/lit/ - Literature

Slaughterhouse Five

>From time to time, I try to read "smart" books. The ones that are classics or everyone says are good, or whatever. Usually I don’t like them. Often I can't get through them. This one I've always heard of popped up in my book queue and I attempted to read it. My boss took one look at what I'd started reading and told me she would never be able to get through it. I said you're probably right, but I'll give it a try. I've officially given up. I don’t know why it's famous or a classic. It's boring. It doesn’t make any sense. It's like a weird, simplified, boring time traveler's wife, but not as good (I liked time traveler's wife). I got to page 80 and stopped. This book is so not even smart seeming that I feel like a bunch of people said that it's smart and classic and everyone else is just going along with it so that they seem smart and well-read.

>'Best books of the Decade'

>#4: Twilight.

Populist ideals are invalid.

>It's like a weird, simplified, boring time traveler's wife, but not as good (I liked time traveler's wife).

wat.

>>451760
>everyone else is just going along with it so that they seem smart and well-read.
People ALWAYS say this when they don't get something. It's sad.

The Myth Of Sisyphus

>This was the first work I ever read that pissed me off so much that I was seeing spotts. Since then, I think I've read only one other thing that caused a reaction like that - something that I disagree with so violently that, frankly, it scares me.

>>451770

holy shit, i lol'd.

Have a 5-star review of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.

>This book is so good. It is VERY interesting. I love how she doesn't leave the parts about God out. She lets people know. She doesn't leave the parts out where she prayed to God for this or that, or God knew what He was doing in her life when this or that happened.
I'm not finished with it yet but I LOVE IT! Thank you Sarah for writing this wonderful book!!
I actually finished this book a while ago even though I just now added it...lol

>>451764
The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Gardner's Grendel:

>The problem with this tale is that Gardner arouses sympathy for Grendel by telling the story from his point of view, but Grendel's actions are objectively evil. The Bible does not encourage us to feel sympathy for evil, but to try to redeem it while also calling out for justice. The original Beowulf story was Christianized by a monk and passed on to us. But those who refuse Christianity rewind the tape and undo the redemption, like with the recent movie. In the end, Grendel calls his death at the hands of Beowulf an accident and wishes an accident on all those "evil" creatures who come out to watch him die. But Gardner's De-Christianized tale bears no resemblance to an accident. He's out to de-convert the world.

>>451770
Thanks anon, I went on wiki and read about it, now gonna put it to my reading list.

This is why I love this site - good way of finding quality things to read. (not as I did before browsing top lists, that was just idiotic)

>>451786

You're welcome! Camus is brilliant. I'd recommend reading L'Etranger before the Myth of Sisyphus. It serves as a nice introduction to the absurd. Camus writes beautifully.

>It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.

>>451787
Shit, I keep forgetting about the book.
The Myth of Sisyphus is one of my favourite pieces of writing, I am ashamed to admit not having read The Stranger.

>>451764
i can better that

>Best Books Ever
>#3 Twilight.

>>451792

Read iiiiit. Camus considered himself a writer first and foremost, and it really shines through in his fiction. His incredibly wry writing style, and his manipulation of language is amazing.

Also to keep this thread on track, one star review of The Stranger.

It's quite amazing to me how many books are exulted as classics as a result of nothing more than the sheer happenstance of incredible luck. No one seems to give a rats ass whether there's actually a story anywhere within a book anymore. Even at a little over a hundred pages this book was still a waste of time to read. The writer added a touch of philosophy 101 to his work at the very end and all of a sudden this book has become a must read.

>I twice got an A on a paper written about how much this book sucks. The first time was in high school and the ever assigned Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. Thank the cosmic gasses that the movie is actually good or Seniors would be committing heinous wet acts of self-subterfuge in droves. But I digress...
The second was in college when I had to read this poor excuse for a novel again to compose a little Conrad/Faulkner homily. What an insult to Faulkner.

End of 1 star review about Alice in Wonderland

". . . I can't say I enjoyed Alice in Wonderland all that much. I hope the Alice in Wonderland movie coming out today is MUCH better than the book, for once!(less)

:)

>The count is a dork

>'Unpopular books'
> Heart of Darkness

1984; 1 star

>K so this was required reading so I read it. I can't tell you how much I dislike sci fi sci fantasy genre but I did get through this. Was this a predictiction of the future? Like war of the worlds? Was this really how people thought then? Scary. I supposed it did not help that I read this in 1984. And given my dislike for the genre found I like the way the story was told and it kept my attention. So I read it and was entertained by it. Not so bad!

What?

On Stephenson's "Snow Crash":

>I guess I should just avoid cyberpunk altogether--since I didn't like Neuromancer either. This one was slightly better (if I could give no stars to Neuromancer I would).

>I didn't have a problem with the characters and setting of the book. Since I know more about Middle Eastern religions than the author does I was a little put back by some his explanations. But to his credit he does less inventing than Dan Brown, and Brown tries to pass his fiction drivel off as real.

