Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

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Robin
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Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Robin » April 11th, 2010, 7:43 pm

I guess I started thinking about all of the books I read because they were bestsellers that were dreadful to read. Actually, I would rather have had my toenails plucked out while getting a pap smear at the Superbowl for a few of them :)

I really don't even understand how many of these books get such accolades other than amazing marketing. Just for fun, what bestsellers should have been in the slush pile? (lets not pick on Twilight) ;)

1. The Time Travelers Wife
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude
3. The last 4 Diana Gabaldon Outlander books (sorry, but she should have stopped at Voyager)
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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by taylormillgirl » April 11th, 2010, 9:19 pm

Aaaaaah! I love the Outlander books! Love, ye ken? James Fraser is one of my verra, verra favorite fictitious men.

I don't know if it was a bestseller, but I despised Life of Pi. Reading it was like slow torture. I also loathed The Lost Symbol with the fire of a thousand suns (no Dan Brown hate, though, as I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code.)
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Robin
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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Robin » April 11th, 2010, 9:39 pm

Taylor- I LOVE James Fraser!!! He is definitely one of my faves. (thinking of him in the hot spring at the monastery) It just after Voyager, he lost his spark. I dont want to read about the relations of a couple almost into their 60s- Its just wrong... His character also got weaker in the later books. (sorry) and the whole Jack Randall and Lord John- thing was just ridiculous.

But I ken. He can call me Sessanach anyday :)
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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Lorelei Armstrong » April 11th, 2010, 11:32 pm

I really didn't like Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The story crept along, the main character was pathetic (and not in a good way), and if I heard one more word about Trujillo I would have started shrieking. What made this book a winner I have no idea.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by craig » April 13th, 2010, 9:53 pm

I'm currently slogging through "The Cellist of Sarajevo" -- don't know about down in the US, but it was a big seller up here in Canada. I find it... a sluggish chore of a read.

Also... and sci-fi fans may hate me for saying this... but I think Orson Scott Card should have stopped writing his Ender books after Ender's Game. I have found that each book gets progressively worse. I skipped the last two releases because I didn't want to waste my money.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by bronwyn1 » April 13th, 2010, 10:11 pm

The people in Honors English this year had to read The Inheritance of Loss and practically every single one of them hated it. I think they thought it was just really pretentious.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Lorelei Armstrong » April 13th, 2010, 10:59 pm

bronwyn1 wrote:The people in Honors English this year had to read The Inheritance of Loss and practically every single one of them hated it. I think they thought it was just really pretentious.
Agreed. It had one of those new-age titles and was a complete snooze.

I just finished Roberto Bolaño's 2666. Nine-hundred pages of events. No explanation. I anyone tracks down a reason why this book is supposedly fabulous, please let me know.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Emily White » April 14th, 2010, 11:53 am

I was not a fan of the Ender Series, by Orson Scott Card. Granted, I read all the books, but that had more to do with my obsessive need to know the ending to something, rather than a real desire to read more.
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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by dios4vida » April 19th, 2010, 12:41 pm

craig wrote:Also... and sci-fi fans may hate me for saying this... but I think Orson Scott Card should have stopped writing his Ender books after Ender's Game. I have found that each book gets progressively worse. I skipped the last two releases because I didn't want to waste my money.
I totally agree!! I read them all, but I only think Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are worth the read. Otherwise, just dump them!

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the fantasy world is obsessed with Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks. I read the first Wheel of Time book and just couldn't care less, and I started The Sword of Shannara twice and couldn't get past the first 150 pages. I'm still baffled how anyone who regularly uses sentences over 45 words long and cannot move a story became a bestseller. Read R.A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms series or Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series - now THOSE are superstars of the fantasy genre!

And call me anything you want, I couldn't stand The Da Vinci Code.
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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Colonel Travis » April 19th, 2010, 8:57 pm

dios4vida wrote: And call me anything you want, I couldn't stand The Da Vinci Code.
I call you normal.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Ishta » April 21st, 2010, 8:59 am

I liked The DaVinci Code because of the ideas presented in it, and it made me go out and look for a bunch of information on the topics covered. But when I read Angles and Demons, it felt like reading the same book with a couple of different characters and a slightly different topic, but with the same plotline, so I skimmed it and then discarded it. I skipped The Lost Symbol altogether; Dan Brown wrote a good story once, and he deserves credit for that, but he has recycled it over and over since then and I'm not interested. Popular, but not my thing. I'd rather read the original documents that he used for research.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by dios4vida » April 21st, 2010, 12:30 pm

Colonel Travis wrote:
dios4vida wrote: And call me anything you want, I couldn't stand The Da Vinci Code.
I call you normal.
I think that may be the first time anyone has ever called me normal!! :-P
Brenda :)

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by romana » May 7th, 2010, 5:06 am

Joining those who dislike the Da Vinci Code. Couldn't stand that book. Since I used to live in Milan, it drove me crazy that he wrote that the Cenacolo is at the outskirts of Milan, when it's smack dab in the center of the city. Fairly easy to check. I live in Rome, so many people were telling me I "had" to read Angels & Demons. Never made it past the first few pages - I thought I was reading the Da Vinci Code again.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by marccolbourne » May 7th, 2010, 3:02 pm

craig wrote:I'm currently slogging through "The Cellist of Sarajevo" -- don't know about down in the US, but it was a big seller up here in Canada. I find it... a sluggish chore of a read.
Craig, I absolutely loved the Cellist of Sarajevo but I read while in Sarajevo during a backpacking trip through Eastern Europe. That might have added to the experience. I thought the description and emotion was right on.

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Re: Bestsellers that don't live up to the hype

Post by Sommer Leigh » May 11th, 2010, 1:44 pm

dios4vida wrote:
craig wrote:Also... and sci-fi fans may hate me for saying this... but I think Orson Scott Card should have stopped writing his Ender books after Ender's Game. I have found that each book gets progressively worse. I skipped the last two releases because I didn't want to waste my money.
I totally agree!! I read them all, but I only think Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are worth the read. Otherwise, just dump them!

I cannot for the life of me figure out why the fantasy world is obsessed with Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks. I read the first Wheel of Time book and just couldn't care less, and I started The Sword of Shannara twice and couldn't get past the first 150 pages. I'm still baffled how anyone who regularly uses sentences over 45 words long and cannot move a story became a bestseller. Read R.A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms series or Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series - now THOSE are superstars of the fantasy genre!

And call me anything you want, I couldn't stand The Da Vinci Code.

I agree with you about The Wheel of Time series. I read the first two books, but I found them way too hard to slog through. It's just so...long. Long sentences, long scenes, long chapters, long books, long series. I remember in the first book there's this scene where they are fleeing bad guys across this field...and the fleeing part coupled with the descriptions of the field itself went on for like six pages. I remember thinking "oh my god just let the bad guys get them already. PLEASE."

It felt like there was an epic good story there, and maybe there was. I don't know. I couldn't plod through any more than two.
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