My Most Irritating Read Ever — Let’s Rage Together!

[Gormagon]

Now hildea seems to think I'm some kind of misogynistic person, I suppose.
Anyway...the book in question was "Spread Me" by Sarah Gailey. I only made it through the first twenty pages or so.

Regarding Goodreads I've just read a press release about a paper about the ratings on this website. And it's the usual gibberish one would expect from the "Center for Humanities Computing and the Center for Contemporary Cultures of Text".
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1111632
DOI: 10.17175/sb006_002
Published in "Zeitschrift für digitale Geisteswissenschaften" which sounds like something about ghosts (Geister).

"The Gilded Chain" sounds not like a book for me. I don't like fantasy, magic, kings et cetera.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

Now hildea seems to think I'm some kind of misogynistic person, I suppose.
Anyway...the book in question was "Spread Me" by Sarah Gailey. I only made it through the first twenty pages or so.

You picked up a book by _Sarah Gailey_ and you're upset that it had nonbinary and queer characters in it?

Hilarious.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by rowe

Open by Andre Agassi.

As a keen tennis player growing up, Agassi was my hero. That made this read all the more painful. The whole book is him whingeing about how much he hates the sport that gave him everything.

It feels incredibly ungrateful. He is consistently insulting towards the organisations and people that supported him, yet spends pages bigging up his own charity work, which came across as entirely self-serving.

By the end of the book I deeply disliked him and wished I'd never read it.

Oh, I liked that one. Maybe it's because I'm not much of a fan of tennis.

[Gormagon]

Originally Posted by meeera

You picked up a book by _Sarah Gailey_ and you're upset that it had nonbinary and queer characters in it?

I never heard of the author before, I just got the epub from some obscure website after looking at the cover and reading a short summary. But now I'm warned to never touch anything from this author again.

[rantanplan]

I usually don't DNF books. The Circle by Dave Eggers was bad enough to be my first DNF. It reads like if someone watched The Social Network and thought, I'm going to write a novel but it'll be ridiculously shallow and everything is just a low hanging fruit reference.

Another book I wished I had DNF'd is Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman by John Morris. I think it was free at some point and I thought it was a reimagening of the Jack the Ripper killer but no, it's a book by two hobbyists who claimed to have solved the serial killings claiming it was a woman. And I continued reading it because I hoped that they'd really make a point but they just rambled and rambled.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

Now hildea seems to think I'm some kind of misogynistic person, I suppose.
Anyway...the book in question was "Spread Me" by Sarah Gailey. I only made it through the first twenty pages or so.

The title wasn't a clue for you? It's one thing to not read books on certain topics because you don't agree with the lifestyle or don't like the genre. It's another to blast a book for bad writing, just because you made a mistake in picking the book. Avoid those authors of course, but don't disparage their writing ability. Especially if you've only read 20 pages.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

The title wasn't a clue for you? It's one thing to not read books on certain topics because you don't agree with the lifestyle or don't like the genre. It's another to blast a book for bad writing, just because you made a mistake in picking the book. Avoid those authors of course, but don't disparage their writing ability. Especially if you've only read 20 pages.

Look, I had the same knee-jerk reaction as you but I don't think we can change someones gender ideology in a forum about book rants

[John F]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

The title wasn't a clue for you? ...

Reading the blurb on Amazon and the title, what do think the title means?

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by John F

Reading the blurb on Amazon and the title, what do think the title means?

I've not read the blurb...just the title in this thread.

[DiapDealer]

Did I read a book/story by Sarah Gailey about hippopotamuses?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Did I read a book/story by Sarah Gailey about hippopotamuses?

To answer my own question: yes. Yes I did. I do not recall being annoyed.

[kandwo]

My most frustrating read - not only because of the actual book, but mostly because of the love it receives - is Frankenstein.

Both of the main the characters act like 5 year olds on cocaine. And had hothead Frankenstein spent a single second of his life on reflection there would have been no bad consequences: either he would not have gone through with his experiment or he would have behaved more humanly towards his monster.

It tries to answer the question "should man play God". Debating that question on your own is more rewarding than reading the book.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

Now hildea seems to think I'm some kind of misogynistic person, I suppose.

I did accuse you of that, and it was unwarranted. I apologise. I disagree very strongly with you about gender, but that doesn't justify me implying you are a misogyinist.

Anyway...the book in question was "Spread Me" by Sarah Gailey.

Thanks! I've read a short story by Gailey. I took a look at their novels, and will check out the hippo one.

Regarding Goodreads I've just read a press release about a paper about the ratings on this website.

I never found the ratings there very useful. I'm using Storygraph a bit, but mostly I find books through reviews and recommendations from people who I've found to have similar taste to me.

"The Gilded Chain" sounds not like a book for me. I don't like fantasy, magic, kings et cetera.

Looking at the description of "Spread me" -- you might like T.Kingfisher's "What moves the dead". It's a retelling Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", very well written.

Originally Posted by What moves the dead

Given that lack of imagination, perhaps you will forgive me when I say that the whole place felt like a hangover.

What was it about the house and the tarn that was so depressing? Battlefields are grim, of course, but no one questions why. This was just another gloomy lake, with a gloomy house and some gloomy plants. It shouldn’t have affected my spirits so strongly.

Granted, the plants all looked dead or dying. Granted, the windows of the house stared down like eye sockets in a row of skulls, yes, but so what? Actual rows of skulls wouldn’t affect me so strongly. I knew a collector in Paris … well, never mind the details. He was the gentlest of souls, though he did collect rather odd things. But he used to put festive hats on his skulls depending on the season, and they all looked rather jolly.

Usher’s house was going to require more than festive hats. I mounted Hob and urged him into a trot, the sooner to get to the house and put the scene behind me.

(The book has some unexpected use of pronouns, but it's cultural, not biological. The protagonist is from a (fictive) country which has separate pronouns for soldiers (and children, priests and nuns, God, and rocks). So you'd say "he is a man", "she is a woman", and "ka is a soldier".)

[Dr. Drib]

^

I'm not a part of this thread at all, but I was impressed by such a heartfelt, sincere, and beautifully worded apology.

I can learn something by focusing on your words.

[DiapDealer]

I can't think of any specific books that have irritated me. But generally, the books I find irritating are fictional novels that accidentally stumble across real-world subjects (or locations) that I'm intimately familiar with. I find it impossible to continue when their knowledge of these topics and locations have clearly come from very brief forays into research. If you don't want to take the time to get it right, then make up locations instead of trying to use real ones you're unfamiliar with.