>I guess what I really didn't like was the way it was written and the structure of the plot. It seemed like he should have spent more time editing and considering character motivation. There were other things I didn't like, the way the metaverse functioned which seemed beyond silly, and how the main character is in his 20's but his father was in WWII so how far in the future could this book take place? The stuff described in the book--technology, total breakdown of society, etc--should have taken a lot longer than that. But those are minor quibbles, it's a sci-fi book, they are allowed to circumvent reality. I stand by the writing and plot structure

I'm not sure which made me rage more, that the jackoff reviewer arrogantly claimed to know so much more about Mesopotamian culture than Stephenson, when Stephenson was making a point of bending the facts to encompass what he was trying to do, or the fact that this reviewer doesn't get that books set in "the future" aren't constantly updated so that modern events are in the book's past.

Catcher in the Rye:

>In my opinion, Holden is the worst character in the English language. Salinger tried just too damn hard to make him 'universal', to the point where he becomes unrealistic. His train of thought is annoying and repetitive, and God, those catchphrases of his. Can someone shut this kid up? Holden is almost the anti-Gary Stu. Nearly every thing's wrong with him. The one good thing about him being his love for his younger sister.

>Holden is the worst character in the English language

>worst character in the English language

Fuck that guy, the worst character in the English language is "Ø".

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:

>Yea I know it's a classic, but I'm just not into classics, well, maybe just this classic. My dad made me read it. Go figure, the old guy is still stuck in the past.

I want to hit this kid with a shovel SO. HARD.

>Best Books Ever

>#1 To Kill a Mocking Bird
>#2 Pride and Prejudice
>#3 Twilight

Are only women allowed to vote on this site?

The Odyssey
>I never finished the original book and read very abridged versions of the story, listened to others discuss it, and watched the latest film version. Odysseus returns home a hero, having survived as a mortal all kinds of superhuman problems. He is a hero because he returns to his wife and land, and because he is clever and strong enough to defeat others who are more powerful than himself.

>I never could figure out why that makes him the classic hero of all time. His men do not survive, and he is not true to his wife (of course, this is only my interpretation of being true). He makes rash decisions. It's hard to figure out what he has learned and how he has grown in the end.

>Today I learned that my son, who read the book for a class during the last two years, did not like it either. He can't find anything heroic about Odysseus. I was surprised to find someone else with a point of view close to mine

Richard III

>Of course, this play is brilliantly written (it's Shakespeare, for Pete's Sake!. but it rates only second to Titus Andronicus as my LEAST favorite of the Bard's works.

>The reason? It unfairly villifies a good man.

>Richard III was the victim of a posthumous smear campaign by political enemies. Shakespeare based his play on those politically motivated rumors.

>There's no evidence that Richard killed the princes - or did any of the nefarious things of which he's accused. No evidence that he was anything but a courageous, kind and benevolent man.

>Every time I run across this play, it just frustrates me to death. Richard doesn't deserve Shakespeare's account as his legacy.

>I recommend a delightful little book called "The Daughter of Time" - it sets the record straight.

>There are also societies dedicated to revealing the truth about Richard III.

>Anyone who THINKS they know about Richard III should do a little research and find out the truth about this good man.(less)

HERP DERP HISTORICAL FICTION HAS NO MERIT IF IT ISN'T 100% FACTUAL REGARDLESS OF QUALITY OF STORY.

My money says this man probably hasn't read Merchant of Venice, if he's this butthurt over Richard III.

Fahrenheit 451:

>I recently picked it up at a used book store and sat down to read it... with high expectations.

>I think there's something wrong with me. I might be one of the only people that just didn't like it. I didn't even finish it. Bradbury seems to be writing for the sake of putting words on to paper. There's so much fluff that I got bored and couldn't get to the root of the story.

>Here's an example of an annoying sentence, indicative of just about every other sentence:

>"He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air onto the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb."

>Way more info than I need. I enjoy a vivid description of environment when I think the description is relevant. But, for me, knowing that the escalator is cream-tiled and the silent train is soundless (lol) and that the flue is lubricated seems unnecessary. To me, this sentence was about twice as long as it needed to be. Fahrenheit 451 could have been a shorter book...

>I got about 36 pages in and had to stop. I might pick it up again someday. Not today.

God damn, is the irony thick in this review.

The Metamorphosis
>Technically I read this book in German, and if I could give it zero stars, I would. I read the first sentence (in German, mind you) around 3:30 in the morning earlier this semester, and was convinced I was loosing my mind and that I couldn't be translating it right. It read: "Gregor Samsa awoke on morning to discover that he had somehow transformed into a giant cockaroach". After typing the sentence into freetranslation.com and finding out I actually had read and translated it correctly, I thought for sure the author had lost
his mind.

>I'm sorry, but all this stuff about him being a symbol for Jesus and struggling for mankind is a bit over-the-top I think. He's a cockaroach. There's no explaination for it, and his family is only mild freaked out at the fact that he suddenly turned into a giant bug. If the family tried to take him to the doctor, or sell him to the circus, or perhaps even give a damn at all, the story might have kept my attention for more than the first few pages

Crime and Punishment

>This book was the most random thing I have ever read. It was like, two pages of plot, then twenty of this off-topic rambling, then two more of plot...it was awful. And the plot itself was just really weird. It's supposed to be exploring, like, the darker side of psychology but the guy just ends up coming across as poorly written filler between the random stuff.

>Brave New World
>Aldous Huxley

>I have always had trouble understanding a books message, that is why I never finished my BaA in English. I adore stories, reading and writing them, but only as entertainment. So I warn you ahead of time, I can only tell you how I saw things. But I doubt the majority of the world is wrong, this is most likely an excellent book.

