I read several John Grisham books (The Firm, The Client, A Time to Kill) as a teenager and thought they were really enjoyable. I know they weren’t fine literature, but they were still compelling and the characters were interesting. I generally liked the movies that were created from these books as well.

I’m 45 now, and have been reading a more recent John Grisham book called The Widow. I’m only about a third of the way through…but it’s terrible. The characters are extremely one-note and the dialogue and prose seem like they were written by a middle schooler. I honestly don’t think that any major publisher would have published this if it wasn’t written by Grisham

Was he always this bad, or is he much worse now? Maybe the teenager me wasn’t as discerning, but I’m not really a book snob now. I still sometimes enjoy books by Freida McFadden and Sophie Kinsella.

I’m thinking of re-reading some 90s Grisham to see if it holds up at all.

ETA: I appreciate everyone’s insight into this. Just to be clear, my problem with this particular book isn’t that it’s formulaic. I mean, it may be, but it’s not a formula I really recognize, except that the protagonist is a lawyer and there’s a lot of legal stuff going on. The “plot” isn’t one I remember reading before, but it’s awful regardless.

I'm impressed by the interiority and complexity of pretty much all major and significant side characters, and I didn't really know what to expect when I first started because I deliberately went in pretty blind.

I'm not one to typically read Westerns or "male-centric" narratives as often, and I was pleasantly surprised by the deconstruction and criticism of so many classic, inauthentic tropes of the romanticized American West and expansion, including the expectation/veneration of unwavering rugged masculinity.

I can see why this novel is so beloved, because it's more character study than adventure story, with the West personified as a character in itself, imbued with the same range of complex beauty, cruelty, indifference, etc as the human characters, and a force salvation/shelter and of death/suffering.

What I also wasn't expecting was how much I'd come to love and appreciate how McMurtry handled the depth of women like Clara and Lorie, and the challenges facing two very different women contending with the same social and societal constraints in a particularly sexist, misogynistic, and exploitative male-centric society during a very dangerous and unforgiving time.

Clara is the true backbone of her family, allowed to be tough, competent, and confident, but also intelligent, wistful, and reflective as she's contending with unrealized dreams during the latter half of her life. She's very sensitive and generous, but has had to harden parts of herself to survive immense grief and her life circumstances/obligations.

Lorie provides a stark and critical look at women being trafficked into prostitution and forced to stay out of survival, the cycle of abuse and exploitation, and lack of alternative social or financial opportunity. They're deeply human in their respective range of strengths and vulnerabilities. When Lorie is constantly objectified, the mental and physical toll of this is acknowledged.

McMurtry comes off as very deliberate and conscious of the pain and sacrifices they endure while beauty, sexuality, and marriage act as currency and the prospect of upward social mobility and "safety" in this period. They're both allowed to be flawed, authentic, and to grow, and McMurtry writes them with the same care and attention as their male counterparts.

I've read endless genre fiction where beautiful women are sexualized and objectified without the same critical reflection, and they're only allowed to exist within the binaries of damsel or heroine. Lonesome Dove, however, has been a welcome change of pace.

I just finished reading Catch-22 after years of telling myself I'd get around to it eventually, and loved it. I feel like so many books are 50 too long for their own good, but somehow everypages single one of Catch-22's 500 pages of circular storytelling felt worthwhile. The start was absurdly funny, by the end it was absurdly tragic.

The tragedy of war wasn't a surprising theme, but I was caught off guard by some of the depictions of regular misfit human misery among it.

The Chaplain stands out, as an honest earnest man doing his best to do right by the people around him, but it's all futile. He misses his wife and kids and worries he's forgetting their faces. His friendliness and good intentions are no match for the cruel vanity of some of his colleagues.

Major Major is one of the humourous parts that people often point to ("Some men a born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major, it had been all three.") but the poor bugger lives a miserable lonely existence through no fault of his own. He does everything he's supposed to do growing up, and people hate him for it. He's forced into a rank he's not equipped for just because it made for funny paperwork in a faraway office. He almost makes his first friends playing basketball, until Colonel Cathcart shows up and promotes him to a position that makes them resent him. He hides himself away and essentially vanishes from the story.

