Harry Potter, because it seems as if most of the fans are unfamiliar with truly great Fantasy written by the likes of Lewis, Tolkien, Macdonald, Nesbit, L’engle and others.
@Jenny Same! It’s so interesting how there’s so many different opinions & tastes! But yeah I tried both of those other series & could not do it. Harry Potter isn’t just for kids, but it’s like a youthful magical, like a Christmas eve Christmas morning magical when you’re little lol
@Kristin I’m not saying that being a different KIND of fantasy makes it less great, just that the names I mentioned were masters of the craft (and all of them wrote children’s fantasy as well as works for adults) and I don’t think that is true of Rowliong, despite the hype.
@Patricia “idk how you can think JK isnt a master when she’s literally the most loved out of anyone else you mentioned.” quite easily, because popularity doesn’t equal worth.
whether she is worth a heck of a lot must be decided on other grounds than the amount of people who enjoy her. There are scandalously overlooked authors who are of incredible worth, and there are massively popular authors (and singers, and successful people in all walks of life) who aren’t particularly great. There can be all kinds of reasons why someone is the favour of the month, or even of the past few decades, and it doesn’t have to be because they are peerless masters of their craft.
@Patricia there are probably a number of reasons why it’s so big. I don’t think it’s because Rowling is a master of the fantasy genre though, but she obviously struck a chord with a generation, as many others have done before here.
@Patricia but my point is that getting kids into reading doesn’t MAKE them good books. They may or may not be good books (you and many others think they are, I and a substantial amount of dissenters don’t) but that is no proof of their worth, it’s simply a positive outcome of the Harry Potter craze.
Patricia Lovell Going by your argument, 50 shades of grey can also be considered a classic just because its popular.
You could have used any other argument to prove that J.K. Rowling is really a master of fantasy, like how she created this world that we all can relate to, the depth of the characters, etc. but you basically said “she is just popular therefore her work is good”. Now I understand why so many people hate the HP fanbase.
@David that’s my only point in our little friendly book debate lol the popularity / success of anything, really, not just books all comes down to person preference & opinion. Some stuff we think is stupid but enough people prefer it & loved it to make it a huge thing.
@Kristin that’s fair enough, but I’m not denying that it’s a huge thing. We all know that HP is popular, I’m just saying that doesn’t automatically mean it MUST be good quality.
I don’t hate HP fans, I just roll my eyes when people compare her to great authors like Tolkien, Lewis and MacDonald. Everyone’s entitled to enjoy what takes their fancy 🙂
@Kristin I do think that them being different types of fantasy does matter. Hence why some people like it and some people prefer Lord of the rings. Because they’re not the same. They each have many elements the other doesn’t
You definitely have to consider sub genres. Yes harry potter & lord of the rings are both fantasy. Game of thrones. These are just the big ones off the top of my head. They’re all fantasy. But Harry Potter & JK Rowling are incredible different than the other two & their writers.
I never even considered HP fantasy until it was recently brought to my attention. But comparing it to other writers & their books is like apples & oranges to me.
@Philip i never said they were? That doesn’t change how boring and over the top they are. I particularly hate Dickens. Even the lighter ones though i never liked, like tom Sawyer.
I will read anything if it looks or sounds good to me. I’ll give it a try. But like I think it was mainly the old English used. I’m glad we don’t talk like that anymore bc it put me to sleep lol
Aside from Frankenstein + The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I would have to agree with you! I like those because they’re dark and have a decent story. I tried to read Pride and Prejudice, even though I knew the genre wasn’t for me. It was so incredibly dull I can’t even describe it ??? all those classic romances are just blarghhhhhh. No redeeming features for me I’m afraid
I wasn’t a fan of Jekyll & hyde. I liked the picture of dorian gray. Couldn’t even get through the scarlett letter. Then I kinda gave up on trying ALL the classics lol
The challenge, I think, when reading the classics is grasping the archaic language and just how much of the book is description. It’s important to remember that there weren’t moving images then. If there were drawings and illustrations, many people didn’t have access to them. Also, books were entertainment, especially Dickens. They filled the days and nights. One of the things I like about many of the classics is how much I learn about other things. It’s like there are mini-history or science, or psychology lessons embedded in the story. I became interested in bees after reading War and Peace. I also think that the pace of life is faster and attention spans are shorter. I work in a school library and I think one of the mistakes is the shortening of lessons to capture the student rather than developing attention span. But that’s another topic. The development and popularity of YA “literature” is one of the reasons that many young readers struggle with anything written before 2000 (truly!). Most, if not all, YAL is written in first or third person present or past tense and a lot are epistolary. Even worse, there are books that are mostly tweets. Clever to include, but to to actually publish a book like that shows the publisher to be little more than a whore who wants to sell paper.
