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One of the things that got me about Twilight was spelling mistakes! With all the editors in the world, how is it possible to get spelling mistakes in books? But sadly it happens more than it should.

Speaking to the Anita Blake series... they don't get any better. I wouldn't even bother.

I tend to agree with you. I liked Great Expectations, LOL. Tale of Two Cities was just ok for me, haven't read any of the rest yet, but there are several more on the 1001 list, so I'll get around to them sooner or later...

Hitchhiker's Guide was pretty funny & pretty out there. I read the first 2 books, then it just got lame for me.
PS I Love You I thought was really sweet overall, & written in a very realistic tone, from her own experience. I don't think it's supposed to be great literature, more of a memoir of the times & the things you have to do to reach children like that, which is why it's disturbing at times. I have it in the old condensed Reader's Digest hardcover :)

I don't understand the Twilight hate. Yeah, it's not Harry Potter, but it doesn't have to be. I wish everybody would stop comparing the two of them; ..."
I wasn't comparing the 2, they are nothing alike except that they are the 2 most popular YA series in the world right now. They couldn't be more different. Rowling's world has depth, it's realistic(mostly anyway), the characters have depth, they grow, they are good kids, so it's a more "wholesome" series overall. By contrast, Twilight is simply another teen romance series with completely unbelievable characters with major issues.

LOL, I have this book, & I enjoyed it. I thought it was interesting that she left to explore her own family, & that they eventually came back together in the end. I'd have been disappointed if someone hadn't attempted it :) However, there is a companion book about Rhett too, by Donald Caig, called Rhett Butler's People. That gives you Rhett's backstory, which I found interesting as well :) You might like that one better than Scarlett.

More of a comment in general; not directed at you specifically, Lisa, so don't take anything I say personally. x)

Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast. Puke, the book was boring as all get out and I could not stand the whole anti-Christian thing either. I'm not saying she has to agree with Christianity, but she shouldn't bash Christianity and nor should she paint us all with the same bigoted brush.
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton. Again, boring as all get out. And Anita rubbed me the wrong way. Plus I've read about how the later books devolve into really bad porn with nonsensical plotlines.
This Heart Of Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. This book sucked so hard on so many levels. The only reason I even finished this was for a really freaking excellent secondary romance, the main romance was convoluted and frenetic and was just plain bad and I didn't really like the hero and heroine either.
Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger. The Devil Wears Prada was pretty good, but man Everyone Worth Knowing was not. I read this years ago, and I remember not being very impressed by it at all. It's a bad retread of The Devil Wears Prada. I'm just glad I got a copy from the library and didn't waste my money.
Prep by Curtin Sittenfeld. Nothing happens! This is one of the most boring books I have ever read! I gave up on this midway through (and I almost never give up on a book) and I'm glad I did. Because this book crawls in reverse, that's how slow and boring it is.
And Falling Fly by Skylar White. She tried to make this really haunting and atmospheric and deep and give you something to think about. She failed majorly on all accounts. The characters could not hold my interest and the plot made me go, huh?! More than a few times before I finally gave up about 200 pages in. It's also a really bizarre book. I personally liken this book to a really bad LSD trip.
Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley. My personal most hated book ever! She utterly destroyed it! I read this book 4 or 5 years ago and I can still remember my reaction: rack and ruin. And that is exactly what this book is. Gone With The Wind is one of my most favorite books ever and I just could not get over she butchered the characters, the setting, the plot, everything! The O'Hara my round, rosy, behind!
That's all I can think of for now.


I'd also recommend Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," the first lesbian vampire novel.

And I liked that it wasn't "normal" vampires. I just get irked when people say that authors need to be creative and have new ideas, and then totally dump on Meyer because she wasn't "classic". It's like a double standard.

Haha, thanks Kerri! I'm so glad to hear that someone agrees with me. Everyone seems to be obsessed with Anita Blake and it makes me doubt their sanity :P I think I'll be giving the rest of the series a BIG no thank you.

It's just a very good vampire novel, it strays so far from the vampire legend that it's insulting. Pixies sparkle not vampires. Vampires are blood thirsty creatures not the kid next door. Kresley Cole(I hope I got the name right. lol) does a great variation on the vampire legend without getting crazy with it.

And it's pretty consistent throughout the 4 books. All of them have spelling AND grammar errors. Especially the last one. Geez. It was so bad.
Twilight is NOT a good starting point if you are new to vampire fiction. Or YA. Post-Twilight, I haven't read a YA novel that I really enjoyed. Shame.