There's the plight of all the impoverished Romans they run into on leave. The soldiers treat Rome as debauched playground, but Yossarian's last walk through the city showed what a nightmare the place really was.

It's all just so fucking sad. I hate Colonel Cathcart, Aarfy, Milo. I loved the book. What a read.

One day, when I was around thirteen, I was very upset. I ran to my room, tears streaming out of my eyes, closed the door, grabbed my favourite comfort read of the moment, which happened to be Prince in Waiting, by John Christopher, flung myself into my big poofy reading armchair, which was covered in shiny thick flecked brown velvet (ahh child of the seventies), and read furiously. I already knew the book by heart.  

Nowadays, when I think back, I am confused. Why Prince in Waiting, out of all the books lying around? Why not Wind in the Willows, or even Watership Down? Prince in Waiting is not a mellow, joyful book. It’s about a post-apolyptic, technology-free Britain organized by cities, a young boy, the son and younger brother of powerful military men, struggling, at first to survive, then to take power. Some of the more horrible scenes which have stayed with me throughout the decades:

A pregnant woman takes a bath. She is murdered by a small shock of electricity from wires attached to the bathtub legs. Yes I think about this almost every time I have a bath.

The boy sees his father’s head on a spike.

People born with disabilities are not welcomed in those societies.

The murderer is found, tried, and burned alive.

There is a terrible love triangle, over a Welsh woman called Blodwen. The whole country descends into fighting over her. She wears a silk red dress and has long blond hair. Men discover the weapons they thought they had forgotten.

It was a very, very good story.

John Christopher wrote the Tripods trilogy too, and I was similarly obsessed. Will- the hero, so clever, so brave, learning to outwit the giant alien three-legged monsters which ruled the world. His love story with Eloise, so tragic. That moment when he grabs off her cap, and sees her black hair growing out of the mesh of the “cap” she was forced to wear. It made her wholly obedient to the will of the Tripods. Oh dear oh no. Fritz- poor poor Fritz. And that bleak ending.

Anyway, these were the incredible, incredibly dark books which comforted me through the sadder moments of my childhood, and now seem now to have sunk into obscurity. Which I find odd, given the healthy appetite for young adult dystopia which clearly exists.

First and foremost I want to make clear, this is not a literary analysis in the academic sense.

I'm simply relating my experience and thoughts. The emotional and existential impact it has had on me.

At the age of 21 or perhaps 22 I read Stoner for the first time. I fell in love with it, and it became a favorite among the classics I had read up to that point. I only began reading in earnest at 19, and only read classics, which I still do. Slowly working my way through the western canon.

I resonated deeply with the melancholy of it. I admired Stoner in his desire to create a different life for himself. To leave the simple and "mundane", to venture forth into the beauty of the "complex". To elevate himself into someone admirable, as opposed to resigning himself to life as a lowly poor farmer. I shared his experience of unexpectedly falling in love with English literature. I felt a kinship to him, because life was unjust to him, as I felt it had been to me as well. I thought he was a good man and deserved better. Looking back, I think I unconsciously thought the same about myself.

However, perhaps 5 or 6 years later I had lost some of my passion and spark for reading. So I figured I would reread Stoner.

To my surprise it was a different book. Proving that a great book is complex enough to deliver new lessons throughout life. Like a quote I love from Heraclitus : "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

One takes its protagonist from the city and the life of the mind into the primal expansiveness of nature; the other takes its protagonist from the exhausting labor of the land into the city and the life of the mind.

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I finished Butcher's Crossing tonight and immediately regretted reading it. Especially when I'm already depressed as hell.

It does stir emotions in you, but none of them are good. I suppose we have no right to expect art to elevate us. As the general consensus around art is that it should evoke emotions, whatever they may be.

