[ SECRET POST #7003 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #7003 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 21 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1000.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

Based on 2

Re: What authors do you not like?

[philstar22]

As people or their writing? For writing, Philip Pullman, Dan Brown, Tim LaHay, Patrick Rothfuss, Le Guin, Orson Scott Card, and Sarah J. Maas.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[greghousesgf]

Ursula Le Guin can't write female characters at all well.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[kaijinscendre]

Stephen King. I've read three of his books (and some of his short stories). I just do not like his writing style, but I do love his son's writing!

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

On the "makes sense" side, I'd say Deborah Harkness (A Discovery of Witches, etc.). I was rec'd A Discovery by a friend and I felt obligated to finish it so I turned it into an exercise in hate-reading. It's not that the book is slow--I love long, slow novels. It's not even that the central romance is unhealthy--I love reading about dysfunctional, even abusive relationships if it's done well. I just really hated it on a sentence level: the whole book felt amateurish and devoid of passion until the last, idk, tenth? Where her aunts show up. The language was far too simple for what should have been the POV of a highly educated and extremely emotional woman and honestly, I didn't believe a single word. I dipped my toe into the sequel and the loathing came back to me, roaring, before I even finished the first page. No more.

On the "you must be joking" side, I don't care for what I've read of Samuel Delany. While I can appreciate his stuff on a sentence level I kind of loathe reading him on a paragraph level and above, at least for the couple of books I've attempted. It feels like he's trying very hard to be clever in a highbrow, intellectual way, and I do not want to go on a journey with someone who I feel is trying to impress me. Unlike the above, I welcome having my mind changed on this, because he is Very Important and I am famously stubborn about things that don't matter.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

George RR Martin. His writing is so CLUNKY. I also don't really like him as a person, but I cannot with his writing.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

I read the first two GoT books and was unimpressed. Did not care for it. I didn't hate it, but I dropped it and never even considered keeping it. I also feel like people talk about how he writes great female characters, but I did not see it. And maybe if I'd kept going, I would have changed my mind, but two long ass books weren't enough to convince me. I'm done.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[greghousesgf]

JK Rowling
Proust
Edith Wharton
Stephenie Meyer
Norman Mailer
Ernest Cline
Hemingway
Ayn Rand
Faulkner
and two actors who I find entertaining to watch on TV or in movies but who wrote really lousy books: Bill Shatner and Sean Penn

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

Tolkien.

Someone is inevitably going to complain about it, so I'm glad his stuff exists for you but it's not for me and not for lack of trying.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

I love love love Lord of the Rings, but I couldn't get into The Hobbit or his other stuff, so I feel you.

Naomi Novik

[(Anonymous)]

There are a lot of authors that just aren't for me but she is the most recent author where the writing enraged me.

Re: Naomi Novik

[(Anonymous)]

Same.

Re: Naomi Novik

[(Anonymous)]

I loved the idea of Her Majesty's Dragon but that book was really light on plot.

Re: Naomi Novik

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, hey, she was going to be my answer, too!

The thing that stands out about her writing, for me, is that I think she's really good—and yet I do not jibe with her narrative sensibilities at all. Reading her books (and honestly her fanfic too) is an exercise in frustration for me, because there'll be things I find really interesting and promising about the story...and then whatever the story does with those interesting and promising elements is inevitable not satisfying or rewarding to me at all.

I'm not even arguing that she's not a good writer. I think she is. But oh man, the things she finds rewarding and engaging about stories are mostly not the things I find rewarding and engaging about stories.

Re: Naomi Novik

[(Anonymous)]

Which book were you reading and what was it that enraged you about it?

Asking as someone who also doesn't click with her writing.

Re: Naomi Novik

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't like Temeraire (boring, full of caricatures) but I really liked Scholomance, although to continue past the first chapter I had to confirm from outside sources that the MC really is meant to be an unreliable narrator (that's just something I don't trust YA to do consciously on principle, not just with Naomi Novik).

