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 Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:33 pm
In children's lit today we got into this crazy discussion dealing with whether or not anyone can say what a good book is and what a bad book is, from a literary point of view at least. Personally I always thought I was open minded about stuff like this, but I think I was probably the most old-fashioned thinker in the class. I'm of the point of view that there are texts worth studying in a classroom setting and ones that are not, and that some books are just better (in writing, characterization, themes. etc.) than other books. I personally would not expect to read a superman comic book in a college class, although we might pull out Maus or Persepolis...
Everyone else kind of was in the opinion that good/bad was completely subjective so we have no way of knowing what a good text is or a bad text... I was just wondering what your thoughts were on this subject. And am I just behind the times as far as this goes? It made me feel horribly closed minded, which is something I'm normally not...
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:52 am
People who are of the opinion that there are no good or bad books haven't read enough slush pile submissions.
Bad writing is characterized by the following - poor plot, poor grammar, poor characterization, poor story arc and a general lack of writing ability. (This could be unbelievable character, unsympathetic characters, a plot that is unbelievable or uninteresting, overuse of specific descriptive elements, trite phrasing used inappropriately, or any element that breaks a reader's interest in the story completely.)
Good writing is characterized by achieving a balance between dialog and description, by having a well-presented story arc, by developing reasonable/believable characters, by good technical language skills, and by engaging the reader.
Now, if you have good writing whether you like it or not is definitely subjective. Some people will love a story that other people won't read unless you pay them... but presumably if someone bought the story, it has reached a certain level of "acceptable". Of course, sometimes you'll find that popular authors can't plot their way out of a paper bag... but that's generally not a discussion of interest in academic circles.
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Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 2:36 pm
To me, good books are the ones that really suck you into the story, that feel real even if it's sci-fi or fantasy. They're the ones that have believable characters, the books that you can read over and over again.
Bad books are the ones that you can't even bare to read, the ones that you start tuning out, the ones that you read but you're not really 'reading it'. Bad books are books that make you groan(or worse) when when the thought of reading it even comes to mind. They're too obvious, too predictable, or have way too much story and character for one book. Too much or too little to take in in one read.
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Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:00 am
Good books are the ones that seem to talk to you and you tend to remember them.
Bad books are the ones you need to put down and then forget about them.
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Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:21 pm
bad books are what your school makes you read
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Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 2:43 pm
Stewshi bad books are what your school makes you read No not really. My school picks good books. We've done to kill a mockingbird and some other good stuff. Although the analysis sucks the fun out of it...
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