I think the avoidance may have to do with the fact that I always loved vampires and read Bram Stoker's Dracula at an early age then continued on to grab any good vampire book I could so the new idea of these Twilight Vampires would be a bit too much out of field for my mind to handle. My friend has never read Dracula or many other vampire books so was relatively new to it all and so absolutely loved the whole idea of vampires and werewolves (I did then buy her an abridged version of Dracula but she said it was too boring and didn't stick with it :O).

I LOVE vampires, Dracula, Nosferatu, and all that jazz. But once authors begin to introduce their own twist on things, I tend to lose interest. I did like "The Historian" though. :)


It bugged me so much! You can kind of understand one or two errors, you know, editors aren't perfect people either, but consistent errors are just awful.

I'm not saying it's terrible because it's unfamiliar. I'm saying it's terrible because of the reasons listed above.

Also, she wasn't even that original with her ideas on vampires (she does have claim to the sparkle - which is now a word I avoid). LJ Smith has nice vampires that fall in love with humans as does Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (though hers are a bit more violent) and hers can go out in the sunlight as well.

http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/
That tumblr is all kinds of awesome!

The other one was La bicyclette bleue, 1939-1942 by Régine Deforges (the Blue Bicycle. Had to put up the French version since apparently GR doesn't have the English version in its database). This is basically "Gone With the Wind" against the backdrop of the Second World War. Only instead of a cotton plantation it's a vineyard. Really nothing new in this book. Just give Scarlett, Rhett, Ashley and Melanie French names and you've got the book.

When I read, I don't tend to look into the "plot holes" or what makes sense and what doesn't. I mean, the first book was definitely the best compared to the rest (even as a fan of the series, Breaking Dawn was a major DISLIKE for me because it really did make no sense). I mean, I do notice what doesn't make sense, but not to a point where I'm like, "Edward shouldn't be able to enjaculate" (because the baby thing was dumb overall; I did tend to want to skip that part of the book), but rather the first books were enjoyable.
Anyway, my point wasn't that you couldn't not like Twilight or whatever. It just seems to me like somehow, Twilight and Harry Potter are always connected back to each other and I hate when that happens. For instance, on Tumblr last night, I saw a post of Harry Potter references on shows, and somebody comments "TAKE THAT TWILIGHT", like Twilight was totally relevant, when it completely was not.




http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/
That tumblr is all kinds of awesome!"
LMAO my co-worker actually took a red pen to Breaking Dawn. For real! We could hear her groans and laughter in the break room when she was on it.
I always regarded Twilight as a Mary-Sue piece. Hell, even RPattz who is IN THE MOVIE thinks so.


Nancy, when you break it down to bare bones, that is exactly what it is! I agree with you 100%!!!!

I Love Stephen King but there is a few out there that don't & it's cool. We All Have Our Own Individual Tastes..I never would have read H.P. if my daughter hadn't dragged me to the movies. (which I think are not as good as the books BTW..LOL)
And this sounds completely crazy; but I attribute part of S.K's success to having 'John Travolta' in the original movie


I agree with this post 100%



I guess maybe I'm one of those horrid hipsters who goes out of her way not to like anything mainstream. I never thought I'd live to see the day when sparkly vampires became mainstream. Poor Dracula and Bram Stoker have got to be turning over in their graves.

I agree with you, it's a bit crazy!

The Twilight Moms are the SCARIEST. Actually, the older ones are the more rabid fans in a fandom. And they scare me. (They drove me out of the Adam Lambert fandom, so far that I'm not a fan of Lambert anymore.)


And not all Twilight fans are totally rabid. I mean, even I don't like the rabid Twi-fans, and I actually liked Twilight! It's kind of psychotic to wish Edward/other characters were real life people. >>
And Cate, if you don't mind my asking, why did the other Lambert fans drive you away from liking him? Just because people you didn't like liked something meant you couldn't like it anymore?

I used to work at Books a Million and at the customer service desk we were able to print out the current NY Times Bestseller list for customers. One customer used that list in order to decide what books she was going to read. For me, that wouldn't be a valid reason for me to decide whether or not a book was worthy of my reading it. But for her, using the list was perfectly valid. I also learned early on at BAM that if Oprah featured a book on her show or had it in her bookclub that we'd better have plenty of copies, because everyone and her sister was going to come into the store to buy the book. Everything that Oprah says is set in stone, right? Again, not a valid reason for me to get a book, but for plenty of other people it was plenty valid.
I went through the same thing myself in 1992 when The Bridges of Madison County came out. There were those of us who adored the book (and I still do) and devoured it in one sitting, and those who detested it. I've been reading romances for almost 40 years now and still have plenty of people tell me that they are trashy, soft core porn for women, smut, blah, blah, blah. I'll listen to people's criticisms of the books that I like and sometimes I'll defend my reasons. Most of the time I just shrug and keep on reading.