I personally don’t think there is a such thing as an over hyped book. If someone enjoys something, they should be able to talk about it and love it as much as they want. There are plenty of books that I don’t like, but I would never tell someone that they can’t like it. I use to, before I realized what a shitty thing that was to do. I think as a society we should encourage passion.
@Kaylie I 100% agree with you. Everyone likes different things. Personally by too much hype I’m thinking of like when everyone goes nuts over something & it’s all over even the media talking about it & stuff & then me personally not liking it. But you’re right that the hype is worth it for some people bc they liked the book & stuff. If that makes sense lol, kinda goes both ways
No book is over hyped in my way of thinking. It may not be my taste but it’s someone’s taste. There are writers I wouldn’t spit on if they were on fire but I would recommend their book to someone if the person was looking for that genre. Hell I’ve given 100’s of books away this year and 1/3 of them were Authors I don’t like but their work is what someone else liked. Hope that makes sense
@S I agree, but I do also see the over hype thing. As fair as like media blowing it up. Actually I guess it comes down to the fact that everyone has different tastes. When the media gets involved on advertising how much everyone loves a book & hypes it, it seems like they’re shoving it onto people who might not be interested in that genre. But the rest I completely agree with you bc it’s all personal preference
@Kristin Oh don’t get me wrong I loved 50 Shades will always love the books but once they went to doing the movie it just got annoying did I watch the movies nope as no actors could compete with my imagination.
@S my thing with 50 shades of gray is I felt like they could have taken the actual story out & made one decent book. In my opinion the sexual scenes were pointless & took up too much time.
@Kristin oh it could have been way better but the research or personal knowledge of the lifestyle was lacking majorly, but the Love story was good could it have been wrapped up in one or max two books yes. This where I’m learning not all Romances need to be filled with tons of sex sometimes my Voices just plow right over the sex part to give more fluff to their story.
Reading the comments just shows that everything comes down to preference. There have been a good amount of books that I love that people have said are over rated. It’s interesting that everyone can take away something different from the same books.
But then on the same subject but opposite side, people who generally like different books could end up both liking one & then their reading worlds are brought together. It’s crazy!
Typical post of trashing 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight series, Dan Brown’s books. But someone mentions Harry Potter(as stated before me) the group gets up in arms ?
@Catherine it was a tough one to get through to begin with. I struggled the first 100 pages or so, but it was a slow build-up and it did eventually get really good. It surprised me in the fact that I ended up giving it 4 stars. I thought I’d give it 2 at most when I was reading that first section.
@Amy i only pushed through it because everyone said it was amazing. I just kept thinking it would pick up but it never did. I will maybe re read it in a few years see if my tastes have changed ?
Gone Girl. It was fine as far as it went but the writing was very average and it was obvious pretty early on that she was not “gone” but had set up her husband to take the fall. Kind of a waste of time when there are so many truly wonderful things to read.
Everyone said how great they were, I was excited to read them..then I was like …really?? they are all buried in my closet somewhere…same as Twilight…I think i have 3 of them..I am not into vampire/fantasy (other then Harry Potter) but they were so talked about…a month or so ago I decided to watch Twilight and it was so awful..people are like but the books are so much better…I just cant, I wont lol
totally came here to write this! the writing is just not good. and it’s just a fairy tale at its root, while marketing itself like it’s an s and m erotica novel.
i read a really interesting article (i think maybe ny times?) about how it was advice based on white privilege, and i thought that was a really interesting take on it. not just from the white privilege standpoint, but from the privilege standpoint in general. definitely will pass on it.
I’m all for a nice long 900 page read, but that one was just entirely and unnecessarily too long. Take out 1/3 of the book and it’d be great. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great story. Just too long.
Kris Patton Knight it was just shy of 900 pages. I’ve owned the book for years and finally gave it a go. It took me a while to get through it. I almost gave up a few times but I stuck with it ???
50 Shades – sucks big time! ?
Harry Potter, because it seems as if most of the fans are unfamiliar with truly great Fantasy written by the likes of Lewis, Tolkien, Macdonald, Nesbit, L’engle and others.
@David Different kinds of fantasy, doesn’t make it any less great!
@Kristin exactly, I for one love Harry Potter but cannot stand Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and the likes!
