/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19995742]

Rate my 2021 books read (reverse chronological)
Usually I try to do something popular or new, and then something generally considered to have artistic merit, but it's not a hard rule I follow and if am stalling in an older book I'm not interested in, I'll just choose whatever interests me at the moment.

[Anonymous No.19995745]

check these dubs

[Anonymous No.19995773]

>>19995745
embarrassing

[Anonymous No.19995777]

Not good

[Anonymous No.19995786]

>>19995777
Yeah, I indulged in cringe a little too much.
My biggest regret is Paper Towns, I only got it because I saw a copy at goodwill in good condition and I just decided to try it after Johnny Got His Gun (also found at goodwill but that had been on my radar for awhile)
Very cringe book, average "teen becoming young adult soon learns a lesson about life" surrounded by very "hip" prose, very little redeeming factors.
also The Notebook was abject trash, felt like half a skeleton of a story with a lame epilogue that is meant to be a twist or something? Dude stretched a 1000 word short story idea into a novel and it just did not work, at all.

[Anonymous No.19995854]

>>19995742
++for Neuromancer and BEE

[Anonymous No.19995863]

>>19995745
Kek

[Anonymous No.19995868]

>>19995854
Neuromancer was great fun, vivid imagery and incredibly unique aesthetic.
BEE I feel might be overrated. American Psycho was great IMO, although the the chapters about Genesis and Whitney Houston stopped being funny after like the first 5 pages, I think it was still an interesting way to glimpse into the mind of the narrator. Less Than Zero I remember being bored by, but it was also rather hypnotizing. The stream of consciousness style worked well to the style of the story. The Rules of Attraction was almost a nearly a dud for me, I liked some parts a lot, but the constant switching of unreliable narrators with the same sorta stream of conscious storytelling just did not appeal to me, truly BEE's sophomore release. The Rules of Attraction actually stopped me from reading Glamorama, which I bought at the same time as The Rules of Attraction, and ended my BEE kick.

[Anonymous No.19995881]

>>19995742
You wasted a year. Feel bad for you desu. How could you even complete Fahrenheit? That takes patience and stubbornness. I couldn't even make it to page 150 that is how shit it is.

[Anonymous No.19995922]

>>19995742
good, shit, shit, shit, shit, good, good, good, shit, good, shit, shit, good, shit, shit, shit

6/16 - shit

[Anonymous No.19995948]

>>19995742
show review of Midnight Sun, bucko

[Anonymous No.19995981]

>>19995881
I actually thought F151 was pretty funny, I was constantly thinking about how I always hear that Bradbury is some out-of-touch author because he flipped out when everyone said it was about censorship and he was adamant that it was not.
So reading it and seeing how it's clearly like, against anti-intellectual consumerism, I thought it was funny how Bradbury apparently got a reputation for not knowing his own work.
>>19995922
You don't like McCarthy?
>>19995948
Midnight Sun was very engrossing actually, I'm ashamed to admit it. That's the only book I read all year where I would log 300pg days.
It wasn't great, but as someone who read Twilight as a young teen, it gave me something familiar and new at the same time which made it extremely consumable.
I guess I kinda liked how Stephanie Meyer tried to do some light retcons while keeping all the events the same? It benefits from being revisited.

[Anonymous No.19996056]

>>19995742

[Anonymous No.19996195]

What is Mexican Gothic about?

[Anonymous No.19996272]

Here's my 2022 challenge so far

[Anonymous No.19996599]

>>19996195
1950s mexican girl has a cousin that marries into an old white family that used to run a silver mine
silver mine went no bueno so now the white family is holed up in their house up on a mountain, an out of place piece of european aristocracy among the poor countryside
1950s mexican girl gets a letter from her cousin that she is sick and needs to be removed from this awful house
>>19996272
I heard those "from a certain point of view" books can be p good

[Anonymous No.19996650]

>>19995742
this is an 18+ board

[Anonymous No.19996654]

>>19996650
doesnt look like it

[Anonymous No.19996912]

>>19995773
The book was a parody and the movie aimed for psychopath kino... You little boys always jerk off the Bateman because he has the power you seek to fill your petty desires of sex and money and dressing smart you sit here on 4chan being racist but you're just as shortsited as a normie or a nog listening to rap music easily swayed and won over by Bateman's power because YOU don't possess it. You know real psychopaths often go to prison or find it very hard to maintain relationships or jobs for long humans are a social animal and need one another and if you treat others coldly you are going to be rewarded... Faggot

[Anonymous No.19996932]

>>19996912
is this a pasta or something? I didnt say anything about glorifying it, I posted a meme u dip

[Anonymous No.19997308]

>>19996912
Shortest reply on leftbook

[Anonymous No.19998698]

>>19995742
Pretentious as fuck yo

[Anonymous No.19999013]

>>19998698
I disagree, this isn't half as pretentious as average shelf posts

[Anonymous No.19999383]

>>19995742
I don't care what anybody says, American God is fucking good.

