sci fi fan.
I think the message of this book is valuable, and it would have lost some of it's power being told in any other way. However, I came away with a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like if I were listening to a rap song full of offensive language and references. Maybe the message of the song is meaningful, and valuable, but because of the presentation, I just can't appreciate what it's trying to say. I was so frequently offended by the content of this book, mainly the sex, some of the language, and the callousness toward human suffering, that trying to appreciate the larger picture was difficult for me."
Vonnegut has a dirty mouth
"Take, for instance, Vonnegut's endless repetition of the phrase 'So it goes.' Wikipedia informs me it crops up 106 times in the book."
Vonnegut uses literary devices

>>1361325

>>1361302
>I wonder how he was able to know what things looked like even though he was blind.
I can't decide if I want to laugh or rage.

And Stacey misses the point of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas!
I wasn't blown away by anything about this book. Maybe it's because it's been built up as such a classic or maybe it's because it's just bad. I don't think it was bad because I thought it was so out there and wild and crazy. I thought it was bad because it pretended just writing about being wild and crazy makes it immediately worthwhile. Two guys testing their luck by breaking every law made while in Vegas and doing a bunch of drugs. I need more than this. The book really didn't have a plot. About two-thirds of the way through Thompson seemed to realize this and tried to give the book meaning with the "American Dream" concept, but it flatlined. On top of being pointless, it was also choppy.

One good thing about the book: it was short and quick so I was able to end my suffering in a timely manner.

almost all of these posts are about as stupid as stuff posted on lit. moral of the story is if something is considered a classic and you dont like it than it is probably you

I think this is the kicker
I, Robot
"I am currently reading this book with my son as part of his summer reading list, (new school, therefore he has to do his summer reading during school session) and as I was reading, I discovered that this book is so different from the movie version of I, Robot starting Wil Smith. Usually there are differences between movies and books, but in I, Robot there is are significant differences, such as no mention of Wil Smith's character. My son and I are slightly in the middle of the book so maybe later in the book they will mention his character, hmmmmmmmm- maybe. I'll keep reading to find out and let you guys know.

I finally finished reading this book. Wow, what a drag. I could not wait to be done with this book! I really did not enjoy reading it, thus this is the reason it took me so long reading it."

At the Mountains of Madness

H.P. Lovecraft is described as the twentieth century's greatest master of the classic horror tale. Unfortunately I was so bored the book helped me to fall asleep on six occassions. That was when I decided to give up my attempts for now and place it back on the bookshelf.

>>mfw

"I suffered through about 60 pages, and finally put it down. I very rarely ever leave a book unfinished.

The author narrates and introduces up to Yossarian, who does not want to fly in the war. I get that. I get the whole catch 22 senerio... You have to be insane to fly the plane. If you can get a dr to say you are insane, you wont have to fly. But in order to tell a dr that you are insane, this actually means you are sane. So you must continue to fly... which makes you insane. blah blah blah.

What I couldnt get past was the authors constant bouts of Attention Deficet Disorder.... He went off in tangents, introducing a new character seemingly ever paragraph, and seemed to loose his train of thought only to regain it 2 pages later.

I couldnt take all the jumping around, and was completely lost the whole time... at times rereading the prior page thinking i missed some important tie-in somewhere....

Am I the only one on this planet who is asking myself what heck everyone is smoking when they read this book and actually enjoyed it" - Lori

Goodreads.com is the site i dont get.
Why nobody likes books i like?
Why's majority of haters are women?
Why's rating system based on an overall vote-count, like its some fuckin MMORPG, allowing crap like Twilight posess top-charts

>>1361374
>Why's majority of haters are women?

Only women will read books now.

>It's the book that turned me off of Dickens. I still shudder when I think of being forced to read it in high school. The descriptions just go on forever...make it stop!

NO U

Really, the adjectives and descriptions were the best part, this person needs to fuck off back to the kids section.

>>1361383
Great Expectations btw

I'm active on goodreads and like it a lot. There are plenty of idiots but also plenty of totally reasonable and intelligent literary readers. The structure of the site is such that you really needn't give a shit about the braindead Twilight fans at all.

>>1361325

>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

At first, before Earth "ended", I thought the book was comical and would be lots of fun; but once Arthur and Ford were catapulted into outer space, the storyline just skewed into something horrible and nerdy. The humor was terrible and dorky. It was just awful. The only reason I stuck with the book because it was only 142 pages long. In fact, the only interesting parts were Adams' explanations on why dolphins and mice were superior to the human race.

Maybe some hard-core nerds out there will like this book. I hope I never waste time on anything so horrible ever again.

>Catch-22

>I suffered through about 60 pages, and finally put it down. I very rarely ever leave a book unfinished.

