Biggest Disappointments

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

Cecrow: Fun deficiency

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

ahef1963: I was not expecting so much misogyny. Couldn't finish.

ahef1963: I couldn't even manage a chapter of staggering genius. Overrated, even by the author.

ahef1963: I'd liked The Scarlet Letter so much that I was hoping this one would be as good; it turned out to be extremely dull.

hipdeep: Substantial alleged fabrications in this autobiographical story.

ahef1963: I thought this was pretty workaday considering all the good things I'd heard about it.

ahef1963: Meh.

jain: Ditto the cut edition. The book starts out great, but it goes off the rails pretty early on.

aulsmith: Heinlein really did need to edit this.

aulsmith: Needed serious editing. There's a great book with about half of this and half of All Clear.

merrystar : This one was better than I expected

ahef1963: I like Verne so much but was put to sleep by this adventure.

Cecrow: Repetition, little forward momentum, Ayla's Mary Sue complex ... good comfort read, though.

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

Cecrow: Too much hyperbole raised my expectations

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: Expecting an award winning book on gender. Got a mediocre piece of spec fic with a lot of hurt/comfort.

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: Found it nearly incomprehensible.

ahef1963: I could not get through this.

jain : Includes "A Study in Emerald," which singlehandedly is enough to elevate this collection for me.

hipdeep: I love Bryson's earlier work, but this doesn't particularly hang together well. It feels disjointed and haphazard.

aulsmith: Didn't appreciate the satire when I was a child. After Man of La Mancha, it was too late.

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

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

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

aulsmith: Needed serious editing.