Books you SHOULDN'T like but DO!!!

[LittleMissy]

Okay, so GrantG started a thread about the books you SHOULD like but DON'T...

I was just wondering if there was, to you, a book you feel you SHOULDN'T like but, in fact, DO like... Is there something you tried, expecting the worse, and then became hooked?!

Discuss



P.S. I'm asking purely from a curiosity point of view... there are always films, or music, that you're sure you wouldn't/shouldn't like and then when you give it a chance, you do! So, I was just wondering if the same held true for books!

 

[Mouse]

You know, I don't think there is. I think with books you don't even bother reading them unless you think you'll like them, do you? I can think of films/music that I shouldn't like but do, but books?

I guess I shouldn't like The Picture of Dorian Gray as it's old and I always thought I wouldn't like old books.

Gah, I'm sorry, that's a rubbish answer. (I knew I'd love Dorian Gray, it's by Oscar Wilde!)

 

[soulsinging]

Kind of a guilty pleasures thing? I'd imagine that to most of the world at large every book mentioned in this forum would qualify since fantasy/sci-fi is still somewhat regarded as a guilty pleasure genre a small cut above romance.

By some measures I think Harry Potter would belong here. I think those books are fantastic, esp after the first two. A lot of people here seem to regard them as hack popular fiction though.

 

[Terrible Tempest]

I enjoyed Twilight. There, I said it. It's by no means my usual fare, but I liked it.




Haters gonna hate.

 

[Metryq]

Books that one should like, but do not sounds like an exercise in herd mentality...or the Critic's Corollary to Sturgeon's Law.

But books one shouldn't like, but do sounds like nonsense. Perhaps "books one didn't think one would like, but do" is better?

I can't think of any books that fit this category, but I've found that I like certain movies that I otherwise wouldn't because of the music score. I, Robot is one example. The bit about Sonny having two brains was so illogical that it basically trashes the entire story, yet I liked the movie because of the music.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Well I have to say the modern Dune books by Anderson and Herbert Jr.

Everything about them winds me up, the writing, the obvious money milking of the two authors, the actual stories, the way they treat the fans....

And yet I still can't stop reading the bloody things....

 

[Jade44]

Sharon Green's Jalav Series. Sex and swords. Gotta love it.

 

[Quokka]

How about books that 'they' tell you you shouldn't like

The Davinci Code for me, there are plot holes to drive a truck through and it's historical in the same sense that Star Trek is scientific but I actually was on holidays when I ran out of acceptable reading. It's popcorn literature for the masses and it's also a fun and easy read.

 

[Pyan]

L. Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth...

 

[Perpetual Man]

L. Ron Hubbard - Battlefield Earth...

Well it was better than the film (not that I watched it of course), and it's not as if you read Mission Earth as well...

 

[Pyan]

Thanks for crediting me with some common sense, Perp...

 

[biodroid]

Terry Goodkind - The Wizards First Rule. I read it a few years ago and loved it.

 

[Connavar]

I dont let anyone tell me what books i shouldnt like. I have some guilty pleasures i read for light entertainment. I like those for what they are.

But the books i shouldnt like ARE the ones i dont like because they are weak.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Thanks for crediting me with some common sense, Perp...

I did read it.

Terry Goodkind - The Wizards First Rule. I read it a few years ago and loved it.

I didn't think of those, but it's true I sort of enjoyed it, and the sequels. I'd start to read one, think it was trash, but somehow I'd be enjoying it by the end

 

[biodroid]

Perp - I haven't read the sequels as I heard they start becoming stupid or something.

 

[D_Davis]

At the Mountains of Madness - HPL

I hate, despise, and LOATH infodump.

I hate, despise, and LOATH authors that tell and don't show.

At the Mountains of Madness is basically 70 pages of telling and infodump at it's very, very worse.

But I love it. It's just all so cosmic.

 

[soulsinging]

I enjoyed Twilight. There, I said it. It's by no means my usual fare, but I liked it.

Haters gonna hate.

I want to give you a very sarcastic "thanks a lot" for that link... I must've spent 7 hours putzing around that site yesterday!

 

[soulsinging]

Perp - I haven't read the sequels as I heard they start becoming stupid or something.

Starts to? It's the foundation of scientology... I imagine any stupid was present from the beginning.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Starts to? It's the foundation of scientology... I imagine any stupid was present from the beginning.

I think Biodroid was talking about the Terry Goodkind books, SS, but what you say is true.

The Mission Earth books started of (I don't believe I'm going to say this) quite well, but they degenerated very quickly into sleazy sex tales, and from plumbing the fathoms only got worse after Hubbard died and his wife finished the series. I could not say whether they were the foundation of Scientology - they were written years after Hubbard had founded the uhhh movement. But if they were then I could see no logical basis for any... ah, I see your point.

Biodroid - I stopped reading at about book five of the Goodkind books and they were still okay at that point, but I did hear they got harder going (to be polite) after that point. I've got the last one I bought (book 6) I think, but I'm in no rush to read it.

 

[Jade44]

Terry Goodkind - The Wizards First Rule. I read it a few years ago and loved it.

I don't have a problem with Goodkind's first few books. I think he put a lot of thought and effort into them. But a few quarter million dollar advances later the quality went downhill and he included more and more of his neo-fascist philosophy in each volume.