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Books/Series you never plan to read...and why?
*passes Emily the rest of the wine*I resolve not to read that book, ever.
There's not many I outright refuse, but there are many I'll never re-visit or finish. Like many, I did not get past about book 6 in Wheel of Time. I read Anita Blake series until 10 or so, but quit and haven't been back. I read Chloe Neill (Chicagoland Vampire) books until book 3, but got tired enough of the chicklit bent that I probably quit that series (notice the probably). Never finished Terry Brooks Shannara series, as I felt it became quite repetitive. That seems to be my major criteria for discontinuing--no growth and just rehasing story lines. I've probably stopped Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series for that reason as well.
I can't promise not to read Marked. Lol. It's like trying not to look at a train wreck.
I thought of one that I gave up on before I even finished the first chapter! The Legend of Drizzit by R. A. Salvatore! It had been recommended to me by several good friends and I bought the first book and I really tried to like it but it just wasn't happening. I found the whole thing weird, a race of elves who live undergound, worship a spider and see in ultraviolet. Drizzit was just too weird for me.
I read Marked about 2 years ago just because one of my kids was, and I wanted to check it out, but it was just. so. bad. It actually was a good idea/premise, just taking in a really horrible direction. ugh.yeah, don't do it
For those of you who mentioned that you do not like fantasy that is too dark, but also not light and fluffy, I highly Charles De Lint. Although there is of course suspense and there is always some kind of paranormal conflict in his stories, I find his works have an uplifting effect on me. His novels are also always very character driven and although there are supernatural characters in them, his human characters even most his non-human ones are complex and believable.I personally don’t like his short stories nearly as much and for that reason recommend starting with his novels. His Newford series is not a series in the way most Urban fantasy series are in that each novel is a stand alone story on to its own, however you do get more background history regarding the characters if you read the books in order. However you could start with either:
Memory and Dream
Trader
Someplace to Be Flying
or if you don't want to read a series his more recent novel The Mystery of Grace is good although I don't like it as much as the Newford books.
His YA books are also good:
Another series that was too dark for me was the Dark Jewel trilogy. I could not make it past a few chapters of Daughter of the Blood.
I like Kelly Armstrongs series but I have to take a break from them.
± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± wrote: "I've never actually read Jane Eyre - and I most likely never will - but I have seen one of the movies and I want to see the new one, too."The new version with Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska is good, but it's not my favorite. I own four different versions of Jane Eyre. I guess I have an obsession. :)
Carol wrote: "*passes Emily the rest of the wine*I resolve not to read that book, ever.
There's not many I outright refuse, but there are many I'll never re-visit or finish. Like many, I did not get past ..."
Why, thank you, Carol. Don't mind if I do. :)
There are a couple of young adult books that I really liked, but thought the first book told a complete story, and a good one-Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater and Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr. Neither of these books needed sequels, and I'm not sure I'll ever get to the Stiefvater ones because I loved how Shiver ended. I did continue with Melissa Marr's, and the sequels were OK, but ultimately, I was very disappointed with how she finished the series.
Lady D, my favorite Jane Eyre will always be the one with Orson Wells. One of my favorite movies of all time. Introduced to me by my grandmother. Reminds me a lot of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. :)
I will probably never read Twilight or any PNR for that matter.
Jalilah wrote: "For those of you who mentioned that you do not like fantasy that is too dark, but also not light and fluffy, I highly Charles De Lint. Although there is of course suspense and there is always some ..."I love Charles de Lint. :)
Jalilah wrote: "For those of you who mentioned that you do not like fantasy that is too dark, but also not light and fluffy, I highly Charles De Lint. Although there is of course suspense and there is always some ..."I have to read him one day. Someone gave me a book but it was book 2 in a series...
Traci wrote: "Lady D, my favorite Jane Eyre will always be the one with Orson Wells. One of my favorite movies of all time. Introduced to me by my grandmother. Reminds me a lot of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. :)"I totally agree with you. Welles was the best Rochester I have seen so far.
Emily wrote: "There are a couple of young adult books that I really liked, but thought the first book told a complete story, and a good one-Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater and Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr. Neither of these books needed sequels, and I'm not sure I'll ever get to the Stiefvater ones because I loved how Shiver ended. I did continue with Melissa Marr's, and the sequels were OK, but ultimately, I was very disappointed with how she finished the series. "I liked the first Wicked Lovely, but agree the series went downhill after that, though I've only read the first three.
It's one of those series where I want to finish it to see how it ends, but I have a hard time finding the motivation to actually bother.
Sort of like Inkdeath. I thought the first was ok, but overrated, the second dragged horribly, and now I want to read the last just to finish out the trilogy, but I haven't been able to bring myself to actually do it.
I used to be a huge Terry Brooks fan, but I can't even think about reading any of his work anymore. The story line and writing never really improves and I actaully find it boring now. It feels like I "out grew" his writing. Also after reading the first two Twilight books, and getting 30 pages into the 3rd one I can say without a doubt that I will never EVER finish that series.
