4 ms·

I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual problem is that the work is just O

I have found recommendations of (especially) genre novels from people I don't personally know to be nearly useless. The usual problem is that the work is just OK but gets talked up like it's great. Sometimes, it's outright bad. I've got enough past actually-greats—genre and otherwise—to catch up on, I don't need 100 "OMG it's so good!" comments from a dozen sites steering me toward a newer book that turns out to be pretty damn mediocre. That's been the outcome often enough that I just have to ignore those kinds of comments, no matter how frequently-encountered and how unanswered by credible-seeming naysayers they go—those aspects, maddeningly, don't seem to correlate with them being more likely to be good advice on what to read next. IDK what the deal is, though I suspect it's actually multiple forms of difference in judgement of fiction and expectations for how one frames a recommendation, which have different causes but the same outcome. Like, I basically need a top-ten in-genre books and a top-ten (dealer's choice) works outside that genre in any medium from someone recommending a book, to even begin to judge if what I'm going to find on the other side of the recommendation is probably going to at least be fairly good. A bare recommendation, no matter how glowing, carries no signal. Let me know what else you think is good, and I can start to get an idea of whether we're in alignment, because otherwise there's a decent chance we very much are not.

m463 2y ago
I agree. When I first used to go to bookstores, the "highly recommended!" books tended to be star wars type books. Even author recommendations are hit or miss. I loved well's murderbot series. I tried her other books (Raksura) but it wasn't as fun. I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. Gaiman's short story "How to talk to girls at parties" was fun though. https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties_(Text) https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_... I liked Neal Stephenson's early books like snowcrash or the diamond age, but the baroque cycle lost my trust.
- lmm 2y ago
  > I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. The version that's sold today is the "author's preferred text" which is not the version that was praised and won awards etc.. I think that's pretty dishonest marketing, and wish they'd sell the original edition, which is like 200 pages shorter.
- int_19h 2y ago
  To this day, I'm confused how "Three Body Problem" won so many awards. To me it reads like a really bad fanfic.
HelloMcFly 2y ago
I agree. Letterboxd makes this easy to accomplish with movies, and there's enough people covering videogames out there that you can usually find someone to dial-in on your taste (or find a Steam curator that lists a lot of stuff you love). TV is a bit harder, but you may be able to find a critic with a consistent voice that matches your own through Rotten Tomatoes (not the aggregate score alone) or maybe a podcast about TV where you learn their preference dial vs. your own. But books? The level of investment to make these determinations is larger, and there's less people doing it. Or maybe I just haven't found the answer yet. I also don't think it helps that people either like a book or immediately say "bad writing" or "too YA", which then make others that disagree look like simpletons just for disagreeing. Creates a hard place for dialogue.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  the answer is to use goodreads, follow people who you really like/agree with the reviews of, and then only read their reviews of any book you might want to read
  - HelloMcFly 2y ago
    I just really struggled with Goodreads, but that was years ago, maybe I'll give it another shot. Or perhaps try this Storygraph thing another commenter mentioned.
    - omnimus 2y ago
      There is also much nicer version of goodreads https://literal.club https://literal.club it started as answer to amazon acquiring goodreads. It has fewer users than good reads but i would say generaly more demanding readers (judging from what kind of books get reviews).
- predakanga 2y ago
  I saw someone recommend a site called "The Storygraph" recently - haven't tried it yet, but it seems like an interesting alternative to Goodreads. In particular the "moods" feature caught my eye.
chadcmulligan 2y ago
I used to love Amazon 'you may like..' back in the day, now I find it useless, I haven't found a replacement. The reviewers used to be tech heads like me so the reviews aligned well, now its everyman so the recommendations are more banal (at least to my tastes).
dageshi 2y ago
Essentially it's down to people having different tastes and standards regarding what they read. I adore world building so I gravitate to fantasy and scifi but I really don't care that much about characterisation. A story with a dull self insert character is genuinely fine for me so long as the world building is interesting. That is ultimately why I didn't care about Murderbot much, the world building is pretty standard and the character that fans of the story relate to is pretty much lost on me. You have to figure out the specifics of what you enjoy from a book and then look for people with similar tastes in order to find recommendations.

m463 2y ago

I agree. When I first used to go to bookstores, the "highly recommended!" books tended to be star wars type books. Even author recommendations are hit or miss. I loved well's murderbot series. I tried her other books (Raksura) but it wasn't as fun. I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. Gaiman's short story "How to talk to girls at parties" was fun though. https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties/How_To_Talk_To_Girls_At_Parties_(Text) https://neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_Talk_... I liked Neal Stephenson's early books like snowcrash or the diamond age, but the baroque cycle lost my trust.

lmm 2y ago
> I found American Gods to be highly praised, and though it was hard to get through. The version that's sold today is the "author's preferred text" which is not the version that was praised and won awards etc.. I think that's pretty dishonest marketing, and wish they'd sell the original edition, which is like 200 pages shorter.
int_19h 2y ago
To this day, I'm confused how "Three Body Problem" won so many awards. To me it reads like a really bad fanfic.

HelloMcFly 2y ago

I agree. Letterboxd makes this easy to accomplish with movies, and there's enough people covering videogames out there that you can usually find someone to dial-in on your taste (or find a Steam curator that lists a lot of stuff you love). TV is a bit harder, but you may be able to find a critic with a consistent voice that matches your own through Rotten Tomatoes (not the aggregate score alone) or maybe a podcast about TV where you learn their preference dial vs. your own. But books? The level of investment to make these determinations is larger, and there's less people doing it. Or maybe I just haven't found the answer yet. I also don't think it helps that people either like a book or immediately say "bad writing" or "too YA", which then make others that disagree look like simpletons just for disagreeing. Creates a hard place for dialogue.

whimsicalism 2y ago
the answer is to use goodreads, follow people who you really like/agree with the reviews of, and then only read their reviews of any book you might want to read
- HelloMcFly 2y ago
  I just really struggled with Goodreads, but that was years ago, maybe I'll give it another shot. Or perhaps try this Storygraph thing another commenter mentioned.
  - omnimus 2y ago
    There is also much nicer version of goodreads https://literal.club https://literal.club it started as answer to amazon acquiring goodreads. It has fewer users than good reads but i would say generaly more demanding readers (judging from what kind of books get reviews).
predakanga 2y ago
I saw someone recommend a site called "The Storygraph" recently - haven't tried it yet, but it seems like an interesting alternative to Goodreads. In particular the "moods" feature caught my eye.

chadcmulligan 2y ago

I used to love Amazon 'you may like..' back in the day, now I find it useless, I haven't found a replacement. The reviewers used to be tech heads like me so the reviews aligned well, now its everyman so the recommendations are more banal (at least to my tastes).

dageshi 2y ago

Essentially it's down to people having different tastes and standards regarding what they read. I adore world building so I gravitate to fantasy and scifi but I really don't care that much about characterisation. A story with a dull self insert character is genuinely fine for me so long as the world building is interesting. That is ultimately why I didn't care about Murderbot much, the world building is pretty standard and the character that fans of the story relate to is pretty much lost on me. You have to figure out the specifics of what you enjoy from a book and then look for people with similar tastes in order to find recommendations.