>The author narrates and introduces up to Yossarian, who does not want to fly in the war. I get that. I get the whole catch 22 senerio... You have to be insane to fly the plane. If you can get a dr to say you are insane, you wont have to fly. But in order to tell a dr that you are insane, this actually means you are sane. So you must continue to fly... which makes you insane. blah blah blah.

>What I couldnt get past was the authors constant bouts of Attention Deficet Disorder.... He went off in tangents, introducing a new character seemingly ever paragraph, and seemed to loose his train of thought only to regain it 2 pages later.

>I couldnt take all the jumping around, and was completely lost the whole time... at times rereading the prior page thinking i missed some important tie-in somewhere....

>Am I the only one on this planet who is asking myself what heck everyone is smoking when they read this book and actually enjoyed it?

All of these review seem to start with "Oh I always finish a book but this one i just couldn't blah blah blah"

>>1361409
i don't see anything wrong here

Fuck you OP, ruined my day.

Aurelius' Meditations:
"By today's standards, a bog-standard blog.

The only reason that this was preserved in the first place is that the author happened to be a Roman emperor. (That, and that ancient Rome didn't have LiveJournal.)

The only reason that Meditations is still being published today is that once a book gets labeled "classic," hardly anyone who reads it has the grapes to admit that it just wasn't that good. Well...the emperor has no clothes."

"I got this book as a present and it was so bad. Really not my type of book at all. It was written by a Roman emperor/ philosopher which I suppose is interesting. It is basically a series of spiritual reflections and a collection of outlooks on life. Through his self discovery, Marcus created this book which many people use to help them. I suppose I'm not spiritual enough and therefore would not recommend it to anyone who is not spiritual either. "

I'm not going to post the long shite review by the pseudo-wannabe-intellectual who got the idea to read it from watching Law & Order. Instead, I'm going to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjWFZPJZTxU

I am rage. Picture is related. It's me.

Dorian Gray

>How this got to be a classic I'll never understand. The characters seem extremely shallow and without any believable depth. The female characters are completely ignored and extraneous to the story, and the attempt at describing a love affair or romantic emotion falls completely false. The end attempt at giving a moral to the story fails to stir any feeling or association with the protagonist, leaving you to wonder why you bothered to stay on till the anticlimax.

>>1361416

>>1361411

>>Am I the only one on this planet who is asking myself what heck everyone is smoking when they read this book and actually enjoyed it?

weed

but I read it sober and enjoyed it as much if not even more.

>>1361422

>mfw when I read reviews on everything Salinger has written

WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF

THEY JUST DON'T GET IT ITS SO PAINFUL FUCK

>>1361426

>>1361428

>Trainspotting

>This book was ridiculously difficult to understand. It's written in a heavy Scottish
accent and doesn't even use normal dialogue punctuation. I hurled it after ten pages and decided life's too short to read books that stink.

Under her current reads, she's reading a book about how to create a better blog and Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want

Like what the world needs is more vomit from this woman's brain.

>Maybe there's a reason this book is usually required high school reading; it reads like it was written by a 17-year old. Someone who clearly finds himself to be hilarious, and no one ever had the heart to tell him differently.

>I never felt for any of the characters, I never laughed, I never cried. In fact, half way through the book I couldn't take it anymore, so I skipped ahead to the last chapter and yet it still made sense. I'm sorry, but if nothing happens in the second half of a book to impact the ending, then something is very wrong.

>I know there are a lot of people out there who think this is one of the classics and that everyone should read it, but it just doesn't hold up to any of the classics I've read thus far. Hell, it doesn't even hold up to Sheep in a Jeep.

Fuck you, Juliet.

The Golden Bough

>Recommends it for: Pseudo-intellectual horses' rear ends.
How I could possibly have highlighted so much of this book and yet not actually read it is a pure freakin' mystery.

Bitches and whores.

>I like Maggie Nelson's writing but it's a bit much for me to buy into the premise at the center of this book which is her love for the color blue.

>Here is the quote where I started feeling like the book's premise was too much for me to take. It's on page 14: "Acyanoblepsia: non-perception of blue. A tier of hell, to be sure--" Hell? To not see the color blue? Sorry. I've worked with people with terrible injuries and diseases, including complete blindness caused by war injuries, and I just can't bring myself to take this seriously. "A tier of hell?" Come on...

>Nelson writes book in numbered fragments adding up to 240. David Shields has written his new book about "revolutionizing" fiction writing in the same format--he probably got the idea from her. This is upsetting for me since I have been writing a book in this format for quite some time. I was experimenting and felt what I was doing was original. (what's that thing about monkeys on islands? how ideas travel simultaneously throughout the world? I am not writing this correctly but...) I wrote this way before I saw anyone else do it and am now wondering how I will revise my own book--(I may or may not).

