More Popular Books I Don’t Want to Read

“The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened.”

First line in The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Unpopular opinions time! It’s been almost two years since I made a post listing some popular books I have to interest in reading, and since there are so many popular books, I figured it was time to make another one. You see, I’m an incredibly picky reader. There is a lot of stuff I don’t care to read about in books, no matter how popular they. I know my tastes well enough to know I’m not going to like these books, so why bother? Sometimes I still make the mistake of reading a book just because it’s popular, and it’s about time I learned my lesson. These lists are therefore also a way of reminding myself to steer clear of these particular books.

I’m going to try and explain why the books and my tastes don’t align, so you hopefully won’t get too mad at me for not wanting to read your favorite books.

---

Jade City by Fonda Lee

A Fantasy story about a gang war? No, thank you. I don’t like that kind of storyline in any kind of media because I never love the characters. From what I’ve heard about Jade City, I’m not going to love the characters in that one either.

The Rest of the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan

I made it to book four but I’m now joining the group of people who are mystified why this series is so popular. I’m still very excited for the TV show because that just has to have fixed some of the problems with the books.

Anything by Joe Abercrombie

Simple. I don’t read Grimdark. It’s again a case of this genre not being likely to produce the type of characters I like to read about.

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

Not only is this one military fantasy, but it also has a school setting, and that’s already two major aspects of this book that don’t tend to work for me. There’s also nothing else about the synopsis that catches my interest as it sounds the same as so many other high fantasy stories.

Anything by Stephen King

This guy has written a lot of books and most of them are Horror as far as I’m aware. I don’t have much of an interest in the Horror genre, but I’m also not going to read any of his other books. None of the synopsis I’ve read speaks to me, and I’ve come across too many mediocre or negative reviews of his books to really want to dedicate the time to try him out.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

I’m not exactly sure why I’m not interested in this one as I usually like stories that feature thieves as main characters. There’s a tiny part of me that’s hesitant because we’re dealing with a female main character from a male author, and that combination very rarely works for me. She’s also the only character the synopsis will tell me about, and I’m a reader that is very much drawn to a book based on character descriptions in the synopsis. And reviews haven’t been able to draw me in either.

The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winters

We’ve hit another thing I don’t like to read about: revenge stories. I really don’t see the appeal. On top of that, what I’ve heard about the main character has left me confident that I’m not going to enjoy reading about him.

If my reasons hadn’t made it clear, I’m very much a character-focused reader, so if I’m positive I’m not going to connect with the main character, it almost doesn’t matter what else the book has going for it. So I’m not going to read these books, but let’s chat about them in the comments if you’ve read them or, like me, have no interest in them. Are there some other popular books you have no intention of reading?