I have two. The Ritual and Drowning.
The Ritual is pure smut. 61 chapters and every one contains a graphic, demeaning sex scene. I’m convinced the author was an adult film screenwriter and decided to try their hand at writing a novel. There isn’t a single likable character in this book.
Drowning isn’t a great work of literature. I felt that the characters were very two-dimensional. I hated how naive the author made the protagonist. It made me have a lack of sympathy for her. The ending was series finale of Dexter bad.
A Little Life is the worst one I finished, Big Swiss is the worst one I abandoned.
What’s the tea with Big Swiss? It’s on the “Employee Favorite” shelf of every indie bookstore in my town.
I didn’t know there was tea about it! I just thought it was boring.
I actually really enjoyed Big Swiss, but it threw me for a real loop mental-health wise. The characters are not good people, but they all think they’re good people - and that was enough for my sister to DNF it herself.
I don’t know. I was bored and stopped reading. I’m confused too!
FWIW I really liked Big Swiss. Not in my favorites of the year, but solidly entertaining. I thought the transcription sequences were inventive and memorable (the main — not titular — character is a stenographer for a therapist), where she’s typing out recorded therapy sessions and reacting to them. I think it’s a pretty “New York” book though, for anyone who’s lived in the city and spent time upstate. The setting — Hudson, NY — was really its own character for me. I can definitely see it being not for everybody.
couldn’t finish A Little Life - had to DNF
A Little Life always gets people divided… either you absolutely love it or hate it. It’s just such a long one that I’m not sure it’s worth the risk.
Why didn’t you like it?
Good writing, but the storyline was basically #hurtfic #angstfic #comfortfic if you’re familiar with fan fiction - it was clearly a woman writing her fetishes about gay male pain.
I loved A Little Life but people describe it as trauma p*rn. It’s sad thing after sad thing, the characters just cannot catch a break. I love a sad book so I enjoyed it but I can understand why others don’t.
To echo what other people said, I feel like the book got to the point where the pain was never ending and almost cartoonish. I described the plot to a friend and it sounds so ridiculous when summarized because every bad thing that could possibly happen to someone happens to the MC. I do think the prose is beautiful, but to me, it felt like a sad book just to make you sad vs a sad book that explored other themes within the sadness. I also went into it thinking it would follow the friendships between the 4 men but that wasn’t the main focus at all- the book ends up just narrowing in on the MC’s pain. YMMV, but I really did not like it.
Big Swiss is a loved book in the MFA community tho. It’s very praised by the big leagues
The curiosity is killing me, so I gotta ask, since the acronym is not clear from the context. What does MFA stand for?
I have ruled out:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Multi-Factor Authentication
Material Flow Analysis
Manitoba Fencing Association
And Methacrylated Fatty Acid
Both of my favorite books OUCH