I was about 15 or so when I loved it, and then I loved Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah a few years later and loved it. Then I read a couple of his next books- One and Bridge Across Forever and realized “this guy is full of shit”.
What was more amazing was when I read about the man himself. He was married and had six kids when he left his wife to “find himself” and was a deadbeat dad for several years. He had essentially no contact with his family for many years and when his daughter was killed in a car wreck he wrote a “sympathy” card to his other kids saying something New Agey like ‘I know it is hard for you but it is a choice her soul made before she was born so she could advance’ or some other such nonsense. Also, Illusions was a novel- he referred to it as a novel in the book itself and in his next book- and then he began referring to it as non-fiction.
I just finished listening to Abducted, which I’d downloaded from the library. Wow, was that bad. Wow. The thing is that the basic premise is really good, if not a little outlandish and overdone. But it was as if the book were written by a 2nd grader. Literally. I only finished it beacuse it was the only book I had on my Ipod for the duration of my trip. The audiobook performer should get a Grammy for not bursting out into laughter every other sentence.
Terry Goodkind would like a word with you all! “Hissing, hackles lifting, the chicken’s head rose. Kahlan pulled back. Its claws digging into stiff dead flesh, the chicken slowly turned to face her. It cocked its head, making its comb flop, its wattles sway. “Shoo,” Kahlan heard herself whisper. There wasn’t enough light, and besides, the side of its beak was covered with gore, so she couldn’t tell if it had the dark spot, But she didn’t need to see it. “Dear spirits, help me,” she prayed under her breath. The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People’s chickens. But this was no chicken. This was evil manifest.”-- Soul of the Fire
He has been known to say its not his favorite - and not because of the fatwa, just because he doesn’t think its very good. I heard him speak and he addressed the whole fatwa thing. I think it was something like “if they were going to kill me, it would have been nice had they picked one of my good books.”
Letter to Nicholas or some such for me. And yeah, it does take my estimation of a person down a peg. Like my co-workers saying how much they are looking forward to seeing The Blind Side. Oh god, a thousand times no.
Maybe the movie will turn out better than the book, although with sappy books, that hardly ever happens; they just come out sappier. The Godfather was a pretty bad book that was a far better movie, of course. With no sap.
Oooo…excellent point. I loved Twilight, even though I knew it was a pretty crappy story. But it just flew by, and I got the whole series. I can’t say I didn’t like it.
But I also reread the VC Andrews books a few times a year, so take my opinion for what it’s worth
I nominate *Dreamcatcher *by Stephen King. Not only is it the only King book I never reread, but the only one I’ve never been able to finish.
I also agree on Dean Koontz, but I strongly disagree on Grisham and Crichton. I loved Timeline. Never could finish Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil. And The Deep End of the Ocean…yechhhhh…totally unlikeable characters in that one.
I’ve never read any of Thomas Harris’s books, but I remember seeing this one in a bookstore and picking it up to look at. I learned from the dust jacket that it features a Japanese character named Lady Murasaki Shikibu, which is enough to make me want to continue never reading any of Harris’s books.
For those of you unfamiliar with Japanese history or literature, naming a 20th century Japanese character “Murasaki Shikibu” is like naming a 20th century Englishman “William Shakespeare”. Actually it’s even worse than that, because the historic Murasaki Shikibu (also known in English as Lady Murasaki) wasn’t even really named Murasaki Shikibu. Her real name is lost to history. “Murasaki” was a nickname. “Shikibu” isn’t a family name, it’s a title taken from her father’s position at court. So on top of everything else, naming a character Lady Murasaki Shikibu is basically naming her Lady Murasaki Lady.
“A Walk To Remember” - by one Nicholas Sparks. A relative handed it to me, said “You must read this book. You MUST!!!” I did. WTF? Is it just me? A movie was made. It’s right up there on Amazon.com’s popular list. It is inexplicably popular with my relative, and women in general, I guess. Why??? What a stupid, sappy, dopey waste of time!
Alice Hoffman’s output has been going steadily downhill for years now, and that’s a shame, “Practical Magic” was supremely entertaining. I quit after “The River King”, which was so offensively bad as to defy description. It was just VILE.
That wouldn’t be Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas, would it? Where the dying mother leaves a diary for her baby, a diary that includes fairly detailed descriptions of how and when she and baby’s father made love for the first time? Stupid book.
Harry Potter books aren’t really that long. They have lots of pages because the margins are huge and the lines are far apart. Kind of like when some student writes a school paper and makes the text really big with extra-large margins so it will fill up more pages. It doesn’t take very long to actually read one of those books–they just look long.
I like this thread. Now I know what not to read. I don’t see how a book with an evil chicken could be bad, but apparently it is possible.
The Alchemist. What a load of sappy self-important rubbish. I felt like it was desperately trying to be simple yet profound in the way of The Little Prince yet only succeeded in being utterly twee. When someone at the academy I work at put in in the “Modern Classics” syllabus I was disgusted. The first thing I did when I was promoted was to get rid of that silly book.
