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Anyone regret reading a book?

124

Comments

  • #92
    Gimme A Pound
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,482 ✭✭✭Gimme A Pound


    I eagerly read The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (her much awaited second novel after The Secret History). I don't know that I regret reading it, because it's so sumptuously written and it's how I'd like to write a novel (and the clear homage to To Kill A Mockingbird was beautifully executed I thought)... but what a disappointment in terms of how it ultimately plays out. A sickener really considering how good it had been.


  • #93
    Nekarsulm
    Registered Users Posts: 11,191 ✭✭✭✭Nekarsulm


    "That they may face the rising son" was so depressingly true to life that I recognised a half a dozen neighbours in the main character.
    I read "The Wasp Factory " as a 12 year old and it stayed with me for years as a kind of low level disturbed imagery.


  • #94
    lbc2019
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,291 ✭✭✭lbc2019


    Ann and Barry- slippery slope


  • #95
    New Home
    Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,342 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    lbc2019 wrote: »
    Ann and Barry- slippery slope

    Surely that was Jack and Jill. :pac:


  • #96
    lbc2019
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,291 ✭✭✭lbc2019


    New Home wrote: »
    Surely that was Jack and Jill. :pac:

    That wasn't a book dude!


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  • #97
    New Home
    Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,342 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    Well, it was IN a book... :P


  • #98
    Klonker
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Klonker


    Corruptedmorals wrote:
    Catcher in the Rye. I couldn't even finish it I hated it so much. A character has never before or since provoked such hatred levels as that sanctimonious pretentious pre-tumblr knob did.

    You're just being a big phoney :P


  • #99
    Klonker
    Registered Users Posts: 1,667 ✭✭✭Klonker


    The Hobbit.

    It's a children's book. If I read it as a child I might have liked it but just feels very childish reading as an adult.


  • #100
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    MrMusician18 wrote: »
    "Will the real Gerry Ryan please stand up"

    He was quite pompous in it. And it wasn't the whole story; biggest foible he admitted to was being a clean freak. Hmm...

    Well, he did clean a lot of mirrors with his nose...


  • #101
    Day Lewin
    Registered Users Posts: 4,604 ✭✭✭Day Lewin


    kunst nugget wrote: »
    Well, he did clean a lot of mirrors with his nose...

    He WHAT? How, how?


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  • #102
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    Day Lewin wrote: »
    He WHAT? How, how?

    Well, there'd be a lot of white dust on them and he'd roll up a fiver to help him suck the dust up his nose until the mirrors were spotless.


  • #103
    lbc2019
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,291 ✭✭✭lbc2019


    Day Lewin wrote: »
    He WHAT? How, how?

    with bill.


  • #104
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,230 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    Gravelly wrote: »

    As a father, I found The Road extremely depressing.

    As a reader, I found it irritatating. Not the story. The ending. Why not 10 pages earlier, or 10000 pages later?

    Which is the point of the story, I suppose...


  • #105
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    Irish Guitarist wrote: »
    Left Behind. The plot was bad enough to begin with but it's also incredibly badly explained. There's one paragraph where a woman offers someone a lift home. He says no thanks. in the next sentence he's getting out of her car and thanking her for the lift. It completely skips any mention of him changing his mind about taking the lift from her.

    That's just one example. The book is full of things that make no sense. I think I only read about a third of it before I couldn't take any more.

    You do know the intended audience believes thatbstuff is going to heppen?


  • #106
    pleas advice
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,492 ✭✭✭pleas advice


    Moby Dick


  • #107
    Duchamp
    Registered Users Posts: 313 ✭✭Duchamp


    A couple:

    'A Child Called It' by Dave Pelzer - an autobiography of his experiences of child abuse at the hands of his mother, and 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' by Dee Brown - laying out the treatment of Native Americans in the 19th Century.

    Both heart breaking reads, I'll never forget passages from either of them. I don't think I could ever read 'A Child Called It' again


  • #108
    Gimme A Pound
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,482 ✭✭✭Gimme A Pound


    Yeah The Road left me feeling so empty - I knew it would be grim but crikey... Don't regret reading it though.


  • #109
    Gimme A Pound
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,482 ✭✭✭Gimme A Pound


    Duchamp wrote: »
    'A Child Called It' by Dave Pelzer - an autobiography of his experiences of child abuse at the hands of his mother
    Oh I read an interview with him, which had an accompanying review and summary of the book, references to certain parts etc. Dear God... I couldn't bring myself to read that book as it just seems too horrific, but I got a good gist. That evil woman. :mad:


  • #110
    Posy
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 27,523 Mod ✭✭✭✭Posy


    'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry. A great book set during The Emergency in India. Well written, good plot, well-rounded characters.

    -For one thing, there is a disturbing scene of murder/torture that stayed with me for a good while after reading it.
    -Also, just nothing can ever go right for the characters in this book- they are just downtrodden people being kicked when they're down over and over again.
    I thought the characters were well developed and got drawn into the tapestry of their story- I found myself rooting for them and finished the book with a general aura of sadness and dissatisfaction.