>The society and culture of the new world was not well explained. Their practices were so outrageous, but there was no explanation for how it came to be that way and what motives they could have had. Also, the story seemed choppy. I could not find the middle of the story, or determine any climbing action or a climax. Someone recently asked me what the book was about and I realized that I really didnt know. There seemed to be no set story. I could tell them what happened, but I could not tell them what it was about. I also could not figure out who the protagonist was. The focus seemed to always change from one person to another and another. That is also why there seemed to be no set story, because the book seemed very unfocused.
>there seemed to be no set story
>no set story
>no story

wat

>>451863

Also, this:

>I realise that is a classic book of dystopian future, etc, etc, and I appreciate the references to William Shakespeare (I think that there ought to be more Shakespearean references--also more Bible references), but I did not appreciate the book. I read once when I was younger, and tried to read again a couple of years ago.

>In the end it failed the admonition of Paul. It was neither virtuous, nor lovely, nor of good-report, nor praiseworthy. So I put it down. I am not saying that every book needs to be happy in order to be worth reading. Nothing is further than the truth. The world can be an ugly place. I think, however, the authors of dystopias think the world much uglier than it actually is. Maybe I am needlessly optomistic. I simply did not feel the need to read this book--I do not think it actually adds to anything.

>whatthefuckamireading.jpg

>>451848
Another one, 2 star review:

>I know, I know, it's a metaphor, but I really disliked this >book. Too many GIANT BEETLES. Sure, there's only >one, but really, isn't one too many?

Sputnik Sweetheart-

Note: This review made a lot of people angry, because apparently I'm thinking of another book or something - what I remember is evidently not what happened. But it is totally what I remember, and I had fun writing it, so if you bother reading it, please consider it a joke. I'm not going to reread the book or take down the review. It's a one-off for me, a non-serious review. If you are still pissed off by it despite this disclaimer, I can only ask that you don't pick a fight with me. And ignore you if you do anyway. I just don't see what the big deal is. Anyway, here is the contentious original review:


This book really pissed me off. As near as I can tell, here's how it went [spoiler alert!:]: ugly dude hangs out with hot chick who disappears. He eventually finds her in a hotel room, naked and disheveled. She tells him that she had been alone one night on a Ferris wheel behind the hotel and it stopped with her at the top and she could see a double self in her hotel room screaming or something. The she passed out and here she is, and I think maybe her hair had turned white too. Anyway, what a load of crap.

A Game of Thrones

>This is an absolutely terrible book. I do NOT recommend it to anyone. The only reason this book got one star in my rating is because over all, it had a an ok plot, but as a Christian(and even if I wasn't) there were too many things about it I just do not like or suggest at all.

Master and Margarita

>Blech. If Bulgakov wants me to think satan should be avoided because he's achingly boring, he's succeeded.

>groooooooooooooooooooooooosssss

>I forgot about this book. It was mentioned in a note from the author by Christopher Moore as inspiration for his book Lamb. It was also supposedly the inpirations for the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" (my favorite stones song). BUT other than the inspiration it provides, the book is worthless. I hated it. I read it for a book club years ago. I think I just don't get Russian authors....or I'm just not smart enough to get them.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is one of my all time favourite books.

>One of the very few books I've ever read in my entire life that I remember having absolutely hated. Detested it and wanted to throw it out the window once I was done, and would've done so if it wasn't a class text. If I could've rated it lower than 1 star, I would've.

She doesn't say why though. Fuckin' slut.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
>everything about the description of this book sounded like a promising, dreamy book - the type i could get lost in: dark, brooding 1800's england, with magic, intrigue, history... constantly compared to harry potter crossed with charles dickens...i beg to differ... maybe if they meant harry potter's most dull class on the history of magic - a dry historical reference book that hermione would read...

I want to kill this person.

>>451899
Holy fuck, I am mad.

The Trial
>I'm a story-time kind of girl. If a book doesn't have a good plot, realistic characters, or some seriously moving writing, then you probably shouldn't let it near me for fear of a violent reaction. If it doesn't have, at the very least, LOGIC, then you might as well lock it in a chest, wrap the chest in chains, hide it in an underwater shipwreck, and guard it with a really pissed-off octopus.
>I have never loathed a book the way I loathe The Trial. The absence of logic in any form made me feel like I was reading through my own nightmare, the kind where you're trying to run away from something, but your legs feel so extraordinarily heavy that you can barely walk.

Foucault's Pendulum
>I am so over this book. It is tedious. It is like that guy in college who seems really deep and esoteric and smarter than you because he is a philosophy major who carries around a copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra and deigned to sit in on your history class for distribution credits, but the more you talk to him, the more you realize he is just full of it and the only one who thinks he is deep and not pretentious, is well, him (I'm looking at you Umberto). I gave it a good try, but I am at least 150 pages in and life is too short for a book that throws together a bunch of random references to antiquity, religion, and philosophy and calls it an intellectual puzzle. Focus. Narrative. Editing. All those would be welcome additions. Can you tell I didn't like it?