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

George RR Martin, Sarah J Maas, Ursla K LeGuin, Colleen Hoover, Frieda McFadden, Cassandra Claire

#1 most hated has to go to Rene Denfeld - "The Child Finder." It was just the most saccharine airy fairy type of writing, absolutely atrocious. I didn't hate the story, but the way she wrote it was just everything sickly sweet that I cannot stand. A lot of people LOVE IT SO MUCH but I am in the minority who barely made it through. Like, you have to scroll and scroll and scroll past 5 star and 4 star ratings on GoodReads until you find one that is low. So really you should probably check it out for yourself because so many people adore it. It just DID NOT work for me at all.

I tried a Brandon Sanderson novel once and didn't finish, although I *might* give it another chance. Haven't completely eliminated him, but not really into it

I'm reading the first Dungeon Crawler Carl and while it's enjoyable enough, I guess, I don't really feel invested enough to want to keep reading the series, so I'll probably finish this first one and be done

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

Sally Rooney

I just cannot.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

Neil Gaiman, and I disliked him well before everything about him came out. His ideas are interesting but his characters come off so flat and dull to me and he thinks he's more clever than he is. I also hate what he did to Good Omens because I loved the book but hate the series and I blame it on the fact that Terry Pratchett wasn't around to temper Gaiman's bad habits.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

I like some of his ideas, but the writing is just... okay.And a touch pretentious. But it's easy to forget that because he has some neat ideas.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

Dickens. I was forced to read a couple of his books at school, noped out of a third after a couple of chapters, and felt very vindicated when I found out what an arse he was to his wife.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

I tried to start Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind but couldn't get past the first chapter. Very boring, and I didn't even like the concept. I couldn't face plowing through it to find something more interesting, if there was indeed anything more interesting further in.

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I did persevere with this one because I was stuck someplace with little reading material (this was in ancient times with no ebooks) and I got maybe 6-7 books in before I gave up. All of his female characters are so samey, and like David Eddings' female characters, they seem to have the same maternal girlfriend vibe with male characters that comes out at odd times. Plot very slow as well.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

Getting writers I dislike as people and don't enjoy all the writing of out of the way first:
JKR-- aside from her going mask off as a fashy transphobe, I hated the casual vacancy the whole time I was reading it, and re-reading hp as an adult the holes really showed.

Orson Scott Card-- similarly to jkr, you know, guy who wrote something that was meaningful to me when I was young turns out to be a hateful bigot. (the book I happened to read wasn't Ender's Game, but a book he wrote *on writing* that I must have read and reread I don't know how much as a kid who wanted to grow up to be a writer-- Ender's Game I thought was an interesting premise but ultimately really offputting)

And onto...

Cormac McCarthy- I just can't make it through the WAY he writes. I have no opinions on problematicness.

Eric LaRocca- Sadly not my thing. Someone who normally has tastes in line with my own LOVES their work but I plain did not enjoy what I read of their short fiction. Eventually I'll try one of their novels, and see if I like that better, because I really WANT to be on that train.

Ramsey Campbell- the only time I literally threw a book across the room and it was NOT the last time I picked one of his books up, and then the next one I read I hated so MUCH. I didn't hate the whole thing (it was a brick, if I had hated the beginning I'd have put it down and saved myself the trouble) but I hated the end so much.

There's another author whose name I am blanking on that I don't like but don't hate enough to have anything interesting to say... another horror author, which is my most-read genre.

And the popular authors who I know are simply not for me:

Brandon Sanderson, Colleen Hoover, Rebecca Yarros, SJM- I've seen enough reviews to know that I am happier leaving these ones to the people who enjoy them. I *probably* am not the right audience for Emily Henry but I *am* willing to try one of her books sometime.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

As a writer, Terry Pratchett. And other authors with a similar style of humor.

As a person and partially as a writer, Malinda Lo. Ash was pretty good, but the prequel was lackluster and I don't trust the writing talent of an adult writer who says with her full chest that she always hated Jo March for marrying a man even though she was a lesbian. That's a fine feeling to have if you're twelve, but not to share in an interview as one you still hold.

Re: What authors do you not like?

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of the ones I dislike have already been mentioned but I'll add Xiran Jay Zhao. Classic case of using their race and gender identity to try and silence any criticism and so, so massively up their own ass. And that's not even counting how at most mid those books are. Mid is generous, really.