What author did you read a book by and didn’t like, but gave them another chance and loved it?
I’m so glad I gave Edith Wharton another chance. I read Ethan Frome and thought it was fine. On a whim I picked up The Age of Innocence and fell in love. Now I’m buying anything I can by her. I recently read The House of Mirth, and can confirm she is one of my favorite authors now. Anybody have a similar experience with an author?
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John Scalzi. I’d read Old Man’s War and at least one of the sequels and was generally unimpressed for reasons that aren’t worth getting into in any real detail. Years later I went back for The Interdependency series and was delighted by it. Since then I’ve read most of his other novels and Old Man’s War is really the odd entry out - the one thing he’s done that didn’t click with me.
Same! Started with The Interdependency series with low expectations, but loved it. Then started Old Man’s War and couldn’t finish the series.
John Irving. I didn’t care much for A Prayer for Owen Meany, but I just read The World According to Garp and loved it. Probably best book of 2023 for me.
Raymond E. Feist. I was given his first book when I was only 12 and it was, frankly, thematically too complex for me. I came back to him as an adult and he’s one of my faves.
To my shame, Terry Pratchett. I’d read The Colour Of Magic, The Hogfather and Good Omens and specifically didn’t get his sense of humour.
A couple of weeks ago I started The Wee Free Men and Pratchett is all I’ve read since.
Same. I tried to read Colour of Magic a couple times and just could not get into it. After finding a read guide online I started reading the witches books and could not have loved them more.
Colour of Magic is one of the weakest ones by far. And the Witch books might be the best, at least in my opinion.
I’ve plunged into the Tiffany Aching sequence, I’m currently on I Shall Wear Midnight but I’m holding off The Shepard’s Crown until I’ve read the Witches books. And then, after doing some research, I’m plunging straight into Wyrd Sisters.
Read all the Tiffany Aching books now! They’re the best. I think it’s the third that’s peak humor. The one with the wintersmith. There’s a lot of Feegle in that one too.
Maybe I need to give Pratchett another chance then… The Colour of Magic was not for me at all.
If I started on Colour of magic I wouldn’t have carried on. I read all the witches series and fell in love. Audible have done a great job with his series, I chuckle through lab work listening.
Catriona Ward. I heard a lot of buzz around The Last House on Needless Street, so I checked it out. It didn’t really work for me for a variety of reasons.
I decided to try Sundial by her, and while it took me a few chapters to get into, I ended up enjoying it. Then I read Little Eve and got into that one right away and ended up loving it.
I currently have Looking Glass Sound at the top of my TBR pile.
Yeah, I thought Last House was fine but Sundial was spectacular. I recommend that one all the time now.
Oh that’s interesting, I thought the same of the Last House and then also loved Sundial. Now I need to pick up Little Eve!
The Last House is the next book in my list. Thanks for the review. I was going to skip it. Now I won’t
Thomas Pynchon. I liked Inherent Vice ok, mostly because of the setting. The Crying of Lot 49 was enjoyable enough but didn’t wow me or anything. But the setting of Against the Day really interested me so im reading that now and it’s incredible. Reminds me a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2 with its “the end of the Wild West” plotlines and some of the turn of the century technology creeping in.
I’ve only read Mason & Dixon so I don’t know how it compares to his others, but I loved it! Highly recommend
Oh yeah I’ve got that up next. Saving Gravity’s Rainbow for last in case it’s so weird that it turns me off of him lol.
William Faulkner. Read The Sound and the Fury and did not care for it much. Later on someone who really enjoyed Faulkner encouraged me to try Light in August. I ended up reading and loving that novel, as well as As I Lay Dying.
I’ve read a lot of Faulkner and I found the sound and the fury to be absolutely, astonishingly profound. But I also read that one after having read like four or five others for a lot class so I wonder if there’s something to starting with easier Faulkner first.
I started with Sound and the Fury. Didn’t turn me off one bit - quite the opposite, it opened the door - but I totally understand how it might make people reluctant to try others.