>I am putting this book down for now. I got to page 35. Maggie Nelson is a good writer but...I'm not very interested in hearing much more about the color blue in spite of the fact that I know there are a lot of personal anecdotes within book. The premise of a book is paramount for me.
>Pick up book on the author's love of the color blue.
>Complain that it's about blue.
>Call Reality Hunger fiction
>Say he stole numbered sections from Nelson

12th worst book of all time: Lord of the Flies

Site confirmed for butthurt wannabe intellectual 14 year olds. Seriously, alot of the reviewer pics look like children, or women in their twenties.

#33 The Great Gatsby?? I mean come on. I didn't really like Gatsby but THE WORST BOOK OF ALL TIME? These people are just angry at their homework. This site is stupid. I'm leaving now.

>>1361458
Oh come on, The Great Gatsby?

Fuckin hell, I didn't like it in middle school, but come on. It wasn't bad at all.

what the fffffffffffffff

Now I'm raging

I have to give credit to the 260 people that gave Mein Kampf 5 stars... balls of steel.

>>1361458
>#19 The Scarlett Letter

I am okay with this

>>1361466
Definitely just some middle schoolers raging about homework.

"Stuart" with a picture of a border collie for an avatar writes about Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:

"How do you know, I could've read it. If I wanted to. I just don't have time. It's probably not that good anyway."

Thanks Stuart, that was enlightening. Now I'm just going to go back to hating having to share the planet with people like you. I'll be over in this corner crying, bye!

>My first Agatha Christie! I didn't love it. It was a mercifully short read, though, so I stuck with it.

>I'm not huge on mysteries; Mary Stewart is the exception to that rule, and I think I enjoy her books not only because of her masterful writing (she's amazing), but because the mystery portion of the story spins out in front of my eyes. No one seems to know more than I do right at the given moment, and during the big reveal I gasp right along with everyone fictionally involved.

>This book was so different. The mystery was way more mysterious than any ever penned by Mary Stewart, tended more toward the thriller, but I could not—with the information given to me—get ahead. By authorial design, I had to be spoon-fed the solution. And that was no fun at all. If my brain can't grow, if I can't say, "I know!" half a page before it is said explicitly, then where's the fun? So this book was no fun.

>Based on a nursery rhyme that no one has any business telling children, too

WHAT. THE. FUCK. AM. I. READING. HURR I CAN'T ENJOY BUK IF I NOT SPOONFED SOLUTION.

>>1361468
It's also listed as part of a group called "Big Fat Books worth the effort"

Who wants to guess what else is on that list?

If you said three Harry Potter books and the lord of the rings then you win! Congratulations I hate you!

>>1361469
>The mystery was way more mysterious

What's remarkable is that this pig is functioning on a high enough cognitive level to turn on a computer, find a website and then post this drivel.

The book I like doesn't have any reviews. Someone did put "Blond Knight of Germany" under Nazi-History though. GOD DAMN, HARTMANN WAS NOT A NAZI.

The Little Prince

>I read this a long time ago, and I'm honestly not sure exactly why I hated it so much. All I remember about it is that there's a little prince. And he lives on a miniature planet. And nothing much ever happens, but every little paragraph in the story is just OH! SO! METAPHORICAL! And it's supposed to make you feel GOOD ABOUT LIFE. Maybe I'm just naturally contrarian, but I have always hated books that only exist to try to make you feel good. Fuck you, The Giving Tree. Fuck you, everything by Mitch Albom. Fuck you, The Little Prince.

Ouais, eh bien, vas te faire encule trop, Aerin.

>Sir Apropos of Nothing
>All the one-star reviews are women and one gay man

The Man in the High Castle

>as one who liked Blade Runner, I thought I would enjoy a collections of four novels from Mr Dick, this being the first. I slogged through it out of principle but did not find it the least bit interesting.

I once saw a girl on Shelfari that gave the sound and the fury and candide 1 star each. amongst her 5 star books were sherlock holmes and eragon. ;_;

i only hav 1 friend on safari :(

http://www.shelfari.com/o1514375331/shelf

>>1361861
I have zero.

Lists of the top rated books. Twilight, Twilight everywhere.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/explore

>>1361868
can i look at ur shelf

>>1361875
http://www.shelfari.com/o1514260387/shelf

I’m so disappointed I think I might cry!!
This book was supposed to be great, it’s a classic!!... but for me it was one of the worst books I have ever read. I hated it!, at the end I skimmed over the last 5 chapters ‘cause I just couldn’t bear it any more…

Oscar Wilde explains everything to the minimal detail… the beauty of the flowers, their perfume, the air, the sun, the birds, the trees… jeezzz!!
The book was slooooow… I used to think Dorian Gray was this smart handsome man but I found out he was a brainless guy who was easily manipulated, he didn’t have a thought of his own at all!
There were so many gaps in the story and then Lord Henry… oh my, every single word he said was so stupid it was just BORING!

