Thriller books used to be an entertaining palate-cleanser for me. Now I can't get past the halfway point.

Submitted by nickjg613 t3_10p83ty in books

I'm someone who will read pretty much any genre except pure romance, and when I'm done with a big hefty tome or an emotionally draining story I tend to turn to a thriller/mystery to reset. This worked for a long time but now I find myself wanting to step away from the genre entirely.

I don't know if it's the predictability, flat characters, or basic/clunky writing but I get nothing substansial or fulfilling out of a thriller and I feel like I wasted time I could have spent reading a more fulfulling piece of literature. That probably sounds snobby but it's just the way the wind has blown as my reading tastes have changed over the years (reading more classics, seeking out books with silky smooth prose). "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn was the last straw for me. I DNF'd it at the 40% mark yesterday after simply realizing "Hey, I really don't feel like reading this anymore and nothing is keeping me from stopping."

Anyone else feel this way about thrillers? Or even another genre?

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horrifyingthought t1_j6j2ac0 wrote

It's okay to have a comfort genre that doesn't challenge you, not everything needs to be "literature" to add value to your life. But have you considered that as you have grown up your comfort genre may have shifted?

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nickjg613 OP t1_j6j42sm wrote

For sure. I feel like re-reads of old favorites are my comfort "genre" right now.

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amyaurora t1_j6iu37w wrote

A lot of thrillers lately are leaning being psychological thillers vs just entertaining.

Just a fad I think.

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InvisibleSpaceVamp t1_j6j8czy wrote

Thrillers really bore me lately. So many rely on really gory and weird crimes and the person in charge of solving that crime is always fucked up on a personal level but somehow still manages to get the job done brilliantly when no one else can ...

I'm going to clear out my TBR shelves soon and a lot of thrillers will go back to the free book places. I'd rather re-read my Sherlock Holmes collection than try out one of these.

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Mittttzy t1_j6jfaqt wrote

I feel the same way because a huge amount of thrillers use the same tropes and that makes them predictable. But they’re just so easy to read and just entertaining enough that I consume so many…reminds me of the addictiveness of social media now that I think about it.

Now that said, I want to recommend a few thrillers that I didn’t find predictable :D

  • Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

  • Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

  • Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea

-In My Dreams I Hold A Knife by Ashley Winstead

  • The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

  • Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

  • The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

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InvisibleSpaceVamp t1_j6mcgpy wrote

In My Dreams I Hold A Knife shows up in my recommendations quite frequently and I have to say I'm tempted to get it.

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Mittttzy t1_j6otbhg wrote

I hope you enjoy it if you do read it :D

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EveryCliche t1_j6jatfq wrote

I've read a lot of mystery/thrillers over the years (I even run a mystery/thriller book club) and have found that I can predict a lot of what is going to happen. I have found myself going in with low expectations and will get a three to four star out of the book that way. If I go in anticipating loving it, I'll hate it. There are also certain writers in the genre that I avoid because I just don't like their writing. My co-book club lead and I have been adding other types of mystery books (fantasy, cozy, romance, sci-fi), horror and true crime to our monthly polls so we can keep our participants interested. It's been a good way to stay in the mystery genre but also branch out a bit more.

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scapppyyy t1_j6jwjfn wrote

Wait, I was literally just talking about this. Those thriller, chick-lit type of books were pure entertainment and comfort for me, but lately I’ve found them to be insufferably bad. The last straw for me was “wrong place, wrong time” which I did not finish with only about 30% of the audiobook left - it was truly one of the worst listening/reading experiences I’ve ever had. I genuinely hated the book, but it has high reviews, and now I think it’s just me who has grown out of the genre!

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77malfoy t1_j6kn3oh wrote

I have been feeling the same way and figured I was just done with thrillers but then my husband bought me If We We're Villains and I have been devouring it. Can't tell you if the ending is good or not, but I'm about 80% in and it's been great!

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InvisibleSpaceVamp t1_j6mcxm5 wrote

If We We're Villains (love it!) isn't a classic thriller or murder mystery though. Maybe that's the way to go with this genre - find the books that don't follow the very well trodden paths.

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lucia-pacciola t1_j6iv2aq wrote

Not necessarily thrillers, sometimes a book just doesn't grab me. But actually the first example that comes to mind is a thriller. It was a new take on the Philadelphia Experiment folk tale, with people in the present continuing the research and dealing with the side effects. But about halfway through, I just wasn't feeling it, and DNF'd.

Now that I think about it, the thriller depends pretty heavily on good pacing and gripping prose, to keep the reader's interest and excitement throughout the story. So I guess maybe thrillers are less forgiving of author missteps. Other genres can better afford to lose some momentum, or just shift gears here and there. But a thriller needs to keep on banging away at full speed, or it just falls apart.

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Ineffable7980x t1_j6jwxqs wrote

I'm with you. I'm not sure if it's the books getting worse, or if it's my taste changing. Probably the latter. But I almost never reach for a thriller anymore. They bore me, and they feel incredibly shallow.

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DarthDregan t1_j6kczym wrote

Try out Jo Nesbø's stuff.

I burned out on basically every thriller writer on earth except him and Jeffrey Deaver's Rhyme novels. Though I hear good things about Joseph Finder, so I'll see what's up there at some point.

Edit: forgot to say if you do go with Nesbø, even he stresses to skip his first two books. The Bat and Cockroaches.

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durholz t1_j6kxwwb wrote

This is a comforting thread for me - I have given up on a small pile of thrillers in the last two years. With some, I was at the 70% - 80% mark and just couldn't push myself through the last slog to find out how it all ended.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest was a welcome exception.

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tkorocky t1_j6lz8p4 wrote

I think thrillers have become more stereotyped. Yes, I couldn't finish Sharp Objects. John Sanford is still good though. I also like John Hart's Gothic thrillers.

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Difficult-Ring-2251 t1_j6m0eno wrote

I felt the same way as you so I proceeded to take a very long break from the genre and it seems to have helped.

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