Series you were disappointed with...

[Quiver]

...So, who is Veronica Roth exactly?

 

I mean... obviously, from what you guys say, she's not very good. And I've heard her name mentioned amongst the likes of Stephanie Meyer. But I have absolutely no idea who she is, or what she's written.

 

Granted, I didn't find out about Twilight until long after Breaking Dawn was published... but I'm a little more genre-savey and socially aware these days, and I have no idea of what awful ideas she's added to culture on par with sparkling vampires. So... details, please? If no one minds.

 

(...For the record, I should probably add that I would say there aren't really bad ideas, just good ideas executed badly. For instance, Twilight would make a fantastic horror novel, or story about a sociopath or stockholm syndrom.)

[Left]

She wrote the Divergent trilogy, just look through the posts to see our reviews of the series.

 

Another series I'm disappointed in is the Runelords quad. The first book was great, a lot like a mixture of traditional fantasy and a Warbreaker/Mistborn mashup. After that, the books have just been disappointing and going downhill. Feels like the spark of imagination and originality got swamped by tradition and cliche with some pretentious preaching. I'm working on the last book, hoping that the ending will help redeem all the effort I've had to put into it to keep chugging through.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

...So, who is Veronica Roth exactly?

I mean... obviously, from what you guys say, she's not very good. And I've heard her name mentioned amongst the likes of Stephanie Meyer. But I have absolutely no idea who she is, or what she's written.

Granted, I didn't find out about Twilight until long after Breaking Dawn was published... but I'm a little more genre-savey and socially aware these days, and I have no idea of what awful ideas she's added to culture on par with sparkling vampires. So... details, please? If no one minds.

(...For the record, I should probably add that I would say there aren't really bad ideas, just good ideas executed badly. For instance, Twilight would make a fantastic horror novel, or story about a sociopath or stockholm syndrom.)

She wrote the Divergent trilogy, which follows Beatrice "Tris" Prior as she navigates a dystopian Chicago divided into five different factions, each of which value one quality--bravery, selflessness, intelligence, honesty, or kindness--above all others and organize their societies accordingly.

It's an interesting setup, and for the first book, it worked. There were some logic fails (how did a society that encourages distrust between factions yet allows teens to choose their own factions survive so long? how does a personality test that limits options so severely even work?) but it was fast-paced and fun enough that I didn't really care. Then the second book showed up the flaws of the first by virtue of its even worse logic, and I've heard the third book was so terrible that fixfics are incredibly common.

[Redbird]

Because of what I have heard, I just stopped at the first book, which was alright.

[maxal]

I read once that she wrote the entire first book without knowing where the fence, the factions, or any of the other stuff came from or why it was there. Which, as a discovery writer, I don't necessarily see as a bad thing. I've written stories without knowing how they'd end, and they turned out fine. But when it comes to big things like that, I think the author should at least have an idea of how to make it all fit together with a plausible explanation—or, failing that, know which portions of their setting they're going to leave unexplained. 

 

Take the Marvel movies of their classic heroes, for example. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man doesn't give us a long-winded explanation of exactly how a spider was made radioactive, or how it transfers that radioactivity through a bite, or how that radiation doesn't kill Peter Parker where he stands. Nor do we get a scene explaining precisely how the Green Goblin's glider works despite the fact it seems to have no room for fuel cells anywhere and yet it basically defies gravity. Captain America doesn't bother telling us how an expatriate scientist in the early 1940s was able to create a power-granting serum that modern science has tried and failed to replicate. It doesn't tell us where they found vibranium or how they extract it from ore or how on earth it can deflect bullets. Those movies just wave off those explanations as part of the comic book setting—and we as the audience go along with it, because it's what we expect. We didn't come to see how modern science is so close to giving us a superpower-granting spider; we came to see ordinary people become heroes and kick villain booty, and Marvel is smart enough to give that to us. 

 

What Roth should have done in regards to her setting is just wave it off. You have a dystopian Chicago divided into factions derived from a BuzzFeed quiz? Great! How are they working? Not well? Fantastic! Explore that idea some more! Roth didn't have a plausible explanation for where the factions came from, and that's okay. The setting could have worked, if she'd just explored the ideas she had further. Instead, she tried to come up with a plausible explanation for an implausible society, and it didn't work. It just made the whole thing unbelievably silly, rather than the deadly serious angle she seemed to have been going for. 

 

 I agree with all. I would also add the implausibility of Tris as a character. In the book, she is presented as a skinny, tiny girl without any muscles nor any natural athleticism. When she starts of her training, she sucks. In fact, she sucks so bad it had you wonder how she would pull it off since the author kept on insisting on how tiny she was... Alright. I get it. You wanted to go for the underdog trope. A good one, usually an effective one, but you need to built on your character natural qualities. Think Sam in GoT: he is completely unfitted as a warrior, but he is cunning, smart and not a coward. He proves his value more then once and his one feat of arms had to do with inventiveness, hopelessness and braveness more then actual martial capacity. It works. Back to Tris now. So we have this skinny non athletic girl who has NEVER done any physical exercise in her entire life and you want to make me believe she is able to raise herself up to the highest rank at the end of a 6 weeks of training????     

 

Oh yeah right, she is divergent. How convenient. She is able to ace the simulations, but she still, still, still become known badass among her peers. She wins the flag tag game. Fine, she spotted the flag, but she still gets it, so how come the tiny non-athletic girl manages to best everyone else simply because she is the protagonist and once Veronica decided Tris was going to become number one and forgot how she built up the character in the beginning.

