/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.480600]

1. Go to http://www.goodreads.com/
2. Find a book you like
3. Read the 1 star reviews.
4. Rage and report back

[Death !GUInzpTIME No.480608]

Small Gods

1 star review

Blank Text.

Should I feel grateful?

[Anonymous No.480610]

wow the idiocy of this post is astounding.

>I am writing a review on the ABRIDGED version only....the original book was awesome!

>I just finished reading the abridged version of Princess Bride and was appalled. What on earth was William Goldman thinking? He called it "The Good Parts Version" when really all he did was take out anything he didn't like and hated from Morgenstern and add in his own two cents, which turned into whining and complaining about his own life and how terrible of a writer Morgenstern was throughout the book.

>Goldman took out every scene of the Grandfather and the Grandson and replaced it with scenes from his own life, cut out every section of Florine's history, and tried to put two of his own self written sections in (thank god his editor refused).

>I know that Goldman made the movie Princess Bride, and he did a very good job with it, but as far as "editing" the book- he completely butchered it. If you really want to read the Princess Bride, stick to the one that S. Morgenstern wrote.

[Anonymous No.480611]

A Tale of Two Cities

The premise of the story is so patently absurd I just can't bring myself to enjoy it.

It's like watching Wanted - in paperback form. The state of incredulity by which you must read this book renders this a story reminiscent of science fiction, more so than any timeless tale.

>wait, wat?

[Anonymous No.480617]

Picture of Dorian Gray -- one-star gay-bashing.

When I just read some chapters of this book, I didn't realized anything wrong with it. However, I talked it over with others and realized that the book was full of allusions to the "worst side of life," something that might remind you of Hyde in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

Oscar Wilde, the author, was gay, so there are even allusions to that. This book was considered "immoral," and the people during that time who read this book were extremely surprised. This book was the evidence given in Wilde's trial for his homosexual liaisons... This book is full of "poisonous influences."

[Anonymous No.480618]

For American Gods

>One of the most vile and most boring books I've ever encountered. The first 75 pages are not only slow but pointless. By the time I got to the blatently disgusting homosexual act somewhere around pages 180-90 I finally tossed it in the garbage where it certainly belongs.

>Mr. Gaiman is one of those strange modern writers who thinks it's somehow reasonable to describe every detail of what should be left unsaid to begin with. He can't just imply that someone needs to use the restroom--he must tell you this is exactly what they're doing and exactly what it's like listening to them do it. Why? For absolutely no reason. Such a thing might be valid in a story about someone like the elephant man. That could possibly be thought provoking as an audience might wonder how a man of such deformity manages to do such ordinary activities, and it just could create a certain pathos in the progress when we realize what a chore it is for him. To tell us, however, of regular people's bathroom functions is meritless.

>I also don't want to read of a sex act. Good writers don't describe such things. They don't even tell you there IS a sex act. They merely imply it. Writing 101. This book is so poorly written one wonders how it ever got published. On the other hand, if even this can get published, there's hope for the rest of us.

[Anonymous No.480620]

Hunger

"It wasn’t until my second attempt that I managed to finish this book, which probably says a lot, considering it’s a mere 134 pages long. On my first, aborted reading of Hunger, I got about ten pages in before chucking it aside; I just wasn’t in the mood for another ‘tortured-artist-suffering-for-his-work’ wankfest. I’ve only got so much pity I’m entitled to allocate, and I prefer to keep most of it for myself, lest I waste it foolishly on the unfortunate artists of the world. "

What a cuntwaffle.

[Anonymous No.480622]

>>480610
ahahaha that's an awesome review, that review unironically owns

[Anonymous No.480626]

Some guy wrote a 6 paragraph long diatribe about how he shot "The Stand" with a gun. :|

[Anonymous No.480638]

Bukowski, Post Office
>Utter filth! Truly, this is the novel from Hell. While I know that Mr. B has a very particular worldview that is often...indigestible to some, I can appreciate that voice is his poetry... it, I don't know, functions better. But if I wanted to read about a pock marked adolescent pleasuring their dog, I'll read your 7th grade diary, thanks very much.

Can't really disagree with her complaints...no accounting for taste, I guess.

[Anonymous No.480639]

2666
>Pretentious, literally, beyond comprehension. It's a brain dump of every philosophical treatise that the author has seemed to have read. What seems to be a good premise -- four people who are obsessed with a reclusive author try to find out where's he's hiding. Of course, sex ensures in due course (one of the four is female and ends up sleeping separately with the other three men), but it's detached, as is the rest of the book. You get the impression that you're in a No Exit (Huis Clos) dream state with non-commit clauses everywhere. You end up not caring the characters at all and just wish that they would "snap out of it" (a la Cher in Moonstruck). I read only the first part of the entire series of three books and that's more than enough. The second book supposedly describes horrific violence against women and from what you read in the first book, I could tell that females aren't really understood or, admired for that matter, by the author.


>females aren't really understood or, admired for that matter,by the author.

>lol no

[Anonymous No.480640]

>>480626
Was it AFTER the Deus Ex Godhand Atom Bomb? I'd kind of agree in that case.

[Anonymous No.480648]

Finnegans Wake

>Would need to take a class to follow this. Stopped and started many times. I just always get lost.

lolz

[Anonymous No.480661]

>>480640

I concur, although for me it was before, when the blind-mute guy died (Nick? I can't remember) who was the most likeable character in the entire story, and the bomb-with-little-foreshadowing, killed him and the others.

[Anonymous No.480675]

>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... and bleak house (which is probably the only dickens book i couldn't ever bring myself to read - the title - come on - and i love a dark story, but seriously!) i carted this brick of a book to ireland and france while traveling a couple years ago... i read all of maybe 20 pages - and regretted it instantly. i slugged through it over the next 6 months because i kept hoping for something amazing to happen. nothing did. i just can't figure out the hype...

On "Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell".

[Anonymous No.480700]

The ones on The Republic... I can't even post them.

They hate it for its interpretations, not the text itself. They fail to recognize the scope of the times. They can't even admire the logic of it, or admire the fact that its not even about a perfect state.

[Anonymous No.480707]

>>480700
How do you write a bad review for the Republic? I mean, how do you think that will accomplish anything? What is the point? How do you have the effrontery to think your review of the Republic will in any way matter? On what grounds do you dislike something so massive and so influential, something that really did change the world?