@Jenny Same! It’s so interesting how there’s so many different opinions & tastes! But yeah I tried both of those other series & could not do it. Harry Potter isn’t just for kids, but it’s like a youthful magical, like a Christmas eve Christmas morning magical when you’re little lol
@Kristin I’m not saying that being a different KIND of fantasy makes it less great, just that the names I mentioned were masters of the craft (and all of them wrote children’s fantasy as well as works for adults) and I don’t think that is true of Rowliong, despite the hype.
@Patricia “idk how you can think JK isnt a master when she’s literally the most loved out of anyone else you mentioned.” quite easily, because popularity doesn’t equal worth.
whether she is worth a heck of a lot must be decided on other grounds than the amount of people who enjoy her. There are scandalously overlooked authors who are of incredible worth, and there are massively popular authors (and singers, and successful people in all walks of life) who aren’t particularly great. There can be all kinds of reasons why someone is the favour of the month, or even of the past few decades, and it doesn’t have to be because they are peerless masters of their craft.
kids getting into reading is a good thing, but that doesn’t make Rowling’s books good.
@Patricia there are probably a number of reasons why it’s so big. I don’t think it’s because Rowling is a master of the fantasy genre though, but she obviously struck a chord with a generation, as many others have done before here.
@Patricia but my point is that getting kids into reading doesn’t MAKE them good books. They may or may not be good books (you and many others think they are, I and a substantial amount of dissenters don’t) but that is no proof of their worth, it’s simply a positive outcome of the Harry Potter craze.
Happy to agree to disagree on their quality though 🙂
@Patricia We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one two. Plenty of people like mediocre books.
@David mediocre to you, five stars to others
@Kristin indeed. same could be said of many books, that some will rave about and others will think are nothing to write home about.
Patricia Lovell Going by your argument, 50 shades of grey can also be considered a classic just because its popular.
You could have used any other argument to prove that J.K. Rowling is really a master of fantasy, like how she created this world that we all can relate to, the depth of the characters, etc. but you basically said “she is just popular therefore her work is good”. Now I understand why so many people hate the HP fanbase.
I wouldn’t even say Rowling is popular personally. And I wouldn’t call her a master of fantasy. I would call her a master of Harry Potter lol
@David that’s my only point in our little friendly book debate lol the popularity / success of anything, really, not just books all comes down to person preference & opinion. Some stuff we think is stupid but enough people prefer it & loved it to make it a huge thing.
@Kristin that’s fair enough, but I’m not denying that it’s a huge thing. We all know that HP is popular, I’m just saying that doesn’t automatically mean it MUST be good quality.
@Dante sorry .. 🙁
i didn’t mean to make anyone hate me or think badly of a whole fanbase because of some stupid thing i said
I don’t hate HP fans, I just roll my eyes when people compare her to great authors like Tolkien, Lewis and MacDonald. Everyone’s entitled to enjoy what takes their fancy 🙂
People who compare them are annoying bc they’re completely different types of fantasy. That’s a stupid comparison!
@Kristin I do think that them being different types of fantasy does matter. Hence why some people like it and some people prefer Lord of the rings. Because they’re not the same. They each have many elements the other doesn’t
You definitely have to consider sub genres. Yes harry potter & lord of the rings are both fantasy. Game of thrones. These are just the big ones off the top of my head. They’re all fantasy. But Harry Potter & JK Rowling are incredible different than the other two & their writers.
I never even considered HP fantasy until it was recently brought to my attention. But comparing it to other writers & their books is like apples & oranges to me.
I love Harry Potter AND some of the other authors you mentioned ? They’re just different types of fantasy. Doesn’t make them any better or worse.
Anything by Dan Brown.
eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by gail honeyman
50 shades 100%
Fifty shades of grey. The writing is awwwwwwful.
All classics, ever. I’ve taken several literature classes and hated every book I’ve had to read.
Hailey Mason David I just tried to read a bunch of classics bc I felt like I should & they were so hard to get through!
@Kristin Most classic novels aren’t light reading, which is why they’re classics.
They were just boring to me! I guess most of the classics just weren’t really my taste.
@Philip i never said they were? That doesn’t change how boring and over the top they are. I particularly hate Dickens. Even the lighter ones though i never liked, like tom Sawyer.
@Kristin I so agree.
I will read anything if it looks or sounds good to me. I’ll give it a try. But like I think it was mainly the old English used. I’m glad we don’t talk like that anymore bc it put me to sleep lol
Aside from Frankenstein + The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I would have to agree with you! I like those because they’re dark and have a decent story. I tried to read Pride and Prejudice, even though I knew the genre wasn’t for me. It was so incredibly dull I can’t even describe it ??? all those classic romances are just blarghhhhhh. No redeeming features for me I’m afraid
wHiCh iS wHy ThEy’Re cLaSsIcS ?
