# What books have been recommended to you that make you go meh? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 8, 2011, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330 "2011-11-08T23:59:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/61 "2011-11-09T21:05:53Z")
I love **A Confederacy of Dunces** , but I have learned to stop recommending it to others. I am 0-for-3 in that regard. I am surprised nobody has mentioned **The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo**. This is my entry; I give it 4 ‘meh’s’. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/62 "2011-11-09T21:19:03Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > I am surprised nobody has mentioned **The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo**. This is my entry; I give it 4 ‘meh’s’. I started to read it once and put it aside indefinitely. But my friend claims it starts slow but gets really good. But didn’t the author die without finishing the series and answering all the questions, or something? Because that made me hesitant to get started on it too. I’m not interested in another “Lost” experience! ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/63 "2011-11-09T21:28:06Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Oh, and can you say deux ex machina? I’m not sure that I can. Deus ex machina (“God from a machine”), yes. “Deux ex machina” would mean “two from a machine,” and I don’t think I would ever say that, unless I just won a very small jackpot. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/64 "2011-11-09T21:28:41Z")
Philip Roth’s **When She Was Good** was recommended to me, and the recommender said, “The whole time you’re reading this, you’ll be thinking about the main character, _Aaarrrgh, why are **doing** that?! Stop ruining everything for yourself!_” Which…you know…is like the last possible thing I want to be thinking when I read a book. I can’t stand being frustrated by a story. So I started reading it, trying to forget what my friend had told me, and when I wasn’t grabbed after the first chapter I put it down. Why force myself to read further when it’s going to make me feel even worse than being bored feels? ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/65 "2011-11-09T21:40:08Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > I didn’t like _The Devil in the White City_. I thought it was padded. He had a good idea and not enough to fill it, so he just kept writing. THANK YOU. This is what I came in this thread to say. People on here were raving about this book, so I bought it. I don’t know how you take a subject like that and make it so insufferably boring. Oh yeah, yes I do. You fill the entire book with long-winded descriptions of old cookbooks and entire restaurant menus. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/66 "2011-11-09T21:51:10Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > I’m not sure that I can. Deus ex machina (“God from a machine”), yes. “Deux ex machina” would mean “two from a machine,” and I don’t think I would ever say that, unless I just won a very small jackpot. Haha, two shay. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/67 "2011-11-09T22:07:44Z")
Except I don’t think ‘deux’ is Latin for two (or anything at all in Latin AFAIK). ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/68 "2011-11-10T14:49:19Z")
If you go in expecting _Water for Elephants_ to be a beach read, you won’t be disappointed (much). I thought it was an excellent idea for a movie, although I haven’t seen it. It was short on substance but had some exciting visuals. I hope they dropped the nursing-home parts from the movie because they wouldn’t add anything at all — and didn’t add much to the book. For perspective, my teenage daughter liked it a lot, so think of it as something written on that age level. Also, there is some hanky-panky, whoever was wondering if their sixth grader should read it. I read _Roots_ when I was in the sixth grade, which has a pretty brutal rape scene in it, but I realize not every kid is me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/69 "2011-11-10T19:06:19Z")
Another vote for (or is this actually against?) _A Confederacy of Dunces_. Also _Good Omens_. (I’ve read it three times so I can critique fairly. Clearly a mess of a book. Folks, give it up. It’s bad. Stop recommending it.) _The Gone-Away World_. It is literally badly written. Very awkward constructed sentences at times, but not a style choice as other parts don’t have the same weirdness. A straightforward editing job would have turned into a blah, who cares book. So it’s not even that “good”. I have yet to find a person/website that I can rely on in the least to recommend books. With movies and TV shows, I know who to either rely on or at least know how to interpret so I can figure out if I might like it or not. But books seem in a category by themselves in terms of reliable recommendations. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/70 "2011-11-10T19:33:13Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > Except I don’t think ‘deux’ is Latin for two (or anything at all in Latin AFAIK). True. It’s French. I took the liberty of mixing languages. One of my pet peeves is when people pronounce “Deus ex machina” like “DOOS ex machine-ah.” And a lot of people do. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/71 "2011-11-10T19:48:09Z")
Death Comes For The Archbishop, Willa Cather. Didn’t come soon enough for me. Why on Earth my mother thought I’d want to read a plotless book about the wanderings (and boy do I mean wanderings) of a Jesuit priest trying to establish missions in the recently annexed New Mexico Territories I will never know. I think she was punishing me for making her read McTeague. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330/72 "2011-11-11T00:58:18Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > I’m with **Blackberry**. I actually bought it on the Kindle, and even though it was only $3, I feel ripped off. Totally dull, pedestrian book, with a side of animal cruelty thrown in. Blech. Thank you for this assessment. I’d heard of it and as I have an extreme fondness (dare I say fetish?) for elephants, I’d considered reading it. I thought it might have elephant abuse in it, which was why I hadn’t read it already. Thanks for verifying my suspicions and letting me know that I do NOT want to read it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-books-have-been-recommended-to-you-that-make-you-go-meh/602330.md?page=3)