Possibly controversial but I like the movie of The Princess Bride much better than the book. The book felt kind of cynical in its humor and had some not great men describing women moments. The movie is almost more pure, like it feels like an expression of joy and laughter.
You gotta include the author’s name, I thought you were talking about The Ritual by Aaron Neville (a folk horror novel with no sex scenes) and got so confused.
I think the book I’ve disliked the most this year was Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney. I felt like the author tried too hard to make it twisty and unpredictable and it just became an incoherent mess.
I love Blood Meridian but it is hard to read. I read it in a graduate literature class and we were going through it sentence by sentence. I think it’s actually McCarthy’s most difficult book (I haven’t read his final two books, just everything up to The Road).
I’m teaching a YA book by Alan Gratz and boy does he love the word “churn.”