Ultra-Mega-Popular Books That I'm Not Interested In ⛔

Saturday 6 January 2018



We're always talking about what books are on our TBRs (or at least i am because i love making tbr posts), but today I want to do the opposite and talk about what's not on my TBR. Everyone has at least one or two or fifteen books that they're just not interested in reading for one reason or another, and I happen to have quite a few.

My reasons for not being interested in a book can be as varied as me not being interested in what it's about, it being from a genre that I don't read, or maybe I've seen it literally everything and ended up not being interested out of spite. Because spite can be a good reason for some things. Ready your heart because I might be about to break it.



A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas - Fun fact: when I was drafting this post, I'd given these books the general title of "A Court of Whatever and Something Else" because I forgot what they were called individually. They're so similarly titled to one another that they end up merging together and I get confused because I need things to be easily identifiable. Anyway, I see these books on Instagram all the time and, in all honesty, it makes me want to read them less. Fantasy is not my favourite genre and Sarah J Maas is not necessarily an author whose books I'm interested in reading. From what I've personally seen, these books are pretty polarising, if my Goodreads friends are anything to go by (which they are). I've seen people love these books and call them "steamy" and I've also seen people dislike them for the kind of romance that is portrayed. Plus, if I may be petty, candle makers on Etsy seem to be very limited in making candles inspired by SJM's books. As if there are no other authors out there who deserve to have scented candles inspired by their work. Ahem.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green - I've only read one John Green book and that's The Fault in Our Stars. I did enjoy it when I read it but I haven't picked it up for a reread since then and I haven't had the interest in picking up any of his other books. Why? I don't really know. Looking for Alaska sounded a little Manic Pixie Dream Girl-ish for my tastes and I just wasn't fussed about An Abundance of Katherines. I may give Will Grayson, Will Grayson a chance because I do like David Leviathan, but we shall see. But anyway, back to my little ramble: if you've been on Tumblr for a long time like I have, you'll remember when John Green's Tumblr account was a big deal. Then the movie of TFiOS came out and people ended up getting a bit sick of him for some reason and edited his posts to make it look like he was saying from gross things. Then it got even worse and people started accusing him of being a paedophile for being a male author who writes books for teenagers about teenagers being in relationships. Naturally, I just didn't want to hear about him anymore and without even trying, I didn't. A few years later, Turtles All the Way Down comes out and I have no reaction. Well, I did and it was "huh". Maybe I'll read it someday, maybe I won't. At this moment in time, though, I'm just not that bothered.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - I have a very strange relationship with classics: I either love them, think they're just okay, hate them with every fibre of my being, or I never finish them. Pride and Prejudice is one that I never finished and also have no intention of finishing. I understand perfectly just how popular this book is because I once went to a P&P themed hen party and was probably the only person there who didn't care for the book. I probably got about just over a quarter of the way through the book before giving up because it just didn't do anything special for me. I expected to swoon so hard over Mr Darcy but I just didn't like him at all. I expected so much from this book and just didn't have the patience to finish it.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien - Remember how I said fantasy isn't my favourite genre? Well, this is high fantasy which looks like it would not only steal my lunch money but shove my head down a toilet and give me a swirlie. To me, Lord of the Rings is the highest of high fantasy. Once there's an entirely different language invented for the world, my brain overloads and shuts off. I did try to read The Hobbit when I was fourteen and I couldn't even manage that, which is a children's book. The strange thing about this series is that even though it's so loved by so many people, I hear the same criticism: it's slow. I don't do well with slow books at all, I need my hero's journey to start pretty sharply, thank you very much.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon - Unlike a lot of people, I'm not immediately attracted to characters who are apparently just like me. The main character of this book has ASD, and so do I. Does that make me want to read it? No. A lot of people tend to assume that autistic people are all the same: white teenage boys who are shy, really good at maths, and love trains. I am only two of those things. I had the same kind of reaction to the Netflix show Atypical. I completely understand how important representation is for people from all kinds of minority groups, but when it comes to people shoving a book into my face and demanding I read it simply on the grounds that the MC is autistic "just like me", my initial reaction is going to be no because I find it patronising. That's not to say that I find books about autistic people patronising, but the way they're sometimes pushed to me is.


A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin - Guess who's the only person in my family who does not watch Game of Thrones? Now guess who also does not have any interest in the books. No points for guessing right. If you'll allow me to be vulgar for a second: I just don't give a fuck about Game of ThronesI'm not interested in either the TV show or the books, no matter how many people say how good they are. Like I said, high fantasy does not agree with me, and neither do doorstopper series that aren't even finished yet. There's plenty of other things I want to read. And those things don't have incest in them. Yuck.

Hamilton or anything to do with him/the musical - This one may be down to the fact that my knowledge of the early United States is almost nonexistent but it's also due to that weird phenomenon where once you see something everywhere all the time you start to want nothing to do with it. I'm not a huge fan of musicals so I probably wouldn't have been interested in it anyway but what kind of draws me away from anything about Hamilton is the conflicting information on his relationship with slavery. Was he an abolitionist or did he own slaves himself? I don't know so I can't comment on that but it's a can of worms that I don't want to open.

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - I said I was going to break some hearts, didn't I? Here's the thing with me and Harry Potter: when I was in primary school, I had a teacher one year who would read the books to us out loud as a class and would do voices and everything. I was nine at the time and I did actually enjoy them, even though we only read the third and fourth books, and a tiny bit of the fifth before going up to the next year group. After that, any interest I had in the series just fizzled out. For the longest time I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything, but last year I wanted to see what the fuss was about and went back to the first book. And I ended up not finishing it because it just didn't work for me. J.K. Rowling has a way of writing that does not really agree with me. She's very fond of avoiding using the word "said" and, to sound incredibly elitist here, as someone who has a BA in Creative Writing, it drives me nuts. I can't take the verb "ejaculated" seriously when it's being used to describe a manner of speech. People can't say I didn't try, though.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell - To be 100% completely honest, I was very surprised to learn that the fanfiction interludes from Fangirl were being expanded into a full novel. Why? Because I either skimmed over them or skipped them completely. The problem I had with those interludes were that they were based on characters completely made up for the MC to write and because of that, I knew literally nothing about them. Plus, they're Harry Potter expies. And we know how much interest I have in that series.


What popular books are you not interested in? Did I break your heart with some of the books I mentioned?

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