Books I love to hate – 2

Another post which was lying in my drafts for a while now. Time to add some new reviews and hit publish –

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle #1)

One of the worst books I have read in a long time.

• Boring mainly because of bad editing. One scene where Kvothe is riding a horse has been described in 4 pages. 4 lines would have been more than enough. Scenes and conversations stretch for pages together and most of the time the conversation adds no value to the story.
• Denna is probably the worst female character I have ever encountered. How can someone portray women in such a bad light and get away with such high rating for the book? If it was just Denna, I would still be okay. But all the other female characters and their portrayal was disturbing. And Kvothe is so charming that every other woman in the book was trying to lure him into sleeping with her (kinda).
• There is not even a single character, male or female who is remotely interesting. I did not like a single character in the book. Kvothe himself is manipulative, a liar and a disrespectful person. He is extremely arrogant as well. But there is nothing that he can’t accomplish.
• I am not even sure why they call this an epic fantasy. There is nothing epic about this book. It is just a long winded rags to riches story with some revenge and arrogance thrown in. The entire story revolves around a single character.
• I found the author extremely misogynist. There are no female characters for more than half of the book. All the masters in the University are male. When a female student enters a class, one of the masters passes a lewd comment on her. When the female characters do enter the story, they are the kind misogynist men think women are like – no brains, just beauty used to lure men into their traps for money. WTH! No strong female character. For that matter, no strong character at all – neither male nor female.
• University part of the story sounded very much like Harry Potter – a master who dislikes our hero and calls him a prodigy in front of the class (Snape), a fellow student whom our hero despises (Malfoy) and the two friends, except there is no female friend.
• Kvothe is always either drunk or sharing a drink with his friends, even though he is broke. He has no money to buy a shirt, but has enough to treat his friends to wine. And why are 14-15 year olds getting so drunk?!
• Who whips students in a University for breaking rules?!

I wasted my precious time on the book and I regret it. 700+ pages of dull boring story, where nothing eventful or mysterious happens.

Station Eleven

One of the most boring books I have read in last few years. I ended up buying this book and that makes me more frustrated for pouring money on this book. Lesson learnt: think twice before buying a science fiction book written by a female author. This is hardly a science fiction book – other than the fact that some part of the story takes place in a post apocalyptic world. The characters are boring, nothing much happens plot wise. Even after reading 169 pages, story did not progress and I finally got fed up. I kept thinking that something might happen, but after a point I had enough. I skimmed through the last 100 pages of the book. I am glad I did not continue reading since even the ending was boring, with nothing much taking place. Yawn! Time to throw this book into a trash can.

 Daughter of smoke and bone

I didn’t like the book. 😦
Reasons would be –
1. Romance between two most attractive and beautiful people. Why do all the YA have that “perfect” romance in them?!
2. First half of the book was decent but the second half was terrible. As the book proceeded, my interest waned.
3. Last 100 pages were the worst. I skipped some chapters after getting fed up of that cheesy romance (which was too perfect for my liking). I don’t like these love at first sight stories as they are unbelievable.
4. I am pretty sure I am not going to pick the other books in the series.
5. Character development was bad. I never felt pity for Karou nor did I like Akiva or any of the other characters in the book.
Now why is this book so famous?! Thankfully, I didn’t buy it.

 The Red Pyramid (Kane Chronicles #1)

Definitely better than the Percy Jackson series but still not a favorite read of mine. Good one time read, mainly to get familiarized with the Egyptian mythology.

I have read 2 books written by this author so far and I can predict the plot for any book written by him I guess –
-Evil God
-Heroes who are somehow related to Gods
-Monsters are sent by the evil God to kill these heroes
-Heroes have to stop the evil God

The only suspense element in the books is probably guessing the kind of monster that is going to attack them next. I don’t think there is anything else which is surprising or worth reading for. Monster after monster attacks them at very unlikely places and when you least expect them to. I guess it is a good book for school children but for adults, his books are definitely boring.

I love mythology and that was the reason for picking the books but weak plot and almost zero character development, makes the books not very interesting. It is okay if you want to get familiar with some Gods and monsters in Greek or Egyptian mythology. But if you are looking for something more than this, you will definitely be disappointed.

Somewhere I read that Kane chronicles is for a bit matured audience, when compared to Percy Jackson but I did not feel so. Both of them are written for younger audience and are definitely not matured enough for adults to enjoy them. And the so called witty dialogues seemed very stupid to me. Humor is at wrong places.

I think I will look for a book by a different author, the next time I feel like reading a book based on mythology.

Have you read any book recently which you hated?