hi everyone. Today I'm talking about another top 5 Wednesday topic and I will
link the goodreads group down below so that you can see the topics and the
other members and such. This week's topic is books that you disliked but you
love to discuss. Now, I have to mention that I don't think I necessarily love
discussing these ones under all circumstances because I feel
like the kind of things that we discuss in book sometimes are more about the
content of the book and how it's handled rather than about how it's written and the
characters and how good or bad it is so sometimes it can get kind of stressful
to discuss things that have a lot of relevance in our real lives. I would say
I like talking negatively about these books in a way because I feel like maybe
people don't usually talk badly about these books. Well most of these are
books that people don't talk badly about. Number one is a very obvious choice but
you'll see um and I like when you know you didn't expect people to agree with
you and suddenly they do. So the first one I will actually have
these being a real top 5 rather than just a list because my previous
top 5 Wednesdays have not been really like five-four-three-two-one
but this one is so. The first one, number five, is a classic
and it is Bram Stoker's Dracula. The thing with this book and I have probably
spoken about this before but the thing with this book and these kind of old
science fiction or supernatural books is that I think that at the time they
were trying really hard to be very realistic. For example this one has
it is in chapters but it's taken from journals and letters and
that sort of thing and that makes it really... you know the way that people just
go on and on about things I don't think it really translates well to a
story like this one so, I know that a lot of people do love this book but I really
like talking about how I don't think this format was ideal for for this type
of book. The same thing happens for example with Frankenstein although I do
I do like Frankenstein much more than I like this one. Yeah it ended up making
this reading much less interesting I do like the story but I can tell you for
example if you watch a play based on this story you will get much more
enjoyment out of it than if you were to actually read the book, I think. That's
like a gothic classic so I feel really rebellious saying that I don't like it.
The next one is one that I don't own anymore. I used to own it but I gave it
away to someone that will never give it back to me so it is Kafka On The Shore
by Haruki Murakami. This book has problems, it has many problems. First of
all, and I gave it a first shot okay but I love when people just talk shit about
this book because I couldn't stand it. It's one of the few books that I just
really disliked to the point that I couldn't finish it. I was able to read
about 2/3 of the story and then I started skim reading it I mean I
couldn't really finish it and I didn't care really, I felt the characters were all
too... they were either flat or unspecial um or like I mean they weren't special
but you could tell that the author was trying to make them super special
and they seemed pretty much like all the same character to me over and over and
there was like a couple - there was like this part in which it really... I mean I
wasn't liking the book in the first place
because I don't like the writing style and a couple of things and I don't
like the way that this author um... I don't like his take on surrealism
I read this book because it was hailed as this just surrealist masterpiece
and I think that I like to surrealist stuff um and absurdist reads and that
sort of thing but I think that this was too random and I don't think it's the
same thing being surrreal and being random but aside from that there was this part
that really left a really bad taste in my mouth
where there was a scene with this really obvious feminist strawman and I was like "this is so badly
written, it's unacceptable" I mean dialogue that just people don't
talk like that people never talk like that things that people never say I just
I mean I know it's surrealist but it doesn't feel like something that would
ever happen you know it I cannot suspend my disbelief that much it just feels
like the author is writing it rather than a story that at
that moment you do feel it's real so I have problems with that book and I love
to see negative comments on it on Goodreads because it's so satisfying
I don't know why but it's so satisfying to see people and make fun of
how much detail, unnecessary detail that no one cares about, he's just written on
the story like it matters you know like we're supposed to care what the
characters have for breakfast and why and how do they like their eggs to be and
this and that and the other, so it's just really annoying to read this book. The
next one is this is a really weird thing to talk about but just the general idea
and writings of Marquis de Sade - not sure how it's pronounced
but this author is... I mean we know who it is but his writings are not very
talked about because he was a very controversial person to start with so
you know, leaving the kind of person who was behind
um I don't think his writings - I mean I enjoyed them when I read them - I think
it's his writings are given way too much credit, I think that people tend to
go and... sometimes when books are really shocking and and really violent, people
have this immediate illusion that they're good and that's something that I
talked about in my review for for Nothing by Jane Teller but I do think
that that one was a little bit more moderate. This is just exploitation, this
is an exploitation film in the shape of several several stories and of course it
was way before exploitation films
were even a thing, but my point is that I don't think it takes that much genius to
write all these shocking things and all these really cruel things of people
doing horrible stuff to each other and you can really just
ask a thirteen year old guy (kid?) to write (something like) this and he would do something very
similar and just as good really I mean the characters are not particularly
interesting, the stories are not very complex or anything like that so you
know people tend to focus on the writings and the philosophies of this guy
and they make no sense they're they really don't convince me at all so I'm
really not convinced at all by this these stories and I guess that you could
enjoy it as erotica if you're into that but otherwise I think that people give
these give these books way too much credit and I'm and I'm really
wanting to find more people who also think this way about these
books because I don't see them discussed much in the first place so yeah there's
that. Number two is a romance
novel which is not very popular but again I love
- this is one that I especially love talking badly about and it is Bound by
the Heart by Marsha Canham so I read this while I was looking for a pirate
romance novel which I guess I should have known what I was getting into
because what it really ended up being was like a rape story turned into
romance and I mean, I wasn't disgusted as I read it. To me it's just really cheap
to have no development at all to romance and just have it be oh yeah I hurt you
and I raped you and suddenly you're in love with me you know like the
characters are not even you know there's not even this development of a real romance
because I do believe it you know for example um Stockholm Syndrome,
it is a thing, but there has to be.. and I'm not and I'm not discrediting the use
of rape in romance. My point is that there can be romance after things like
that are done to to others but there have to be some things that happen for
it to be a romance, you know there have there has to be some affection from
him towards her, some real respect or like a huge favor that a
rapist for example does to the victim or something like that, for there to be some
sort of of likability. There has to be really something because if
there's if it's just rape and suddenly she's in love it's unbelievable there's
no way for me as a reader to think that that's... it feels like fantasy you know
it feels like something that --- and I understand that it really is fantasy and
that's my issue with lots of books like this, that you can tell that it's
really the author's fantasy, in a very self-indulgent way, in a book
and I think that's that's something that we should kind of work on especially
romance authors and stuff. It really sells and I know it sells but it's it
doesn't make for good books which is I'm pretty sure it's not really their
main goal. It's still the way in which I can explain that I don't like this.
So number one is like I said, I said it was going to be the most obvious one and
it is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I read this the first time I think I was about
nine years old or ten and I did like it I was really into it and you know I
hadn't read much at the time I don't think I ever reread that book but I
started watching suddenly a couple years ago I think it was I started watching
reading reviews on that book and I I just found a lot of enjoyment from
seeing people negatively talk about Twilight and how it was just so bad and
you know not just not just in terms of the writing style but also how what kind
of message was given with the relationship between Bella and Edward
and that sort of thing. And I have also noticed that people on Booktube*
do seem to be pretty critical of this kind of thing at least the ones that I
tend to watch but you know the people who end up leaving most of the reviews
on books like Beautiful Disaster or Colleen Hoover stuff or whatever they seem
to all have this really uncritical kind of view of "well this book made me feel
good and I lived out my fantasies so five stars or four stars" or whatever so
it's kind of strange to me how uncritical some people are of the things
that they read and how we view sometimes reading as an escapism from
reality which I think it really isn't but nor do I think
it should be meant to be, but that's a whole nother discussion that really
would take me a long time to even get to, so I hope you guys enjoyed
this video, at least found it entertaining or anything or at least you
know something like that and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye
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