[Anonymous No.480710]

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon:

>I can't believe someone actually published this book. Even worse, in my opinion is the fact that this book is on the New York Times Bestseller List. How is this possible? It must only mean that there are a lot of people out there that think very differently from me.

>First. The prose is so overblown that the author uses three adjectives for every single noun. Count them. He evidently was told that to be a writer you have to make everything as descriptive as possible, and then he decided that meant that each noun had to be modified three, always three, and only three times. Argh.

>Second. The author must have looked up every word he could in a thesaurus and chosen the one that was most obscure or had the most syllables. Who is he trying to impress? Maybe it was the translator's fault? Maybe not. Either way, this style is used even when describing what the ten year old character sees and says. Which brings me to my next point.

>Third. Every character in this book speaks with exactly the same voice. All you hear is the authors voice, not any different characterizations. And that voice demonstrates the problems I described in my first and second points. But that's not all. There is an even worse, and definitely fatal, problem with this book.

>Fourth. This story was written as a mystery. Nine years lurch by as the character slowly tries to unravel the details of the main conflict. I actually don't have a problem with this in theory. Unfortunately, after three quarters of the book, and numerous new characters, the mystery is no clearer. So what does the author do about it? He has one of the characters write a 30 page (or so) letter to the main character telling him what really happened. Ta-da. The mystery is solved. The author is such a terrible writer that he can't even solve his own mystery. He has to use a cheap cop-out to clear everything up.

[Anonymous No.480725]

The Bell Jar

>Written in the first person, therefore, if the main character dies, the book ends, right? Right? Right?!

[Anonymous No.480730]

>>480725
what?

[Anonymous No.480735]

Invisible Cities

>See Books I Loathed. Nothing happens in this book. It's more like a writing exercise. A lot of people think it's genius, but I think they are pretending becasue none of them can actually explain what the point is.

it's about life and the layers and angles of human experience. fyi.

[Anonymous No.480740]

>>480725
wa ha ha

[Anonymous No.480742]

>>480730
Either the reviewer is profoundly retarded, trolling like a motherfucker, or his copy of the book ended at chapter 13.

[Anonymous No.480749]

>>480710
sounds legit to me

[Anonymous No.480764]

For Lolita

>Nabokov often writes his novels in the perspective of detestable villains. You never like them, you're never supposed to like them, and Nabokov doesn't like them either. He slaps them around and humiliates them. And in the end, they pay the price for their sins. Readers never seem to realize this. They become immersed in the psychology of the book and feel defiled by it all. Instead, they should sit back and watch the bastards suffer. The stories are written in their own view so that makes the punishment all the more sweet. The reader knows exactly what the scheisemeister is feeling - pain, pain, pain. That's one of the reasons I like Nabokov so much. The bad guys really get it. It's not just getting killed or caught at the end, you really feel their anguish. Mmm... schadenfreude."

This guy obviously wants to reconcile Nabokov with the modern views towards pedophilia. And fails hard while doing so. Let's not forget the brightest authors can feel empathy with each and every one of their characters, besides Humbert Humbert is a tormented soul we learn to love, hate, pity and what not.

[Anonymous No.480766]

Guess what this is:

I'm not smart enough to comprehend this book. But if I was I'd still give it one star. Some intellectual friends urged me to read it way back when. I did so. There was much that I didn't get at all and what I did get seemed tortured and pointless. That's my review.

[Anonymous No.480771]

>>480766
Portrait of the Shark as a Young Shark?

[Anonymous No.480799]

Dracula.

>dumb. slow. ugh. cliche.
>slow. ugh. cliche.
>ugh. cliche.
>cliche.

[Anonymous No.480801]

>>480610
I think that review may have gone over your head.

[Anonymous No.480806]

>>480799
>Calling Dracula cliche.

[Anonymous No.480813]

Watership Down

>(if you do not like strong opinions about anything, do not read the following review). it totallly sucked!!!! i had to read it for english. :(

>HORRIBLE. I couldn't make it past page 42. Who gives a rats ass about those damn rabbits!?!

>I couldn't get past the first ten pages, but i know it sucks because my ex recommended it.


>recommends it for: anyone who enjoys horrible pointless books
This is absolutely horrid! I mean bunnies who dictate their rabbits for safety and them kill them? How hypocritical is that? this book is the most horrid, disgusting pointless peice of crap i have ever loathed with a passion!
All by women, mind you.

[Anonymous No.480814]

>>480799
>Dracula
>cliché

[Anonymous No.480818]

>check stephen king's dark tower # 1 book
>all comments are 4 and 5 stars
>every once and a while a 1 star comment with some woman who is like "I just didn't get it"
>doesn't get a stephen king book
>doesn't get a stephen king book

[Anonymous No.480824]

Step 5 to OP's procedure: state the gender of the reviewer.


>The Savage Detectives

>Ok, first off, any latino (or anyone, for that matter) that claims he's the "new" Gabriel Garcia Marquez had better put up or shut up. This guy should shut up. Since the author has gone on ahead, as it were, he has shut up. This is a meandering collection of thoughts of a bunch of characters that you don't give a rip about. Most of the male characters are drug addicts or insane, and most of the characters are male. Ahhh, the life of the tortured poet, especially the politcally mot...more


>Bolano
>claims he is the new Marquez

[Anonymous No.480826]

>>480824

Oh, and, female of course.

[Anonymous No.480830]

>>480813
Hmmm, that came out wrong. The last bit shouldve went like:

>recommends it for: anyone who enjoys horrible pointless books
>This is absolutely horrid! I mean bunnies who dictate their rabbits for safety and them kill them? How hypocritical is that? this book is the most horrid, disgusting pointless peice of crap i have ever loathed with a passion!


All by women, mind you.

[Anonymous No.480834]

>every one star review complains about the number of "f-bombs"

[Anonymous No.480835]

For "Of Mice and Men"

>I know...classic, movies, been around for years, greatly respected author, etc., etc., etc. But, nihilism leaves me cold...

>Enjoy if it's you...but (and I've used this quote before) this book typifies "life is hard and then you die". Who cares how well the story is written that gets you there.

