The Most Disappointing Books
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
One of the topics I discussed in my last post was about the lost art of being a hater. I have avoided negatively critiquing books on my blog for a few years, but I feel it's time to start exercising that muscle once again.
The online book community, both professional and amateur, has slid towards cheerleading books instead of critiquing them. It may be because publishers want to sell more books and urge reviewers to give positive takes. It may be because the BookTok comment section will crucify a creator who hates on their favorite book. It may be because it feels like the internet is full of negativity and it's better to add content that is hopeful and optimistic (I definitely have let this last reason influence what I choose to write about on this website).
However, thoughtful and nuanced criticism is vital, especially in our world of hot takes and quick judgments. Not only is it important because criticism is essential to a healthy democracy, but being able to tactfully break down why something doesn't work or is problematic helps hold people accountable and even make their work better. Being praised for my writing and ideas on this blog is wonderful, but I have found that the criticism or challenges I receive have helped me better discern my own opinions, and pushed me to make my writing more clear, accessible, and thoughtful.
So, here are critiques of books that disappointed me --- or in the case of the last book, one that I want to publicly denounce.
This is an example of a book I was genuinely excited to pick up because I loved the author's earlier work. I've written about The Silent Patient a few times on my blog, and it's still a thriller recommendation I give when someone wants to be engrossed by a book.
It's always fascinating to me to have such different feelings towards individual books in an author's body of work. There have certainly been many cases where I enjoyed one book by an author and was tepid on the rest, but this is one of the only times where I loved one book, and was then completely flabbergasted by the drop in quality in another. Especially considering The Fury is Michaelides’ most recent release --- hypothetically, I would hope an author's work improves over time.
The Fury is another thriller, set on a Greek island, involving movie stars, betrayal, and murder. My main issue is the unoriginality of the plot and characters. Compared to his first novel, this feels like an amateur's first crack at writing a thriller. The characters are one-dimensional, the plot is predictable, and the narration feels like it's pulled straight from The Great Gatsby. The narrator oozes with pretension and promises unexpected turns, yet neither the plot nor his commentary delivers anything but overused tropes.
Perhaps if this was in fact a debut thriller, I might have had more grace, but because I know Michaelides is capable of writing captivating, original stories, I was incredibly disillusioned.
I love Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. I read it for English class when I was 15 and it easily became one of my favorite books of all time. It is one of the rare classics that feels accessible and entertaining yet full of life and depth.
For that reason, I went into Wide Sargasso Sea with curiosity. It is the imagined retelling of Mr. Rochester's mad wife, written by Jean Rhys, who wrote it over 100 years after the original. There is certainly potential to tell a story from the perspective of a female character that was given a lamentable narrative. Literature will often throw in a crazed woman to spice up a plot, without her own backstory or perspective, which can feel disparaging. I personally love to see how and why someone, especially a woman, might fall into madness, so I was intrigued by this story.
However, the execution of this book is severely underwhelming. The story is told through Bertha, renamed to Antoinette for this retelling, as she struggles on a sugar plantation in Jamaica before being married off to Mr. Rochester. There are many heavy themes Rhys added like racism and misogyny, yet none are fully fleshed out or explored, especially because the book is only 176 pages. The sentences are disjointed and often feel dreamlike, and I never felt empathy for or connection to Antoinette despite her circumstances --- she felt flat and unbelievable.
This book is sometimes championed as feat of feminist literature, and while I believe that there were themes and ideas that add important nuance to an unsatisfactory storyline, I was let down by the lack of depth and exploration.
I love a deplorable female character. There is something strangely provocative about getting into the mind of a woman who is actively destroying her life or those around her. Maybe it's because I feel that most women have innate empathy that men can sometimes lack, and so it is fascinating to read a story where a woman either has no empathy or makes hurtful decisions despite it.
Ottessa Moshfegh is known for her complicated, morally grey or even straight evil characters, especially women. My Year of Rest and Relaxation follows an unnamed narrator --- a beautiful, rich, recently orphaned young woman living in New York City in the early 2000s. Surviving on a cocktail of prescription drugs, she stumbles through a year of her life with bitterness, grief, and anger.
I can see why some may have enjoyed this book. There is the slice of feminine rage, the glitz of the city from a different time, and an examination of the kind of power that a beautiful woman can hold in the world. But my god, I could not stand the main character. I felt sympathy for the loss of her parents, but she was incredibly self-centered, narcissistic, and cruel. She had money and resources and was fully capable of changing her circumstances. She treated her best friend poorly, manipulated people out of boredom, and had the kind of toxicity that comes from privilege and pedigree, which I found boring and uninteresting.
I did enjoy Moshfegh's writing so there is still a chance I will pick up another one of her books, but I can only hope those characters will have more intriguing reasons for me to be inside their heads.