That's how I feel about Terry Brooks too, Shera. I read a lot of Shannara books in high school, and they make me cringe now! However, they were such a good gateway into better fantasy that I think of them fondly.
± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± wrote: "Emily wrote: "There are a couple of young adult books that I really liked, but thought the first book told a complete story, and a good one-Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater and Wicked Lovely, by Meliss..."One of my favorite teen patrons at the library where I work recommended that I just read Wicked Lovely and forget about the others. I didn't take her advice, but it's not too late for you!
As for Inkdeath, I only listened to the first, read by Lynn Redgrave, which was very enjoyable, but I haven't found my way back to the series yet.
With series where I don't enjoy the writing but I'm still curious about the ending, I'm not above grabbing the last book and paging through to find out what happens.
@Emily - I've even thought about just looking up the plot summaries on Wiki, but I haven't quite given up the notion I might get back to them at some point.So the Wicked Lovely ending is really that bad? Maybe I should just cut my losses... :>
Traci wrote: "Lady D, my favorite Jane Eyre will always be the one with Orson Wells. One of my favorite movies of all time. Introduced to me by my grandmother. Reminds me a lot of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. :)"You can never go wrong with Orson Wells. I mean come on he was Unicron, how much cooler can you get, even though it was his last role.
± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± wrote: "@Emily - I've even thought about just looking up the plot summaries on Wiki, but I haven't quite given up the notion I might get back to them at some point.So the Wicked Lovely ending is really t..."
I actually didn't mind the other books until it got to the last one. The switching back and forth from the leads in the first and third books, and the alternate leads in the second and fourth books was kind of a cool idea. But by the time she got to wrapping everything up in the fifth book, I felt like she had made her world too big to manage, and that kind of made books 2-4 seem like a waste of time to me. I gave some specific beefs in my review, which you can find fairly easily if you filter the 2-star reviews.
It's not BAD as much as just disappointing.
Sheila wrote: "That's how I feel about Terry Brooks too, Shera. I read a lot of Shannara books in high school, and they make me cringe now! However, they were such a good gateway into better fantasy that I think ..."Same here. They were one of the few EF books the library could offer. I look back on them fondly as well, but then I shiver. ^_-
I think it's the writing style. It's too slow and the build up takes forever. Only a few books got me emotionally and really into the characters.
Hmm, I actually thought the WL books got better as they went along -- there were some ends in Darkest Mercy that I thought were wrapped up a bit too neatly, but I still enjoyed it. :x The Dark Court books are by far my favorites, though.
Kevin wrote: "Traci wrote: "Lady D, my favorite Jane Eyre will always be the one with Orson Wells. One of my favorite movies of all time. Introduced to me by my grandmother. Reminds me a lot of Disney's Beauty a..."And not to mention the War of the Worlds hoax he pulled off. He really had people believing there was an alien invasion.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I've been thinking of deep sixing the Sweet Silver Blues series. I...just wasn't fond of it."I think that series has a certain cynicism to it, a lot of people would find it depressing. I like it ok in small doses...lol
Maggie wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "I've been thinking of deep sixing the Sweet Silver Blues series. I...just wasn't fond of it."I think that series has a certain cynicism to it, a lot of people w..."
I didn't even get that far, lol.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I've been thinking of deep sixing the Sweet Silver Blues series. I...just wasn't fond of it."I wasn't particularly fond of the first book, either, and I wouldn't bother with the series except I, unfortunately, bought the omnibus of the first three so I feel sort of obligated to give it another shot.
It's kind of on the list of "when I have nothing else to do", though.
MrsJoseph wrote: Someone gave me a book but it was book 2 in a series... "You might enjoy reading it anyway. Most of his books can be read out of order... I've never read the first Newford book because I'm not much into short stories. Give it a try! You'll like it! :)
± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "I've been thinking of deep sixing the Sweet Silver Blues series. I...just wasn't fond of it."I wasn't particularly fond of the first book, either, and I wouldn't ..."
LOL! I did the exact same thing. And I bought all of The black company except for books 2 & 3. Not really interested in reading any of them but I guess I will one day.
After I've read everything else, lol.
I'll honestly try to read just about anything at least once. Sometimes I'll be so intrigued by how bad it is I'll try again. I read the first Twilight book, for example, because it was all I had with me on a week-long trip to San Diego. I tried to continue because I don't like starting a series and not finishing, but I just couldn't handle Bella in the second book. I'm still determined to finish the series, but found the first so utterly forgettable that I'm going to just totally start over.Whenever I manage to finish, assuming I haven't vomited on the horrible prose, I'm listing the lot on eBay and getting rid of them for good.
But really, I'm pretty open-minded about books and authors and while I have found a few I never plan on returning to, I'm willing to at least try. I hate to leave a book unread, after all.