>The very quality of the writing here made the experience worse for me. It has been brought to my attention of late that Steinbeck was a gifted writer. It's true he was, and the message in the story he relates here carries that much more weight. I suppose the bottom line is, I live in the world where pain happens, a lot. I don't really need it here. So, I leave my rating as it is because my experience here remains a 1 star experience. So, as I said for you who love this book, and I know some...I'm happy for you, I don't and I can't really recommend it. (less)

wut

[Anonymous No.480844]

Ghost Wars
>Big on blow-by-blow, utterly devoid of insight. This is an establishment version of what ultimately led to 9/11. You can find out more about the causes of 9/11 from going to the web and looking up original sources. For one thing the book tries to gloss over that Palestine, the utter ugly
inhumanness of the Israelis toward the Palestinians, is what drew bin Laden to Azzam (a Palestinian and founder of Hamas) his mentor. The author treats that formative association hazily, giving it not a fraction of the details he devotes to expounding on how Clinton fooling around with Monica Lewinsky deverted his attention and credibility in dealing with the threat from Al Qaeda. In other words he substitutes barely relevant circumstance for critically dealing with the fact that our support for Israel in all it's criminal features motivated 9/11 as payback. cf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bm2GPoF...... for a quick primer on this. Much detail about the idiosyncrasies and personalities of american intelligence people, their careers, machinations inside Pakistani and Saudi intelligence, and Massoud in Afghanistan. Really trivial in meaning for in how we ended up being attacked. Who cares that Pervez Mushareff's daughter married a filmmaker. You'll get lot's of that kind of thing. I'm sorry but a worthless book. I'm done I give up on page 421.

I wanted to eat my computer screen on reading this.

[Anonymous No.480849]

Nathaniel Hawthorne - House of the Seven Gables

"We read "The House of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne in my book group as an effort to read a book by a classic author. It was really hard to read because it was super descriptive and kind of hard to follow.
I was really the only one who toughed through the whole book (one listened on tape, two others couldn't make it through the book and got the kid version.) We did find a few (or one) gems to use in our lives, like, "Life is made up of marble and mud". We decided that this was the deepest one."

I swear she's fucking trolling. Fucking ay.

"Super descriptive" . . . that is the entire fucking point. If you weren't an idiot you could see how the descriptions of mundane events are

a.) insightful, artfully written, and pleasant to read
b.) bearing significant thematic weight; few things are out of place

All of the other reviews are just like this. "hurp it was too long and he's always talking about stupid shit the story is so slow blablabla"

This isn't my favorite book ever and I have serious problems with some of it but I don't think anybody can fairly deny that it is, at the least, "good".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU

Vid fucking related.

[Anonymous No.480851]

Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

>The book is verbatim the movie. I wasn't impressed. The main character was the Indian not Randle Patrick McMurphy. I think the movie was GREAT and the book was too predictable. Maybe I should use another word other than predictable. The book was predictable because I saw the movie before reading the book, but Randles character intrigues me and I wanted to know more about him not the Indian.

So, she says it's "verbatim" the movie (but wouldn't the movie be "verbatim" the book?), but then immediately points out that the book is centered around Bromden instead of Mack. Wait, what? Did I just miss all the parts of the movie where they talk about Bromden's perspective and past?

[Anonymous No.480859]

>>480835
>Of Mice and Men
>nihilism

[Anonymous No.480873]

For the Milagro Beanfield War

>I was reminded of this book while reading an article in the paper about "One Book, One Denver." This book was previously selected.

>My former roommate lent me the book, telling me it was laugh out loud funny. I found it tedious and boring. I actually did not complete this book, which is rare for me. I felt that the book had a single joke that repeated over and over, and yet was supposed to be still be funny each and every time.

>Who knows. I still regret the two hours of my life I gave to watching "Napoleon Dynamite" - perhaps the same sense of humor is needed to appreciate this book.

The Milagro Beanfield War has the same sense of humor as Napoleon Dynamite.

[Anonymous No.480874]

More outrageous shit about the house of the seven gables.

BTW my post was too strong I can see how you could think this book is overrated but these bad reviews here show no thought at all.

>I always imagine Nathaniel Hawthorne as being the trust-fund baby of his time. Having bored himself on sherry and biscuits ("How exhausting"), decides to forgo taking care of his plants, and "retire to his study" to pen a novel for us. He's like the writer of today who leaves his meditation room, hops in his Mercedes-Benz to the nearest Applebee's and scrawls another "Zen and business" book on a cocktail napkin, turning 50 pages of bullshit into 198 in 14 point San Serif font that every pink bubble-faced middle manager is going to have on their office shelf by the end of the week. Nathaniel Hawthorne was that guy, in his day.

HOW CAN YOU EVEN SAY THIS? SURE IS PROJECTING 21ST-CENTURY STEREOTYPES ONTO VASTLY DIFFERENT TIME-PERIODS IN HERE.

>
So this is a classic horror novel in which nothing at all happens for a few hundred pages except the description of some house, an old hag selling oatmeal, and some guy who may or may not have hypnotized the other chick who's boarding there.

I AIN'T NOTHIN BUT A HERP-A DERP/ THAT AIN'T NEVUH DERP DE DERP DERP

>Holy crap! This book is better enjoyed simply by reading the abstract. The rest is a babbling of adjectives so incoherent that curling up with an unabridged thesaurus would provide more pleasure.

YEAH IT SURE SUCKS WHEN THEY USE LONG WORDS DOESN'T IT

>I'd almost forgotten how difficult it is to read "the classics". I do love the challenge of the use of language and vocabulary in the 1800s, but the story seems to be dragging on...

I'M OKAY WITH THIS, THANK YOU FOR ADMITTING THAT THE PROBLEM IS NOT HAWTHORNE HIMSELF BUT RATHER THE FACT THAT YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH SIMILAR WRITERS AND HAVE NOT LEARNED TO APPRECIATE THAT SORT OF THING. YOU'RE ALRIGHT.

THE REST OF YOU CAN DIE IN A FIRE.

[Anonymous No.480908]

Demian:
>Nietzsche for the mentally deficient.

Siddhartha:
> I really tried with this one. I've read Karen Armstrong's biography The Buddha. and liked it a lot, so why don't I like Siddhartha? Maybe it's just Hesse. I couldn't even finish Steppenwolf so maybe it IS Hesse. That darn Hermann - he wrote such MAN books. Like Heinlein and Asimov, who wrote books that just don't have any appeal to me because I sense they don't like women, don't have any use for women (other than the obvious) and aren't writing for women.

