Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: What books got a lot of hype but were a disappointment for you?
There’s definitely been some books that were super popular that I really disliked…and I always feel a little weird criticizing them, to be honest! It’s a little harder to say “this is a terribly written book” when the cover says “10 million copies sold” or whatever! But there have still been some that seemed to work for a lot of people but not at all for me.
The first to come to mind was Wicked by Gregory Maguire, which had “massive number of copies sold” on the cover. And I…really disliked it. I found the characters unappealing, the attempt to be shocking kind of bothersome, and the ending especially disappointing. The musical, on the other hand, is a wonderful delight!
I was quite disappointed by Carrie Fisher’s The Princess Diarist. I mean, Carrie Fisher’s memoir of being in Star Wars – that sounded amazing! But it turned out to be more about her affair with Harrison Ford than it was about, well, Star Wars, and that was disappointing. I still think she was awesome, but this was not the book for me.
I heard about Stephen King’s memoir/writing advice book, On Writing, from a lot of people, particularly other writers, before I finally picked it up. I ended up skimming great pieces of it, because it was so much about his writing, which I haven’t read (not being a horror reader). I suppose I should have taken the “memoir” part of the description more seriously. If I was a King fan, I acknowledge that this probably would have gone better.
Three seems like enough books to criticize in one day. 🙂 Have you read a very popular book that you found disappointing? I suspect it’s happened to us all…
I often pick up popular books in the store, turn them over and read the blurb, if there is one, other than five people I may or may not have heard of saying ‘Wonderful’. I generally put them back again.
I partially agree with you on Stephen King, but I did like his writers tips and the fact that he earned his success the hard way. Lots of tips for not giving up. I havent read his books for the same reason as you, but found I either was interested in one or two, or grateful I’d avoided them!
One of the books/series I most itch about is His Dark Materials. It’s well written, but to me it’s all terribly derivative. I suppose the thing I must learn to do is to rehash ideas from scifi stories I read when I was a teen and take all the credit for them. Oh, miaow!
I love the Wicked musical (almost as much as I love Phantom), but loathed the book. And unfortunately, The Princess Diarist destroyed my lifetime crush on Harrison Ford.
Other popular books, like The DaVinci Code, are often just “meh” for me. And I’m trying to give myself permission not to finish a book if I’m really not liking it.
I tried to post this comment earlier, but it didn’t appear to “take.” Hope it doesn’t end up appearing twice. 🙂 I can’t think of a book I’ve read that was popular but that I didn’t like. (I’m sure I’ve read some; none come to mind right now.) However, I will say that I do use reader ratings on Kindle and Amazon to help me decide whether to buy a book. They’re not the only factor, but are one factor I look at. If 70% or more of readers have given a book a 4 or 5 star rating, I figure it’s a good indicator that I will like the book, too. If I really want to read it and the reviews are more mixed, I’ll look at the 1 and 2 star reviews to see why the readers gave such low marks. If the reasons are not valid in my opinion, I’ll buy the book anyway. But overall I think the ratings are one way to decide if I book is worth my time. They’re usually pretty accurate, I’ve found.