[Anonymous No.19999388]

>>19999383
I wasn't really interested in the big overarching plot and the war of the gods or w/e, but I was still engaged with the characters, I think I just really like Neil Gaiman's writing style.
I was first exposed to him reading some comics of his (not Sandman) and a short story of his I got in an anthology, so I decided to buy a novel and American Gods seemed like a pretty good choice

[Anonymous No.19999392]

>>19995742
10/10 the best list of books i have seen yet. dont forget infinite just by david froster wallace

[Anonymous No.19999395]

>>19999392
anon dont be rude, share your books from last year with the class

[Anonymous No.19999416]

>>19995742
Is Lindsay Ellis a good writer?

[Anonymous No.19999423]

>>19999395
Okay fine I will share lol

New Maps of Hell - Amis, Kingsley
The Foundation Pit - Platonov, Andrei
The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jacobs, Jane
War & War -Krasznahorkai, László
Michael Kohlhaas - Kleist, Heinrich von
The Wretched of the Earth - Fanon, Frantz
Near to the Wild Heart - Lispector, Clarice
Auto-da-Fé - Elias Canetti

I didn't get to read as much as I would have liked this year I was slammed at work :(

If you are interested in more Cormac McCarthy Suttree is awesome. Very weird and funny, definitely my favorite of his. I also really enjoyed his border trilogy, especially the first two books. Blood Meridian is great as well obviously but that gets shilled here relentlessly so I'm sure you're aware.

[Anonymous No.19999458]

>>19999423
>I was slammed at work :(
Congrats on losing your virginity anon!

[Anonymous No.19999479]

>>19999416
About as good as Christopher Reeve was a horseback rider.

[Anonymous No.19999769]

>>19999416
Axiom's End was pretty good, had some nice ideas, a little wordy and some of the more emotion-centric sections kinda dragged for me, but overall I think it wasnt bad, especially as a debut for sci fi
>>19999479
What didn't you like about her books?
>>19999423
wow anon, seems like you might have been projecting a little...

[Anonymous No.19999823]

>>19996912

[Anonymous No.20000686]

>>19999823
unironically this

[Anonymous No.20001205]

[Anonymous No.20002384]

>>19995742
If you read 1984 you'll basically have read all of political philosophy

[Anonymous No.20002503]

>>19995742
Post feet, you attention who're

[Anonymous No.20002504]

>>19995742
all cringe

[Anonymous No.20002546]

>>19995742
I’ve read more in a month than you’ve read in a year

[Anonymous No.20003064]

>>19996912
didn't read

[Anonymous No.20003789]

>>19999388
The way I look at it the book was essentially an analogy on cultural warfare and how different cultural and social memeplex 'fight' eachother over society's believe.

[Anonymous No.20003813]

>>19995742
>john green
>hobbit
>fahrenheit 451
>one flew over
>twilight
you must be 18 or older to use this site.

[Anonymous No.20003858]

>>19995742
>american gods
I bet you enjoyed the many gay sex scenes

[Anonymous No.20003860]

>>19996272
Please tell me you already read the thrawn trilogy

[Anonymous No.20003882]

>>20001205
Tell me about Whatever
>>20002384
on my todo list, sitting on my shelf lol
I read half of it in eighth grade, so every time I think about starting it for real now, I remember how I'll have to read so much I already read, and it already exhausts me
I do need to get to it though, I read Homage to Catalonia this year
>>20002503
no :^)
>>20002504
post books
>>20002546
thats great, anon! I hope I can get to your quantity one day!
>>20003789
Yeah, it was an interesting literal interpretation of how old myths survive into modern day, like easter being well known but nobody offering to her, and the American element really touched with me
As someone that is ethnically "German, Polish, and I think Yugoslavian?" I often feel a shallow attachment to many aspects of a handful of cultures, but no real connection (insert mutt here)
It was interesting to see how Neil Gaiman played with that idea, my favorite vignette was the gay genie
>>20003813
>>john green
terrible, I dont know what I was thinking
>>hobbit
a staple of modern fantasy; above criticism of genre fiction
>>fahrenheit 451
honestly kinda preachy, got real boomer vibes from it. it spoke to a truth about consumerism and society, but the presentation of "you despise television and you will love it" just felt like hand wringing
>>one flew over
fun look at authority vs good and evil
>>twilight
the cringe indulgence I dont regret, you cant shame me
>>20003858
did actually lol