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Horrible Books (1 Viewer)

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I've read a lot of books from various genres (i.e. Non-Fiction, Fiction, Horror, YA, Romance, etc.)... What tend to make a book suck, for me, wasn't so much prose, as it was characters that kinda suck. Perhaps a book is bad if you can see the plot twists before they occur. But I wonder, for those of you who read fiction, what makes a book bad, in your opinion.
 

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Unrealistic, one-dimensional, or overly perfect characters can ruin a book for me. I tend to prefer character-driven stories, so characters and their developments & conflicts are really important to me.

Characters who are Mary Sues (and their male equivalents), overpowered and able to achieve anything, really annoy me because they are just lazily written (and sometimes a reflection of who the author wants to be).

Likewise, characters who have no purpose but to be evil are not interesting either.
 
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I've read a lot of books from various genres (i.e. Non-Fiction, Fiction, Horror, YA, Romance, etc.)... What tend to make a book suck, for me, wasn't so much prose, as it was characters that kinda suck. Perhaps a book is bad if you can see the plot twists before they occur. But I wonder, for those of you who read fiction, what makes a book bad, in your opinion.
Characters i can not connect with.
Some are just lost in the weeds and forget the story they want to tell.
I have very popular books that i consider bad.
GoT book 1 was so awful it took me 4 tries to finish. I wikied the rest.
magnus chase went off the rails as sis Apollo. Soured me on RR as a whole. Although i would likely pick up a new greek /roman continuation.
the sterling books the first one was ok but i saw no need to continue the series.
 
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Unrealistic, one-dimensional, or overly perfect characters can ruin a book for me. I tend to prefer character-driven stories, so characters and their developments & conflicts are really important to me.

Characters who are Mary Sues (and their male equivalents), overpowered and able to achieve anything, really annoy me because they are just lazily written (and sometimes a reflection of who the author wants to be).

Likewise, characters who have no purpose but to be evil are not interesting either.
I can deal with the op characters in say pre ww2 era stuff, old space opera as that is really the motif. I hate the lazy folks who refuse to write interesting 'good characters and prefer to go the easy deeply flawed being redeemed.
Writing good toons is hard but with effort can be done. I would say Jim Butchers Dresden set is good at that.
 
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GoT book 1 was so awful it took me 4 tries to finish. I wikied the rest.
Honestly, if you read a sentence a day of GoT books, you'd still probably finish before GRRM releases the next volume...
 

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An overly annoying main character tends to kill the book for me. If it was a side character, I can usually deal with it.

Though more commonly, I drop books because of needless romance. Have you ever read a book where a character's sole purpose is to be the mc's love interest and it's obvious from the get go? I hate those characters the most.
 
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I drop books because of needless romance
what qualifies as needless romance?

Have you ever read a book where a character's sole purpose is to be the mc's love interest and it's obvious from the get go?
Honestly, both males in the love-triangle in Twilight seem to have no real purpose outside of fawning over a girl who is described as plain looking, so yeah.
 
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bad books=no attractive boys
 

yeji

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I need to connect with the characters, fall absolutely in love with our protagonist.

A character I fell for was Simon from Simon vs. the homosapien agenda. He was relatable to me and definitely made me sympathize and root for him and his journey.
 

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Though more commonly, I drop books because of needless romance. Have you ever read a book where a character's sole purpose is to be the mc's love interest and it's obvious from the get go? I hate those characters the most.
This one definitely. I've read a book where a character was inserted into the story so that another character wouldn't have to be single (oh ho ho, what a tragedy it is to be single 😩). It just fills the book with filler characters and romances that are irrelevant to the plot.
 
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It just fills the book with filler characters and romances that are irrelevant to the plot.
True. The only time I see that as good would be if the protagonist is a supernatural being and the filler character who is her love interest is mortal and its forbidden or against social mores of such supernatural society to be involved with mortals and it causes personal growth for the protagonist; or a similar situation, but still that would make the other character more of a plot device and it is a pet peeve of mine when characters are used as plot devices and treated like sh*t or ignored through the rest of the plot.
 

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what qualifies as needless romance?
I'd say needless romance is when the romance isn't the main point of the story and is actually just a subplot. A lot of books have them and they can be fun to read about, but not if it's badly written and doesn't fit into the rest of the plot.
 
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what qualifies as needless romance?


Honestly, both males in the love-triangle in Twilight seem to have no real purpose outside of fawning over a girl who is described as plain looking, so yeah.
Twilight was awful to me i did not get past the first trip to what ever the bigger city was. She was so unlikeable i just did not care.
 
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Twilight was awful to me i did not get past the first trip to what ever the bigger city was. She was so unlikeable i just did not care.
Port Angeles, I believe it was called. . . You would really have loved the second book then where she spends half of it moping about her true love leaving her and having hallucinations of him whenever she does reckless sh*t.
 
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Oh Bad world building. Although this can be super subjective (a good friend though hunger games was just to unbelievable and could not stay with it. yet he loved the battle royal movie.) I tend to real really long works, so i want an interesting world.

Really derivative work although that can be fun to pick apart :)

Also i do not deal well with 4th wall breaks like say james patterson or the series of UF events type deals. I do not like to be dropped out of the immersion.
 
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Oh Bad world building. Although this can be super subjective (a good friend though hunger games was just to unbelievable and could not stay with it. yet he loved the battle royal movie.) I tend to real really long works, so i want an interesting world.

Really derivative work although that can be fun to pick apart :)

Also i do not deal well with 4th wall breaks like say james patterson or the series of UF events type deals. I do not like to be dropped out of the immersion.
Wheel of time sucks
 

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Irritating characters, and especially over-detailed books. Sure detailed books are nice, but things that are overly-detailed are boring, stretched out, and give people headaches.

Ex.

Everyone that read this in middle school is depressed now
38202
 
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