For me, the most recent book regret is Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Predictable from the get-go, bland, boilerplate sci-fi ideas, too many of these way-too-convenient plot devices just to push the story forward. I frankly don’t get the hype, and I am a pretty big science fiction guy.
Another one is Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I read this in college and this whole book should have been a one-page essay. It was too repetitive, and the whole premise of “trust in your snap judgments and gut reactions” is way too simplistic and honestly stupid. Like all Gladwell books, it was anecdotal, superficial, and a waste of time.
'The Dark Tower’s series by Stephen King. Not for the ‘it didn’t really end!’ arguments that are often made, but because when he inserted himself into the narrative as the god like figure, any and all immersion I had went out the window. I loved the series up til then, but I’ve donated the whole series to the second hand bookshop, and I never plan to revisit them.
Same experience for me. I think he had his big car crash between 4 and 5 and then he rushed through the rest, presumably in a pretty sketchy place mentally. I was enjoying them quite a lot until then. Tons of other popular cutlture references. Like a Harry Potter novel just turning up somewhere. So cringe.