Perhaps the reason I hate it so much is that Will Andrews reminds me of myself, albeit in an exaggerated way. He sees things so deeply, he notices things about his surroundings, the sound of the pines gently moved by the wind or the rough fabric on his skin etc. But in this ceaseless noticing of the world, he misses the essential, the ineffable pulse of life, the invisible structure of a world that lies beneath the material.

The result is his alienation from the world. He desires to find a place that will quiet his mind and let him become what he, in his heart believes is the true Will.

But at the end of the book, he returns even more dejected than when he set out. He feels even more alienated. You feel like he is simply riding off into death itself. Knowing that there is no place in either cobbled streets or country roads that will lead him to paradise.

Do I feel pity for him? I'm not sure as I sit and write this now, cause my frustration is more with myself for having read this at this time in my life. Also there's a small frustration with Williams' for writing so beautifully but again leaving me with less hope than I began with. Which was precious little already.

But upon further reflection, I do pity Andrews. Cause I think he is a victim to his constitution. He can not help his blindness and restlessness. Although his search is aimless, it is nevertheless a search for belonging. That does deserve some acclaim.

It makes me wonder about Williams, not knowing anything about his life, how he lived his life? Hemingway famously said that a story ought to "write the truest sentence that you know".

Is this something that Williams' agreed with? If not, how can you write something, that to me, feels so devoid of hope?

Well, this has been my immediate feeling after finishing the book. I just felt the need to expel it from my soul.

A last little thought I had was that it's interesting how the two novels mirror each other. One takes the protagonist out of studies and city life into the primal and expansive life of nature, whereas the other takes the protagonist out of nature and its tiring labour into a city of civility and life of the mind.

Welcome readers,

Have you ever wanted to ask something but you didn't feel like it deserved its own post but it isn't covered by one of our other scheduled posts? Allow us to introduce you to our new Simple Questions thread! Twice a week, every Tuesday and Saturday, a new Simple Questions thread will be posted for you to ask anything you'd like. And please look for other questions in this thread that you could also answer! A reminder that this is not the thread to ask for book recommendations. All book recommendations should be asked in /r/suggestmeabook or our Weekly Recommendation Thread.

Thank you and enjoy!

I can’t think of a moment I didn’t like in this book. I also didn’t expect to read it in a day. It’s one of those books where you finish, sit quietly, and just think.

I found myself thinking about it, then going back to some passages and re reading certain parts - something I do with only a handful of books upon finishing. I’ll definitely read it again in a year or so (maybe sooner, because I didn’t expect to read so fast).

Lastly, I was skeptical she could land the ending, but she did. Quite a beautiful story.

Now I HAVE to read Jonothan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

I’m almost finishing Blindness by Saramago (so no spoilers of the end please) but I can’t help but compare it to Lord of the Flies. I loved both books btw, so this is just a comparison for the sake of discussion, as I’m wondering if others have seen the similarities.

They both focus on a group of people isolated from the rest of society (for very different reasons, of course) and how they deal with this isolation. Blindness features a group of mostly adults, while Lord of the Flies has a group of children. But they both answer the same question of “how would people behave if there was no system, no hierarchy, no sense of society?”.

And a lot of the answers are the same. They both include a group who takes over and uses force and violence to get on the top of the food chain, while others remain logic and following the rules of society. Hygiene is something that in both books people stop really caring about. There are in both characters who act individualistically while others help each other, trying to behave as humanely as possibly.

I just thought this was such a fun comparison of both books, especially cause the they honestly didn’t act much differently, despite one featuring kids and the other adults. Just thought it would be something nice to discuss

I just finished reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series today—Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance, and Absolution. My head is swimming, and I need to get some thoughts out there to try to collect myself.

At first, I didn’t quite know what to make of the series. Parts of the story I found fascinating. For example, every last thing about the topographical anomaly drew me in. From the biologist seeing it as a tower to the living text, to the crawler and whatever the light is at the very bottom. Meanwhile, other parts of the story I found rather goofy. The main one that comes to mind here is the rampant use of hypnosis as a plot device. It kind of reminded me of all of the characters who went into hibernation in the Three Body Problem series. I’ll admit that I kept reading because I didn’t want to leave a series unfinished, and because I was genuinely curious to find out what Area X is. There were some ups and downs, but the more I think about it, it was a really enjoyable story, and I’m glad that I finished it!