Went to site. Looked up The Old Man and the Sea. 3.5 rating. Closed tab

The Hour of the Star
>This book features perhaps the most annoying narrators in the history of literature, and it's not the good annoying like Holden Caulfield. This narrator repeats himself over and over even contradicting himself and needlessly commenting about how he writes about a girl that just makes her message so much less pronounced. the narrative itself is like a half hour episode of a miniseries with very littler of anything, the characters are all unnappealing and without any charisma whatsoever, which could show something about the true nature of poverty but the narrator makes the reader want to not believe a word of what he says so nothing is really set in stone or good. this book just sucks really badly. the only reason it's good is that it's only 86 pages or so... Want to know about poverty? about the philosophy of poverty? read some anthropology and stay the hell away from this over rated piece of garbage that some people claim is good because it was lispector's last book. just cuz you're dead doesn't mean your writing is good.

Death With Intervals
>This book is an excellent reminder about why the judicious use of punctuation is important to the reading experience. I'm on page 21 now and I can barely remember anything about what I've read. So far I have seen only commas and periods. Each sentence takes up more than an inch of vertical page space. Paragraphs run on for more than a page. Conversations between characters are not set out in any way, no quotation marks, no indentations, nothing. Just long sentences with a few commas ending in a period.
>I HAVE ADHD

Consider Phlebas

>This book reads like a video game. In fact, Master Chief has more personality then all of the characters put together.

>More like A Hundred Years of Torture. I read this partly in a misguided attempt to expand my literary horizons and partly because my uncle was a big fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Then again, he also used to re-read Ulysses for fun, which just goes to show that you should never take book advice from someone whose IQ is more than 30 points higher than your own.

>YUCK! One of the worst books I have ever read. I gave it one star because there was nothing lower. It starts off great but then rambles and has too many characters with the same names. It was hard to separate "reality" from the characters dreams or imaginings, but since they were equally boring and confusing I'm not sure it mattered. This certainly changed my view of Pulitzer Prize winners -- up until now I thought winning a Pulitzer meant a book was good!

>One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Life of Pi

Annoying boy suffers mild discomfort in the boat of plenty. Story starts off well enough, with cute religious confusions in a zoo. The whole thing sinks along with the ship, as it becomes fairly dreadful. Gah, just shoot the flare gun in the stupid tiger's face already, for heavens sake! The usual lost as sea drama ensues, as the boy tries to stay alive, with makeshift innovation and luck. The book is in stasis for the longest time and at the end tries to be all clever clever, but it doesn't work.

Sure it can be marketed as an inspiring tale of uncanny survival, but that would ignore the cheap stolen scenes that never ring true. Very tiresome and vanilla. This isn't a book, it's pure product. The writing itself is mediocre at best.

Let's roll!

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
>When I read this book, I felt like I was riding a roller coaster that never left the station. It was, in short, dull. Nothing was climatic, even the climax. The characters were underdeveloped. I have come to the conclusion that "Ella Enchanted" is the only re-told fairy tale worth reading. I would not recommend that anyone waste time on this book, purely to avoid bad writing.

Ellla Fucking Enchanted???

If on a winter's night a traveler

>A self-important, self-proclaimed 'exercise' in 'the act of reading' - this book in fact does nothing to reward a careful read. One story blends into another ad infinitum, without ever reaching any endings or deriving any particular meaning from the order and variety of stories presented. Not to mention the fact that the author continually addresses you, the reader, as a man, and discusses at length your fascination with several different females in a wholly objectified way. Definately not something that I felt an empathy with

OH THESE RETARDS

Ugh.
I love it when people say they hate characters because they are unbelievable.

It's motherfucking fiction, you're not supposed to believe.

The Chosen - Ricardo Pinto

>This was, by far, the worst book I've ever read. It was boring, presumptuous (the author clearly tries to copy the style of J.R.R.Tolkien and miserably fails) and the 2 main characters are completly disgusting. If the book itself wasn't bad enough, I would have gladly passed away the descriptions of gay sex between those main male characters.
This book is actually WORSE than Twilight. For all those who think that's not possible...try to read this...

okaay NOTHING is worse than Twilight! You homophobic freak.

>>451991

Uh... what. Yes you are. If a writer can't create a believable person, they're a shit writer with no insight into human beings. Entertainment aside (for which it is also necessary to believe), the whole value of fiction lies in the believability.

Animal Farm
>My mom made me read this book and I didn't really like it at all. It was a little bit funny. But mostly it was sad, mean and it was a little bit demeaning. This book was really mean towards animals. I have no idea what came over George Orwell to make him want to write this book. I can't believe that he would write something so horrible and gruesome. This book had too much violence and too much violent imagery for me to handle. One good thing about this book was that there was this one horse, Clover who cared for every other animal like she was their mother because her children were taken from her as soon as she birthed them and because they are younger than her. I just felt like the slaughtering of the animals and the fights were too much. I would think that this would have been a happy book about animals, but it wasn't... I am never going to read another George Orwell book no matter what the critics, my friends or my family says.

Don't know if I rage or LOL.

>>451998

I raged

then I lol'd.

>>451998

This is hilarious, I can't decide if they're like 10 or 18. I don't think a 10 year old would be able to spell "demeaning" but nobody as old as 18 can be this dumb, can they?

>>451997
So like, if I pick up a book and a guy is throwing around magic and shit, summoning fucking snakes from his urethra, but because he doesn't make the personality believable, well holy shit that ruins the book!

I don't know, I think it's fucking retarded.

Let's try something a bit different:
>Gamer Girl had me addicted all the way through--don't get me wrong about that. This book, however, was on its way to four stars (it was amazing, but it just didn't have the five star sparkle) until the very end.

