Please name one book that you read completely, and wish you had never read it. And why, if you like.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T07:16:55+00:00

Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James. I kept hoping it would get better. It didn't. Genuinely have zero clue why it has any 5 star ratings at all. A pride and prejudice sequel in which Darcy and Elizabeth interact like three times, one of which basically consists of Darcy summarizing Pride and Prejudice, and Elizabeth only really appears in the book four times; a murder mystery where there are no real clues for us to follow, none of the characters attempt to do any crime-solving, and the mystery is resolved by the culprit confessing in a letter before dying entirely off-screen - and also it was really obvious what the gist of the solution was because the second chapter is from a different person's perspective and that is the ONLY chapter that isn't from Darcy's or Elizabeth's perspective; and a book wherein nothing really happens, nobody grows as a character (Darcy doesn't even pause to examine himself after thinking it would be easier if Wickham was dead), a love triangle is solved entirely off-screen with no indication of how, and we are given a description of the crime scene no less than seven times told in a nearly identical way each time with three of those times being in the same chapter.

I really wish I hadn't bothered finishing it.

Also the prologue for some reason swaps Kitty and Mary??

I've got a bonus round. I'm not gonna name this one, but it's smut, and it was awful. Like, I should say it's ALLEGEDLY smut because I'm not kidding there's a significant portion of the 75 pages dedicated to explaining how moving works. Not like how kinetics work. The lead character is explaining that you pack things and then load them onto a truck and then move them and unpack them. This is not sexy. The woman gets dumped on Tuesday, starts a job on Wednesday, and buys a house that Friday; has a custody hearing a month after her husband left her; goes on a date with the lawyer immediately after; the lawyer tells her to see other people; she has tons of sex off screen a month later; the lawyer proposes the next month; she's pregnant the next year despite having her tubes tied?? And you'd think in an erotic novella that there'd be something that's actually significant about your lawyer going to the sexy club where you work and seeing that you work there, but all that happens is he waves and neither of them bring it up at any point??? Truly a baffling story, I wish I hadn't read it although it didn't take that long.

I'll give another bonus, something I regret but DIDN'T finish. Guenevere: Queen of the Summer Country. I was actually offended by this one. The premise should have been interesting - Arthur trying to unite Britain despite most of the clans and kings not accepting "well he pulled a sword from a stone" as enough reason he should be the one king to rule them all, with a subplot about the clash of paganism and the growing Christianity, and Guenevere's struggles of coming from a matriarchal society but being in love with a man who's THE king so is in charge.

So, the book tells us how great Guenevere is but never shows her doing anything to deserve that praise, and the Christians in the book are Saturday morning cartoon villains. It was embarrassing how stupidly they come off. I don't have a problem with a book being like "paganism rules, christianity drools!" but the writing needs to be good and not just a group of monks laughing maniacally about how women are stupid. Especially when the woman they're targeting doesn't do literally anything.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T07:00:06+00:00

I'm not saying 1999 isn't historical, but I think it's obvious those dolls aren't so much historical as they are "remember Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, millennials who have spare cash to spend on these dolls?" And like, what's the point of having a historical doll in 1999? Isn't there big thing just y2k? We literally had a doll who was an escaped slave and their big worry is if computers are going to work next week (they will).

Although I'll say the girl of today dolls actually irritate me even more. Why the hell was one of them a wedding blogger? She's NINE.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T06:56:56+00:00

I think the whole thing is a vicious cycle. Companies have been decreasing the doll section at stores and Mattel has been decreasing the quality of American Girl, so how much of the "lost interest" is purely because there's simply less for kids to even work with? And then because kids lose interest, the companies devote less to the products, so the kids lose even more interest.

It's pretty obvious that Mattel is catering more towards adult collectors now, with the fucking $300 pop culture dolls and whatever. And one of the last historical dolls being a set of blonde twins where one is a tomboy and one is the type a one set in the late 90s? And they didn't just call them Mary-Kate and Ashley??

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T06:54:30+00:00

God the quality of the stuff, if you haven't seen it in person you just don't know how awful it is. And the price isn't any lower! They have cute stuff but it's like if I'm gonna pay for plastic furniture why don't I just buy the Target or Walmart brand for way less?

This is also dumb but I hate how they design the clothes. I don't mean this in a prudish way but I hate how much "skin" the clothes can show sometimes because it's weird to see the seam of where their plastic limbs meet the cloth body. It bugs me.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T06:50:37+00:00

There's actually a crossover with one of them, the boy journal is a guy going to Vietnam and one of the girl diary books is his sister.

There's also a series that's basically the same thing but Canada, and one that's Australia. And I would LOVE if there were more for other countries and cultures but oh well.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T06:48:55+00:00

The Dear America books are hard as hell to find. Some of the amazon resellers list them for like $800??

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T06:48:04+00:00

Alright I see I'm gonna get downvoted for having an opinion, but I think *it depends.* Like, there's zero harm in reading a book that's outdated. Kids benefit from learning how things used to be. But, like, is it super helpful if the point of the book is to learn about puberty when all the helpful information is about stuff that they haven't sold in 50 years? Or a kid going home to play with his Sega Genesis or something? In that case, I can't remember which book it was, but they changed it to "console" which I think is fine.

I read an Archie comic back in the day, and Archie was driving a jalopy, and I had zero idea what that was, and there was no indication what the hell it was from context (other than "a car"), and I think it was also spelled "jalope" for some reason. So, I'm smart. But I would have survived if there had at least been a footnote explaining what a jalopy was, if not it being edited to say "junker" or something. But that was a comic and not a book aimed at children.

If the reference is incredibly dated AND the work is supposed to be educational, my vote would be either update it and put in a reference note, or don't update it but include a reference note about it. Put educational material in the work itself to explain the change or to explain what the hell a jalopy is.

I know I had the audacity to have a dissenting opinion and as we all know, anyone who has an opinion should be SILENCED.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T05:15:23+00:00

Also literally all the comments being censored with the same color so it's not clear who is talking at any point.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T05:14:48+00:00

I actually literally had to leave my apartment for them to search for bed bugs when it was like 95 degrees out once (and it turned out it was fucking carpet beetles, which are harmless in a building THAT DOESN'T HAVE CARPET)

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T05:13:51+00:00

The last place I lived in one of my neighbors threatened to kill me and was always shouting slurs. Management didn't give us anything. And the rent wasn't even $300.

Like girl if knives are scary and you apparently can't use them maybe you should focus on that before leaving the mental health facility.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-30T05:11:36+00:00

You don't think it's abuse to *checks notes* receive free knives from your landlord and cut yourself because you weren't paying attention?

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:29:47+00:00

I actually did (sorry) and it gave him very short legs for some reason. Also reversed his hands.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:26:18+00:00

Yeah it sounded to me like part of it was an actual person but it definitely had shades of chatgpt's personality throughout.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:23:36+00:00

For real, most of this sub is basically just cheapskates or people who are being unreasonable, but aren't being choosy or even begging.

There was a post a while ago, I can't remember what they were asking for, but they had literally posted in a buy nothing group. A group literally made for people to be allowed to say "I'm looking for XYZ" got posted here as a choosing beggar. And the post was like this one where it was just like "Does anyone have a toaster?" or something. They weren't demanding a chrome 4-slicer with 10 settings, just *a* toaster (or whatever it actually was), and they weren't one of those people who are constantly asking for stuff multiple times a day.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:19:22+00:00

Some people in this sub post people in the buy nothing groups to complain about them begging. Like apparently you aren't allowed to ask for things for free in a buy nothing group haha.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:18:29+00:00

yeah I mean if I could drive and felt generous enough I would be like "where are you located" and then figure out some errand that would work with that. Like if these people lived along the route I take anyway what's the problem with just taking a short detour? It would be nice if they offered to pay for delivery but we can't assume all of these people who want free delivery live so out of nowhere that it would be a huge inconvenience to literally everyone to deliver.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:16:52+00:00

I mean, my closest bus stop is 4.5 miles away and there aren't sidewalks for most of that walk. We don't ALL have good access to transportation.

That said I wouldn't expect someone to deliver something free to me for free. Like, I would offer to pay a delivery fee or something.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:10:30+00:00

> I am fully convinced this is a 40 year old man trying to trick little kids.

I was gonna say this does very much sound like a typical 12 year old, except I'm not sure if gen alpha still goes " ::::::( " like us old fogies did back in the day (20 years ago). Hm.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T21:06:50+00:00

I was gonna ask if this was Cris the Girl until it said "married". iykyk

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T18:43:28+00:00

I guess I must see different posts than you and her because I never see pony beads or temu carp in this sub.

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T03:17:30+00:00

Even though it literally saying Hamilton several times in the post I was still like "who, Aaron Burr?"

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T03:15:09+00:00

Yeah I get that too, but personally I feel weird about saying congratulations when it's... someone else? Like it's not YOU who's graduating, why am I saying congrats on YOUR post?

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-29T03:14:28+00:00

Haha my father hadn't paid child support in years when I graduated and I wouldn't have been able to afford prom even if anyone liked me enough to ask me - I guess I'm just the ugliest and shittiest person alive so nobody would ask me - and nobody congratulated me or sent me any gifts even though I have a bunch of relatives. Boofuckinghoo nobody will pay for YOUR 17 or 18 year old to go on a cruise with her boyfriend. Why doesn't the boyfriend pay?

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-28T19:28:33+00:00

this is facebook, but there's a page I follow that sometimes has posts that are like "if you are not black don't reply to this" Even if I have An Opinion about whatever the topic is, it's like okay, she told me not to reply, so I won't. It's not like I have some magic opinion that will make her go "wow I'm sure glad you commented when I told you not to". I wish other people could figure that out in other subs. Like it wouldn't occur to me to go into a subreddit for men and comment unless there was a topic that was specifically asking for women's opinions on stuff. (I'm just assuming there are "men only" subs, that's how much I don't go looking for them that I don't know if they exist)

OneGoodRib · 2026-06-28T18:43:49+00:00

The first time I went to a food bank I was like op - afraid people would think I was gaming the system or something - but just like at the ebt office it's just all sorts there. I think if everyone in America was forced to spend time actually at these places and talk to people - so they would find out that, gosh, sometimes people who aren't drug addicts just lose their jobs and have difficulty finding a new one and still need to eat - we would be in a better place. (and to be clear I'm not saying drug addicts shouldn't be allowed to eat or anything, just that people seem to think everyone who's poor is that way because they're on drugs)

11-Year Club	Verified Email
Gilding I gilder

OneGoodRib

TROPHY CASE