 

The movie fortunately solved many of these issues by casting a more plausible actress then tiny skinny Tris.

 

Also, why have their training period last 6 weeks??? It not plausible either anyone would become a master with guns within 6 weeks. Albeit, I never fired a guns, so it may be I know nothing, but it seemed rather far fetched. A bunch of teens with no warfare experience would not become deadly warrior within 6 weeks. How long does basic training last in the army? I bet it is more then 6 weeks and when you start, I bet you start at the end of the food chain, unless you've got diplomas, but Tris starts up at the top and secures herself one of the most wanted job by virtue of finishing first 

 

I won't rant on the love story which ends up taking up the entire plot line in the following books or her vain attempt are creating conflict in the third book by having Tris become jealous of a girl Four only spoke two words to. 

 

Anyway. I'll stop here. I could rant on this book for ages 

[Surgebound Rainspren]

The legend trilogy, never read the last two books, the ending of the first one completely ruined all the redeeming qualities about it.

[Redbird]

The legend trilogy, never read the last two books, the ending of the first one completely ruined all the redeeming qualities about it.

I read the first one and had no desire to continue the series.

[sarcasm]

I mean, you get someones mother and brother killed in front of them, but it's your true love, so they can can forgive you, right?

[/sarcasm]

Edited April 30, 2015 by Redbird

[Wolven]

Sword of Truth!

Oh yes.  Read it through once, will not likely ever do so again, and have no interest in reading the new books.

 

Also, the Shannara series.  Read through the first book once, only ever made it about a hundred pages through the second.  Tried to reread the first one again a year ago, couldn't do it.

 

One other one.  Malazan Book of the Fallen.  Read through the first one, didn't understand a danged thing about what was going on.  Did not continue.  

 

Edit:  Just realized after reading more of this thread that I have actually posted in it before, over a year ago.  I guess that's what happens when you go away from a site for so long.  

Edited May 10, 2015 by Wolven

[Wolven]

Eragon, so much for me. Eragon was my first real obession back in 4th grade. My friends and I acted out scenes on the playground and I regularly used the Ancient language. But Eldest was so bluh that I didn't even read the last two.

 

I read the first two books of that one, and when it started to feel like the writer just took star wars and turned it into a fantasy series rather than a sci-fi series...I stopped, never finished it.

[Wolven]

If I said A Song of Ice and Fire would anyone hate me? Do I have any supporters out there?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

I wouldn't hate you.  In fact, as much as I loved the first few books, the most recent few have started to disappoint me.  I keep waiting for the war at the wall to spill into the rest of the world, but it never happens.  Everyone just keeps squabbling and the White Walkers just keep biding their time, and biding their time, and biding their time, and...you get the point.

[maxal]

I wouldn't hate you.  In fact, as much as I loved the first few books, the most recent few have started to disappoint me.  I keep waiting for the war at the wall to spill into the rest of the world, but it never happens.  Everyone just keeps squabbling and the White Walkers just keep biding their time, and biding their time, and biding their time, and...you get the point.

 

I think the TV series is doing a much better work with book 4 ad 5 than the books themselves... Less characters, more wrapped-up plot lines, more drama, actions where it was lacking.... All in all, I am really enjoying it.

[mail-mi]

Also, the Shannara series.  Read through the first book once, only ever made it about a hundred pages through the second.  Tried to reread the first one again a year ago, couldn't do it.

I really liked the Shannara series--until the Dark Legacy. All of the characters were wimps, there was little-to-no action plot, there was no series-long villain, and he was basically saying through that whole series "Who cares about family, let's just have sex with whoever we want!" and wasn't even subtle about it. I swear, every fifth chapter was a lead-off chapter (which means that it says something like "Then they laid down together, and then they kissed, and they couldn't stop" and then a chapter break). 

[Winds Alight]

The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. The first two and a half books were great, but the showdown end ending felt so wrong to me. Like a U-turn. Suddenly, everything was different and didn't match the whole story anymore.

 

Also the Traitor Spy trilogy by Trudi Canavan, the Sequel to the Black Magician trilgogy. It was enjoyable, but not in the way it should have been.

 

And of course there's Eragon. But I still liked the series. It improved toward the ending.

 

Oh, and, I almost forgot because I never read past book one: "The Left Hand of God" by Paul Hoffman. That was just ... not good with tendencies to being awful.

 

Also I stopped after the first book of Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle trilogy. Boooooring!

Edited May 11, 2015 by Winds Alight

[Dunkum]

I really liked the Shannara series--until the Dark Legacy. All of the characters were wimps, there was little-to-no action plot, there was no series-long villain, and he was basically saying through that whole series "Who cares about family, let's just have sex with whoever we want!" and wasn't even subtle about it. I swear, every fifth chapter was a lead-off chapter (which means that it says something like "Then they laid down together, and then they kissed, and they couldn't stop" and then a chapter break). 

Sword of Shannara is a transparent Lord of the Rings ripoff for the most part, and Elfstones of Shannara is kinda cliched.  I liked Wishsong and the scions series though, and recall liking the voyage of the Jerle Shannara series.  not sure I read any of the others

[LouiseSparrow]

I liked the prequel, The First King of Shannara, better than the next few.

[Briar King]

I liked the prequel, The First King of Shannara, better than the next few.

That was my 1st Shannara bk and I enjoyed it so much. Then I barely made it through bk 1. Bk 2 was better but not enough to get me to read bk 3.