>Mari Mancusi has written a fine work of teen fantasy fiction. Without bringing up spoilers, you think (or, at least, I thought) you have the whole thing figured out halfway through the novel, and then she sends you on so many twists and turns--and wrenches your stomach into a dozen knots as you slam into the climax--you put the book down completely flabbergasted and yet satisfied.

>The beginning is catchy, the middle will hold you, and the ending is superb. What can I say? And if you actually are a gamer girl, or a manga lover, you will wonder why it took so long to find this novel

>>452007

Uh... yeah. That would be a really shitty book. You might as well read fanfiction if you just want "a guy ... throwing around magic and shit, summoning fucking snakes from his urethra," there's plenty of terrible shit like that on the internet.

Siddhartha -- Hesse

>I did not enjoy this book..at all.
>It was a great disapointment, and I would not >recommend to any of my peers, it was horrible, and I >did not enjoy reading it..AT ALL!
>I thought it would be an intreresting book, but it was >so confusing, I HATED it.

I would welcome this person's death.

>>452007
No, it's not.
One thing is the setting and atmosphere, it can be on medieval japan, Mars or someone's garden, and another thing is the writer's capacity to create appealing and interesting characters.
They're completely different things. It's like saying Gamer Girl is better than 1984 because the setting is more realistic

Thus Spake Zarathustra

> Poor ripoff of the Bible

-sigh-

>>452016
this person has to be a troll.

>>451963

I saw some guy in that site saying he prefered The Da Vinci Code to Pendulum. Fuck this shit.

>A very boring description of what it would be like to live in a 2D world. Yes it's an observation of victorian society, humanity and how we're afraid of what we don't know, but it's still dull as dish water. The mathematical element is too basic to be of any interest. It was was written 125 years ago and shows it.

Flatland

God damn people are stupid.

the defining childhood book:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55776.The_Widow_s_Broom?rating=2#other_reviews

>I think a broom carrying an ax might be a bit much for children. I was hoping to read this to my grandaughter. I don't think I will.

12 2 star reviews, one of them being a crazy sheltering mother and the rest blank, and one blank 1-star review. methinks trolls and/or idiots who go through and vote down everything.

recent book i really loved:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7661.Next?rating=1#other_reviews

>I had been boycotting Michael Crichton since his unhelpful muddying of the waters of the climate change "debate" in his next-to-last novel which included a personal message to his readers that he didn't believe the issues were really human related at all. Read the IPCC report, you ignoramus. However, I was stuck in an airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, having finished every novel in my bag and with the prospect of 12 hours of airplanes and airports ahead. The novel selection in the airport shop was a single shelf of chick lit and Clive Cusslers. I was desperate. His newest hobbyhorse is genetics and the story, if you could call it that, is light window dressing for sociopolitical railery. He should have stuck to dinosaurs, not that the pseudoscientific scaffolding that Jurassic Park hung upon was any better, but at least we weren't subjected to his personal views to such an enfuriating degree. I don't disagree that genetics, gene therapy, and copywriting of particular genes are bringing up some worrying issues but I don't need them pointed out to me by some hack writer in the guise of a novel. Mr. Crichton is a conspiracy theorist and the conspiracy is made up of SCIENTISTS. Don't even get me started on his Astrobiology book.

look for 1 star reviews on Anne Frank's Diary

i'm not sure if these people are trolling or not

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48855.Anne_Frank_The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl

>>452051
sure is stormfront in there

>Anyone who has rated this more than one star, probably didn`t read the full version (307) pages. It was so tedious, barely about the war itself, which supposed to make this book special.

>I just read it, to assume it is fake or not. I`m not sure yet, but I assume it is real , nobody would be bothered to write such tedious babbling. This book doesn`t proof anything about the socalled horrors of the nationalsocialist regime, Anne Frank died of Typhus and none of the jews in this book were gassed. It does proof that the allied propaganda put the rumour in the world, that the jews were gassed, even before the nazis even gassed jews.

>In the foreword the book states that Anne Frank first wrote the book for herself, till a Dutch minister said on the radio that diaries will be collected for historical reasons after the war. Although Anne Frank already wrote somewhere before the date of the speech "Otherwise people won`t know what I`m talking about, when they read this"

>And somewhere after two years in hiding she writes "I saw two jews walking outside." Of which you can conclude that the "jewhunt" wasn`t really at his peak when they started to hide. The whole family just started hiding when one of the family members was called up for forced labor, I don`t assume they called up just one of the family to gas. That would just be weird, gassing a jewish family one by one.Which also concludes that the Franks wern`t just one example of many jews. But some jews were still walking around freely while the Franks already stayed 2 years in the attic


I fucking lol'd

>Bad reviews for "The Corrections"
>People complain that the characters are unlikable


We're they ever supposed to be?

Kavalier and Clay

>I did not get this book. First of all, there was too much gay rape. Second, not enough cocaine. Also, I do not like cartoons. This book could be renamed Superman Had Daddy Issues and nobody would know the difference, except the people who read it, who wouldn't care anyway, 'cause they'd all be too shocked about the gay rape. Ban this useless book from Good Reads.


Is this serious?

>>452051
>kara
>picture of Edward

>>452064
>ban a book

10/10! FUCK!

>>451833
>Are only women allowed to vote on this site?

They have a goddamn "Character You Most Want to Sleep With" category. What does THAT tell you?

Porno;
>My second attempt at welsh, and it failed miserably. My first was Trainspotting, and needless to say I enjoyed the movie more,

arrarghhh

Snow by Orhan Pamuk reviews

"HERF DERF THIS IS BORING, BECAUSE IT WAS BORING IT MUST HAVE NO OTHER MERITS. 1 OUT OF 5".

Fuck if you're going to 1 star it at least say something else about it.

>>452064
But Superman's dad is dead.

>>452080
That's not the point, the point is the person 1 starred it because it didn't have things they enjoy.Judging something based on whether it contains a thing you like or dislike is somewhat silly.

>>452076
Well Porno does suck though.

Am i the only one having difficulty to find Lolita?
There's one, but only has 62 reviews

This website needs to give people the ability to give reviewers ratings out of five stars.

>>452087
this

Fucking stupid women reviewers keep having spoilers in their reviews.

>give me a break. The Franks and the others in the Annex were practically living in luxury! All Anne did was complain.

>All in all, Anne: shut up. You whine too much and, really, too much information.

>I assume it is real, nobody would be bothered to write such tedious babbling. This book doesn`t proof anything about the so called horrors of the nationalsocialist regime

> Anne flunks out. Her book seems to have chapters of dialog between people that we don't even know - People she hasn't introduced properly. Some people may gain insight into WWII life, but for me it was just a jumbled mess.

>I don't like to be bored. I hate being bored and I like to have fun like 24/7. If I am bored I get in a bad or sad mood. So i like to have fun. I rate it a one because it was really boring.

>Sadly, I already knew of the horrors of pre-teen/teen girls and their neurotic ramblings. Her particular blend of messed up household didn't seem to make them that much worse.

>I don't want to give too much away, but this book is DEPRESSING!

>For someone whose family is in hiding, I found the book to be rather dry and boring. It consists mostly of her complaining about how much she hates her mother, how nobody in the annex gets along, and how she has to eat potatoes..pretty much anything and everything a teenage girl can think of complaining about

Don't worry guys, it's just a little girl's debut book. I'm sure her follow-up novel will be more entertaining and her writing sure will improve in the years to come!

>Twilight
RAGE

>>452093
>The Book of Mormon

>go on goodreads.com
>find favorite book
>read 1 star reviews
>most reviewers are women
>read 5 star reviews
>most reviewers are men

Last exit to brooklyn
>if you like drawn out gang rapes, this book is for you. personally, i set it on fire when i was finished.

>God-Emperor of Dune

>countless one star reviews without any text

God fucking damn it.

>>452100
i do like drawn out gang rapes, thank you very much

Hitch hikers guide
>This is one of the worst books I've ever read. The book is plotless, the author's style is clunky and the characters are flat. Small glimmers of humor are not enough of a redeeming quality for this book. I'm mad I bought it.
says a black woman

i really am noticing more and more often that all the one star reviews are by women.

>El Túnel by Ernesto Sábato
>5 one-star reviews with no text in them
>All made by women

>Nicomachean Ethics

>In Aristotle's defense, perhaps the reason I hate this book is less because the book ITSELF sucks, and more because my pretentious philosophy major friend in college told me that I could not truly understand friendship, or be friends with him, until I had read this book.

>Yes, that's right. I once had a friend assign me homework.

>Needless to say, we are no longer friends. (I blame Aristotle.)

>Review is from a woman

HE DIDN'T WRITE IT FOR YOU, YOU FUCKING WHORE! THIS IS A BOOK FOR MEN ON HOW TO BE BETTER MEN! YOU DON'T DESERVE TO HAVE FRIENDS, YOU FUCKING BITCH! FUCK YOU!

i just found a woman who one stared the hitch hikers guide, and all her five star reviews are for judy bloom books.

ahahaha

/lit/ - Sexism

Not that it's unjustified..

The lost estate.

>hmm.had relatively high hopes
too dated and childish for me
is it considered good because he was young when he wrote it and then died in a tragic war?
i don't really read books that i anticipate to be '2 stars'.bummer.

>Blah blah I like 'em young blah blah I have a penis blah blah I hate America blah blah I'm smart blah blah I'm from Europe blah blah 12 year olds are whores blah blah I'm well read and egomanical blah blah I like to get felt up while watching schoolgirls walk home from class blah blah

The lost estate.

hmm.had relatively high hopes
too dated and childish for me
is it considered good because he was young when he wrote it and then died in a tragic war?
i don't really read books that i anticipate to be '2 stars'.bummer

>The Prince

أخيرا أنهيت الكتاب!

بصراحة الكتاب واحد من أسوء الكتب التي قرأتها, والأكثر مللاً أثناء القراءة. لم يعجبني على الإطلاق بالرغم من شهرته الواسعة وكثرة الحديث عنه. لعلي ألخص أهم الأسباب التي جعلتني أكره الكتاب:

أولا, الكتاب سياسي بحت ولا أحبذ القراءة في السياسة لأنها "وجع راس" لاحدود له!
ثانيا, تكاد تكون جميع الأسماء والأحداث التي ذكرها مكيافيللي مجهولة تماما بالنسبة لي ولا أكاد أعرف عما يتحدث حينما يذكر فلان أو علان أو الحدث الفلاني بسبب جهلي التام بتلك الفترة وماحدث فيها من حروب وأحداث.
ثالثا, شعرت بملل أثناء القراءة لم أشعر به في كتاب قط, ويكأنه يتحدث عن نفس الشيء في كل فصل من فصول الكتاب!