Caity wrote: "But really, I'm pretty open-minded about books and authors and while I have found a few I never plan on returning to, I'm willing to at least try. I hate to leave a book unread, after all." I'm the same way, Caity. I have a will-read-later list with several books on it. A few I started and just couldn't get into at the time, such as the last two books of the Inkheart trilogy, but I still plan on trying again sometime in the near future. If they still don't grab me, okay, then I'll probably give them up as a lost cause. But, right now, I have plenty of other books to keep me occupied.
I used to be that way...but I'm getting older.It was a friend who changed my mind. I was forcing myself through a book that I felt was horrible and she looked at me and said, "There are too many good books out there to torture yourself with a bad one. What is wrong with you?!"
It was like a light-bulb came on over my head, lol. It still took me a while to stop with the force reading...but I've gotten pretty darn good about it since!
MrsJoseph wrote: "I used to be that way...but I'm getting older.It was a friend who changed my mind. I was forcing myself through a book that I felt was horrible and she looked at me and said, "There are too many..."
Me too. And sometimes I don't realize how much trying to force myself to read a book is getting me down until I make the decision to break things off. A weight is lifted. I dance around the house. And then I pick another book.
Emily wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "I used to be that way...but I'm getting older.It was a friend who changed my mind. I was forcing myself through a book that I felt was horrible and she looked at me and said, "..."
Yes!
Exactly! There's a sense of relief.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I used to be that way...but I'm getting older.It was a friend who changed my mind. I was forcing myself through a book that I felt was horrible and she looked at me and said, "There are too many..."
I use to be the same way. Even if it was horrible I'd read it (and any other books in the series) to completion.
It's so nice to beat that compulsion and be able to put the book down.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I used to be that way...but I'm getting older.It was a friend who changed my mind. I was forcing myself through a book that I felt was horrible and she looked at me and said, "There are too many..."
AMEN!!! Life is short! Read only good books.
If I can finish a bad book within a day or two days I will probably finish it but anything longer that I hate, good bye. I have way too many books I want to read to waste too much time on one I don't.
I never read past the first few chapters if I don't like the book. The longest I read before putting the book down was Night Circus - about a third of the book. I heard so many good things about it I wanted to give it a fair try. I thought: maybe it will get better the next page. But it never touched me, so I stopped reading. Although I have to admit: the writing was good. I just didn't like the story.
Sometimes when I have just finished a series I that really loved, I will automatically not like the next book I read. For this reason I try to read on as often as possible, because sometimes the new book will grow on me. That happened with the Mercedes Thompson series. I read Moon Called right after finishing another series and did not like it. However I ended up liking the Mercedes Thompson more than the first series I’d read.
The series I'm surprised I finished and loved was The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I hated the first book. Slow, boring, extremely old fashioned. But for some reason I decided to read the second book. And other than the first one this is the best young adult series I've read. So...I hate to give up but I do and more often than I like.
Traci wrote: "The series I'm surprised I finished and loved was The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I hated the first book. Slow, boring, extremely old fashioned. But for some reason I decided to read the ..."I love that series!!!
Traci wrote: "The series I'm surprised I finished and loved was The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I hated the first book. Slow, boring, extremely old fashioned. But for some reason I decided to read the ..."It is bloody brilliant. Still haven't brought myself to watch the movie adaptation of The Dark Is Rising. The trailer looked awful.
Tyrone wrote: "Traci wrote: "The series I'm surprised I finished and loved was The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I hated the first book. Slow, boring, extremely old fashioned. But for some reason I decide..."Oh. Me either. I felt they took away everything that made the series charming (from the trailer). Making Will into an attitude-y teenager? He's greatest characteristic was the fact that he was so "old" acting. He'd never have behaved with an attitude. And it looked like it was set in America. Why? Just...why.
I watched the movie. Horrible! I don't even know why they even bought the rights to the book. Only the names were the same. Wouldn't have recognized it at all.
Traci wrote: "I watched the movie. Horrible! I don't even know why they even bought the rights to the book. Only the names were the same. Wouldn't have recognized it at all.":-(
What I thought...
Traci wrote: "The series I'm surprised I finished and loved was The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I hated the first book. Slow, boring, extremely old fashioned. But for some reason I decided to read the ..."Okay, I'll bite. I just added the first book of this series to my wish-list! :)
The first book is the slowest (IMO) but it's worth the payoff. Great series! I've read it a million times.
MrsJoseph wrote: "The first book is the slowest (IMO) but it's worth the payoff. Great series! I've read it a million times."What The Dark Is Rising or the one that was first published, Over Sea, Under Stone?
The first is Over Sea, Under Stone. The Dark Is Rising is the second.
Traci wrote: "The first is Over Sea, Under Stone. The Dark Is Rising is the second."^What she said. That one is the slowest ut I still love it.
Fantasy Aficionados
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Authors mentioned in this topic
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Holy mother of God. Why? -curls up into a ball-"
Carol wrote: "Tsk, tsk, tsk. *passes Valerie a glass of wine*
Go watch a movie and clear your head :)"
Oh, my. I needed brain bleach from just the reviews.