Tina: I only read The Notebook and A Walk to Remember and I vowed to never touch another Nick Sparks ever again. Totally formulaic.

Ken: I’ve heard of the movies but didn’t know it was about killer plants. That sounds like it should’ve been straight to SyFy to me.

Kuri: I really wanted to read Oscar Wao. But man, I just can’t do it. I did try one summer to read all of the Vampire Chronicles. I read Interview and Vampire Lestat and I had it. I figured she’s not writing about vampires now it shouldn’t be too bad. WRONG!

I liked Oscar Wao a lot…

I really did hate Twilight. I’d never have gotten through it if I hadn’t been making fun of it on my blog. (I did finish reading it, even though I stopped writing about it.)

One book I just couldn’t get through was the first of those cavemen books — Clan of the Cave Bear, I think it was called. I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever read. (Still is, unless non-fiction counts. Then anything Jonah Goldberg has ever written comes in first.)

The group dynamic falls apart after they encounter **spoiler alert**killer vines and unsympathetic Mayans, and they (the tourists) are systematically killed-off**. The characters become increasingly unlikeable, and perform grossly descriptive plant-removal surgery on themselves. The killer shrub is obviously powerful and intelligent, so why haven’t the Mayans destroyed it (it has vulnerabilities), or protected it more securely from trespass?

About midpoint, the author’s writing became oppressive, and continued in that vein without relief. I knew that nothing satisfying was forthcoming, but I slogged ahead anyway. Really, I should have quit. The ending was absolutely horrible (as I suspected it would be), with nothing to redeem it. Strangely, Stephen King gave “The Ruins” a good review, and it was made into a movie.

Nicholas Sparks, Suzanne’s Letters to Nicholas.

I wanted to kill Sparks after that one. I haven’t read another thing he’s written after that. Most mass-market paperbacks annoy me due to awful writing.