It depends. I love the first book in the Wheel of Time series (I read it so long ago that I see I don’t even remember its name). I read five or six of the sequels, and yeah, they’re problematic in many ways, and also somewhat boring (one of them was a six hundred page book taking place in something like three days or so).

So I guess my point is, if that person has read the start of the series and thought it great is far less of a red flag than him reading most of the series and thinking it great. Although I’d be super impressed with the latter for keeping track of all those characters!

Ah, Gerald’s Game. I was quite into Stephen King’s books before it, back then I had read a bunch of them, some more than once. After reading Gerald’s Game I couldn’t get anywhere near a book of his for five years or so, that’s how horrified I was by one specific scene (>!how she got out of handcuffs!<). It’s been fifteen years since I read it and that scene gives me the creeps still.

So yeah, I can’t remember how much I enjoyed it at the time, but if there is a book in the world I will never, ever get near, then Gerald’s Game is it.