Angel, trust me, rabid fans aren't fun even for us regular fans! And Twi-Moms who want to leave their husbands for their own Edward Cullen are reeeally creepy, too.
As for characters, I totally know what you mean. I couldn't stand reading If I Stay because I couldn't stand any of the characters, while everyone else seemed to adore it. Usually, I'll just decide to read a book depending on its summary and if I think I'll like the story or not (and/or if I've found out it's a "clean" book or not). Or if it's anything having to do with King Arthur history. I love me some Arthurian reading, hahaha.

I know that. But every time I go to an event about him - concert, appearance - they're there and they ruin it for everyone else by being aggressive and they feel more entitled because "Adam knows we/our group exists". I was once accosted by erm... older lady fans (plural) at the ticket line to his concert because they overheard me saying that I saw Adam from his Wicked (musical) days, demanding I give them proof that I did in fact saw him. Then upon knowing I didn't buy the "best seat" ticket to his show, one of them indirectly said that I wasn't as big of a fan as she. If I were immature as she was, I would've said "At least I saw him first" but she's as old as my mother so I didn't bother.
Eventually, I associated Lambert himself with his rabid fans (I fully know that he can't do anything to tame them or calm them down because fans are fans). From there, I lost all interest.
I'll still listen to his music, but I'll never go to his events ever again.

Fans like that are very annoying and more then a little scary. HIM (band from Finland) fans can be just like that too, and I've seen quite a few girls and women get down right nasty with each other over whose been a fan longest, etc. Even seen a few fights over it, which were just stupid. I'm an extreme HIM fan but never would I go that far, personally it makes me think they are unstable.
I've had the issue with Twilight fans too. It started as the raving about how magnificent the book was. Having read it already and found it okay, I was starting to think I'd missed out on something so I read it again. I hated it. I don't know if it was the negative feeling of having a bunch of girls squealing over how amazing it was when it clearly wasn't that made me start paying attention to plot holes and such but I noticed it all. Some of my friends are kind of this way and I'm literally terrified to tell them I think the series is terrible.

"Wuthering Heights": I was so depressed and bored 20 pages in I gave up.
"Jane Eyre": I hate Jane. I think she's beyond stupid, and the love interest is an abusive, high-handed jerk.
"Their eyes were watching God." Now, I might hate this book thanks to my 10th grade English teacher. She made us read it in class and I finished it in under 2 class periods, so I was forced to re-read it over and over for 2 weeks.
"Lord of the Rings": As a die hard fantasy reader in high school I tried, but this story just dragged. I survived and enjoyed the Hobbit though.
As a fantasy fan I've tried to drag myself through some "urban fantasies" lately that made me want to gag. I read so many rave reviews for Jeanine Frost and I hated her heroine and hero from page 1.
Some series I started liking and now can't stomach: "Twilight", Kim Harrison's Hollows series, Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series and Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. Plots either became recycled, issues never got resolved or the author lost the characters voice.
My worst failure: I have tried repeatedly to read Lord of the Fading Lands. A good friend recommended it to myself and 2 other friends. They all love it. I can't even read the first page all the way through without getting bored. It's still on my shelf but I wince when I look at it.











I feel this way towards The Hunger Games. It is by no means BAD; it's actually quite good. But the crazy ass hype ruined it for me. I enjoyed the first one but lost interest in the other two. All my friends were raving about it... that's it's the best book they've read EVEERRRRR. But when I read it, it was just okay. At the most. I've voiced my opinions to them one time and all I got was "AOSFLDGFJGJHK;GH;;L YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!" That. Came from 20-30 year old people. I just... *puts the trilogy back on the bottom shelf*
As for Twilight... I've learned to stay away. At least my friends who started out liking the "saga" still stand by their decision even if they do admit that the books are bad.


I guess a lot of people aren't really capable of it, or they don't try but it makes me want to stop reading anything anyone is talking about.
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I'm not a fan of Les Mis either. I like the musical but it takes me forever to go through the book.