I knew she/her journal/him were unreliable narrators. It was still boring AF and I wish I hadn't wasted the hours I did thinking it would eventually get better. I spent the entirety of the book irritated. Similar to The Davinci Code which at the time everyone also loved and I hated. On the plus side, it was the book that finally set me on the path of "If I am hating a book I'm not wasting any more time on it." which has opened the door to many more books I actually enjoy.

Gone Girl. Hated it. Spent the whole book wondering when I'd get to the part everyone loved so much. By the time I got to the end (light spoilers), I figured they both got what they deserved for their next miserable decades together. There was no satisfaction in the book or the ending for me, I was just annoyed and glad it was over.

I can't do audiobooks. My brain can only focus on one thing at a time, and when I listen to stuff I am always busy with something else, so I doesn't work when I have to retain the information. I'm not an auditory learner at all. Even with stuff I am super interested in, I zone out during audio/video compared to reading text.

Kids/young people aren't his main target audience I'd suspect. FWIW, I think people tend to assume that if he writes something a certain way he is entirely out of touch, but I think he knows what he's doing when he does that because his point is to create a feel of a place, and plenty of rural places are a bit like living in ghost towns that are relics from the 70s and 80s. It's the feel of those places, IMO, that he's after, and if you've lived in, or been to, those areas, he gets the feel pretty spot on. We live in one. We still have an arcade. People are still driving trucks from the 1980s. They still talk like rednecks because they and their parents and their grandparents have never left town to expand their world and so they want everything to stay the same. That's pretty common in rural areas.

Love Catcher in the Rye. I think it is much more gauged towards certain age groups and reading it as an adult is likely different than as a similar-aged teen. I read it when I was probably 14 or so the first time and really enjoyed it. Gave me a lot to think about at that age. My sons also enjoyed it in their teens. I don't really have an issue separating a an older book's issues compared to current times. I just read books for what they are, when they are without applying today's concepts and ideologies.

I agree, but I also think a lot of my dislike for it comes from being unable to detach from all the awfulness. I can love The Illiad and The Odyssey but they didn't directly contribute to millennia of war and death and destruction. The Bible did, and continues to do so. I can't read it as a story because it's just way too loaded. I knew it was BS (in terms of being "the truth") by the time I was like 7, so thinking I can let go of all that brainwashing via Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, and Confirmation that I was forced into just isn't realistic. I want to be able to read it from a clean slate. Just not possible.

Sometimes it's worth reading "icky" books to get a sense of where other people get their ideas from. I like to know what echo chambers other people are living in.

How strange. I've been using the amazon wishlist for like 10 years and have never had a single problem with it. The only issues I've had have been a result of me having multiple lists and forgetting to choose the right one.

If the issue is people getting books you forgot you added, just make the list private.

I'm almost 50 and lost hope that humanity would reverse course on time long ago. I don't have a lot of hope for humanity and that makes me sad for my kids especially. But I live in the moment as much as I can. The future might look bleak, but the truth is we never know the future anyhow. My Christmas might look the same in 1 year as today. Or someone might die of cancer, we could be in a nuclear war, we could have had a horrific tornado or fiery car wreck etc. But today, I have shelter and heat and electricity, my kids and husband and our puppy and ferrets. We have presents under the tree, cookies on a plate. Life is pretty good today. And today is my main focus because no matter what is going on in the climate, there are a million other things that could take me out of the equation at any moment.

He's a excellent writer. I have enjoyed everything of his I've ever read. "Something Wicked This Way Comes" is another good one.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer