 Hey guys it's Liana and I'm here today to react to one-star reviews from my favorite books. So I'm pretty sure people know that I quite frequently post rant reviews. I don't, despite the comments I sometimes get, I don't do this on purpose but I have a lot of feelings when I hate a book. So I don't set out to read books that I think I'm going to hate but if I read a book that I hate I don't hold back from ranting about it. So that being the case I thought it only fair to expose myself to rants about my favorite books. So I'm just gonna go on Goodreads and today we're gonna do three of my favorite books. Not like every favorite book in the world for me. So we're just gonna start there and then if this is fun for me and fun for you we can do it again because I have other favorite books. Today I'm gonna look at one-star reviews on Goodreads for A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie, The Lies of La Clamora by Scott Lynch, and The Wolf by Leo Caru. Let us away! A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie is the first book in the Age of Madness trilogy which is a new trilogy and the second book of that trilogy is coming out this month as of the filming of this video. It's not out yet. I don't know when this video is going up. I read A Little Hatred twice. I read it when it came out. Loved it, gave it five stars. It dethroned my former favorite Abercrombie book and became my favorite Abercrombie book. So I like it a lot. I picked this over like Besserb Cold or over Blade itself because I figure the one-star reviews are either gonna be from people who have read his work before and don't like what he's doing now because I feel like I mean I always recommend reading his other work first not starting here or it's people who read this first and probably shouldn't have but I guess we'll find out what their complaints are. But that's why I picked A Little Hatred instead of any of the other Abercrombie books I could have picked. Okay so just looking now the first one-star review. The whole thing has a strong whiff of epilogue to it. I wish I didn't read it to be honest. I wish I kept my memory of the hero. Okay so this person has read previous books before. I wish I kept my memory of the heroes intact and left off there. I wish I'd left off when there was some actual grimness and darkness mixed in with the nonsense back when it felt poignant and new instead of having to read about cowardly princes and brave princesses but alas. Um there have always been- excuse me but there have always been cowardly princes in Abercrombie books. Have you not read the first one? I mean all he mentioned was the heroes so maybe they didn't read the first actual G maybe. I don't know that'd be really weird to just read the heroes though. Apparently someone told Joe that he's really good at writing strong female characters in quotes and apparently he believed them so this time around there are about a dozen or so and they're all the same character. Disagree. Strong disagree. Let's let them finish their thought. The male characters two or three are just brutes and oafs and talkative incompetent fools wandering around in need of orders painfully cliche at this point like seven or eight books in. Okay so these are all felt like I was trapped in a CW show and couldn't get out only the grace of Stephen Pacy for comfort. That's the narrator of the audiobook and he is an amazing narrator so good. I really hope he was paid well enough by his publishers to justify this sub quality money grab. One star is a bit harsh. Abercrombie is still a master wordsmith. Yeah he fucking is. It's just this story didn't need to be told and is made out of nothing but caricature and cliche. It's worth two stars probably but I deducted one for sheer disappointment. I spent a lot of time looking forward to this only to have to suffer through chapters of Sivine complaining about tight corsets and other pirates of the Caribbean level shenanigans. Um oh my god I disagree with everything that this person said. Okay so Abercrombie does write females well in my opinion and there was always a bumbling okay so this this portrait that they're painting of bumbling males and strong female characters being like the whole thing. I mean literally in the first law trilogy when our little band that Logan I'm Fingers is with Logan and Baez and Giselle and Pharaoh. Pharaoh has like a head on her shoulders. She's really snarky. She's really good in a fight. She's really scrappy and she's so annoyed all the time that how useless Giselle is. She's like okay with Logan but like it's really because he goes berserker and she's like kind of scary but like also I'm here for that and she's frustrated as fuck with Baez who seems to be like oh he is a frustrating character so like that dynamic we've seen before already was always way smarter and way more witty than Giselle so when Giselle and Artie were together he was always just like oh boobs I love you and Artie was always just like whatever so that dynamic was already there. Like honestly Savine is a lot like her mother Artie. What books does this person reading that they think that this isn't something Abercrombie did before? And Savine is a great character and like Savine complaining about corsets isn't like a part of the Caribbean joke it's oh my god this person Savine complaining about it is actually really fantastic in my opinion. Savine complains about a lot of things internally where she's it's painting the portrait of her as a person who appreciates the power that image creation gives you and she knows that part of her power comes from her name but a lot of her and her money of course but a lot of power also comes from how she presents herself to people so internally she's like miserable because her corset is too tight and she's you know there's a part where she's actually started her period and she's like an enormous amount of pain because she's having cramps from her period but she's grinning and bearing it because she's the beautiful erudite rich lady so her complaining about and I think she there too complains about her corset when she's on her period and like all of this like as a woman I haven't don't have to work corsets but I mean like having to wear like office like slacks and trousers and that kind of thing like what I've been on my period is a nightmare it's really painful I can't even imagine wearing a corset so it just it was ever Cromby frequently talked about men and their junk and men talking about like all of men's issues so like it's only fair that he just the same for women so this person is like oh but if you're mentioning corsets you're like oh it's just so cliche like no if you writing about men you have different problems from the problems that a woman has if your remote woman is a main character that's the stuff she's dealing with so that's what she is thinking about it would be weird if Savine didn't think about those things oh my god oh oh I hate this review sorry where's my deal next one to review I'm going to make a for you back into the world of Abercrombie's grim dark which I had abandoned after thoroughly enjoying his opening trilogy but not so enamored with what followed and for why you ask with an ampersand well I heard the family name blocked I's involved and another ampersand that brought me a running media clock to brings me you're running to you so so far we are in agreement I hope I have made the right decision wait so they haven't read it yet for the evenster oh no they're taking us through their emotional journey well by page 50 I'm bored it's all dialogue there's no world building no revelations no detail but what's going on in this world just with no tea and less introductions of bland characters who are predominantly female to which is the negative and young for the most part giving it a predominantly white a vibe I can't really relate to this at all it's certainly not grim and it's not dark done by page 87 skip reading characters already and it's a DNF with the obligatory one-star rating I've read a few reviews which are DNF and giving it three stars knew I shouldn't have shouldn't have left well alone I think it they meant should have left well enough alone okay so being in it is like 30 years old so that's not young Rika is young but so was Giselle when we met him in the first law so like it's okay if your main character is a dude who's young but if it's a girl like oh no then that's why a like also there's there's a lot of other characters too like what's that guy's name who teaches them how to fight oh my god I can't remember his name but there's this new character who I absolutely ate up his chambers he's like an old hand at fighting and he's teaching them how to fight but also teaching them like also like fighting is like you want to avoid fighting about all possible like why do you think I'm still alive god damn it what was that character's name well anyway he's old yeah and and or so he's also like 30 years old they're not they're not young they're privileged so they're a little also um what's his name who comes back to his family after being in the war and he's got like major PTSD and also like rage issues his daughter is young but she's not the pb character he is and he's got to be like in his 40s I think I'm not sure it ever says what is this person talking about the only young young people are Leo Dan Brock and and rica everyone else is like 30 plus what what the fuck what the fuck I just love all the ones that bring up the fact that there's women in it as like an objective negative like fuck off okay next one's for you I'll just leave my review here I mean uh okay this is a site for reviewing so okay captain obvious because I can't seem to figure out a way to review everything by same author at once wait they're reviewing all abracame books what what dear sir and I really hope you'll get to see this what you know he has like a website and a blog and like an email like you can actually contact him if you want to it's an option you can also tweet at him and he's pretty responsive so there are options anyway I love you okay you have ruined me for fantasy wait thank you for one star review but you have made reading fantasy and some other genre is so much less enjoyable for me I used to be able to read almost anything without so much a twitch of an eyebrow but after devouring any and all of your writing all that seems to be in the back of my mind while reading is how would abracame have written this fight why can't anyone today except for abracame write a coherent and realistic battle how would abracame have made this flat piece of wannabe furniture that the author used as a character into a fully fleshed out person what would abracame do okay so far we are in agreement I feel the same way what is this one star review that's no way to enjoy reading please dear reader stay away from this man's writing it will ruin you too you won't be able to enjoy any book ever and the world will turn into a dim and dark swamp of sorrow because there just isn't enough abracame to get you through the time between publication of his new works you have been warned so they do like abracame that's fucked up why would you leave him in a one star review on his newest book um if he does see this I don't think you're gonna get the reaction that you wanted because that's so fucked up why would you do that I don't understand what's wrong with you um okay we'll do one more because that wasn't even a negative review tell us just weird hmm imagine sandan glocto were captured by the girkish and they threatened to torture him for years but then the cavalry arrived he was rescued safe and sound and for the rest of the books kept telling people what a traumatizing experience he'd had that's the vibe I got from this book bad things threatened to happen to the main characters but they don't happen I think from some other author it would be okay but Abercrombie is the master of grim dark after all I felt there was exceptionally little of grim and dark in this book it was toothless and kind of boring it actually read like a YA with lots and lots of sex did they finish the book because it's really fucking grim dark just thinking about the scene miles boilers where savine has gone to one of the factories that she owns and she sees the conditions of the workers and it's horrified just in time for there to be like a populist uprising that she gets caught in the middle of and nearly dies so the only way this person could have been satisfied is if savine actually died but that was pretty harrowing what she went through and she's like the most privileged character other than the fucking prince in the book I'm just Rick his entire village burns the the book opens with her escaping after her village has been burned so it happened before the book started but so did Glock just torture he oh we when we first meet Glock that he's already been tortured so that should what okay okay okay these people are just I don't I don't know what they want it okay moving on moving on to the lies of La Clamora now I scott lynch which I've read twice as well actually all the books I'm doing today I've read twice I didn't intend it to be that thing to unify this assortment but it's true I've read each of these books twice I read the lies of La Clamora the first time years ago years and years ago and then reread it like I think it was last year beginning of last year because I hadn't been a while and I was worried that I wouldn't still love it and I do still love it it's fantastic I had to give a one star because I literally hated this book I mean yeah that's what that means but I also have to say that I'm not being fair by giving it a one star because it was well written and would probably be a favorite among people who like this type of story and don't mind lengthy descriptions of every effing thing okay so as I mentioned this book was a buddy read when did you mention that with the awesome peeps at the BBB group they made it almost bearable because many of them felt the same way as me about the book and suffering with another person makes it better somehow it does the story is about a guy named Locke who is a thief he has absolutely no conscience that's not true although you think he might at one point he steals from the rich but doesn't give to the poor he murders he tortures he punches old ladies in the face you think I'm kidding on the last one I'm not but we are supposed to like him I guess and root for him when he gets screwed over by another thief that's a little tough for me because I believe in the old sayings live by the sword die by the sword and my favorite lie down with dogs and you're gonna get fleas okay like the book it's not when you open the book like unless you didn't read the synopsis you know it's about a thief so the book wouldn't be believable if he was like Dudley do right what was a thief so I was a huge fan of the main characters and I wasn't a fan of the pages and pages of descriptions that made me want to get a gun and shoot myself in the head well that escalated quickly then there was a bunch of time jumps I am not talking about alternating past present chapters although that was part of it but also time jumps within the time jumps it was the inception of time jumping what no it's not it just tells two parallel narratives one lock is a kid and one lock in the present day and you jumped back and forth between the two but that's it we got to read about something that happened then we backpedaled to an hour earlier oh yeah I did that kind of like Guy Ritchie movies do that to show you the crime and then how we got to the crime but it's not hard to follow to read about how and why it happened then we were 10 years in the past yeah because those are two different plot lines now we are learning something about some other people in another time period called an interlude should be called info dumb blue between many of the chapters just settle the fuck down people start your story from the beginning and tell it to me in a cohesive manner sheesh so you want to start one lock as a kid and not see him as an adult until book two mmm strong disagree finally I thought there may be a saving romance angle saving romance angle the book's only good if it has a romance in it fuck off when it was mentioned that lock had a lost love how cool I thought she might show up at some point and save the day also dressed up in part of a con but no don't get your hopes up this girl never shows up she I guess is a teaser to make us read the next book in hopes of meeting her frankly I don't want to meet her that badly I'll pass whole she's not in the next book so you wouldn't be happy I don't know what this person was expecting honestly like their complaints sound like they're from someone who didn't know they'd be picking up a book about a thief like the time-dumping thing is the only part where I'm like that's a matter of taste and I like the way that it plays with time I love Guy Ritchie movies and it's like a Guy Ritchie movie but wanting it to be told more linearly I think is more boring but I appreciate why they might feel that's needlessly gimmicky and confusing that's the only thing that I could say like you know fair play like that's a taste thing but there is like it's about a thief so like he's stealing things that just not on the moral good side so I don't know what you expected there you would only like to put out a romance idea like what and the descriptions I don't remember it being that