I tried classics but they are for people way smarter than me, I like BDB, psy-changeling, dark-hunter and other series alike and I’m damn proud of it!!
I might try something else from my classic bookshelf buy it won’t be anytime soon… this book gave me a headache.

>>1361933
> I used to think Dorian Gray was this smart handsome man but I found out he was a brainless guy who was easily manipulated, he didn’t have a thought of his own at all!
no, at the start he was a phoney faggot that had ants in his pants over a stupid smelly girl. but then he went alpha.

Sense and Sensibility

> I don't think I could possibly articulate how much I despised this book. I read it simply to acquaint myself with the characters before reading Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters
> Obviously this book is from another time and country, but I can't possibly imagine people talking to each other using this language.
> It's like a goddamn ye olde English version of high school. Nobody likes anybody in this book, yet they all sit around with each other night after night, trying to be polite and trying to impress people.

You uneducated cunt.

> If you like S&S good for you, but we probably shouldn't be friends. ;]

Good; because I'd rather not be around someone who will simply lower my intelligence.

>>1361942
>I read it simply to acquaint myself with the characters before reading Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters

oh wow

>>1361945

That was the main kicker, right there.

"READING S&S WILL HELP ME UNDERSTAND THIS SPOOF BETTER, HERPDERP"

>>1360587
>>1361060
>>1361355
>>1361478

These made me laugh the hardest. Also, wtf are these "best of all time" and "worst of all time lists"? Do people actually take this site seriously?

>>1361937
>Phony
Thanks for that input, Holden.

>>1361958
don't sweat it, STILDO.

>I'd love to check that "this review contains spoilers" tag, but the fact is I have no idea what has happened in any of the stories I have read. There's no plot here. No characters. It's all a bunch of confusing rambling about nothing. We are given no reason to care about the jumbled "events" that supposedly happen in the text. It's poor storytelling, and yet the language isn't beautiful enough to count as poetry, either. I realize that Borges was doing his thing. But his thing is horribly inaccessable. I have to read this for a class and damn if I'm going to figure out how to pass the essays and quizzes that may have to refer to it. What the hell is with all these five star reviews? This book is for pretentious wankers who think that good writing is "deep" because it's vague.

Labyrinths by Borges

>>1361988
all my disdain

An unfortunate ending to a positive review of a good book (Miss Lonelyhearts).

>I haven’t read the Great Gatsby but I’ve heard that it perfectly epitomizes life in post-WWII, Depression-era America. I think West’s Miss Lonelyhearts should be added to that list. In its few pages, it gives across the essence of a time.

>>1361988
This is something that I don't get.
You wouldn't talk about how nice the handling of a car is if you don't drive.
You wouldn't talk about the good and bad points of a refractory telescope if you didn't understand astronomy.
so why when people don't understand something do they think they can critique it. I would understand if the person didn't like it despite understanding it. but seriously.

MFW all my favorites are classics that nobody hates

Sentimental Education:

>I read this in French and had no idea what was going on, and that's the book fault, so I give it one star.

>Read book in a language you're not fluent in
>Blame the book because you can't understand it

>>1362046
You have no face. It's funny because it's true

>mfw the bottle im does not have bad reviews

>>1361436
>Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want

I checked this book out just a little. And it seems laughably ironic, as it is based on the assumption that women have a hard time knowing what they want, and rarely asks for it. This makes this a book about practicing to reach the level of a man.

>If I remember correctly there is some sort of murder mystery subplot if you can keep your eyes open long enough to follow it.
This was for THE FOUNTAINS OF FUCKING PARADISE

"hurr durr I'm not even sure what book I'm fucking talking about. 2 stars"

>all of my favorite books have like a 3/5 rating
>negative reviews all: "omg so boring couldn't get past the first 100 pages"
>search gravity's rainbow, expecting lulz
>mfw it's got a 4/5

I am not sure I am going to finish this book. It is rather doom-laden and hateful in its prose. The author sees portents of the crumbling of the British Empire in military success of the 18th century, which is rather a stretch since the empire did not really crumble till after World
War II.

>I think I would simply prefer a more objective history of British Empire. The sound of the axe-grinding in the background of this book is deafening, and spoils the experience of reading it.


What a completely fair and understandable critique. This person could probably blow this up into a 2,500 word essay if they wanted.

>Chinese Takeout
>Arthur Nersesian

i think that this book was a little too "artsy" for me..or something. every review that i read about it before i actually read it was very positive...talking about how aptly it described the bohemian lifestyle.

I found it a little too pretentious in the way it spoke about "art" and was mildly bored by the story and characters.

///
... Don't feign interest in things you don't understand, you fucking bourgeois culture vacationing whore.

