Any books you've read when you were really young that you liked back in the day, that wouldn't pass your bar for what you'd consider quality today?

[Jerynboe]

If we have to criticize Temeraire for its worldbuilding faults, we'll have to start much, much earlier. Afaik, dragons in that setting were tamed during the first Crusades - and yet somehow history played out the same all the way up to 19th century. Yeah, fat chance. Factoring in dragons into all aspects of society - farming, warfare, logistics, infrastructure, etc. - should have produced a way, way different world as early as the Renaissance. Not in Napoleonic times.

And even before then, dragons should have left some mark in the world. Also, why tame them during the Crusades, and not during the Classical Period? Society was much more sophisticated during that time than the Middle Ages, and people would've certainly realized how useful would be to have tamed dragons as guards, (slave) workers, aides, etc.

Like many others, Novik simply isn't a worldbuilder. She isn't much of a writer too, imo. I absolutely hate how lazily written and full of misery and arbitrary plot devices is the latter half of Temeraire's series. Victory of Eagles should have been the last book. Anything past that is readable only because of the awesome chemistry between Laurence and Temeraire.

(Also, I don't understand Iskierka's fans. She is a spoiled brat and not an interesting character to begin with.)

Regards,
Sagacious

Some time before the fall of Rome actually. Novik is primarily enjoyable, to me, for her characters. She does a better job than many writers at hand-waving issues of worldbuilding, so only the most egregious stuff really bothers me. Most of her books do well enough at implying an answer exists even if she doesn’t provide it.

It’s *relatively* plausible that fear of dragons among the general populace would severely impede their integration into society (especially if you aren’t very charitable to western society’s open mindedness), and the countries that actually leveraged dragons are shown to have benefitted greatly. China is the biggest example, warping the geopolitics to make the British the firmly weaker party in any negotiations there whereas irl the British were leaning on China pretty hard at this time. She doesn’t do a deep dive, but tons of small changes are noted in passing.

Iskierka is a marmite character. You either find her bratty antics amusing, or you don’t. If you don’t find her presence in a scene to be intrinsically enjoyable then she becomes sandpaper on your eyeballs while you read. I definitely agree that the quality deteriorated after VoE. I usually only reread the first three books before getting distracted by something else, if I don’t stop after just His Majesty’s Dragon.

Of her books, I’d say Spinning Silver is my favorite but it’s somehow at its best early on when it’s just about a teenage girl becoming a moneylender. The supernatural stuff is fun but I don’t find it anywhere near as compelling.

 

[Sagacious_Punk]

Some time before the fall of Rome actually. Novik is primarily enjoyable, to me, for her characters. She does a better job than many writers at hand-waving issues of worldbuilding, so only the most egregious stuff really bothers me. Most of her books do well enough at implying an answer exists even if she doesn’t provide it.

It’s *relatively* plausible that fear of dragons among the general populace would severely impede their integration into society (especially if you aren’t very charitable to western society’s open mindedness), and the countries that actually leveraged dragons are shown to have benefitted greatly. China is the biggest example, warping the geopolitics to make the British the firmly weaker party in any negotiations there whereas irl the British were leaning on China pretty hard at this time. She doesn’t do a deep dive, but tons of small changes are noted in passing.

Iskierka is a marmite character. You either find her bratty antics amusing, or you don’t. If you don’t find her presence in a scene to be intrinsically enjoyable then she becomes sandpaper on your eyeballs while you read. I definitely agree that the quality deteriorated after VoE. I usually only reread the first three books before getting distracted by something else, if I don’t stop after just His Majesty’s Dragon.

Of her books, I’d say Spinning Silver is my favorite but it’s somehow at its best early on when it’s just about a teenage girl becoming a moneylender. The supernatural stuff is fun but I don’t find it anywhere near as compelling.

Either my memory is faulty, or my re-reads haven't been as careful as I thought they were.