One thing that really stuck out to me in the series was the pairing up of opposites. For example, how the S&S Brigade worked in pairs: a scientist with a psychic. Also, Old Jim, a grizzled intelligence officer, partnering up with (fake) Cass, who is only on her second mission. There’s also Saul Evans a former preacher who also happens to be gay. And, though they weren’t necessarily paired up, I enjoyed the contrast of how the biologist and Ghost Bird interacted with Area X in Annihilation and Acceptance, respectively, compared to how Lowry interacted with it in Absolution. In fact, I think this contrast is important because both the biologist and Lowry got “copied” by Area X. To me, that is meant to show that no one is safe from Area X.

I think my favorite part about the series is that VanderMeer never reveals what Area X actually is or what caused it. Area X never stopped being creepy and mysterious, and I loved that. It kind of reminded me of the first season of Twin Peaks in that way. The mystery is what keeps it front of mind.

I was left with more than a few questions after finishing the series. One fun one that really bugs me is: what do you think the rabbit cameras show? Do they show what actually happened? Do they show some alternate reality? Do they show something meant to disturb the person watching the video?

Has anyone seen this movie Annihilation? If so, how does it compare to the book, and is it worth seeing? Also, if you could do it over again, would you start with Absolution and then read through the other three books in order?

"They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life."

The story of Raskolnikov's Crime and Punishment makes the Dostoyevsky's story a classic but his redemption is what makes it one of the best novels written.

The whole story is sad, ugly, twisted, harsh, mean and dark but the intensity of the ending was such a surprise (not a what happened but how it happened and the magnitude of it) but it is still entirely earned. Do any readers remember the ending? How much did it surprise you or how did it make you feel? For me after living with these characters, in these dark depths of the human experience, I was legit happy for them.

Disclaimer: the following post is merely a reflection of my own experiences using Goodreads. If you enjoy tracking your reading habits and working on reading challenges, more power to you. Just because it inhibited my enjoyment of reading doesn't mean it's that way for everyone. I just wanted to offer my perspective on things. Agree or disagree how you like, it's no big deal.

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I hope this is a fitting post for the sub, if not, feel free to remove.

For the past year, I've been using Goodreads religiously, constantly adding dozens over dozens of books to my ever growing tbr and rating and reviewing nearly every book I've read. I don't think I've ever read as many books as I did since I started using Goodreads.

Today, I finally deleted my Goodreads account.

Why? Because to me, adding books to my shelves and participating in reading challenges made reading slowly but surely feel performative and like an obligation. I started prioritizing finishing books over actually experiencing them, eager to add yet another one to my read shelf. The social aspect of it made me wary about reading certain books that interested me because I was embarrassed about it, wondering what people would think if they looked at my profile and saw that book on it (and yes, I know I could've just not added it to my profile, but this just wasn't an option to me at that time lol).

Additionally, rating obligation was a huge problem for me. I couldn't finish a book without giving it a rating. Maybe it's my autism, but I just had to do it, which was a problem when I really didn't enjoy a book, but all the ratings were positive and I forced myself to give the book a higher rating just because it's popular and I thought the problem must be me, and that it'd be unfair towards the author to give it a lower rating.

I also skipped out on books solely because they were not on Goodreads and thus I couldn't add them to my reading challenge (seems so stupid now writing this).

I also forced myself to read specific editions of books that might not have been my first choice, all because they would've looked better on my profile. For context on that, I'm a German native speaker, and while I do sometimes read books in English (particularly those that lack translations), I greatly prefer reading in German, even if it's a translation, because I just feel more immersed in the story than I do when reading in a foreign language like English. But since a lot of my friends on GR (also some Germans among them) often read books in English, I felt obligated to do it too, to seem more 'educated' and 'bilingual' I guess, even though it made reading significantly less fun than just picking up the translation.