>>1362030
>Great Gatsby
>Depression era
>Post-WWII
YOU FAIL HISTORY FOREVER

best thing about these threads is fantasy/sci-fi dorks getting pissed over people who have better taste than them

Well written, complex, mildly amusing, pointless, rambling, unimportant drivel. It's impressively written and very convoluted but I was left with no feeling of attachment to the story, the characters or the author. I feel like I have wasted energy and time reading it. Yeah it's a well executed twisted tale of some poor guys life. But why? What's the point? Why write it? More importantly, why would anyone benefit from reading it?

tl;dr
Epic fail

And now for something completely different, a 5-star review:

This is basically the book that changed my life in high school. It made me realize that I was better than all those idiots who were afraid of me. (and picked on me as a result) Now I read it and deconstruct it for personal entertainment. Ok, it also gave me all that crazy inspiration too. I admit it. There. This book is fucking empowering.
(Also Sprach Zarathustra)

Wolf of the Plains, Conn Iggulden
>A group of teen age brothers growing up and trying to earn their father's
birthright. Slow moving and tedious. Didn't finish.

Chuck is a fucking faggot.

>>1362503
>This is basically the book that changed my life in high school. It made me realize that I was better than all those idiots who were afraid of me. (and picked on me as a result) Now I read it and deconstruct it for personal entertainment. Ok, it also gave me all that crazy inspiration too. I admit it. There. This book is fucking empowering.
(Also Sprach Zarathustra)
omg give me d&e's goodreads!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
>Enough. I'm putting this one to bed. I so don't want to finish it.
>Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes.

Heathens. Why they are even commenting on books is beyond me.

>Here's a riddle: how do you make a tale of a knight and his squire riding across the lands and battling foes (even if imaginary) boring?
>You make it into a rant against the modern (modern at the time of Cervantes writing this, anyway) style of gallant knight stories! Yes, correct, this book is a satire, but it's neither funny nor entertaining nor particularly illuminating.
>Possibly it sped up but I only made it half way before I decided that I had better things to do with my life. Like play beer pong. Okay, not really, but at the same time, yes, really.(less)

>beer pong

>>1362508
that was a good one LOL

>>1362524
>im a gofucking faggot and i trayed to read becouse people told me it was something

ina nutshill

Half the "terrible" reviews posted here are perfectly fine, it's your taste that's shit. Seriously, Harry Potter?

Looked up Venus as a Boy for curiosities and the worst I could find was:
>"A curious wee read this one, but given its premise, I wanted to see how it ended up. I liked it well enough, but it lacked a certain something for me to truly love it."
and
>"A beautiful story, but I felt that the writing wasn't very good."

>>1360783
This was my exact reaction.
Goddammit Laura. Also:

>This is a long, long sermon masquerading as a novel. Its aim seems clear- to be the great American novel. In spite of, or maybe because of this overreach, it is completely unsatisfying. The characters are mere symbols. Most of the themes pertain to the characters’ moral dilemmas, but it is difficult to be drawn into these since the characters lack any real complexity. The men are various superlatives (greatest, kindest, wisest). There are two women characters, one evil and exaggerated to the point of absurdity, and the other just a plot device. And the ‘chinaman’ has to be one of the most ridiculous characters in all of literature.

>The weak characters are further undermined by the stilted and unnatural dialogue, which in no way resembles conversation as I have experienced it. The characters take turns giving soulful, melodramatic speeches on the human condition. The ‘chinaman’ is especially painful in this regard.

The Plague

>This book was probably the most depressing book >I've ever read in my life...not to mention the heavy >creep factor involved. Granted, I read it in high >school and wasn't really enjoying the existential unit >of our Modern Thought & Lit class. It might have >been all that pre-existing teen angst and sense of >impending doom and hopelessness though.... >Maybe if I reread it, I'd appreciate it more on an >intellectual level. But at the time, it just grossed me >out and made everything in life seem hopeless.

Mara, you are a vacuous cunt.

Dracula:

"it had a very promising beginning and had a rater interesting way of being presented to the reader. unfortunately, the book is down hill from the time Dracula is in London and it is decided that he must be destroyed. he is not a suave romantic movie/play character but an angry stupid animal. an animal so ignorant that it is a wonder that he survived as long as he did. it is an equal wonder that he could elude a group of men as intelligent as the little band is supposed to be. there is no romance between Mina and the Count. there is also no relationship between Lucy and the Count-which i suppose makes more sense as to why he bit her-the female characters are cloistered, put-upon and lack original personality. The male characters are not much better. the story itself becomes a lingering punishment to finish. if you must read it, i suggest that you find an abridged version."

IT'S NOT TWILIGHT WAAAH!

"We reading Romeo and Juliet at our school. It is a little freaky. I dislike the ending of the book. I do but I don't like Shakespeare's book. We are not allowed to talk about vilence at all at our school. That is what all Shakespeare's books. We just finished reading Macbeth and I also disliked the ending of that book. His books are too freaky for kids my age. They are better for 16 year olds. Here are the things that I don't really understand: does Romeo really die, Do romeo and Juliet get married? How can people this play and this book a lot? Why are shakespeare's books always really grouse and vlient?"

