Has your favourite author ever dissapointed you?

Carrie R · Post by **Carrie R** » 08 Oct 2012, 12:20

seayork2002 wrote:John Grisham sometimes, for example his latest The Litigators

Yeah, that one was kind of a let down. Another author who's 'disappointed' me is Patricia Cornwell. I really enjoyed her earlier books (the Kay Scarpetta series). But something's happened to them lately. I didn't even read the last one, and the one before that I stopped halfway through.

Great topic!

perusaphone · Post by **perusaphone** » 09 Oct 2012, 05:03

Years ago, when I was a mere stripling, I enjoyed the growing imagination of the Western genre. The Louis Lamour's, the Zane Greys etc. One in particular caught my eye, the author J.T.Edson. I purchased any amount of books by him. The name was inspirational in the Western field. Many stories involved a motley collection of cowhands that worked for a particular ranch, many of whom, as the stories unfolded, became almost iconic to me. I read on and greatly enjoyed the whiling away of many hours in the dreamlike imaginations of my youth.
However, as with most things, I grew out of the genre. I found out that the author, J.T.Edson, was in fact a chap from Northern Britain, who, just found it easy to write the books. This is despite the rather fetching page of collectors reproduction guns advertised within some books pages (a juvenile male interest probably). I also found out that I was getting mightily bored with reading the same descriptions of each of the oft repeated characters, their individual histories and good points etc. Thus an era passed the way of all passing, the names Dusty Fog, The Ysabel Kid, Waco etc etc still haunt my memory and no doubt will for ever, but, ultimately, the author disappointed me through no fault of his own.....

Shaybo · Post by **Shaybo** » 06 Nov 2012, 18:03

Laurie R. King stopped writing one of her mysteries series With the character named Kate Martinelli. I was getting addicted to her stories when she all of a sudden stopped writing them.

MelMariah · Post by **MelMariah** » 06 Nov 2012, 19:53

It dissapoints me that Markus Zusak does not do more writing and that Stephen King supposedly has 'ghost writers'.

book_life · Post by **book_life** » 13 Nov 2012, 12:55

I'm a big, big fan of Lee Child. Read all of his books. The latest one was just horrible. Huge disappointment.

Caron1 · Post by **Caron1** » 15 Nov 2012, 17:42

I've pretty much stopped reading Stephen King's books since his wife started writing them with him. I understand it was because of his accident and all, but they're just different since then. Of course, one can't like everything just as one can't like every one. So authors are going to disappoint their audience at some point because reading is such a personal perception. Everyone looks at things differently and what makes me cry will not effect someone else the same. It's one reason that even though I read reviews, I still have to make my own decision about a book. I've liked books that had horrible reviews and I've hated books that got great reviews.

Carrie R · Post by **Carrie R** » 15 Nov 2012, 19:40

Caron1 wrote:I've pretty much stopped reading Stephen King's books since his wife started writing them with him.

I didn't realize this was the case. That may be why I haven't read him for a while either. The tone in his last few books is different.

Caron1 · Post by **Caron1** » 15 Nov 2012, 20:35

Yep. Which it was perfectly understandable when he almost died. And maybe she doesn't do as much any more, but almost dying seems to have really changed his writing.

EmmaH · Post by **EmmaH** » 19 Nov 2012, 09:35

I don't think I have one single favorite author, but John Irving is definitely up there. But, I recently read "Until I Find You", which I found very disappointing. It was praised as being one of his most biographical books (sexual abuse at a young age, reconnecting with a biological father), but I feel like these themes are present in almost all of his books and has been done to death. I basically read the entire thing thinking "have I read this before?".

MelMariah · Post by **MelMariah** » 19 Nov 2012, 20:56

When did this incident with Stephen King occur?
And what exactly was it?

Caron1 · Post by **Caron1** » 19 Nov 2012, 21:24

A truck or van struck him while he was walking in 1999. It was pretty serious.

aornis · Post by **aornis** » 20 Nov 2012, 18:02

Chuck Palahniuk
I had read several of his books, Fight Club (nice book; the movie's good but it cannot convey the message as powerful without Palahniuk's unique language), Lullaby and a few more. And sure, he likes the dark corners of the human mind a lot. None of his novels is particularly sane and free of disgusting things, but they all made sense. They meant to show you how rotten people actually are.
Well, then I got to "Haunted" and was... just disappointed.

It's gorey, disgusting, deranged and it lacks any coherent message. Just a showcase of sick things you can cram into one book. It's like Palahniuk wanted to one-up all his other books. I made several attempts to finish the book to maybe find the overall meaning and sense, but I couldn't get myself to.
I never picked up another book of him after that.

(Although, I'm using "favourite author" loosely here. I used to like him a lot. But I don't really have a favourite author.)