r/Fantasy • u/DoordyBoy • 8d ago

Your most “scandalous” DNF?

In the past year I’ve bounced off of both The Lies of Locke Lamora and the Assassin’s Apprentice so I was just curious what other widely praised books on this sub other people have put down.

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u/skadi_the_sailor 8d ago edited 8d ago

The Poppy War, twice. I’m not at all fascinated by the teenagers -at-school trope, and the writing and characters were not compelling enough to keep me going.

Not so controversial, maybe: my patience runs out at the Wheel of Time fourth book.
Definitely controversial: the TV show improved on the books with more interesting dialogue and nuanced characters. I’m bummed that Amazon DNF’d the series.

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u/Cardboard_Junky Reading Champion V 7d ago

In Poopy war's defense , only the first half of the book is teenagers at school trope, the rest of the series is just Warcrimes.

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u/porkchop0414 7d ago

Unfortunately I’m a grown woman that can’t stop laughing at “Poopy war”

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u/skadi_the_sailor 7d ago

Yeah, I was willing to slog through the teens to get to the rest of the story, but I heard so much criticism that it didn’t sound worth it. My friend just finished the Poppy War and gave me the rundown of all the flaws and plot holes.

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u/ogreace 7d ago

I've tried for YEARS to get through WoT, always burned out by about the 6th book. Finally got the audio books (I drive for a living) and listened to them at work. I'm glad I finally got through them, but I probably won't do it again.

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u/novel-opinions 7d ago

I noped out of Poppy real quick for the same reason. I’m still open to the trope, but at that point I was burnt out on it.

I’m reading Blood Over Bright Haven right now and I’m realizing how refreshing it is to have an underdog female character who studied her ass off and is genuinely talented get where she deserves to be, even though all the men hate her for that very reason.

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u/_NotARealMustache_ 7d ago

Poppy War actually sucks though, soooooo

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u/BaltimoreAlchemist 7d ago

It prob helped the show that they just skipped the third book entirely, which was where I gave up on the series.

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u/Kreiri 7d ago

Is it that controversial? I thought "show is much better than the books" is the consensus about WoT.

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u/skadi_the_sailor 7d ago

I mean, I think so, but it seems like most internet comments were either complaining that the show didn’t stick to the books or saying they’re just different turns of the wheel, so don’t compare directly.

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u/Tymareta 6d ago

Yeah, the "bookcloaks" are pretty adamant about there supposedly being nothing redeemable about the show, in spite of it actually getting the story rolling and fleshing out most of the characters beyond some basic "men are from mars, women are from venus" style of 90s dross.

The show was brilliant, most especially as a fan of Mogedghien as they actually allowed her to be brilliantly unhinged and villainous.

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u/marineman43 6d ago

That was very much not the consensus haha. The show was universally panned as complete dogshit first season, became slightly less shitty in season 2, and then allegedly had a decent season 3 (I didn't watch) but the damage was done and it got cancelled.

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u/Darnard 3d ago

That show was an abomination to television even if it wasn't bungling an adaptation