If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you'll know that John Green is one of my favorite authors. Him and his brother, Hank Green, have been internet personalities for almost 20 years, creating incredible online content from Vlogbrothers to Crash Course. Hank Green has developed his own online following catered towards science education, and I love the way he explains complicated topics. He’s come under fire recently for using AI to help him research his YouTube videos, but we don't have time to get into that now (I will say I believe some of his fans overreacted to him using AI).
Since Hank Green already had a huge online following, and his brother is known for his popular books, I'm sure publishers thought that whatever book they could get out of Hank would be a slam dunk.
An Absolutely Unremarkable Thing is a science fiction story that combines alien robots with the consequences of viral fame. The idea is actually cool in theory, but unfortunately, I don't think Hank has the same talent for fiction writing as his brother.
The book is littered with internet speak, the plot feels disorganized, the main character rambles, and the science aspect is severely lacking (which is nuts considering science is Hank's strong suit). Despite a creative storyline, the meat of the book could not live up its potential. And the crazy thing is, that is perfectly okay --- just because someone might be an incredible communicator or writer in one area, does not mean they will be or should be amazing in another area.
Hank announced he is writing a nonfiction book about the mechanics of cancer, and I have no doubt I will pick that one up once its published --- but I won't consume more of his fiction work.
I have purposefully avoided mentioning this book on my website ever since I read it at the beginning of 2024. It is one of the most problematic books I have ever come across, and I didn't want to give it more attention than it already gets. But I knew that if I began exercising my literary critiquing muscles again, I had to discuss this novel.
A Little Life is extremely popular, both in terms of reach but also prevailing opinion. It has an average 4.26 rating on Goodreads with over 1,000,000 reviews. That's insane. And it is precisely for this reason that I need to pan it --- I fear the general readership did not properly discern just how damaging this book is.
The novel centers around four college best friends living in New York City --- Willem, JB, Malcolm and Jude. The story spans decades and weaves together the lives of these men until the back half of the book, which mainly centers on Jude.
I want to give credit where credit is due --- this is a beautifully written book. Yanagihara is a prolific writer. Her pose is beautiful, her characters are multi-dimensional, and she has a knack for drawing emotion out of her readers. The story had so much potential.
However, those feats could never make up for the awful exploitation of trauma for shock and awe. I have heard this book called 'The Great American Gay Novel.' And my god, does that feel like a slap in the face to the LGBTQ+ community and anyone who has faced trauma and grief. Jude, who is gay, suffers the most unbelievable, gratuitous abuse one could ever imagine --- from childhood all the way through death. Every time it feels like the worst had happened, Yanagihara inflicts even more anguish upon Jude, and then goes in on the other characters later in the book. Most of Jude’s awful circumstances are a consequence of or connected to his queerness. People have said this book made them cry more than any other, but after about 400 pages (and this book clocks in at 736 pages of misery), my empathy disappeared. I was appalled. This book no longer existed in any kind of reality. And I understand that most fiction requires a suspension of belief, but when a story is dealing with such heavy topics that real people go through, and with the understanding that this is supposed to reflect the real, modern world, it needs to have nuance. It needs to have depth. It needs to have joy.
Because the thing is, the LGBTQ+ community is full of joy. And trauma survivors are able to heal because they choose not to be defined by those experiences. Going through hardship and cruelty yet finding resilience is part of their stories. These communities are overflowing with love and hope. And of course, some people aren't able to escape the darkness, but if a novel is about the friendship between queer people, their support of one another, and how people with trauma are able to continue on, it needs to include this joy. It needs to at least have glimpses of reprieve, of possibility, of tenderness.
Yanagihara famously boasted that she did no research for this novel --- she herself is not part of the LGBTQ+ community nor did she ask others about their experiences being queer in America. And I can concede that not every piece of fiction needs research but with one made up almost entirely of pain, sexual and emotional abuse, and grief, it feels disrespectful to portray the gay community, and any survivors of trauma, in this way.
For an incredibly thorough and thoughtful critique on this book from someone who is actually a queer man, I highly recommend this video.
A Little Life is one of the reasons we need to think more critically about the literature we consume. It is a book that demands scrutiny because of the themes it explores and exploits. Just because it is beautifully written does not mean it is virtuous. Just because it is full of trauma and pain does not mean it is cerebral. Just because it makes someone cry does not mean it is worthy of those tears. As readers, we should recognize and denounce when trauma is being weaponized to manipulate our emotions. We should question our reactions and interpretations, especially when doing so reveals a lack of humanity, depth, and nuance that is essential to a story about friendship and connection.
If you have any takes you want to share, especially if you disagree with mine, I would love to hear them. Feel free to email me at brianasbookshelf@gmail.com.
Happy reading, y'all.
Comments