I would say that Eragon fell into the same trap MoR did. It tried to make magic and the world around it, a world designed with a distinct fantasy feel, seem scientific or something. It's weird, because in Paolini's case we're talking about one person doing the designing and later the failed transformation. Like latter books were taking potshots at earlier ones.

It would be unfair to say, imo, that he didn't have some cool ideas, but I agree that the bland execution of tropes drags the series down. Once you hit Eragon's literal Divine Power Up in book two, eyebrows start migrating towards the back of your neck.

I started reading the series when I was quite a bit younger though, and stuck with it through the end. I have a certain amount of guilty pleasure sentiment for the first one, of the same kind I do for the first Twilight film. And like Twilight, the series goes into a downward spiral somewhere around the middle. Inconsistency is the name of the game.

Spoiler

Like surpassing the elf smith's oath to never forge another Rider's sword through gimmicky possession bullshit. You set the rules, try to stick to them.

Paolini did something similar to JKR with the Big Bad - he set him up to be this ultimate badass and obviously needed a Deus Ex Machina to end him. If he'd had the balls to do the radical thing and end the series with the MC's death and villain's victory, the series would have suddenly become twice as good.

So, out of five books in the series, I could say kinda sorta hated the last one for being a bland dish disguised as something less bland by being served in a fancy way.

 

The three celebrated novels I enjoyed least:

3. Joyce's Finnegan's Wake: pretentious, unreadable garbage.

2. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: perhaps the weakest writing one's likely to run across.

1. Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero: vile, it remains the book I hate most.

 

On a scale of 1 to 10, what score would you give it? :awesome

 

Stylistically, an 8. In terms of enjoyability, a solid -2.

Cut the OP, he won't bleed. There's literally nothing there that's human. It's the quintessential nihilistic novel, a protag for whom nothing of import happens, who has no redeeming features, no core of values. The climax scene, where the protag's best friend

Spoiler

reveals that he's keeping a drugged, bound, minor, rape-target in his apartment for the lulz and the protag responds with, basically, "meh," and walks out

serves to cements the descent into vapid superficiality and sociopathy. It's the author flipping off the readers and laughing at their stupidity for buying and investing emotionally in his POS story.

A polished turd.

 

Lovely. I read 'American Psycho in my late teens, and couldn't work out why it was so lauded - it's probably the most repellent book I've ever read. I did enjoy 'Lunar Park', but I wouldn't recommend Ellis to anyone on the whole.

 

I really disliked The Magicians by lev grossman. The book would have been brilliant if only the MC had been replaced. The MC is an incredible whiner who keeps looking for something better in life. Each time he gets it, he once again gets depressed and finds it not to his liking.

The character development that I had hoped, had taken place at the end of the first book is reset by the second book. The author may have been trying to be more "adult" but I really did not need to read about such a pain in the butt character.

 

I did a super basic review of the series (yes, I hateread the whole thing) over on SV.

 

It's been a while since I read it, but Madame Bovary. I mean, supposedly it's one of the most influential books ever written (from what I've heard at least) but it was just so fucking boring. Nothing in the book was interesting or compelling, the characters were stupid assholes and the plot was just as dull.
Maybe it was better in its original french (I read it translated to swedish), since the author was apparently some kind of perfectionist who'd spend hours trying to find just the right way to word something.

 

I always wince when I bring this up, as if eagles will swoop down to rip out my eyes, but I cannot read The Lord of the Rings trilogy...

I have tried. I even assigned one chapter a night to myself like homework. I just cannot get into it at any point. I have this thing where I read so fast that I stop seeing words, and instead I see what's happening like a movie. I cannot get to that point with these books because they are so dry, and so full of shit that seems like it should be in appendices instead of the main story.

I'm sure it must be a subjective taste thing, since these books are so well-loved, but my god I just cannot. My next attempt will be audio books. I have vowed that I will finish this series before I die, and damn it that will happen.

 

Kudos to you for providing the "less than zero" I was looking for, while still actually giving an informative answer.

I hurried up and read Hobbit and Fellowship before the first LoTR movie, but when I went to read Two Towers I hit a massive wooden roadblock called "Ents."

I tried. I really, really, tried... but I just couldn't get past those fucking trees; it was interminable.

That shit just seemed to meander endlessly and it was either putting me to sleep or sapping my will to live. It- The book may have actually been a barrow-wight; I haven't ruled that out.
So I put it down and never ended up going back. Maybe someday.

 

I just finished re-reading LoTR for something like the 4th or 5th time. It does drag in parts, but never enough to particularly bother me.

You should try reading the actual appendices sometime. Or most of Silmarillion. Believe it or not, a large portion of the really boring shit did get moved elsewhere.

 

I actually really loved the appendices, and found them fascinating.

But yeah, the Simarillion is very hard to get through.

 

I actually quite like Silmarillion; it's unspeakably dry, but as a technical exercise it strikes me as being really impressive. It feels uncommonly like reading a crossbreed of the Iliad and the Bible, but for a race and religion which belong entirely to a world that never existed. To have captured a similar mythological breadth (and, annoyingly, a similar lack of depth and focus on genealogical lists) is actually really neat. I read Silmarillion every few years, whenever the reality of 'fuck that was boring' fades, and I start only remembering how impressive it is as a monument to Tolkein's worldbuilding. I have a similar view of the appendices.

That said, even though I rather like that stuff I'll freely acknowledge that a lot of it is really fucking dull.

 

Holy wow. This book is literally my favorite of all time.

 

I love it as well but I admit that it can be intense at times.

 

The Paradise War by Stephen Lawhead. The book had a pretty interesting concept, what with old Gaelic myths and stuff. But the main character made me hate the series enough that I dropped the book, and that's something I don't do.

Throughout the book you see these two characters, well actually there is one main character but the author keeps comparing the other character to the main character and keeps finding himself lacking in every front. Basically I had enough with the pity party and dropped it after a while.

 

"the giver", the story had immense potential, was mostly original which is rare in these times and an unhappy end which is so unlikely that i almost got a heart attack which was kind off exiciting.
I read it in one day and i hated every second of it. I really dont know why, was it because of the bad charactarization or because the protagonist was stupid, we will likely never know.
Honestly the book isnt half bad the concepts in it outweigh the barely average writing but for some reason i hated it more than i do when I stub my toe on a table.

Forrest Gump "And that's all i've got to say about that"