God forbid we find the old white dudes tedious.
I wasn’t a fan of Jekyll & hyde. I liked the picture of dorian gray. Couldn’t even get through the scarlett letter. Then I kinda gave up on trying ALL the classics lol
Well no one is saying they’re not classics, just that they’re not our style in particular.
The challenge, I think, when reading the classics is grasping the archaic language and just how much of the book is description. It’s important to remember that there weren’t moving images then. If there were drawings and illustrations, many people didn’t have access to them. Also, books were entertainment, especially Dickens. They filled the days and nights. One of the things I like about many of the classics is how much I learn about other things. It’s like there are mini-history or science, or psychology lessons embedded in the story. I became interested in bees after reading War and Peace. I also think that the pace of life is faster and attention spans are shorter. I work in a school library and I think one of the mistakes is the shortening of lessons to capture the student rather than developing attention span. But that’s another topic. The development and popularity of YA “literature” is one of the reasons that many young readers struggle with anything written before 2000 (truly!). Most, if not all, YAL is written in first or third person present or past tense and a lot are epistolary. Even worse, there are books that are mostly tweets. Clever to include, but to to actually publish a book like that shows the publisher to be little more than a whore who wants to sell paper.
Every book by Colleen Hoover that I’ve read….
James Patterson books
I personally don’t think there is a such thing as an over hyped book. If someone enjoys something, they should be able to talk about it and love it as much as they want. There are plenty of books that I don’t like, but I would never tell someone that they can’t like it. I use to, before I realized what a shitty thing that was to do. I think as a society we should encourage passion.
@Kaylie I 100% agree with you. Everyone likes different things. Personally by too much hype I’m thinking of like when everyone goes nuts over something & it’s all over even the media talking about it & stuff & then me personally not liking it. But you’re right that the hype is worth it for some people bc they liked the book & stuff. If that makes sense lol, kinda goes both ways
@Kaylie whatever gets people reading.
Most anything Stephen King. Behind Closed doors. Gone girl. And of course 50 shades.
gone girl – that lady was something else. good lord.
Definitely James Patterson
50 shades
No book is over hyped in my way of thinking. It may not be my taste but it’s someone’s taste. There are writers I wouldn’t spit on if they were on fire but I would recommend their book to someone if the person was looking for that genre. Hell I’ve given 100’s of books away this year and 1/3 of them were Authors I don’t like but their work is what someone else liked. Hope that makes sense
@S I agree, but I do also see the over hype thing. As fair as like media blowing it up. Actually I guess it comes down to the fact that everyone has different tastes. When the media gets involved on advertising how much everyone loves a book & hypes it, it seems like they’re shoving it onto people who might not be interested in that genre. But the rest I completely agree with you bc it’s all personal preference
@Kristin Oh don’t get me wrong I loved 50 Shades will always love the books but once they went to doing the movie it just got annoying did I watch the movies nope as no actors could compete with my imagination.
@S my thing with 50 shades of gray is I felt like they could have taken the actual story out & made one decent book. In my opinion the sexual scenes were pointless & took up too much time.
@Kristin oh it could have been way better but the research or personal knowledge of the lifestyle was lacking majorly, but the Love story was good could it have been wrapped up in one or max two books yes. This where I’m learning not all Romances need to be filled with tons of sex sometimes my Voices just plow right over the sex part to give more fluff to their story.
I thought the psychological part of it was really good.
Any jk rowling
The Handmaid’s Tale, Eragon
Anything by Stephenie Meyer, JK Rowling, and the Divergent series
50 friggin shades of terrible
@Valerie I’m with you! The ONLY reason I kept reading the danged thing was to learn why-oh-why it was such a huge bestseller…?
The handmaid’s tale, so boring
Gone Girl.
Twilight. 50 Shades. To Kill a Mockingbird. Books by John Green, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Nicholas Sparks, Jodi Picoult
@Kelsey I’m crying inside to see Jane Austen and 50 Shades mentioned in the same paragraph
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Reading the comments just shows that everything comes down to preference. There have been a good amount of books that I love that people have said are over rated. It’s interesting that everyone can take away something different from the same books.
So true! I’ve loaned books to people I know well and they can’t stand a book I loved. So fascinating!
But then on the same subject but opposite side, people who generally like different books could end up both liking one & then their reading worlds are brought together. It’s crazy!
Stephen King.
1984 by George Orwell, Daniel Silva’s books.
Too many to list.
Atm ‘little fires everywhere’
Too many but I hate Harry Potter more
@Cozy
Divergent & its sequels.
