Friday Mood Recs: Three popular 2025 books that weren't right for me

By Sara Hildreth · Fiction Matters ·Dec 12, 2025 · 2 min read

Deep Dives

Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:

Reader-response criticism 15 min read
The article explores how individual readers construct meaning and taste through their reading experiences. Reader-response criticism is the literary theory framework that explains why the same book can work for one reader but not another, directly relevant to the author's thesis about learning from books we don't enjoy.
Fear of missing out 13 min read
The author explicitly mentions 'resisting FOMO' when it comes to popular books. FOMO is a well-documented psychological phenomenon with interesting research on social media, consumer behavior, and how it drives people to make choices against their actual preferences.
Literary criticism 11 min read
The entire article centers on discerning personal literary taste and what makes certain books work for certain readers. Understanding the history and philosophy of how literary taste has been theorized—from classical aesthetics to modern criticism—provides valuable context for the reader's self-reflection journey.

In 2023, I sent out a newsletter with this very title and shared five books that weren’t for me, but that taught me something about my reading taste. I loved writing that post because I really think that reading books we don’t like is an excellent exercise in discerning our own taste. I don’t know why I didn’t do a similar post last year, but I thought it was time to resurrect it in 2025. Fortunately for me, there weren’t too many popular books I didn’t like—I have gotten better at resisting FOMO—but the handful I did read offered some interesting insights and reminded me of what to look for in my books going forward.

Just like last time, each book is accompanied by a short description of why I didn’t enjoy it, the lesson I took away, and a book that does what I’m looking for well.

FictionMatters

Friday Mood Recs: Five popular 2023 books I didn't enjoy

Today, inspired in large part by my conversation with Traci Thomas about negative reviews, I’m sharing a handful of 2023 books that just didn’t work for me. I know what you’re thinking…isn’t sharing the books I didn’t enjoy actually the opposite of a recommendation? Maybe! But these aren’t bad books…these are books I genuinely would recommend to other readers. But for each, there was something (or more than one somethings) that bothered me in a way that revealed something essential about my personal taste. My hope is sharing these books will not necessarily discourage you from reading these titles or persuade you to think differently about your own love for them. Rather I hope this will be the start of a discussion about what the books we didn’t love can teach us and give you more insight into how I think about the books I write about here…

2 years ago · 17 likes · 11 comments · Sara Hildreth

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