Douglas, you so stupid.

>>1362612
He seems to have forgotten a few words here or there.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood:
"I kept thinking something would happen...
It always takes him awhile to get to the plot, I thought...
Turns out nothing ever did happen. The book just ended with the mystery still unsolved.
What a waste of time!"
>book ended

>Recommends it for: Pretentious people with patience

>This book was definitely not what I expected...I mean, I knew it was based on some sort of acopalypse or something, but I didn't realise it would be this depressing!
First of all, the very idea that human beings should stop thinking for themselves, stop having any memory at all, and faithfully follow every single idea the party tells them is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. Secondly, the book moves at a very slow pace, and some parts are actually really boring. Don't be fooled by what you've heard, this is definitely NOT food for thought.

>This is definitely an Adult book, it had some themes that I did not care for in the least, being sexual and violent. I didn't care for Winston Smith, I found him a boring and bland main character who thought too much and when I was reading his thoughts I only got confused because he couldn't seem to think straight.

>I do not like books that end with something completely different from where you started in the beginning of the novel. I was slightly confused and irked that the author didn't have the grace to write a better ending. I felt like I had just wasted all my time reading this book that I had heard so much praise for only to be left in the ditch. I was not happy.

>I think that my main disappointment though, is that it did not live up to my expectations. I had expected something along the line of a Utopia society that was more advanced then my YA fantasy novels, something that would give me chills down my spine just thinking about all the ideas they represented in this novel. And when I read this, I didn't get any chills, I found myself getting more and more disappointed with each page I read.

>The ending SUCKS. It's horrible, and bleak. In the end, what I got from this book: Resistance is futile. Just go with the crowd and keep your head down to avoid trouble.

>>1362644
This makes me very angry. I like how the kid points out that he reads a bunch of YA fantasy, though. It's kids like this that should be used to silence the "it doesn't matter what type of literature kids read, so long as their reading" camp.

>>1362658

*they're

>>1362644
>I was forced to read this book for the first time in middle school, and as I began to enjoy reading classics, I read it again when I was older. Still, I couldn't enjoy it. 1984 is one of the few classics I do not, nor ever will, enjoy. I didn't like the concept of Big Brother (not the TV show..haha) and I didn't like the double think. Maybe it's because the concept of being utterly controlled really gets to me or makes it entirely unbelievable, I don't know. Something about 1984 just gets on my nerves.

>What I learned from this book is that it's possible to instil a feeling of annoyance on the reader.

Funny you mention that, because...

To Kill a Mockingbird

>...a naive, idealistic piece of writing in which naivete and idealism are ultimately rewarded...
>...doesn't work as a whodunnit because we now have DNA evidence...
>I don't see how it offers insight into racism. It is just racist.
>...sentimental trash...

>>1362666

You are a motherfucker for digging that up and posting it, here, where I could read it.

>>1362665
This book sucks balls, basically because it takes 5 million years to get to the point of the story. Quite frankly, i just don't have that kind of time George Orwell, so I didn't finish this shitfest nor did I even know what that point was. I just, i want to scream at this book. The setting is shitty, the character development is so detailed that i feel like I know Winston better than I know myself. All he does is have sex with whatshername and it's okay for the first two times, but then afterwards its like, OKAY I GET IT. I stopped reading at the O'brien/Winston hallway sex scene but whatever I'm glad I did. Now, i can't wait to get on to A Clockwork Orange. Goodbye George Orwell. I should have known by your fear-mongering Animal Farm that this book would be an equally flaming turd. I'd rather listen to Nickelback than ever finish reading this book.

ALL
OF
MY
HATE

>The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
(Not my favorite, but one of the best that I have read lately)
>Quinn rated it 2 stars
>Quinn's comment:
>The Secret Agent is Conrad's sneering portrait of the anarchist underground in turn-of-the-century London. The anarchists are doddering, overweight, hysterical, "negroid" or dissipated and all are dependent on women. Their politics, Conrad implies, come from petulance about their inability to escape this feminizing dependency. They despise society because they know nothing of it, having lived outside of the space where "real men" define themselves through diligent, value-producing work. Conrad's attempt to write a knowing profile of the margins from the standpoint of the middle stumbles all over itself. His attempts at Waugh-like archness are confusing, falling consistently back into sentimentality, and he relies on the very eugenic language of degeneration that he criticizes in his characters. Appearance = interiority, and social critique--or at least some kind of productive empathy with the outsider--is abandoned for smug parody.

Ok, that's pretty funny, actually.

