I’ll go with the low-hanging fruit: Mein Kampf. I’ve read it, cover to cover. As a piece of propaganda, it’s good. As an example of good writing? Absolutely not (though I will admit I have only read it in translation). Oh, and the whole fascist, racist, and generally shitty worldview of the author that he infuses into the text. And the fact that the author is literally Hitler. You 5-star that book? You’re a Nazi. Period. And as a Jewish person, I don’t look too kindly on them.
I don’t have one aside from the kind of obvious low-hanging fruit already mentioned in the OP, where there are clear ideological implications to the rating. People read for different reasons and have different standards, and someone loving a book that I consider poorly crafted or just too superficial for my own tastes doesn’t really say much about our compatibility in my experience.
I was in a relationship with someone who had a drastically different taste in books for twelve years. Although we ended up separating eventually, we got along great, and I don’t think our tastes in literature hinted at any of the fundamental differences that made us break up.
However, exchanging a few comments about Lolita on this post made me realize I’d be more likely to swipe left on someone for their one-star reviews (unless it was just a not-for-me indication for personal use, the way some people use goodreads). I’d have no problem dating someone who wasn’t interested in reading Lolita, for example, but I’d probably lose all interest if they genuinely tried to argue that it was a bad novel.
I think with Lolita (kind of like Fight Club, American Psycho, and A Clockwork Orange) I’d pay less attention to the rating than what their thinking was around the book. Or if they were a big fan or just thought it was a well-written book that they’ll never read again.
I genuinely love Nabokov’s style, and I wanted to like that book. Anyone hard slamming the book or him as an author because the subject matter makes them uncomfortable misses the point, I think.
I’m more worried that they would have liked it too much or identified with the protagonists.
Unlike Fight Club and American Psycho, I don’t think I’ve ever come across someone in the wild who liked Lolita because they identified with Humbert Humbert. I find it pretty bewildering that some people have such bad reading comprehension they take Lolita as some kind of romantic story about forbidden love.
Personally I’m a huge fan of the novel and will definitely read it again. The disturbing parts are easily worth it, just like they are in Blood Meridian (the other novel in my personal top five with some really brutal scenes).
Yeah, isn’t H.H. literally narrating from a psych ward or prison? Kind of hard to relate to for most of us, I think.
Yeah IIRC it’s from pre-trial detention, and he’s addressing his jury as a plea for lenience. The very framing of the story tells us pretty clearly we shouldn’t just take his word for it.
True, most of the gross takes of Lolita are from people who have never read the book.
I do think a lot of people struggle with not identifying with unreliable narrators though.
I never read it in full before, but gods damn does its opening immediately leap in my face with the voice of a potential serial killer lol
That may be one of my peeves: people who can’t stomach any story with an unreliable narrator. I never understood why people need to “relate” to the main character.
Oh man, Blood Meridian. One of my personal least favorite books that I’ve ever read, because it was sickening. However- I respect the hell out of it, and I totally understand why people love it so much. Just not for me.
My partner and I read very different books for different reasons, and that’s totally okay.
Neither have I but I’ve heard of this memoir called Being Lolita about the author (Alisson Wood) being groomed by her English teacher - who gives her a copy of Lolita. So apparently such people exist, even though as you rightly say it must require wilfully skimming over certain passages.
I just read Fight Club for the first time (have never seen the movie either) and I’d easily rate it one of the top 3 books that I’ve read this year. Not because I related to any of the characters, but because the writing was so unique and interesting.
Same with Starship Troopers.