Shit, I'm a woman and I have no use for women either. Most women are vapid and female characters are even worse. Thank you Hesse for only writing about interesting males.

[Anonymous No.480928]

> I do love the challenge of the use of language and vocabulary in the 1800s

Wait, what?

[Anonymous No.480937]

Oh GoodReads, such a bright and concise crowd. I love reading these schmucks try to use basic, cliché turns of phrase and fail to even pull that off. Watching these kids blunder through spelling and grammatical errors one after another, all while claiming superiority over the books they're trying to write off is a real hoot.

[Anonymous No.480946]

Mrs. Dalloway is
one never ending sentence without breath
that wanders in and out of the minds of 25 people
over the span of one day

It made me dizzy with confusion and I longed for a resting place so I could shut the book and put it away.

It had no plot, It had no point.

The book did have a lyrical feel to it and could be read as one would read a book of poetry.

The only symbol that I understood and really enjoyed was Big Ben tolling the hour and marking time. One cannot escape the passage of time, as all of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway discovered. I also like the fact that the story ended where it began, with Mrs. Dalloway as the central figure—symbolizing the futility of all our worry.

THE POINT OF IT WAS THAT COMMON PEOPLE CAN BE COMPLEX INDIVIDUALS.

I MAD

[Anonymous No.480952]

>>480946

>THE POINT OF IT WAS THAT COMMON PEOPLE CAN BE COMPLEX INDIVIDUALS.

The funniest thing is that the reviewer inadvertently proves that wrong.

[Anonymous No.480953]

Lies of Lock Lamora

> not only didn't like this book, I HATED it! Negative 3 stars! I read about 100 pages and had to throw it in the corner. The language is horrible and I don't mind cussing in books, but this was ridiculous! Plus, the book skipped back and forth so many times, I couldn't follow what was going on.

RAGE

[Anonymous No.480958]

This makes me laugh more than rage, but yeah...

[Anonymous No.480964]

> Perhaps a better read for persons wanting a step up from the Illuminatus! Trilogy would be Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” (or perhaps his “Angels and Demons”)

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKK

[Anonymous No.480975]

I prefer to call this book "As I Lay Dying...of Boredom, Reading This Book". That's what it is: boring.

The plot, such as it is, is simple. There's a family that lives in the Deep South of Mississippi or somewhere like that in a ridiculously-hard-to-pronounce county. The mother dies, and the family decides to take the body to a far-off city, where she has requested to be buried. So the book is basically them trying to get the mother's body to this cemetery in Jefferson, an interminable journey filled with approximately 20 different yet identical-souding narrators who are not interesting in any way whatsoever. Actually, there is ONE narrator you can identify without needing the chapter titles, and that is Cora, the Christian lady. She's easy to tell from the others because she mentions God once every two sentences.

This book is probably the worst book I have ever read, and I have read MANY books. I just could not care about these people, because they all sounded alike and did ridiculous things, such as:

- calling their mother a fish
- talking in short, simple sentences with basic words, then suddenly launching into poetic and polysyllabic rapture upon seeing the sunset
- setting their son's broken leg with CEMENT (I kid you not)
- NARRATING FROM THE GRAVE (I'm looking at YOU, Addie Bundren)

This book is the reason I refuse to read anything by William Faulkner. Perhaps his other work is better. I don't know and I don't care to find out.

>everyone sounds alike
>implying that Darl and Dewey Dell narrate exactly the same

[Anonymous No.480987]

>>480964

>Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code”

>a step up from the Illuminatus! Trilogy

Dear GOD, I rage'd

[Anonymous No.481008]

A Farewell To Arms

Observational tragedy. Bloke falls for sub-moron during war. *petitions friendly bombs*
Hemmingway absolves language of beauty. And then the world.
His intent was to expose war's mundanity. His method rendered art menial.
*sarcastic applause*

[Anonymous No.481039]

Zarathustra, the character through which Nietzsche vicariously spews forth his world-view, is a pompous, narcissistic, ego maniac that is so obsessed with how right he is, he can't see just how terribly wrong he ends up being. Nietzsche constantly contradicts himself, uses poor logic and reasoning, and pushes for a social order that benefits only the elite. I'm appalled of Nietzsche's idea that the great men of the world should walk all over the little, regular people to achieve their greatness. He says that the existence of the general population is justified only by the fact that there may come out of them a greater race (Hitler was a big fan of this view as well). He says that morality and ethics are not real, but merely tools to manipulate masses and hold back the elite. This guy must have been insane! (Turns out he was, being committed to a mental institution only years after finishing this work).

I believe George Bernard Shaw put it best, when he said the following about this book: "Nietzsche is worse than shocking, he is simply awful...Nietzsche is the champion of privilege, of power, and of inequality. Never was there a deafer, blinder, socially and politically inepter academician..."

This is one of the worst books I've ever read. The tale meanders all over the place as Zarathustra ejaculates ridiculous philosophy for page after page, his followers fawning after him with nary a singular thought of their own. Both they and Zarathustra are in awe of Zarathustra's own wisdom and insight, and Nietzsche never lets a page go by without reminding us of his grandiose status. If anybody in the story tries to contradict Zarathustra, he merely laughs at how stupid the person is and ridicules them. This book is, in a nutshell, just a guy trying to make himself look all powerful, knowing, and important while making everyone else look bad. I give this book an epic FAIL!

The worst thing is - he didn't understand it at all. AT ALL.

[Anonymous No.481053]

>>481039

>Nietzsche
>Academician

Oh GBS, you so crazy!

[Anonymous No.481058]

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


FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Anonymous No.481065]

>>480700

Flying shit goblins you're right.

>Let me explain why I'd recommend this book to everyone: Plato is retarded.

AND THAT'S WHERE I STOPPED READING

>I found this book almost unbearable to get through. It really drove me crazy that no one in the whole ever disagreed with Plato! All of Plato's arguments build upon the assumption that whatever Plato says is relevant and is correct. I found myself arguing with Plato while I was reading this book because it seemed like no one else would.

LRN2CLASSICAL DIALOGUES

>No state is a good state.

>Fxxx your oppressive hierarchical dualistic obsession with the success and value of the Philosophical classics. Innate ideas? No way, Plato.

>Republic is just an outdated term for society, and society is poison. This book defends the workings of modern Western Civilization, and if that's your cup of tea we're probably not friends.

