What book have you read that wasn’t subjectively “bad” but you regrets reading all the same?

For me, Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. The book was engaging and it kept me on my toes, but I just with I hadn’t “poisoned my head” with all the graphic gore that was in there. I years later i still think about this and how I really wish I had never read it.

Question inspired by a comment /u/PrincessOfWales made in another thread :)

  • Traditional-Show9321@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I struggle with depression and I just don’t think that was healthy for me. I’m more mindful now when reading books that contains themes of depression.

    • LatteLove35@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      This one, I had to put it down, I did skip to the end to see if it got better, it did not. So glad I didn’t buy it and got it from the library.

      • Traditional-Show9321@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        EXACTLY! I kept reading because I thought ok this has to get better but no she just continues being the actual worst. Glad you didn’t pay for it, I’m still mad I spent money on it.

    • Happy_Plantain8085@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Oh my god I was going to comment this. I read this at quite possibly the worst possible time in my life to be reading it, it REALLY messed with me. I couldn’t put it down, but I will never read it again.

    • internetdiscocat@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Saaaaame. It’s not a bad book, but it’s about a bad person who has depression and I couldn’t extricate the bad person part from the depression part. So I kept thinking “I am like this, so I am also bad.”

      Depressing AND murderous on the self-esteem of the mentally ill

      • Legitimate_Client555@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        I related to the main protagonist so little that I never actually felt bad about feeling bad. However, that also removed the main point of reading the book in an emotional sense.

        The message I ended up taking was that it was about Western privilege, and the emptiness that follows, rather than depression. Even though I know it’s kind of both

    • SchoolScout@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      In the same vein: The New Me by Halle Butler. It’s about a 30 year old woman trying to find stable work while struggling with depression. She keeps making attempts at personal transformation to turn things around but always just falls short. Nothing TERRIBLE happens, couldn’t put a content warning on it, but god, it fucked with me.