Personally Absalom, Absalom may be my favorite. As I Lay Dying is amazing in its own way. Light in August is so beautiful and tragic. I haven’t read Sanctuary, and i have ahard time getting into The Reivers, but I think I’m due for my annual retry.
I also have his Three Short Novels and a huge collection of stories. A Rose for Emily still hits me every time…
I think you are correct in starting with other texts. Now that I have committed to reading Absalom Absalom, I might go back and re-read Sound and the Fury as well.
Oof. I need encouragement to start that one again.
Yes, that is a good observation. I should go back and revisit The Sound and the Fury now.
If you like Faulkner you’ll like McCarthy.
Blood Meridian is on the top!
Ya that’s a solid prediction
I do! Blood Meridian is one of my favorite novels.
Read and loved a bunch of McCarthy so I tried Sound and the Fury but had to give it up pretty early. Might be time to give Faulkner another shot.
Try As I Lay Dying.
The only McCarthy I have read – and it was a horrible slog – was THE ROAD. I was continually being dragged up out of the story to examine the writing and there’s NOTHING I hate more as a reader. Why is this sentence capitalized, when most aren’t? Is there significance to this bit of dialogue actually being attributed? Does McCarthy just not bother with editors at all?
Never had that experience with Faulkner.
Ah you just aren’t a fan of McCarthy writing style and that’s ok it’s not for everyone. Best way I can describe it is Cormac McCarthy novels don’t have any bloat, what you see on the page is exactly what he wants you to see and read. It can blend from him describing something to someone talking and if you aren’t used to it than you’ll hate it. You also did kinda jump into the deep end of the pool with The Road. It’s renowned but it’s also a difficult read especially if you haven’t read any of his other works. Try Blood Meridian (it’s extremely violent so be careful) or No Country For Old Men (Book is better than the movie) or even his early works like All The Pretty Horses. As for the Faulkner comparisons it’s more the similarities of southern poetry and southern gothic styles. Similar but also very different.
I found The Road to be relatively straightforward for McCarthy. Blood Meridian was much tougher for me.
Why was tough for you? The violence or the writing style ?
Read Absalom, Absalom!
If all the literature of our current civilization were lost except for a handful of books - possibly even one book- I’d be proud if this was one of them. It’s exceptional, beautiful, ugly, brutal, and incredible.
I will read it! That is quite the recommendation and I appreciate it!
I didn’t like The Shining, but am enjoying Pet Cemetery a bit more. I can’t say overall as I’m only a quarter of the way through 😂
Same with The Shining. The only 2 parts that got me was the scene with the topiaries and the bathtub scene. Other than that I was like - this is it? Where is the scary? I just didn’t feel any of the dread or unease that others did.
On the other hand Pet Semetary was so unsettling that I gave the book away when I finished it and it is by far the most disturbing book I have ever read.
Second place for MDB(Most disturbing book) - Suffer the Children by Craig deLouie
Pet Semetary is such a hauntingly good book. King has a talent for treating the horrors of real life with the same level of respect as the horrors he manufactures, and I don’t think that’s on display in any of his books better than it is in Pet Semetary.
Disappointed in the movie because the topiaries became the maze. If remade wonder if GCI tech would be able to relay the terror those damned topiaries provided
Seeing the cover of Pet Cemetry I didn’t like it at first. But when I watched the movie, I bought a copy and loved it!
Susanna Clarke
hated piranesi, and pushed down strange and mr norrell for an year. I am so glad that I finally read it.
Good to know. Loved Jonathan strange so much but haven’t read anything else from her.
It’s really funny that people seem to be polarized into either the Piranesi camp or the Strange & Norrell camp. I seldom see people love both or hate both.
It kinda makes sense, the books were written decades apart and bear very little resemblance to one another, so you can’t make a judgment on one based on the other.
