abience (n.): the strong urge to avoid someone or something
Not all books fit the palate of all people. And some books are genuinely terrible.
- My Ántonia by Willa Cathe
- The Shining by Stephen King
- Mondays Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
- The Shining by Stephen King
- The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
- Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
- Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
- The Tempest by Shakespeare
- The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
- Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen
- Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
- Ethan Frome by Edith Whaton
- Ethan Frome by Edith Whaton
- Ethan Frome by Edith Whaton
- The Tempest by Shakespeare
- Ethan Frome by Edith Whaton
- Ethan Frome by Edith Whaton
- The Dead by James Joyce
- How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- Macbeth by William Shakespeare
- The Tempest by William Shakespeare
- The Tempest by William Shakespeare
- Ethan Frome
- Sweat
- The Bible
- One of Us is Lying
- “Don’t read it. Throw it out. Donate it. Actually, don’t. Burn it. I don’t want some poor child to receive a book donation and it’s the worst thing ever—we’re going to turn kids against reading.”
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- “There was no plot until there was all the plot ever.”
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- “I’m sorry if that offends people with certain political ideologies…I don’t know. There are so many good books. The thing about Atlas Shrugged is that it is a book of ideas. And there are plenty of books of ideas. There’s an argument to be made that The Bluest Eye is a book of ideas. The thing about books of ideas is that they are only as good as the ideas. And with Atlas Shrugged, the idea is that you have to look out for number one, forget about everybody else, you are the most important thing so long as you act in your own self interest everything will work out. I think that’s complete bullshit. And I think that’s a really dangerous way to approach the world. You are not allowed to think of yourself as solely an individual.”
- Red, White, and Royal Blue
- House on Mango Street
- The Pirate King’s Daughter
- “A large part of me wants to become a publisher. Not because I like to write but because I’ve read too many awful books that should not have made it that far.”
- It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover
- “I couldn’t emotionally bring myself to get through it.”
- The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Warriors by Erin Hunter
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- Ethan Frome
- Ethan Frome
- Ethan Frome
- Ethan Frome
- One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
- The Institute by Stephen King
- “My controversial take is that Stephen King isn’t that great. I think he has good ideas, but he doesn’t know how to edit them. He needs to be editing himself better. There’s no reason for his books to be that long.”
- Macbeth by William Shakespeare
- Ethan Frome
- “It was stale. A really weird story. There’s no happiness…it’s just not good story building.”
- The House on Mango Street
- The Infants of the Spring by Wallace Thurman
- “It was written in the ‘20s; we can tell.”
- The Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
- “It was such a let down. I think she should have left [the series] where it was.”
- Ethan Frome
- “It seemed to just be this man who was just complaining. Maybe it was too complex for me to understand.”
- Hoot by Carl Hiaasen
- “I didn’t really understand it at the time. I’m sure if I read it now, it would be a lot better. It didn’t really pursue it that well.”
- Tale of Two Cities
- “In —’s class, the first book you read is Tale of Two Cities, and coming off of the summer, your braid is kinda foggy. You can’t start the year with that.”
- 1984 by George Orwell
- “I don’t like dystopian [books] so it was a drag.”
- Ethan Frome
- “I thought [it] was really irrelevant and I don’t think it really should be in the curriculum. I don’t think it impacted me in any way.”
- “So I’ve read in depth a lot of legal books, just about laws and this and that, and how lawyers write, and it’s very difficult to read, very difficult to understand. I used to read them and you’d have exams to move up in rank. It’s boring and hard to comprehend. Maybe they write it that way, so you can interpret it in different ways.”
- “Tom Clancy, some of his books have too much description. Just get to the story instead of going on and on about certain things.”
- The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
- A Thousand Boy Kisses by Tillie Cole
- The Tempest by William Shakespeare
- Ethan Frome
- “Boring. Tedious. Hard to read. It was too much description. And also, the setting overall was so depressing. There was nothing to enjoy. It’s cool to analyze, it’s just super tedious.”
- Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
- “It’s so predictable and simple-minded. Where’s the depth?”
- Ethan Frome
- “They make you suffer through such boringness. And then it ends horrifically depressing. So you’re like, You made me read all this boring stuff and it doesn’t even end happy? So we’re just all miserable? I’m—no—that was—I had to read it in high school. I remember sitting on the beach for summer reading and, like, throwing the book in the sand at the end. I was, like, angry, that this was a thing. And somehow it’s a classic.”