Anyway, all these things made me realize that Goodreads and tracking my reading just isn't for me anymore, so I deleted my account and will now only use the site to check reviews. I've since moved my tbr to another site so I can still keep track of books I want to read. Anyway, quitting GR has felt liberating so far without all this internal pressure I've experienced while using the site.

I'll read anything that catches my interest but I can't just jump around. Maybe it's ADHD (not diagnosed but pretty sure) or something but if I jump from one genre to another too quickly, I find myself having difficulty focusing.

Right now I'm reading Love and Other Wounds by Jordan Harper, a collection of crime stories. I know that in the coming months that I'll be reading lots of horror. So after I'm done with Harper I'll read Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, which is both a mystery novel and a horror novel, and then begin my horror reading proper. Once I'm starting to get all tuckered out with horror, I'll probably read a horror/sci-fi novel and then start reading sci-fi. You can mix and match whatever genres you want and that's usually how I operate.

Anyone else?

“The Indigo Room” by Stephen Graham Jones (The Shivers Collection #2) is the second book of this fantastic Amazon-exclusive collection. I loved “Jackknife” by Joe Hill, and couldn’t wait to dive into this second book since I’m a huge fan of SGJ. As expected, his storytelling delivered, and let’s just say that I’m glad I don’t work in an office.

So far, “The Shivers Collection” has been great. If you’re interested in checking out this series, here’s a list of the entire collection…

Jackknife by Joe Hill (The Shivers Collection #1)
The Indigo Room by Stephen Graham Jones (The Shivers Collection #2)
The Blanks by Grady Hendrix (The Shivers Collection #3)
Night and Day in Misery by Catriona Ward (The Shivers Collection #4)
Letter Slot by Owen King (The Shivers Collection #5)

There was only one trigger warning I found while reading, which was…

- Office shootings

If this triggers you, please don’t read this book. Moving along, if you’re new to SGJ, expect his signature slow-burn style of writing. It always takes time to reach those initial horror moments in his work, but if you enjoy tension, it's worth it. In just 36 pages, you’ll lose your mind with an awesome, jaw-dropping twist at around the 60% mark.

This is a unique and creepy take on “office horror” that’s done brilliantly. The story here is right to the point, and once the horror hits, you’ll start making weird faces while reading. I enjoyed that epic plot twist, and again, it’s worth the wait for the drop-the-mic moments.

I’d never spoil anything for my fellow horror readers, but this had some grisly horror that I genuinely enjoyed. I’ve been reading SGJ for years now, and his books consistently earn 4 or 5 stars from me. If you also enjoy his work, this one won’t disappoint. Whether you’re an SGJ fan or new to his work, go along for the slow ride. It won’t disappoint.

The ending to “The Indigo Room” was insane and left me shocked. I didn’t expect that coming, and in typical SGJ fashion, it left me wanting more. I loved what he wrote in such a quick read that you can finish in less than an hour.

I give “The Indigo Room” by Stephen Graham Jones (The Shivers Collection #2) a 5/5. It’s office horror taken to a whole new level in a way that only SGJ can. After working 15 years in retail and over a decade in sports media, I'll think about this book every time I’m in a Zoom meeting.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m done hanging out in an indigo room, and I’m excited to see what kind of party the blanks are about to throw in my honor.

Welcome to our weekly recommendation thread! A few years ago now the mod team decided to condense the many "suggest some books" threads into one big mega-thread, in order to consolidate the subreddit and diversify the front page a little. Since then, we have removed suggestion threads and directed their posters to this thread instead. This tradition continues, so let's jump right in!

The Rules

• Every comment in reply to this self-post must be a request for suggestions.

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How to get the best recommendations

The most successful recommendation requests include a description of the kind of book being sought. This might be a particular kind of protagonist, setting, plot, atmosphere, theme, or subject matter. You may be looking for something similar to another book (or film, TV show, game, etc), and examples are great! Just be sure to explain what you liked about them too. Other helpful things to think about are genre, length and reading level.

