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I got halfway through The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, and realized I did not care for any of the characters. I simply didn't like them or was indifferent to them, and I did not care what happened to them. I bailed.
That book was tremendously popular.
I don't care what happened to the painting. Don't bother to tell me. I don't care.
I agree with you. I wasn't that impressed by it at all.
I have a problem with fiction where there is some major factual error that could so easily be checked.
One story I recall had a character who was a suspect in a murder investigation and she was a mountain climber. She wants to leave and head for Nepal because an opening has just come up with a group that is attempting Everest and she can join it. It takes weeks and weeks of time going up and down from camp to camp to get acclimated to the lack of oxygen and one can't simply race up to the highest camp in a day and then attempt to summit.
Another story where a character is pointing out the constellation Orion on a summer night it June. Orion is not visible in June.
I generally can't finish such stories, the errors just bug me too much and I feel that the author is just too lazy to bother with accuracy so why should I bother to finish reading the book.
I have a problem with fiction where there is some major factual error that could so easily be checked.
One story I recall had a character who was a suspect in a murder investigation and she was a mountain climber. She wants to leave and head for Nepal because an opening has just come up with a group that is attempting Everest and she can join it. It takes weeks and weeks of time going up and down from camp to camp to get acclimated to the lack of oxygen and one can't simply race up to the highest camp in a day and then attempt to summit.
Another story where a character is pointing out the constellation Orion on a summer night it June. Orion is not visible in June.
I generally can't finish such stories, the errors just bug me too much and I feel that the author is just too lazy to bother with accuracy so why should I bother to finish reading the book.
I read a detective novel once that was set in Washington, D.C. And one of the characters lived in a row house in Southeast DC. And it gave the street and block number. So I looked up that street and block number on Googles maps and there are no row houses on that block. It's all detached houses. That bugged me but I finished the book anyway because it was a pretty good read.
I have a problem with fiction where there is some major factual error that could so easily be checked.
One story I recall had a character who was a suspect in a murder investigation and she was a mountain climber. She wants to leave and head for Nepal because an opening has just come up with a group that is attempting Everest and she can join it. It takes weeks and weeks of time going up and down from camp to camp to get acclimated to the lack of oxygen and one can't simply race up to the highest camp in a day and then attempt to summit.
Another story where a character is pointing out the constellation Orion on a summer night it June. Orion is not visible in June.
I generally can't finish such stories, the errors just bug me too much and I feel that the author is just too lazy to bother with accuracy so why should I bother to finish reading the book.
Yes, this happens to me too. Recently I read a book set in 1815 where they get married and the bride walks down the aisle to Mendelssohn's "Wedding March", which wasn't written until 1842. I find things like that sloppy on both the author's part and the editor's part. We have Google now; there is no excuse.
I also hate when that happens in movies. I remember a football movie set in South Carolina, and during the opening game, all the spectators are wearing winter gear . Ever been in SC in August? . I know it has to do with when they filmed it, but errors like these make the story less believable.
The Death of Grass/No Blade of Grass. I liked the premise of a virus killing all the grain crops: wheat, corn, rice, etc. Everything except the end worked.
I gave "Infinite Jest" a serious attempt and just couldn't get more than a quarter of the way through it before I thought, "I don't care what a great reputation this book has; there are too many books I would ENJOY reading to spend any more time on this one."
Imagine my delight when this humorous Shouts and Murmurs column appeared in the New Yorker recently:
HaHa oh me! I started reading this thread and on the first page was all the talk of James F. Cooper. Yeah. That was my choice: Last of the Mohicans. Last time I tried to read that book was the last time I tried it. First and last. I've read thousands of books, probably go through 15-16 books a month and some of them pretty long ones. I can read practically anything.
I picked up that book and honestly couldn't get through the first page. It sounded like gobbly-**** to me - as if I was reading another language. Couldn't make sense of it. It's been bothering me ever since. Why is it so difficult? It wasn't vocabulary, I don't know just what, I just couldn't understand it. Of all the books I schlep home from the library, this is the only one I ever took back with less than 2 pages read!
Last edited by Pat Answers; 11-24-2018 at 06:22 PM..
I wouldn’t say it was the most disappointing book I’ve read, but it certainly failed to deliver on the hype and my expectations for an award-winning John Steinbeck work.
I was expecting a deep, insightful, intimate travelogue of what made Americans and America tick in the early 1960s. Aside from a few interesting historical bits here and there, it was more filled with inane fluff such as what he ate, where he parked his sleeper car, and a lot about his dog’s health issues.
A shame, because it started off on a good note and had a lot of potential. But you could feel him getting burnt out on traveling as he drove further across the country, and this was reflected in his writings.
I gave "Infinite Jest" a serious attempt and just couldn't get more than a quarter of the way through it before I thought, "I don't care what a great reputation this book has; there are too many books I would ENJOY reading to spend any more time on this one."
Imagine my delight when this humorous Shouts and Murmurs column appeared in the New Yorker recently:
Location: Lakewood NJ/Murrells Inlet SC/ N. Naples FL/Swainton NJ
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I cannot say that it is the most disappointing book I have ever read, but the most recent: The first Outlander book. While not terrible, it was a disappointment based on all the hype generated by the "America Reads" show on PBS. I was expecting to love it but did not. I have no desire to continue the series.......
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. Ever been in SC in August? 
. I know it has to do with when they filmed it, but errors like these make the story less believable.