description heavy honestly there's a lot of books that are description heavy like Name of the Wind is description heavy yeah I don't I don't remember Lies of Lachlan were being that way it's more bantery and quick and fun and there's a lot of descriptions of food I remember that because it always made me hungry but never night is description heavy holy lord this person should not read never night if they don't like morally reprehensible characters and descriptions never night well that will be their downfall okay here's the next one star of you this one looks kind of funny blah blah blah I'm a thief meh dnf okay okay so I get to be the odd man out this time the cranky old curmudgeon who failed to like a wildly popular book okay many of my good reads friends love this book which was hyped as a mix between the godfather and ocean's 11 and that sounded great I've never heard it compared to the godfather I've heard it compared to oceans 11 and robin hood but not godfather and that sounded great it also started pretty good with a fagan and artful dodger type situation yeah it definitely does have an oliver twist the kid's plot line when it locks a kid is very oliver twist I also thought the writing was akin to Brent Weeks and china meville I don't know either of those authors so I cannot comment and then the rest of the book happened I just did not care anymore about the story the characters and I'm foggy at why and how popular it is I mean I sympathize with that feeling because that's how I feel when I read things like kings of the wild and I'm like did y'all read the same book as me life's too short too many great books to read and I invoked my 100 page rule it was a stretch just to get that far that just made me sad they didn't really say why they didn't like it that'd take issue with they said they didn't like it but not why that's not a review you may as well just leave it at one star then if you're not gonna tell why you didn't like it okay well I can't really react to that much because they didn't say what they didn't like I can't be like you're wrong okay here's one that I take on bridge with I skimmed it quickly pick this one up on recommendation from someone here on goodreads couldn't finish it I was bored to tears by the horribly generic con heist plot I've seen it done better in about half dozen movies this year including ant-man which was a lot of fun so already I would like to say this person didn't finish it and they don't know where the plot goes because the beginning of the book the heist in the beginning of the book is not the whole book is about so maybe they also wouldn't have liked it but anyway spend your money on a ticket to see that one rather than on this book you'll probably have a better time of it that just goes to show how done to death this plot line is I mean freaking dickens used it almost 200 years ago and it was probably just as done to death then as it is now hell shakespeare used it more than 200 years before that even and it was still probably done to death even then something that has been done to death is not entertaining it needs something more or no one is going to care this book didn't have that something more and so I really have no reason to continue reading it to the end when I start having to force myself to read it's time to find something more to my liking again you may not have liked the writing style but the heist that is being set up in the beginning of the book is not what the book is about I even told my friends when we were buddy reading it I was when they were like it's it's okay but like I start my thing and I was like it's actually not about the heist so keep reading and then they got to the part where the book really goes gets going and they're like oh you're right it's not about that at all oh shit and I'm like yeah oh shit the characters are entertaining and the dialogue often amusing but I found the overuse of profanity to be annoying and necessary and somewhat childish I mean you just brought up Shakespeare and he's profan as fuck unfortunately funny characters and entertaining dialogue just couldn't carry a story that is just so bland boring and generic and another thing that really annoyed me about this book is that there are so many flashbacks and flash forwards that at times in the book it's almost impossible to tell what is actually going on and when it's supposed to be going on I never really cared much for the con heist plot because frankly they're usually all exactly the same some authors manage to make it work in a way that I enjoy most don't I can think of three fantasy books just off the top of my head right now that did it far better than this one but you didn't finish this one so you don't know that's the thing that kills me you're how that's what I don't when I finish books that I hate people always ask me would you not believe in dnfing I believe that I cannot review a book if I have a dnfed it and if I've put enough time into it where I've read you know a good chunk of it I'm not going to waste completely have to be a waste of my time and not be able to review it so no I don't dnf it because I want to be able to discuss it because I don't want to come off sounding like an ass like this person who's like the heist is just so like done to death like but the book's not even talking about a heist it starts out with a heist and then you just rule like well it's about that so dnf and I can state with absolute certainty and complete confidence that this whole book was about that heist but it's it's fucking not bro you're just wrong again you might have hated the book and that's fair but you can't say you hate the book because the heist is done to death because it's not about a heist okay I'm really frustrated by the review and last but not least to the wolf by leo caro which again I have read twice this