Biggest Disappointments

jain: I couldn't read more than a couple of pages, the writing style was *so bad*.

: Painfully unrealistic: couldn't wait to give the book away hence it's not in my Lib Thing.

DidIReallyReadThat: I simply did not enjoy the characters

zottel: I loved all of Mitchell's other works, especially Ghostwritten and The Bone Clocks. Compared to those, Cloud Atlas really was a disappointment. Flat characters, boring stories, all in all far away from the quality of his other books. It's not really bad, but not very good, either—Mitchell can do MUCH better. If you haven't read a Mitchell before, don't choose this one as your first.

aulsmith : This is an adult book, not a sequel to Tom Sawyer.

aspirit: Feels like insanity. Don't know why I should want to experience that voluntarily.

aulsmith: Too long and episodic without an overall point.

ahef1963: I could not get through this.

jain : The ending was terrible, but I really liked the first ~3/4 of the book.

Cecrow: Fun deficiency

ahef1963: Couldn't stand all the histrionics.

jain: I love Sherlock Holmes, but this particular story's very clumsily written.

aulsmith: I thought it dragged. It was obvious where the plot was going and I didn't find the jokes worth the time to get there.

Cecrow: Too much hyperbole raised my expectations

aulsmith: Found this much less engrossing than 1984 to which it had been compared.

aulsmith : I suspect that many younger people find it dated, but reading it in the sixties, when we thought we'd be nuked out of existence at any moment, it was both hopeful and scary.

aulsmith: Expecting an interesting book on intersexuality--there was a lot of interesting stuff, but not on gender.

aulsmith : Not really a sequel to American Gods. A marketing mistake. I loved what he did with the women.

aulsmith: It just didn't grab me, especially after all the hype from my friends.