>>1362697

I like how he thinks he's going to get through A Clockwork Orange, when he doesn't have the patience to read 1984. Idiot.

>>1362715
But clockwork orange has murder, rape, and beatings and stabbings. It has prison. Admittedly takes forever to get through the slang though.

I checked out from the library because my grandma said she loves it. She didn't exactly recommend it, but she's read it a few times, so I thought I'd try. Maybe I shouldn't have. Not really my kind of book, didn't hold my interest very well, and the main character wasn't as likable as I'd hoped or thought from the beginning.

Maybe because you should aspire not to be like him you stupid fuckin ugly motherfuckin bitch

>>1362715
>>1362718
On the plus side, here's a groovy animation that seems to have a strangely low view count:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiyv1sxMu0Q

>>1362718

The slang's what I'm talking about. I give that kid about 15 pages before he says, "Fuck this. I don't have a clue what's going on."

so much pseudo-intellectualism on this site aggghhhh

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

>I know you're "supposed to" love this book because it's Faulker, but I HATED IT! I know you're "cool" and "intelligent" if you read Faulkner, but I can't stand him. Sorry, I don't know what he's talking about (and at the risk of sounding immodest, I am bright). I DON'T think it's cool and "hip" to write in a confusing manner, and I don't try to impress others by liking ambiguity. I had my fill in college with snobs who pretended to like this stuff. Sorry I sound harsh here (I'm really a nice person), but YUK!

ohmyfucking good ALL OF MY HATE.
>COOL AND HIP TO WRITE IN A CONFUSING MANNER
IT'S A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS. YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU'RE SO MAD OR SO ANGRY IT JUST DOESNT COME OUT IN COMPLETE SENTENCES.
LIKE RIGHT NOW I JUST
I DONT EVEN
IM GOING TO
RAAAAA

Fucking what? Pedestrian Philistine is this man!

>>1362644
>This is definitely an Adult book, it had some themes that I did not care for in the least, being sexual and violent.

Reminds me of a friend of mine who didn't want to read Kafka because it had "adult content".

>>1362742

Dude, who the fuck are these people? That's not the only review I saw either that complained that a book had bad language or adult themes. Do these people live on the same plane of existence that I do? And if they do, how can they deny that sex and violence are two cornerstones of the human existence?
FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Naked Lunch, reviewed by Joe S

>So, basically, the meaningless drivel of the very first circuit boi? Seriously? Maybe I would have liked it better if I weren't already sick to death of all the hallucinatory narratives this book spawned. This is a structure that needed to be created only once to get the bastard over with and properly buried.
>Drug narratives are always only autobiographies obsessed with the author's secret obscene wishes and (inevitably) Neanderthal politics. They are the literary equivalent of a frotteur on the subway recounting an especially long and boring dream.
>As a dear friend once told me, "Shut the fuck up, you stupid stoner."(less)

>Catch-22

"I would like to know who made this book famous for being amongst the greatest books of all time? Even though we didn't read this perticular one in secondary school like most schools asigned, I went out and bought it based on the premise that it was a "famous" novel. It was quite boring, and if anything it was the name that made it sound cool in the time it was published. Mind you to compare this book to the modern books of our time is like comparing black and white television to our high definition televisions lol.. thats what I think about this book! :D"

>>1362742

My sister once said that Lolita would be the perfect novel if the sex was taken out and Humbert Humbert and Lolita got married at the end.

>>1362724

That was pretty boss.

Last Exit to Brooklyn

>This book was chosen for my book club. It didn't sound like my cup of tea, but I thought I'd give it a try (you can't like ALL the books you read for a book club, can you?). To say I did not enjoy this book would be a vast understatement. I detested the writing style. The dialogue was not separated and quite difficult to follow. This presupposes that I actually wanted to know who was speaking anyway. The subject matter was utterly bereft of anything good. The characters were mean-spirited, lazy, overindulgent (to put it midly) and just generally distasteful. After reading about a third of the book and having unpleasant dreams, I abandoned it. I can't think of a single person I know who would enjoy this book (to my credit, I suspect). Don't waste your time

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:

>Y'know what? I give up. I'm never going to finish this. I don't think Murakami's a hack, and I know that everybody except me thinks he's a genius, and I also understand- or, more specifically, have had it angrily explained to me- that my dislike for Murakami has to do with me being an American asshole who can't see through her own cultural imperialism enough to appreciate the way Japanese people like Murakami write novels. I acknowledge all these things.