    Excellent book, but depressed the hell out of me.


  • #111
    Duchamp
    Registered Users Posts: 313 ✭✭Duchamp


    Meadow Gorgeous Comet wrote: »
    Oh I read an interview with him, which had an accompanying review and summary of the book, references to certain parts etc. Dear God... I couldn't bring myself to read that book as it just seems too horrific, but I got a good gist. That evil woman. :mad:

    Yeh, it's utterly brutal. Not only his mothers abuse, but his father not intervening. He eventually got out of the situation, but one bit that sticks in my mind, is him realising later that he was the lucky one, as his younger siblings were left in the situation and caught the abuse when he was no longer there.


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  • #112
    DEFTLEFTHAND
    Registered Users Posts: 16,500 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    Joseph O'Connor, Redemption Falls.

    Such a disappointing follow up to the epic Star of the Sea.


  • #113
    TheRepentent
    Registered Users Posts: 1,082 ✭✭✭TheRepentent


    Meadow Gorgeous Comet wrote: »
    Yeah The Road left me feeling so empty - I knew it would be grim but crikey... Don't regret reading it though.
    All his books are like that..Blood Meridian was brutal ,viciously violent and written in a very weird style. Not one character had any redeeming traits.


  • #114
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    A few books left me messed up for a short time but in the long run I was very glad to have read them. The most obvious of these was The Naked Lunch which does a good job of making you view humanity as nothing more than producers of sh*t, semen, piss and vomit - but in the long run that book and many books from the "Beat Generation" formed in me a core of hope for humanity in contrast to the content.

    Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy just - change me I think. It is just a light comedy book really but it instilled in me a view of how ludicrous life and people - and most of their concerns and agendas and motivations - actually are. Not sure I "regret" reading it as such but I often wonder would my view of the world be much more settled without it.

    Funny most of the books listed on the thread I actually quite liked and never regretted, from the road, to Moby Dick, to Catcher in the Rye. I think often _when_ you read a book is important though. The Catcher in the Rye for example I am glad I read when I was a teenager. Do not think I would appreciate it now. The Road I am glad came to me when I was myself an adult and a parent. Would not have appreciated it as much as a teen or college student.

    As for Moby Dick - I want to re-read that one. But I am waiting for Patrick Stewart to do the audio book.


  • #115
    Eggs For Dinner
    Registered Users Posts: 2,935 ✭✭✭Eggs For Dinner


    Meadow Gorgeous Comet wrote: »
    Yeah The Road left me feeling so empty - I knew it would be grim but crikey... Don't regret reading it though.

    The Road is literally the only book that I wasn't able to put down until I had finished it. Unreal reading experience


  • #116
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    mariaalice wrote: »
    Not because it was dreadful but because it was disturbing, toying with reading If This Is a Man Survival in Auschwitz) is a memoir by Italian Jewish writer Primo Levi.
    Read it, it's my favorite book. It's rough at times but well worth it. Everyone should read it.


  • #117
    facehugger99
    Registered Users Posts: 7,206 ✭✭✭facehugger99


    The World According to Garp by Irving.

    Pretentious twaddle where every character is annoying as fcuk.


  • #118
    daheff
    Registered Users Posts: 5,833 ✭✭✭daheff


    The Hobbit. well cant claim to have'read' the book.... got about halfway and gave up. so much sh*te & waffle..... with some kinda story hidden in there.

    put me off watching the films


  • #119
    Day Lewin
    Registered Users Posts: 4,604 ✭✭✭Day Lewin


    daheff wrote: »
    The Hobbit. well cant claim to have'read' the book.... got about halfway and gave up. so much sh*te & waffle..... with some kinda story hidden in there.

    put me off watching the films

    The film is nothing like the story.

    "The Hobbit" is a children's book, originally written by the author for his own kids, bit by bit. A light-hearted book, with some funny scenes, talking animals etc. And a serious plot twist too.

    When Jackson had finished making "Lord of the Rings" he must have decided that the public love battles like video-games!
    - so, why doesn't he make a film of the Hobbit, like a Prequel, and simply fill it with video-game battles that go on and on and ON?
    It was a terrible film that I regret paying money for: but the original book should be viewed as a kid's story-book; fresh and innocent.


  • #120
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Ah I just remembered the Spellsinger books. Remember thinking after it "What kind of thinly veiled tribute to bestiality sex did I just read". Not _bad_ books per se. Just the author has some seriously messed up stuff going on.


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  • #121
    The J Stands for Jay
    Registered Users Posts: 5,650 ✭✭✭The J Stands for Jay


    The Pheasant2 wrote: »
    Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

    Was initially absorbed by the premise and the setting. Over a thousand pages later and the whole thing was poorly written with predictable plot and paper thin characters.

    May have to revise my rule of always seeing a book out to the end for tomes >1000 pages in the future.

    Read the blurb just now. Nope. Wouldn't even entertain starting to read this.


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