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?

[CSDestroyer]

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?

 

[Kenjona]

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".

 

[K5Rakitan]

I almost never reread a book, so I have no idea.

 

[J_Chemist]

I read the first Twilight book. Never again.

I also read the first book in the Harry Potter series. Never again.

There was some series about The Rapture with kids being the MCs that was pretty cheesy. I went digging for it here recently because of this forum, I think, but I've already forgotten the name again.

 

[l8rose]

There was a novel I read that I can't remember the name of but it was set on a "future" Earth that was ravaged by a nuclear holocaust. It had a pretty bitchin concept with magic returning after the destruction of science then the author randomly decided to throw in Merlin and the magical side of the King Arthur legends. But as a kid. He was apparently trapped in a mountain since King Arthur's days and had been regressing to a child to survive the ages while trying to find a way out of the mountain.

It was supposed to be for kids but had way more graphic descriptions than was appropriate. I don't even remember what the plot was supposed to be but I do remember that Teen-Merlin hooked up with the only girl in the group of friends. All because she was a "new-age" witch. Which somehow helped him learn that his magic wasn't working right because he was trying to use "old" magic and the world had changed.

Gor novels

You read Gor as a kid?

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

I remember scouring entertainment out of boredom since I didn't have tvs or internet when i was young. One day, I ended up digging my mom's old novels she had and out of curiosity began to read them for entertainment. I wasn't picky on what novels to read and picked one randomly.

I think it was a story of the usual rom-com highschool girl meets bad boy scenarios to which I didn't know at that time, began to get hooked and secretly liked it while reading(considering I grew up watching barbie/disney princesses movies, it was how I was raised) so I continue on reading and slowly piece the story together which was just a usual banter between some rivals, drama and family problems.

It was interesting at first before finding some problems and plotholes in the story. Such as why the girl was constantly trying to distance from the guy even though she didn't want to. But I began to use the psychology and think in the girl's perspective to which I finally get why she would act like that. I didn't even know that I was building up an entirely new story purely from the novel I read which I retold it to my sister which she grew hooked from my 'revised' story of my perspective.

The story wasn't even good and was just meh but from my psychological perspective gave it a fresh paint that almost made it a masterpiece through my retelling.

The story from a girl meets boy turned into a funny perspective of a energetic tomboy and a bad boy with a possessive tendency which involves with a family drama of politics, gang wars and a heartwarming reunion which it just came from me doing psychological views of people.

If I reread it again, it wouldn't be as good because it would be just another generic novel to pass the time.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Does Hustler count?

 

[Paul_Tromba]

The 39 clues series. I loved it as a kid and collected it from 2007-2019 when the last book was published. It is considered to be very bad and I now agree but it is still close to my heart as a series.

 

[Notadate]

Lv.1 skeleton, first story I read and made me a junky for it. It is pretty shit for todays quality ngl

 

[Woolen_Bat_Monkey]

My standers have actually dropped ... You see I have developed stage 5 brain rot.

 

[Daitengu]

Hardy Boys, Goosebumps, Robotech.

Either too childish or in Robotech's case glosses over the actual difficulty of reverse engineering.

 

[LuoirM]

Someone like this comment so I'll remember to participate when I get home

 

[TotallyHuman]

The marvel comic books

 

[WinterTimeCrime]

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.

 

[Corty]

None. Those were the days, when reading something cool was for being cool and not for being plausible or not.

And I see many people who should try and revisit those days, when they could turn off their critical thoughts and just enjoy a story for entertainment's sake.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

My standers have actually dropped ... You see I have developed stage 5 brain rot.

Based son.

None. Those were the days, when reading something cool was for being cool and not for being plausible or not.

And I see many people who should try and revisit those days, when they could turn off their critical thoughts and just enjoy a story for entertainment's sake.

I found out the hard way. I'm barely getting back to where I can do that after trying the feedback thread. I think I will never do that again, but I am also Bipolar.