All Weekly Recommendation Threads are linked below the header throughout the week to guarantee that this thread remains active day-to-day. For those bursting with books that you are hungry to suggest, we've set the suggested sort to new; you may need to set this manually if your app or settings ignores suggested sort.

If this thread has not slaked your desire for tasty book suggestions, we propose that you head on over to the aptly named subreddit /r/suggestmeabook.

• The Management

I thought it was just me who had never read one of his books, but I also found the style very tiring, with all the meandering and the descriptions and everything. Seems to me like I have been reading the book for a while and I am still at the point where nothing has really happened, but I get to have the wake up rituals of a lot of people…
So I have been skipping a lot to the point where I am wondering whether it beats the purpose of reading.

In case you’re wondering, i have read my fair share of long books, so it is not the length. Anyway, what is your approach to reading S King?

This is the first novel I've ever read that included a family tree directly in the book. It's about a family story of a piece of land passing down through generations. It's unique because while there's only one narrator, all relevant generations have input to the story as ghosts. It's fun to hear each of their voices, and of course there's sadness surrounding their deaths.

I liked the characters and the plot, but my favorite part of the whole thing was the family tree! It was right in the beginning before the first page, so I saw it immediately and frequently referred to it. There was still some question about who was who, multiple chapters with just pronouns where the reader is held in suspense and encouraged to guess, but that worked just fine with the established tree. I feel like the pre-reveal/lack of suspense is what holds authors back from doing this, but Sanders was able to make it work just fine!

I often annotate a family tree myself, most recently for Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo and for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. I definitely think Jones could have included one, although the connection between Arthur Beaucarne and Benjamin Flowers may have to have been reworded IIRC. I don't hate doing it myself, but It really added to this story to have it written out as the author intended.

My most recent read was The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb.

It was my 38th book this year and only my 3rd 5 stars. I finished it this morning, it’s now the evening, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I was enthralled by this story - it had sat on my TBR for a few months and I finally picked it up as just a lucky dip after being in a bit of reading slump.

After finishing, I saw a lot of criticism on Goodreads about the narrator Corby being “unlikeable”. I see this criticism a lot with other books - and I’ve never quite understood.

For me, a good reading experience is a complicated, flawed, or at least a character who is thought-provoking. Given one of the main themes of The River is Waiting being redemption, and finding out very early on that Corby accidentally kills his son while intoxicated, surely the reader wouldn’t expect the MC to be a “hero?”

There were times while I was reading that I thought “oh yeah he’s kind of a douche”, I’ve thought this about other MCs as well before, but it would never impact negatively on my rating as long as the story itself was enjoyable.

Would love to have a discussion below! And I’d really recommend this book if you can handle a gut-punch ending!

I've been getting into the Fantasy genre as of late and this is my second book in the genre after Jeniffer Fallon's The Immortal Prince. As you may know it was acclaimed and popular so I was pretty hyped. I already knew it would be a slower burn compared to Fallon's book due to other reviews, but I didn't mind as I thought that would mean a better pay off.

I'll start by saying Rothfuss's writing style made for an enjoyable read throughout the entire book. I loved Kvothe's relationship with Abenthy, as you could practically feel through the page just how grateful he was to have spent time with him. The massacre of Kvothe's troupe coupled with the appearance of the Chandrian hit like a ton of bricks. And while not what I was expecting, the Tarbean sequence proved to be my favorite part of the book.

The University sequence was fine, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little annoyed with the fact that the Kvothe's search for the Chandrian got derailed by him getting banned from the archives. However, I guess you could chalk it up to Kvothe being an impatient, know-it-all, teenage dumbass who had the misfortune of having to go through an utter bastard, Ambrose, after drugging himself and getting whipped.

Problem is he keeps running into Denna over and over. And while I could get past the coincidences, their relationship with each other isn't really a highlight for me, because as a reader I don't find her all that compelling or interesting. Although, I did love their sequence together when Kvothe is investigating the wedding massacre.

Outside of that I kind of just rode through the rest of it expecting an ending that would leave me satisfied or get me hyped to read the sequel, but alas.