But yeah, I also tend to stop after Throne of Jade (together with His Majesty's Dragon both books are simply marvelous - some many awesome scenes), and only recently tried to do a re-read of the whole series to gather some notes for the fanfiction I've planned; ended up stopping halfway through Crucible of Gold. Every major plot point in Book 7 through 9 is simply absolute BS. My opinion, of course.

I didn't know that Iskierka's character had a technical term, nor that it was done deliberately. I feel intense dislike towards characters who act like "rebels without a cause" and stir trouble for the sake of trouble. I get enough of that in the real world, I don't want it in fiction.

Haven't read anything else by Novik, truth be told, but that's because nothing from her besides Temeraire has caught my interest. I know she herself started out as a fanfiction writer (and is one of the driving forces/founders of Archive of Our Own), but... meh. Her trying to imitate George Martin (going for hardcore grimdark) made me strike her out of my TBR authors.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Don’t really recall anything that would disappoint me now. Kids books are good for different reasons.

My favorite YA book was an adventure novel called Rebels of the Kasbah. That was ten yo me’s song of ice and fire. Don’t remember too much of it, but remember it was one of the few times as a child where I actually read something because I enjoyed it. Of course I read for fun now, but for the first two decades of my life I didn’t

 

[Lloyd]

Harry Potter

 

[Notadate]

Harry Potter

Never read it

 

[2wordsperminute]

Not exactly a book, but the CW's The Flash.

 

[crbrearley]

So, so, many.
The Destroyer series, Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, Gor novels, Horse Clans series, The Executioner, The marksmen and so on. There was a particular period in the 70's into the 80's where dime store paper backs became 100+ book series written with template formats; just like the Harlequin Romance Novels had, except for "Adventure" instead of "Romance".

I'd still read the Destroyer I think? I'd roll my eyes at some of the political commentary which would be dated anyway. I'd avoid everything else. I never got into Hardy Boys o Horse Clans. I, too, read the Gor novels. There wasn't a lot of fantasy back then and the first five books or so might be defensible if you got yourself senselessly drunk. No, probably not. Anyway, it was what we had back then. Slim pickins.

 

[DevonHexx]

I spent middle school and high school in rural Missouri. No cable, spotty TV reception on a good day, and the nearest library was about six miles away. My mother had picked up a box-o-books from a yardsale or something and, one summer out of sheer boredom, I started working my way through them. There were a lot of Christian romance books. And I read all of them. They were Lifetime movies before Lifetime movies were a thing, only with Jesus. They kept me entertained as a kid but I couldn't imagine subjecting myself to them now.

 

[C_P_Tuck]

Let's restrict this to published paperback physical copies, because I don't doubt that all of us have read web stories that we enjoyed back then, that we would not touch with a 10-foot pole today. That, and I don't want to accidentally bash anyone who publishes on the internet, because the requirements for publishing on the internet is a pulse and an internet connection. A printed physical book usually requires more effort to get through, which makes it all the more egregious when it's simply bad.

So, what stories or books have you read back when you were much younger, think elementary or middle school, that you enjoyed at those ages, but would absolutely not enjoy now if you've never heard of it and picked it up right now with no context? And, a bit more specific, what stories/books have you enjoyed back then that, now that you're thinking of it, were probably objectively bad? Think plot holes, weird premise, worldbuilding that didn't quite work out. Or, you can probably poke holes in the story itself if you thought about it too hard.


I'll start. Back in middle school, I read this one particularly unusual book about a second American civil war. I can't even remember the title of the book or what either side were fighting for - I just knew it was an opposition force against the government, and the rest of the world couldn't intervene because the opposition had control of nukes. And then, near the end of the book, a coalition of countries decided to intervene anyway, to turn the tide of the war. Despite the fact that the opposition still controlled those nukes. And the protagonist had to be the one to kill the leader of the opposition, so he wouldn't input the nuke codes or something along those lines and glass every single capital city on Earth. Keep in mind, this coalition was assisting the US government despite the fact that they knew the opposition controlled the nukes, and also not knowing that there was a protagonist there to save the day to stop the nuke launches.