 

[John_Owl]

In high school, I was a member of a club known as SL (for SubLiterature, but the joke was that it was actually for Shitty Lit.)

The whole point was to read and dissect cheap, crappy novels, then rewrite them better. I don't even remember specific titles, but literally, we'd go to a local 2nd hand book store and look for such novels. every 2 weeks, we'd read and rewrite one, then swap both the novel and our rewrite and "grade" each other based on how much better (or worse) the rewrite was than the original.

And it has to say something when a freaking high school student could rewrite a novel in just less than 2 weeks better than the original author.

 

[Indicterra]

Sword art online

 

[Jerynboe]

I still adore Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, set in an alternate timeline of the napoleonic wars where sentient dragons exist and serve as an air force, but I have a few concerns when it comes to world building. Most notably the fact that nobody noticed the giant confederation of native heavyweight dragon riders in modern Botswana that hate the transatlantic slave trade and put the majority of blame on the weird foreigners buying instead of the tribes/nations doing the kidnapping.
“Man there are a lot of feral dragons stealing my cattle”
No sir you should feel very lucky that they aren’t carpet bombing your town and it’s kinda shocking that the African nations doing most of the kidnapping aren’t already cowering in terror. The British should at least have heard about the native kings asking for anti air guns or something, but the plot of one book doesn’t work unless we really lean into absolutely none of the Europeans ever onscreen, nor any of the natives, knowing anything about dragon Wakanda until they blitz the entire coastline.

Of course I only care about this so much because it has the trappings of historical fiction and is one of my favorite series. As a general rule I just don’t go back to read books from my youth unless I find myself truly bereft of things to read. I don’t want to risk the pleasant nostalgia being disrupted; even the ones I still like I tend to like less.

 

[Sagacious_Punk]

I'd absolutely laugh at Area 51 by Robert Doherty if I cared to read it today.

Spoiler

But I was adored it in elementary school, to the point my classmates began calling me "Mr. Area 51", cause there were a lot of books (7-8 back then were out) and I wasn't a very fast reader, so it took me about 2 years to go through all of them.

My mother would look at me askance and wonder aloud how I even liked the series, while I defended it vehemently. Oh, if only I knew... Still, it's one of the major influences that got me into sci-fi in general, so it still holds a soft spot in my heart. A "guilty pleasure", that's what they call it.

I've also read Harry Potter as a kid more times than it was healthy. I've re-read the earlier books about a dozen times. I was an idiot. Could've spent that time reading actual speculative literature instead.

Ditto for Riftwar Saga by Reymond Feist. That series went downhill (while not being much good to begin with) so fast that I actually stopped reading altogether for half a decade, because I was sick of fantasy (and there wasn't anything else around at the time).

Oh, all the crap R. A. Salvatore wrote. Never again. Though the very first Icewind Dale novel still feels special in memory - something about its atmosphere. But it'll probably not hold up if I picked it now.

I still adore Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, set in an alternate timeline of the napoleonic wars where sentient dragons exist and serve as an air force, but I have a few concerns when it comes to world building. Most notably the fact that nobody noticed the giant confederation of native heavyweight dragon riders in modern Botswana that hate the transatlantic slave trade and put the majority of blame on the weird foreigners buying instead of the tribes/nations doing the kidnapping.
“Man there are a lot of feral dragons stealing my cattle”
No sir you should feel very lucky that they aren’t carpet bombing your town and it’s kinda shocking that the African nations doing most of the kidnapping aren’t already cowering in terror. The British should at least have heard about the native kings asking for anti air guns or something, but the plot of one book doesn’t work unless we really lean into absolutely none of the Europeans ever onscreen, nor any of the natives, knowing anything about dragon Wakanda until they blitz the entire coastline.

Of course I only care about this so much because it has the trappings of historical fiction and is one of my favorite series. As a general rule I just don’t go back to read books from my youth unless I find myself truly bereft of things to read. I don’t want to risk the pleasant nostalgia being disrupted; even the ones I still like I tend to like less.

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