في النهاية, الكتاب بالتأكيد ليس من نوعية الكتب التي أستهويها.
وهذا لا يعني أن الكتاب سيء للجميع, قد يقرأه غيري ويعجب به.

ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?!

Lolita
>I read as far as pedo guy considering settling for a young girl but not young or agile enough as the girl in his memories. So yea I didn't get far. I really thought this was going to be about him adoring little girls in a nostolgic sweet fashion in his old age. I wasn't expecting him to try to live out his lost fantasies of his prepubercent years. I have to say I didn't want to give this thing any stars. Maybe because I'm a mother including 2 little girls that I can't get past the fact that he's a pedophile. I don't care if it's consensual or whatever. It's sick. I'm upset that such a book can be considered a classic.

>>451816

Goddamn i raged. I raged a lot. I loved Snowcrush, one of the few pieces of actually GOOD cyberpunk that we've got.

Let's see now, about the Hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy...
>Dry, random, and strange sense of humor required to enjoy this book. Interesting, but yet strange series of events narrated by a slightly psychotic and rambling futuristic space traveler. Movie available.

I think i bust a rage synapse at "Movie Available"
Reviewed by a female. OF COURSE

The best books of the decade list disturbs me.. there's quite a few good ones there, but Twilight? seriously? Harry potter?

>>452128
>I really thought this was going to be about him adoring little girls in a nostolgic sweet fashion in his old age.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

>>452128
what the actual fuck?
raged

It's alright guys, all this thread should be doing, is reinforcing your views that the majority of the world are bumbling imbeciles, and that popularity contents will always be dominated by the mental deficient.

We'll make Holdens out of you yet.

So are any /lit/eralists actually registered on goodreads? Should we friend each other?

The vesuvius club.

can't yet decide if it's a trash novel or if it's actually a good book...but the fact is it's very enjoyable so far!

i decided

it was a trash novel

why do these idiotic people feel they have the right to review books?

>Leviathan

>Not only did I disagree with Hobbes' conclusions, I find his assumptions (his arguments based entirely in Christian perspective) essentially worthless. The only value this tract served to me is to "know thy enemy". This is a classic example of mental circus tricks being used to justify the march of Christian dominance across the globe. I can't think of any written text that I despise more, except perhaps Mein Kempf.

>Hobbes is my least favorite philosopher. He embodies everything I despise in Western thought. If I met Hobbes in the street I would flash him my tits and then slap him in the face and call him a pervert.

Bitches and whores.

>>452150
Well, Hobbes is a right fuck...

>>452148

Of course not. We use librarything. The moron ratio is much, much better over there.

>Faust

>Sorry. Don't get the fuss.

>Why come this is such a big deal? I like the whole idea of a book about selling your soul to the Devil for riches in this life. Exactly what were the riches given to Dr. Faust? He lost a lover, a child, etc. And what's with the deus ex machina last line?

>I enjoyed nothing about this book. I must not be educated enough to get it.

Well, at least they know they're an idiot. I guess that counts for something.

>bunch of people don't like worthless science fiction/fantasy novels or cliched 'classics' such as slaughterhouse five
>/lit/ flips out in their little dark hole in the corner of the internet

>>452158
Also you are under no obligation to review anything.

I hate reviewing, literary deconstruction is just mutual masturbation.

I'll say if I think you should read something or not, but it'll be based solely on if I think you'll enjoy it or not. And I'll tell you how it made me feel. That's all you get.

>A Clockwork Orange

>I know this is supposed to be some great literary work and I am supposed to be in awe of it. Yeah, okay....I usually do not do what I am supposed to do. I hated this book. If I could have given less than 1 star I would have. I read the first chapter and sighed....then I plowed through it to make sure I was giving it a fair shot. Nope, I still hated it. The language is clumsy and ridiculous. All the made up words in place of real words? Good grief!!! I really think the author wrote this while he was stoned or completely drunk. I was able to pick out a small thread of plot and storyline. Boy is part of awful delinquent group of thugs that should have all been shot. He gets caught for one of their crimes that he was actually trying to stop. Goes to prison. Gets out but has to undergo shady governmental drug testing to keep him from being a sadistic sexual predator. Stumbles into one of his former victim's homes and is dealt with by the family of the victim. Government reverses the treatment in an effort to cover up a possible lawsuit and boy ends up still being a sadistic sexual predator. Got it? All that story wrapped up in nonsense words and unintelligible rambling. HATED IT

>nonsense words

invisible cities

>Gore Vidal loved the book and so do almost all the other reviewers here. What a bore (hmm, the towns all have female names, significant?). I also just read "If On A Winter's Night A Traveler..." More engaging but.... A clever but, for me, an insubstantial author. I hesitate to read his "The Baron In The Trees".

>You lovers of his work: Can you actually recall more than three descriptions of the cities? And are the descriptions anything like what you'd apply to cities you've known? (Yes I know its fantasy but they have no ring of truth to them.)

and my favourite

>Terrible Cover

>Well, the book is good.

>What is bad is all the book cover is dirty! This is too bad if you want to use it as a gift! I returned the first order for exchanging another one. However, I found the second's cover is dirty, too!!