Ottessa Moshfegh. I really hated My Year of Rest and Relaxation and wasn’t interested in more, but a friend was reading Lapvona and it sounded interesting so I gave it a shot. I loved it so much. I’ll have to try more and see which is the outlier, but right now I’m glad I tried her again.
I loved both. Death In Her Hands, not so much.
I listened to her on Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast and she is as insufferable as her R&R protagonist, but I’m giving her another shot… waiting for Eileen to come up from my holds list at the library.
Ohhh interesting.
I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation and as a former addict that stuff was really rough to stomach - and then I read Eileen. I loved that. Lapvona is on my to-read-list since it came out.
Sally Rooney. I listened to Beautiful World Where Are You and I HATED it. I thought it was boring and the characters extremely unlikeable. I was pretty sure her writing wasn’t for me. But I recently read Normal People and it ruined me in the best way possible. Top 5 of the year. Now I can’t wait to read Conversations With Friends.
I loved Normal People, and DNF’d Beautiful World. Beautiful World is all her vapid unweighted philosophy but minus any kind of meaningful connection with the characters, or character arc.
Sarah J Maas, about Throne of Glass series.
Yes! I had already brought the first ACOTAR book but decided to get into the Throne of Glass series first. I hated it. So much that I was going to just get rid of the first ACOTAR without reading it. I’m really glad that I discovered it was a (loose) retelling of Beauty & the Beast and so decided to give it a shot - since I love fairy tale retellings. Now ACOTAR and the Crescent City books are some of my favourites to read and reread. Can’t wait for House of Flame and Shadow!!
I started with ACOTAR and decided to give TOG a go. I’m having the hardest time with it… glad I didn’t start with this series. I don’t think I woulda given her another chance.
I had the opposite experience with Hemingway.
I loved The Old Man and the Sea but I hated The Sun Also Rises (which is about a bunch of insufferable, vacuous people engaging in petty arguments), which I read afterwards.
Truthfully I don’t give authors second chances when I hate the first thing I read by them. Life is too short and there is too much to read. But I’m glad I didn’t read TSAR first and it would have fit into this if I did and still read TOMATS afterwards.
I’m the same (though I loved the sun also rises haha). Life is too short I’ll never read even 1% of all good books so why waste any time. Next.
Though I feel I should give Jane Austen another chance…
I couldn’t stop laughing at this. I had the same experience. The Sun also Rises was my 4th Hemingway book and I couldn’t wait until it was over. I was hoping for it to get better at some point.
I realize I’m a pleb/philistine/moron/whatever, but I cannot stand Hemingway lmao
I’m with you, the Old Man and the Sea sucked and idc who says what 🫠
I started the first Mistborn book and dropped it after a hundred pages or so. A year later I started Stormlight Archive and now Brandon Sanderson is my favourite writer of all time. I’m glad I gave it another shot
LOL I’m the reverse. Started with the first Mistborn trilogy when it first came out, and really liked it, though his use of contemporary language really bugged me. Years later, tried the first book of Stormlight Archive and I hated it. So I thought I may have just outgrown Sanderson. Recently, found the first book of the second Mistoborn series in the library and decided to check it out. I absolutely loved it and I’m already going through the third book. His language still bugs me though. Nothing takes you out of a fantasy Western setting faster than seeing the word “micromanage” being used.
As much as I love Sanderson, his prose and language isn’t definitely his strength. Still love him though!
I read Sanderson’s Elantris first, and found it really pedestrian. I reviewed it on a fantasy forum I was a member of at the time, and Sanderson himself responded. He was very nice about it, and basically said that Elantris was the 5th novel he’d written (1st he’d published) while Mistborn was the 11th novel he’d written (2nd he’d published), and he’d learned a lot in between the writing of those two books. So if I was inclined to give him a second chance I might find Mistborn more to my liking. I did give him a second chance, and I really liked Mistborn. Sanderson isn’t the greatest writer on earth, and he still has a lot of tendencies that put me off, but he tells a good story
Gene Wolfe. I love the Wizard Knight. It’s mysterious and moody but not difficult to read.