is a less well known book um there's fewer reviews in general for it so who dared give this a one star okay first one oh this is a how long have you ever read a book that you were so dead certain you would love because it incorporates everything you're interested in but then are let down so horribly that you don't even know what you like anymore I was gonna say to does hit that spot for me it's everything I could want in the book well that is this book for me war Norse influence with a bloody twist and its own language it sounded so cool to me however it was only an interesting premise the less than engaging plot line such a cool idea for a story I really wish it delivered more for me but it's perfect what more would you want the writing style is really what did it in it was just so to the point with little to no emotion added to it it just seemed to drone on and on the chapters each getting longer as you continue and it really was a struggle for me to finish the book is very much found on politics but most of it is the kingdom's legions discussing politics and war but it all just seems to go around in circles and there are no decisive actions taken until the very end I would disagree the characters are also quite plain and it didn't seem like it was a priority to carry to actually flesh them out roper or main character is intelligent strong and a born leader but after fails as well as wins he doesn't seem to grow at all and just remains the same emotionless character from start to finish the rest of the characters each had a role to play but again they felt stuck in the role and didn't deviate at all where are the emotions and feelings in this I just couldn't connect to anyone at all and that contributed to my struggle actually talked about this in one of my videos that the books are written the the people in them don't believe in being guided by emotion they actively suppress their emotions it's like part of their culture that's discussed in the book it's not just like told to you and then we move on from it like they actively bring it up where like they start to feel emotion and then they're like but I shouldn't be guided by that or like people will call each other out on it it's called possession if you get to emotional and it's like an active part of the story the discussion of suppressing emotion so it's not just like there's no emotion in it because in the beginning we were told there wouldn't be they're constantly actively discussing how they are not going to be emotional about things so it's like it's it's conspicuous by its intentional absence that makes sense like emotion plays a part of it by necessity because by actively suppressing it it has to be present in the first place anyway the plot is actually interesting though to working okay so this person just thought it was boring whatever moving on 30 pages in i give up i wouldn't write a review if i only read 30 pages i would just say dnf in fact i don't read books at idnf i just i have a separate shelf on my goodreads called dnf where there's no rating on it it just takes it off of my other shelves because i you can't actually know like you can be pretty sure but you can't know anyway story takes place in albion a common name for mary old england plot manly men fight women are arm candy that's not the case what even happens in the first 30 pages you don't even meet katura roper's wife until like well into the book i've met this plot before in the last kingdom by bernard how do you know you've met this plot before when you read 30 pages how do you know you can't know i thought i'd love the book but i don't care about any of the characters the war is boring and the start between enemies or friends falls very flat you read 30 pages like maybe you weren't into it but how do you know you can't know oh my god this book was terrible i didn't finish it there was no central idea things happened for no reason and the author lacked a writing style where he should have been epic he wrote in third person where he should actually have described the battle that was that he was leading up to he skips ahead talks about something else entirely i think in one instance where that happens there's a very specific reason that happens narratively and i think it's brilliant but it was just the once and for that specific reason there should have been more critical editing there should have been more revisions sharpenings and focussings of this book before it went to press because it is not nearly realized enough to justify itself what the best part of this book by far was the world caro created great world building is tip-top chef's kiss but even this is confused it is not disagree the story takes place in a medieval european type setting but there are cannons and the protagonists use compressed gas for lighting i don't say this as a question i say it because it was confusing this book was not quite fantasy and not historical fiction and it was definitely not good enough to start its own genre but it's an alternate history fantasy it's not its own genre oh by page 350 other books were calling so i have moved so they dnf'd it um there are answers to those questions but i don't think this person cares okay well i think that's gonna do it for reacting to one star reviews for my favorite books if you enjoyed this video please let me know and i can do it again with other favorite books if there are particular favorite books of mine that like you know are my favorites that you really want to see me react to one star reviews for let me know and i can prioritize those for next time if you never ever want to see a video like this from me again let me know so i won't do it yep let me know all the things i post videos on saturdays and also other random times but definitely saturdays so like and subscribe and i'll see you when i see you bye