>What can I say? I have to use a rubber to get the cover cleaned.

>>452213

>>452161

The Outsiders

>I had to read this book in my class. Maybe it's just me, but this book DISTURBED me. I hate reading about gangs and death and violence. Some people might think I'm a whimp, but in my opinion this book is disturbing, and very depressing with absolutely no uplifters. It's really not enjoyable to read about people getting stabbed and burned up and assaulted by Socs. So I'm warning you, if you can't stand to read about violence and death and you don't like depressing stories, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!

5 star review of the Da Vinci Code:

Is an investigator that is espesialist in the dead langag and of histori was cold because there were simbles of old history. When he got the musiam he saw a satar, that was a diabolic simbla or a simble of male and famel he saw too the words "The investigador kill me". He said if he could go to the bathroom with the (prima) of her. there he scape.
If you know how he die and why he told that the investigator was the killer.

>>452213

>Can you actually recall more than three descriptions of the cities? And are the descriptions anything like what you'd apply to cities you've known? (Yes I know its fantasy but they have no ring of truth to them.

>(Yes I know its fantasy but they have no ring of truth to them.


MOTHERFUCKER GODDAMN PIECE OF SHIT FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU DIE

>>452228

Oh god look at the Popular Lists.

Best Gay Athletes is an actual category.

WTF ladies?

Ishmael

>This book gets many 5-star reviews and is touted as “life changing”.
My comment: “GET A LIFE!!!” This could possibly be THE WORST book I have ever read. I have been reading this book forever! I am so glad I am finished!
It’s 200+ pages of torture! (This size of book I would normally devour in 1-2 days.) It’s a sociology lecture --- a cringingly horrible, horrible, didactic book. And to top it off, it’s horribly written.

This telepathic gorilla pontificates on culture, his take on the book of Genesis, and re-evaluates mankind’s philosophy on life and how we're killing the world. His canned banter with his obtuse human student is more than annoying – it’s offensive. It’s condescending, full of piteous prose, even worse philosophy and false history, not to mention the pitiful interpretation of the Bible.

I know this is a comic book, but it's still rage worthy.

Nicole rated it: 1 of 5 stars

I realize that what I'm about to say is as close as you can get to comic book blasphemy, but I think that 1) Alan Moore is the most overrated comic book writer ever and 2) this graphic novel is overblown, pretentious and most unforgivable of all, boring.

To be fair, I'm somewhat of a snob when it comes to my reading habits. First and foremost, I want to be entertained. If the story happens to be deep, thought provoking or groundbreaking as well, that's icing on the cake. And the bo...more I realize that what I'm about to say is as close as you can get to comic book blasphemy, but I think that 1) Alan Moore is the most overrated comic book writer ever and 2) this graphic novel is overblown, pretentious and most unforgivable of all, boring.

To be fair, I'm somewhat of a snob when it comes to my reading habits. First and foremost, I want to be entertained. If the story happens to be deep, thought provoking or groundbreaking as well, that's icing on the cake. And the bottom line is that this book simply did not entertain me. It was too busy trying to be Deep and Meaningful and Teach Us A Lesson to actually do anything as lowbrow as make compelling characters the reader can identify with and have them do interesting and entertaining things.

While I love characters who are sucky human beings in small doses, stories where damn near everyone sucks like this one get on my nerves. I don't like reading stories filled with a bunch of irredeemable emo asshats who do shitty things to each other (and to humanity in general), and where the the themes of the story are pounded into your face with the delicacy of a sledgehammer.

>>452249

They're right, you know, Ishmael is shit.

>>452249
But this is true.

>>452260
>>452259
i just read it

i didn't think much of it, but i thought /lit/ was all for it

>>452265
/lit/ is 4chan
4chan hates everything

>>452256
Watchmen is dull repetition though. just because it was pioneering content for a comic, doesn't mean it was for literature.

oh man, The Unconsoled is a goldmine of rage

>An incomprehensible mess: The Unconsoled may be hailed by those who like their fiction meandering and plotless, under the assumption that the anomie is literary, like Kafka. Instead, the book is utterly artless, prosaic, dull, and plodding, with no resolution, no arc of character development. Imagine Paul Auster writing under the influence of a concussion. The Unconsoled is a long, boring dream, where events seem random and without meaning. Characters are only developed as caricatures, like the rush of people who inhabit Dostoyevsky's appalling The Idiot but not even with a distant undertone of theme. Is it: the Artist as Outcast? The Simpletons in Small towns (yes, there's an implied insult in the potrayal of these people)? Who knows. The protaganist, a pianist, has an ill-defined relationship with a carping woman and her annoying child and numerous strange encounters with one-dimensional townsfolk. These folks merely relay their own idiosyncratic and tedious stories, which do not cohere into a plot. Repitition, in fact, is used as a device, and that's not good news. The other main strain involves an aging alcoholic conductor who seeks to re-establish a relationship with a wallflower he abused years ago. He then suffers a bizarre leg injury and, taking a drink, disgraces himself. Other sub-plots are murkier and not worthy of discussion. It's a bad David Lynch movie, without the fun of the bizarre. (It's not so bad that it's good.) Indeed, you could re-juggle the order of the chapters and it would make little difference in effect. And the language, for an author hailed as a genious, is devoid of beauty. Don't look for the telling simile here, just a run of words. On and on and on.