But at the same time, nothing about this works for me. I'm not excited about a bland everyman; I'm not interested in an atmosphere where literally anything could happen, but mostly what does is that people say vague things to him; I'm not sucked in by the occasionally exposited backstory. I know! I should be able to go along with the vague sense of unease, but it just doesn't do anything for me. I mean, probably it's a very culturally Japanese sort of unease that doesn't speak to me, but 200 pages in, I'm just like, whatever. So whatever. I give up.

well fuck you, lady. fuck you and your need for...whatever it is you need

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:

>Y'know what? I give up. I'm never going to finish this. I don't think Murakami's a hack, and I know that everybody except me thinks he's a genius, and I also understand- or, more specifically, have had it angrily explained to me- that my dislike for Murakami has to do with me being an American asshole who can't see through her own cultural imperialism enough to appreciate the way Japanese people like Murakami write novels. I acknowledge all these things.

>But at the same time, nothing about this works for me. I'm not excited about a bland everyman; I'm not interested in an atmosphere where literally anything could happen, but mostly what does is that people say vague things to him; I'm not sucked in by the occasionally exposited backstory. I know! I should be able to go along with the vague sense of unease, but it just doesn't do anything for me. I mean, probably it's a very culturally Japanese sort of unease that doesn't speak to me, but 200 pages in, I'm just like, whatever. So whatever. I give up.

well fuck you, lady. fuck you and your need for...whatever it is you need

Foucault's Pendulum

>One of those books where the author tediously says next to nothing, and all the semi-litterati can't figure out what he's trying to say, so they conclude he must be brilliant. A wasted effort by an otherwise talented (so I hear) author, and that portion of the gullible public that assumes that something profound is being said so long as they can't understand it.

I love dumbfags. Love love love.

>>1362844
This person sounds like the dullest person in the world.

Gormenghast:

"Wanted to like this. Tried hard to read it. Realized I couldn't force myself to slog through this self-indulgent wallowing in shabby-romantic blather. And yet! I thought it was a great idea - why did no one ever tell Mervyn to Keep It Simple? Somebody should have introduced him to Hemingway. That would have been funny. Anyway, we all know how THAT would have ended - Hemingway would shoot any man named Mervyn, just for the principle of it. Man! Now I'm getting all sorts of great ideas for rewriting Gormengast in the manner of Hills Like White Elephants...

If you've read this book, my congratulations. You're a better reader than I. (Oops! I just realized the reviews of this book are nearly all 5 stars. Looks like I've just made some enemies.)"

Yes, I am a better reader than you. Yes, you have made enemies.

A Streetcar Named Desire:

"I must say this book made me feel sorry for anyone whose actually read the book. i got to the second page before i put it down! i would rather eat my own shoe then read the book. This book is horrible and disgusts me entirely. This is classic crap! it doesnt deserve respect it deserves to be thrown away and never read again. it explicitly mentions various sexual scenes which are extremely vulgar and unnecessary. This makes me wonder whether the author was drunk and raped when he wrote this."

>>1362866
i know, right?!

>>1362890
ok, so while i haven't read the book that that review mentioned...

1)the fuck? you decided *2* pages in that you didn't like it?

2) whatever the fuck she was saying about the "sexual content". you know what, with all of the reviews complaining about that, you'd think that the actual human world didn't have sex in it and/or that books didn't reflect real life.

fucking eh, man! when i was growing up, my dad asked me why i was moving away from the christian church. it's moral fags like that

Oh you'd really like "Suddenly Last Summer"

>>1363134
who? me >>1363101 ?

>>1362890
>This makes me wonder whether the author was [...] raped when he wrote this.
Lol'd so hard.

>Ugh, I am so glad that's over with. STOP CRYING YOU STUPID WHINY BITCH. Sorry for that outburst, but the 'heroine' of this novel got on my nerves so much. Seriously, her automatic response to absolutely anything is either to faint or, more commonly, to turn away to hide the tears that welled unbidden into her eyes. Literally every third page or so Emily is unable to stop herself from weeping. Yes, her father dies, which is pretty sad, but must you really cry because the mountains are so beautifu...moreUgh, I am so glad that's over with. STOP CRYING YOU STUPID WHINY BITCH. Sorry for that outburst, but the 'heroine' of this novel got on my nerves so much. Seriously, her automatic response to absolutely anything is either to faint or, more commonly, to turn away to hide the tears that welled unbidden into her eyes. Literally every third page or so Emily is unable to stop herself from weeping. Yes, her father dies, which is pretty sad, but must you really cry because the mountains are so beautiful? The other characters are all shit as well, especially her lover boy who shares her passion for crying at the beauty of mountains.

>>1361409
>The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

The Good: I've finished reading this book and it's over.

The Bad: This book is terrible. Not just terrible, but completely terrible terrible. The kind of terrible reserved for soul crushing non-sense that makes you question your further participation in the human race....that kind of terrible.

Hitchhikers Guide was a pleasant read for me, not a book for everyone but I figured the follow up would be just more of the same. I figured wrong, this was the worst type of trying to be funny, I can't even imagine the british find this funny, the last 75 pages or so were WORK, not so much because this book wasn't funny, but because it was pointless as well.

>mfw