GREAT ARGUMENTS THERE HAVE YOU CONSIDERED MAJORING IN POLITICAL SCIENCE?

>Without a doubt, one of the most overrated books I've ever read. Socrates was an idiot.

YOU'RE ONE EDGY MOTHERFUCKER AREN'T YOU?

[Anonymous No.481071]

>>481053
nietzsche was, indeed, a classical philologist

[Anonymous No.481072]

>Looked up The Bell Curve
>Found many 5 star reviews
>Some of them were black people
>Am confused

[Anonymous No.481076]

MacBeth

IS THERE A WAY TO DO A MINUS????!!!!! this book tomy oipinion is just plain scary/wierd! i dont edvise anyone to read this ate at night...

[Anonymous No.481087]

>>481072

They're pretending. I should know I wrote one of those for lulz (still get the occasional email to this day from creepy stormfront types and pissed off black people).

[Anonymous No.481089]

>>481071

For a handful of years. He was never an academic philosopher.

[Anonymous No.481094]

from the mouth of the child cometh the truth

[Anonymous No.481100]

>>481039
nice list op
do you have the same , but for proper books?

[Anonymous No.481110]

Discipline and Punish

>This book is terrible. Is it history? Is it philosophy? It is neither, both, and blows. I will let Foucault in on a little secret: when you write a book in which you are presenting an argument, the readers should not be made to have their eyes start bleeding as they try to pinpoint and tack down exactly what your argument is. Yes, many women will be impressed by your colorful, flowery language and you will get laid. However, no one will ever understand what you are on about. Hmm, maybe that was your angle. After all, you can't criticise an argument that you don't understand.
>Yes, many women will be impressed by your colorful, flowery language and you will get laid.
>many women. . . get laid.
>women

[Anonymous No.481113]

>>481100
rong quote
take this
>>480600

[Anonymous No.481120]

>>481110
There are no emoticons to convey the depth of the facepalm that has gripped me so many times in this thread.

[Anonymous No.481129]

>>481110
peeps, do tell at least what you don''t like about a review. those kids didn't leave there a startreck facepalm picture either.
i, for one, couldn't agree more that foucault was writing to get laid. i'm bald myself.

[Anonymous No.481135]

>>481110

Fun thread is fun.

Seems like /lit/ is at it's best when it's calling other people stupid.

[Anonymous No.481138]

>>481129

foucault was gay and died of AIDS

[Anonymous No.481144]

catch 22

>>This is the worst book I have ever tried to read.

It is more tedious, pretentious and rambling than On The Road. I read a quarter of it and still nothing had happened that resemebled plot. It was like reading a 12 year old's blog about middle school. Just a series of tenuously related sentences.

I consider myself to have a pretty high tolerance for literary ramblings - I did just finish The Count of Monte Cristo after all, and also powered through One Hundred Years of Solitude among other tomes. But this boook is just utterly annoying, pointless, and stupid. The reader gets the idea of what a Catch-22 is in the first page. For Heller to go on mouthing off for 480-some more pages is just ridiculous.

Also, pretty much every paragraph - if not every sentence - is a "Catch-22" situation. This book hits you over the head with it. It's like knock-knock jokes from a child - they never end and are not funny or clever.

I'm going to read the wikipedia page on this and then call it good. I consider that I got as far as I did in it a serious accomplishment, cuz this book is utter tripe.

im gonna troll this bitch

[Anonymous No.481147]

>>481129
What? You think discipline and punish was Foucault's attempt to get laid? GTFO. Your brain has a maggot in it.

[Anonymous No.481166]

>>481147
moreover he had a severly limited scope. the only merit of modern french philosophy is that it is sexy, which is why trophy wives like it so much.

[Anonymous No.481176]

>>480620
Mmmmm...

[Anonymous No.481207]

>>481166
Foucault spliced philosophy with hardcore historian research. He is one of the french philosophers that actually did some work. Sartre, there was a guy who just did it for the pussy. I hate him so much. D:
Foucault was a good dude.

[Anonymous No.481253]

Leaves of Grass

>Dear lord. When pretentious, self-important teens began wearing their collars up about seven years ago, I thought to myself, "Don't worry ... they'll come around and finally abandon this foolishness in due time." I was right. I have been holding the same hope for years about blind Whitman worship, praise of list poetry, and pretentious, self-important poetry, but it appears that time is working against me on this one. The dye is cast. I have heard talk of including non-Presidents on US currency, and that Whitman was a candidate for the ten-dollar bill. I would have to carry around a lot of fives.

What the hell does "The dye is cast" mean in context to the rest of this rant.

[Anonymous No.481285]

>>481253
Wouldn't it be the die is cast anyway?

Is he trying to say that liking Walt Whitman (which, gee whiz, is only common among intellectuals) is a bad thing?

What a fishcunt. Whitman isn't starkly life changing, but ehs still a pretty cool guy.

[Anonymous No.481288]

>>481253

What the hell does "the dye is cast" mean in ANY context? Someone throwing around paint?

[Anonymous No.481299]

The Holy Bible
>As nothing more than a piece of literature, this isn't even a good book.

Butthurt teenage atheist detected.

[Anonymous No.481324]

>Edgar Allan Poe fue uno de mis padres literarios. Junto a Arthur Conan Doyle y H.P. Lovecraft, hizo que empezase a amar la letra impresa. Este libro de Poe no me ha gustado nada. Tal vez sea por la malísima traducción. Tengo una edición tan mala que no aparece ni el nombre del traductor. No exagero, hay frases que parecen trabalenguas. Lo he terminado por orgullo y como homenaje al 200 aniversario del nacimiento de este genio indiscutible.

>La trama es sencilla, un joven, Arthur, que junto a su amigo Augusto, se embarcan en un brick para correr aventuras. Sólo he reconocido al mejor Poe en las penurias que han de pasar, que no son pocas, en lo truculento de su narración. No me ha gustado, insisto. Prefiero al Poe de los cuentos.

uhm what?

[Anonymous No.481325]

the op means 'die', as in singular of dice, for the 'die to be cast' means that the roll (as in a game of chance) has been made already
all bets are in

[Anonymous No.481338]

>>481058

I saw that. One of the comments:

>Just so you know, this was actually a political commentary on the communist revolutions of the earlier 20th century- not actually a book about 'animals'. A lot of what Orwell writes is political commentary through fiction, just didn't want you to think he hates animals! You may not chose to read any of his other work, but if you do keep in mind that it isn't all straight forward fiction.

