Writer's Block: You Don't Know Me

Our friends don't always know us as well as they think, particularly when it comes to likes and dislikes. Which popular book, movie, band, food, TV show, etc. would your friends be surprised to hear that you don't like?

View 502 Answers.

Honestly? I have no taste. I think that most people reading this would be horrified to learn about some of the things that I do like.

But okay, I'll bite.

I genuinely dislike most of Neil Gaiman's writing. Mostly this manifests as a sort of "meh I can't enjoy this" reaction to his books, with the notable exception of American Gods, which actually made me start banging my head against my desk, toward the end. Sometimes Gaiman gets so caught up in his high story concepts that he forgets to give his protagonists, oh, you know, actual emotions/motivations/believable reactions to anything. Granted, the whole "blank cipher as a protagonist" thing plagues a lot of speculative fiction, not just Gaiman's. And yes, I know that sometimes Gaiman is trying to do it on purpose - I'm not dumb, I know why the main character of American Gods is named "Shadow" - but it's still enough to throw me right out of the story, whether done purposefully or not.

I'm in awe of Gaiman's imagination and his mastery of English prose. But I still can't enjoy his fiction if his characterization is weaksauce. I'm one of those dorky readers who cares a lot more about characters than I do about concepts. That's probably why I can enjoy media based on completely insane, ridiculous, bordering-on-moronic concepts if the characters and their relationships grab me enough. (See: Death Note, every magical girl anime ever made, the best Stephen King books, etc.)

For the record, I also think that Makoto Shinkai's The Place Promised in Our Early Days is the most overrated piece of shit I've ever wasted two hours of my life on. Maybe this shouldn't bug me so much, but every time I see Shinkai getting hailed as "the next Miyazaki" or "a masterful storyteller," I just want to start throttling people and screaming, "Stop being distracted by the prettiness! An animated Thomas Kinkade painting does not good writing make!!"

It was an extraordinarily pretty movie, though. Just crap in every other sense.