To this day, I wasn't even sure what audience that book was aimed for. Middle school me would read any book, cover to cover, placed in front of me, so it wasn't as though I was necessarily interested in that book. It's got rather mature themes; execution squads and war crimes, which might mean that it's for an older audience. But anyone who's taken a high school world history course would be scratching their heads over the particularly illogical premise. It also says a lot when I can't remember much of the plot or any characters other than the protagonist.


What about you all? Any stories you liked that don't look great in hindsight?

As much as I hate to admit it, Percy Jackson and Harry Potter fit firmly in this category. Loved then when I was younger, but as I've become an author and come to understand just how much fiction has grown, they're... less good than I remember.

Still, despite the high standards that come with today's fiction, I still occasionally enjoy a re-read. Just to remember where my love of stories comes from.

 

[Lysander_Works]

Anyone remember Titan A.E.?
I still liked that book enough not to nark on what I look for today, because it seemed like it was written for younger audiences anyway.
Inspired me to write "Stars of Resonance" which I discontinued and abandoned at some point.
I also remember reading City of Bones and on, but I don't consider that low quality, just mentioning it.

 

[So_Indecisive]

Warlock of the Magus world the Chinese Webnovel. While I loved it when I was 14-15ish now it's just crazy how unhinged the MC was

 

[Sylver]

The Pendragon series by DJ MacHale!

I read through all ten books throughout my first year in high school and it's funny to look back and realize that this series is what gave me the push to start writing!

So a quick synopsis, 15 year old kind finds out he's a Guardian that protects his world/realm (terms are interchangeable) and that his uncle was the past guardian of their realm called Second Earth. There are ten realms that together are called Halla, each relm has their own guardian, one of them went rogue and is messing shit up one realm at a time so the MC has to stop him.

Interesting premise! I purchased all ten books and engaged in an amazing, imaginative fantasy science fiction adventure story about exploring and saving Halla! So what's the problem then? Well... it's a little cliche

The first chapter is about his rival student declaring her love for him, admitting that she has a crush on the guy. He's also a pro basketball player and is gearing up for his big day on the day the whole adventure begins. His best friend happens to be a super genius who's inventions threaten the future of the world later on, and just about every female guardian the MC meets can't help but develop a crush for the guy over time even the main antagonist is super cheesy, constantly trying to taunt and throw the 15 year old off his game despite being a man in his late thirties (in appearance cuz of course he's thousands of years old).The climax ends in a fist fight which was epic at the time but reading it now just makes it so hard for me to take seriously

Now that's not to say the series is bad, it's great! Honestly, I would say it's a great series of books to invest into, it's just that I've outgrown the series by now. Exposure to numerous fictional stories will do that, you start to catch patterns and clichés and it grows difficult to get invested in familiar products, but that's a different topic really.

Oh oh! I'd like to mention a second series that still holds up for me, the Fudge series by Judy Blume! Neat little slice of life stories about a young MC and his little mischievous brother in New York City, it's still fun to read up on for me! Totally recommend if you want a slice of life type of story

Junie B. Jones, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Baby Mouse, and Warrior Cats - I loved them back in grade school, churned the creative wheels when I was younger, but now I'm reading in the big leagues.

Reading Junie B Jones when I was her age had me thinking that life was so unfair to poor Junie.

Reading it again while in high school out of nostalgia has me realizing that she's a brat but also a loveable goof who you start to root for when she gets her small victories, like learning how to juggle. She feels very real, which is probably why those books sold well.

 

[doravg]

Harry Potter. Back then I thought it was the best thing on Earth. But now that I think about it, it had some disturbing themes. Like child abuse, torture and murder.

Now, that in itself is not annusual for books. But the fact that the characters were just 11 year old at the start puts me off rereading it.