Response:

>well, i guess thanks for clearing that up for me! It was still a weird book to me...

[Anonymous No.481346]

>>481324

He basically says that the book sucks but probably due to the poor translation

It's not really a bad or funny review at all

[Anonymous No.481363]

ITT: /lit/ gets trolled hard.

For hipsters you really don't seem to have much of a sense of irony.

[Anonymous No.481365]

>>481346

I wasn't confused about the comment, more the language of the comment. Thanks for clearing that up, too lazy for an online translator.

[Anonymous No.481484]

I was surprised by how many people hated house of leaves, but I liked it, so they can all suck my dick

[Anonymous No.481537]

>>481363
that's blunt. gitfo

[Anonymous No.481561]

>>480618
>>480735

[Anonymous No.481605]

Dracula

>My senior year of high school, we were required to read Dracula. It is written in old English, which made it a little difficult to understand at times. It was also a story we have had drilled into from birth, so I wasn't too into it.
>old English
lol

[Anonymous No.481611]

>>481605
Get that kid some Beowulf.

[Anonymous No.481615]

>>481363
This is a hipster board? Should I get my hat?

>>This book should be re-titled "One Hundred Years of Reading", as it certainly seems that long. I'm sure that those who claim to love this numbingly boring book are like the observers who cheer loudest at the Emperor's New Clothes. Huh, he's naked, you silly sycophants. Now, if only I could convince myself that I really don't need to read a book simply because it is THE book of the moment, I'd be fine - and give myself more time for those books I do so enjoy.

That's what you get for reading a book because it is the book of the moment. Stop looking for Pultzer residue and read the damn book.

[Anonymous No.481653]

Flowers for Algernon

>Charlie is so likable in the beginning, then the higher his IQ climbs, the more of a creep he is! The end is sad and there are a lot of inappropriate sexual scenes. It did make for a very interesting book-group discussion!

[Anonymous No.481655]

>>480725
hahahahahahaahahaaa

[Anonymous No.481674]

>>481653

[Anonymous No.481680]

>>480599
heＲＥ ｉS A ＣＲＡＺｙ ｉdE@: sｔop FUＣkiN9 ｗ|Ｔｈ ｗＷｗ.AＮoｎＴＡＬK.[ＯＭ @nＤ 5HＵｔ ｄＯｗｎ tＨ15 |11eGａl 5IＴｅ. By Ｔhe WＡｙ, ｈEＲE 1Ｓ Th€ mEＮｔａｌLｙ ｉｌi ＬY1ｎＧ ＰｓＹcＨｏｐＡＴｈ tｈi3Ｆ chｒ|5ＴｏPHｅr P0ｏｌe (Aｋａ MＯoＴ) ｉN AＣｔion (ｔUｒN ｉT |nｔ0 lｏＷ€r-{a5E @S<Ｉ1): Hｔｔｐ://wwW.@ＮOｎ+A1k.CｏＭ/DＵＭp/ｍＯＯｔａＲｄ.ｔｘT

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[Anonymous No.481686]

Of Mice And Men

> Not only is the story predictable and sour, but it is so full of foul language and annoying local dialect that it makes reading painful.

[Anonymous No.481689]

>>481561

[Anonymous No.481705]

>>480799

[Anonymous No.481708]

>>481039
>Nietzsche constantly contradicts himself, uses poor logic and reasoning
Jesus, I raged so hard.

>his book is, in a nutshell, just a guy trying to make himself look all powerful, knowing, and important while making everyone else look bad
Goddamn, fuck your shit.

[Anonymous No.481714]

>>481144
>I consider myself to have a pretty high tolerance for literary ramblings - I did just finish The Count of Monte Cristo after all, and also powered through One Hundred Years of Solitude among other tomes.
Oh, fuck you.

[Anonymous No.481744]

>>480598
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[Anonymous No.481753]

>Atwood is an angry angry woman. I can in no way relate to how people think that this book is so great - I think it is primarily because as a woman in this day and age, I have obtained a decent education and am successful career-wise all without being oppressed by the white man. If people read this book, they may think it is still relevant, which it clearly is not. I'm not one for censorship, but if every existing copy of this book in the entire world were to be thrown into a bonfire, I probably wouldn't run to grab a fire extinguisher.

>sincerely, enjoying her 80 cents to a man's dollar

[Anonymous No.481760]

>>481076

Theys be trollan

[Anonymous No.481761]

>After hearing dozens of great things about 'A Confederacy of Dunces,' I figured I had to read it. And upon my third attempt at reading it, I did finish it. And I realized that I did not like it at all. There are a handful of humorous pages, but you have to suffer through 70 pages of tripe per one page of decency. Don't let the Pulitzer fool you. The only reason this novel was published was because the author killed himself because he couldn't publish it, and then his mother repeatedly sent it to the same publisher over and over until he broke and finally put it in print. This is a mercy publishing

[Anonymous No.481768]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

>Seriously? I got stuck reading this Kerouac ripoff freshman year of college. I'm not sure why I was supposed to care about this bonehead and his never-ending quest to get high. And yeah I know those beat books all involve drug use, but it was never the focus. Waste of time.


This bitch thinks Thompson was part of the beat nik scene??? He was about 20 years to late


Also
>Kerouac rip off


ALL OF MY HATE ALL OF MY HATE ALL OF MY HATE ALL OF MY HATE ALL OF MY HATE

[Anonymous No.481773]

>>480596
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[Anonymous No.481778]

Review for 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'

I absolutely hated this book. It was the worst thing I have ever read. I didn't understand it and thought it was terrible. It was repetetive and dull. It did catch my attention once or twice, but other than that, I forced myself to finish it. If I was not so stubborn, I would have put the book down after the first chapter.

> She's basically saying, 'I didn't understand it, therefore it sucks'

Review for 1984...

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.

> LOL

[Anonymous No.481783]

>Arg! What a difficult book to read! Reading is supposed to be either edifying or entertaining and this one was neither but rather and exercise in being able to piece everything together (in which I failed miserably). The first section will lose you completely even if somehow you were to know in advance that Benjy has no concept of time and he is running events that happened after different points in time together seamlessly as if they happened all in the same time period.

>Do not read this book if you read for enjoyment. I'm not going to pick up another book for a week after this disturbing and unfullfilled piece of nonsense. Once again I have come to realize that if critics like a book there is a very hight chance that I will hate it. Nonetheless I am determined to make it through all of the supposed classics.

>I will admit that I was unable to complete this book. The first section gave me such a head ache that I couldn't finish it from there.

[Anonymous No.481790]

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

>I got this book free from a library sale. I thought my roomie might like it, but it's like reading the Chinese Toni Morrison. First of all, I can't understand how this book can be classified as non-fiction. Second of all, I can't understand how this book can win any award. Maybe because it sounds like a drug-induced recollection of childhood. Not worth the time it takes to read.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

[Anonymous No.481801]

>>481778
Those were the first two books I looked up too.

[Anonymous No.481832]

No, I never finished this set of books. Truth be told, I can't - they're awful and horribly written. For me I found the author to be self indulgent in his writing. I know many people are impressed that he made up the languages, races , the lands, etc... quite frankly, big deal. Star Trek did it, as did Star Wars. I realize that many many people say without this book we would not have modern Dungeons & Dragons style books, games and the many spin offs.

Again, I disagree.

Just because Tolkien did it first doesn't mean he did it best. There are many many prolific fantasy writers out there that have written better books.

The book is a thousand page walk to a volcano to toss in a ring that corrupts pretty much everyone that holds it. During our walk through the various lands we hear Frodo whine - for a thousand pages. I'm not worthy, I can't do it, it's too much, blah blah blah. Sam is there to lift his spirits and sometimes, literally Frodo for the duration.

Doesn't this just sound delightful?

I don't.

Everyone is known by multiple names depending on who they encounter, which I found hard to follow as it was hard to keep the characters straight who were related since their names were variations on each others. Boromir, Faramir, and Steve. There's Eomer, Eowyn, and Beth.

You get the idea.

99% of you out there will strongly disagree with me, and that's fine. I still think this book is just dull, boring and just a plain old waste of time. There are many other great, fun, fantasy novels out there that you should try instead.

I recommend:

Dragonlance: The Chronicles Trilogy
Dragonlance: Legends Trilogy
Dragonlance: The War of Lost Souls Trilogy
Forgotten Realms: The Icewind Dale Trilogy

>Lol, D&D books

[Anonymous No.481845]

one flew over the cuckoos nest

The book is verbatim the movie. I wasn't impressed. The main character was the Indian not Randle Patrick McMurphy. I think the movie was GREAT and the book was too predictable. Maybe I should use another word other than predictable. The book was predictable because I saw the movie before reading the book, but Randles character intrigues me and I wanted to know more about him not the Indian.


RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

[Anonymous No.481862]

My faith in humanity, It's being a shaken

[Anonymous No.481871]

>>481790
To be fair, it is a mediocre book that was successful only because it panders to Western conceptions of the Far East, like Memoirs of a Geisha did.

[Anonymous No.481882]

>>481778

1984 kept me engaged if only because it pulled off the feelings of being completely alone and with no way of escaping very well. I honestly felt claustrophobic while reading it.

[Anonymous No.481883]

No one has given Life and Fate a one star review.

[Anonymous No.481901]

>>481871
I somewhat agree. I appreciated it mostly from a craft standpoint. It forces questions about the nature of truth in nonfiction, especially as it relates to context and a reader's prior knowledge. If a reader lacks the tools with which to interpret what you're telling them, can what you present them with really be considered truth? Or, is it that and much more? Are you getting at what Nick Flynn calls "the world or an experience distilled to its essence"?

[Anonymous No.481911]

>>480618
RAGE

[Anonymous No.481917]

I have to say I was deeply disappointed by this book - I usually LOVE Terry Pratchett books, but this one was just a fucking pain in the arse to read, honestly. It was boring as hell and the end was so ridiculous I was like wtf the whole time. It wasn't even a good wtf, or an amazed wtf, it was just a plain W.T.F.
Am I gonna have to choke a bitch ?

[Anonymous No.481931]

Skid by Dean Young.

I raged so hard.

[Anonymous No.481935]

On One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

>>Our teacher had us read a book and then would show us the movie. I was so annoyed by the fact she picked books like this and 'field of dreams' instead of books I considered to be important for high schoolers to read like To Kill A Mockingbird that I could not like the book. I may not be a good judge of whether or not this book is worth reading. I haven't tried to reread it because I'm still bitter about it.

You know, i'm pretty good at not raging at retards, but i want to beat this girl so hard....

[Anonymous No.481945]

>>481935

Kesey says don't rage.

[Anonymous No.481964]

>>481901
The blending of an autobiographical story with fictional elements has been done before, and by far better writers (Fear and Loathing comes to mind). In the end, the focal point is still the exotic foreignness of it all, and Kingston endlessly and inaccurately skewers the culture to promote a very blunt message on feminism. I don't mind feminist subtext, as long as it is presented subtly, which wasn't the case with the Woman Warrior. But I do see your point though.

[Anonymous No.481975]

The Sound and the Fury

>Blech!!! When the only character who is decipherable is the autistic mute, we have a problem. This book has inspired me to start a list of crap that is admired only because no one has the guts to admit they have no idea what the hell is going on. Although technically in this category, I give James Joyce the benefit of the doubt simply because I can't understand anyone from Ireland anyway.

[Anonymous No.481996]

>>481975
atomic rage

[Anonymous No.482225]

>>481996
Of 1000 white hot suns of pure rage, I am so very angry right now my face is contorted into a picture of complete and utter disgust and displeasure, like so:
: |

[Anonymous No.482537]

Stop turning this gay with only borderline-worthy writers like Tolkien and Pratchett.

It's much funnier to read the retards hating on Shakespeare and Plato.

[Anonymous No.482549]

>>482537
plato was a dope

[Anonymous No.482556]

>>481975
Joyce???

[Anonymous No.482559]

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1923820.Holy_Bible_King_James_Version_LDS_Edition?rating=1#other_
reviews

[Anonymous No.482637]

>Had to read this thing twice: once in 2006, and again oh so way too recently. I neither liked nor understood Rousseau in 06, and now that I understand him I like him even less. Fie on his curly French wig.

The Social Contract

a woman

[Anonymous No.482650]

>a woman
so fucking what? rousseau was indeed an otherworldly twit

[Anonymous No.482693]

This was way duller than I expected. Basically Dante is walking around in the woods and Virgil shows up and tells him Beatrice (who's in Heaven) sent him. They're going to go see Beatrice, but first they'll tromp through Hell and Purgatory.