Twilight…. Because its creepy as heck
I thought 50shades was supposed to be some epic thing for the modern era but it just had a silly gimmick, it was fun but so freaking stupid
Definitely 50 shades.
Any books by Jodi Picoult
50 shades
Fifty Shades of Grey. I’ve read better porn by adolescent fanfic writers.
Took words out of my mouth
Colleen Hoover’s it ends with us
Typical post of trashing 50 Shades of Grey, Twilight series, Dan Brown’s books. But someone mentions Harry Potter(as stated before me) the group gets up in arms ?
@Chris that’s true! hahaha
Probably get a lot of hate but the night circus. I gave up 100 pages. No plot or characters to be seen.
@Catherine it was a tough one to get through to begin with. I struggled the first 100 pages or so, but it was a slow build-up and it did eventually get really good. It surprised me in the fact that I ended up giving it 4 stars. I thought I’d give it 2 at most when I was reading that first section.
Gone Girl…thought the characters and plot were silly and stupid
50 shades the would be sex by crazy people and would be virgin.
Patrick Rothfuss the name of the wind!
@Becky I have tried to start this one many times! I wonder if I’ll eventually push through or if it will go on the DNF pile.
@Amy i only pushed through it because everyone said it was amazing. I just kept thinking it would pick up but it never did. I will maybe re read it in a few years see if my tastes have changed ?
That’s the reason I pushed through The Night Circus- luckily it got pretty good.
Thats on my TBR ?
I recommend it. It’s slow to get going, but it’s good.
yep. i put that down half way through for not going anywhere… boring.
Twlight. I never finished. And i can’t even get into Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. First book bores me. But I’m trying
Twilight.
The Goldfinch
Anything bronte
Anything Harry Potter
ACOTAR, twilight, 50 shades, mortal instrument serie, hunger games, carry on. A lot of YA book are overhyped in my opinion ?
Gone Girl. It was fine as far as it went but the writing was very average and it was obvious pretty early on that she was not “gone” but had set up her husband to take the fall. Kind of a waste of time when there are so many truly wonderful things to read.
@Carol obvious? Oh lol.
50 shades of grey I struggled to read because of the poor writing style
@Suzanne I also felt like you could have taken the story out & made one decent book
50 Shades of Grey..I could barely get through it..sadly I had already bought all the books..not only was the story bad but the writing was awful.
@Celeste agree took me a year to finally read the first one to the end
Everyone said how great they were, I was excited to read them..then I was like …really?? they are all buried in my closet somewhere…same as Twilight…I think i have 3 of them..I am not into vampire/fantasy (other then Harry Potter) but they were so talked about…a month or so ago I decided to watch Twilight and it was so awful..people are like but the books are so much better…I just cant, I wont lol
@Celeste Me too!!
totally came here to write this! the writing is just not good. and it’s just a fairy tale at its root, while marketing itself like it’s an s and m erotica novel.
Girl, Wash Your Face Terrible! It’s only a bragfest for the writer.
I have only read passages that had really terrible advice.
She understands your bad times…she had a cavity once. ?
i read a really interesting article (i think maybe ny times?) about how it was advice based on white privilege, and i thought that was a really interesting take on it. not just from the white privilege standpoint, but from the privilege standpoint in general. definitely will pass on it.
Everything Sara J Maas writes
50 Shades of Grey – omg the writing was atrocious!
@Kathy agree!!!
50 shades
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
TOO. FREAKING. LONG.
I’m all for a nice long 900 page read, but that one was just entirely and unnecessarily too long. Take out 1/3 of the book and it’d be great. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great story. Just too long.
Wow!! 900??? You’re a trooper!!!
Kris Patton Knight it was just shy of 900 pages. I’ve owned the book for years and finally gave it a go. It took me a while to get through it. I almost gave up a few times but I stuck with it ???
Handmaid’s Tale. It is so boring and the subject isn’t even interesting. If it hadn’t been for a book club, I never would have finished it.
Gorilla Dawn. But i like it.
Handmaid’s tale and The Girl on the train
Twilight
SO many I can’t even name them.
It…
@Cassandra I agree on that one. It was a mess.
Gone Girl, Twilight, anything by B.A. Paris or Shari Lapena.
specially twilight
Too many books get overhyped these days. It’s the curse of the internet.
WHAT! no one liking sparkling Vamps!!?
Furyborn and to kill a kingdom
geog.2.
Twilight
ACOTAR by Sarah J. Maas is the most overhyped book I have EVER read (and I didn’t even finish it). Seriously, it’s just ridiculous ?
????
Twilight
Hunger games
50 shades