So then you have long descriptions of people getting punished in Hell. My edition included helpful illustrations of naked people writing in pain. Their crimes mostly don't sound that bad ( "Committed violence against Art!") You meet a lot of ancient Greeks and Romans who are apparently famous, though I knew less than half of them.

Sometimes Dante meets people he knows in Hell and Purgatory. It's always like this:

"Holy crap! Dante! What are you doing here!"
"Walking around with Virgil. What about YOU?"
"Oh, you know, eternal damnation. Guess I shouldn't have (insert offense here)..." (rueful chuckle) "Good to see you, man!"

After what really does seem like an eternity, you finally meet up with Beatrice, who proves she is just as capable of long boring speeches as Dante is, so perhaps they really are soul mates. Then you meet other famous people in Heaven, and enjoy things like Thomas Aquinas talking on and on about Saint Francis.

I am pretty sure the translator made up the word "clearlier" to make the meter work. "Clearer" is a word, but "clearlier" seems suspect.

I didn't know that "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" came from the Divine Comedy, so that was cool to learn.

>You meet a lot of ancient Greeks and Romans who >are apparently famous, though I knew less than half >of them.

[Anonymous No.482768]

This thread is fun, please keep it bamped until tomorrow :3

[Anonymous No.482787]

I learned from this book that you can sell a billion copies of a book that no one should ever waste three minutes reading. This is just another neo-philosophy book disguised as a novel. I'm almost convinced that the only reason people buy this book is so that their pseudo-intellectual (read: pompous scumbag) friends will accept them into the hippie circle. Although I know about twenty people who claim to have read this book, I have yet to meet a single person who actually knows what it's about. This book is a bigger hoax than the bible. So I have written, and so, therefore, must it be

on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

To be frank though, there were a bunch of one-star reviews for this book that didn't make me rage and instead raised valid points or just came off as simple opinions.

[Anonymous No.482801]

>a MarySue book if i've ever seen one ..and they chide fans of television shows for writing books where they make themselves the hero . .


On Baudolino.

FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING WHORE.

[Anonymous No.482804]

>>482537
Fuck you buddy

[Anonymous No.482821]

>>482801
you didn't see the best review of it, did you?

>This was a crusade to finish. Far too obscure and convuluted.
essentially:
>it's not good because i'm dumb

[Anonymous No.482826]

>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. Maybe I just didn't 'get it.' That's likely a personal problem, but whatever. This is a personal review.

On The Trial. Oh my, I raged.

[Anonymous No.482859]

The Illuminatus! trilogy provides a few gems:

>This was stupid. I guess it was an attempt to write a Douglas Adams knock off, but it was just an incoherent rambling of various conspiracy theories.

>While I am a fan of conspiracy fiction, and greatly admire writers like Umberto Eco and others that have written convincingly in this genre, I felt that the Illuminatus! Trilogy was not well written. Further, the style of the prose was rather muddled and failed to proffer the stream of consciousness approach that I feel the authors were after. Perhaps a better read for persons wanting a step up from the Illuminatus! Trilogy would be Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” (or perhaps his “Angels and Demons”)

[Anonymous No.482876]

how dare you to call yourself literates if you can only state your rage rather than explaining it?

most people quoted sound pretty intelligent compared to you with your implied high sophistication needed to appreciate the masters, anon

[thefreestman !!kUzvz9L2Fnq No.482877]

The Count of Monte Cristo
>Hated this book and the movie. There is too much revenge, and not enough forgiveness.

[Anonymous No.482919]

Fathom
>I am not sure what I happened.

It was pretty straightforward, which was a large part of the appeal of the book. How this person can understand ANY book if they can't even follow this one is beyond me.

[Anonymous No.482927]

Fear And Loathing:
>This book was crap. 204 pages of some dude staying completely wrecked. There was no point, I kept waiting for some deep meaning to come out of it but it never did. A complete waste of my time.

[Anonymous No.482934]

>>"I think this book was frankly kinda boring. I think (even though I stopped reading at page 60) it didn't relate to many real world issues, except for maybe something like peer pressure when Bilbo is forced into coming on an adventure. But I found I couldn't relate to it.
>>Maybe it's just me, but THERE ARE TOO MANY CHARACTERS!
>>I found this book uninteresting and while I guess quite a bit happened in the first 60 pages, it didn't appeal to me."

Wait... Really?

[Anonymous No.482943]

Not my favorite book by any means, but anon made me look up reviews on "Republic". This one gets it about right, I thought:

SOCRATES: "Hello, I will now prove this theory!"
STRAWMAN: "Surely you are wrong!"
SOCRATES: "Nonsense. Listen, Strawman: can we agree to the following wildly presumptive statement that is at the core of my argument? [Insert wildly presumptive statement here— this time, it's "There is such a thing as Perfect Justice" and "There is such a thing as Perfect Beauty", among others.]"
STRAWMAN: "Yes, of course, that is obvious."
SOCRATES: "Good! Now that we have conveniently skipped over all of the logically-necessary debate, because my off-the-wall crazy ideas surely wouldn't stand up to any real scrutiny, let me tell you an intolerably long hypothetical story."
{Insert intolerably long hypothetical story.}
STRAWMAN: "My God, Socrates! You have completely won me over! That is brilliant! Your woefully simplistic theories should become the basis for future Western civilization! That would be great!"
SOCRATES: "Ha ha! My simple rhetorical device has duped them all! I will now go celebrate by drinking hemlock and scoring a cameo in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!"

[Anonymous No.482944]

> The only person to give King Lear 1 star.
>I won't lie... I didn't even finish this one. All of the false identity business was giving me a headache. Fortunately, I'm not the kind of person who just HAS to finish every book she starts. Why waste my life reading a book I don't like when there are thousands of other ones just waiting to be devoured? I love resting in that kind of literary freedom. Hah!

well, it could've been worse.

[Anonymous No.484533]

>>481964
The Woman Warrior's mythopoesis achieves something different than what Thompson does, I think. There's a difference between fictionalizing events and and weaving myth (a different way of knowing truth) into what you're writing.

Either way I respect your opinion.

[Anonymous No.484564]

>>482943

i lol'd

[Anonymous No.484570]

this ones probably been posted before but its quality
concerning 1984:
>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