You know they wrote a second book together? Haven't read it myself, but my wife says it makes the first one look good ...

Lazy:

The Motion of the Body through Space by Lionel Shriver was extremely lazy in my eyes. Not saying it will make you stupider, but the shallowness and clear agenda were disappointing. It's actually put me off her as an author.

The President is Missing by James Patterson and Bill Clinton. The plot felt quite lazy on that one. There's also a chapter towards the end which is basically just pontificating and feels like it's been inserted. (I suspect it's the only one Clinton actually wrote himself.)

I've almost always found Stephen King to be lazy as an author. Awesome ideas, but terrible execution, very much in need of a good edit before publication. For example, Mr. Mercedes was particularly poor in my eyes; while it was often quite visual, it fell back on typical King tropes, extremism and unfocused storytelling. However, I'll immediately agree that I'm a poor reader of his novels, so hoping he will one day prove me wrong.

I'll also say that Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) will give you the stupid feeling. However, I don't think it's laziness on his behalf, just a genuine lack of writing/linguistic talent. He seems to truly believe in what he's doing, but his editor should really be working harder on him. His books could be so much better.

Brain food:

Try Meanwhile in Dopamine City by DBC Pierre. It deals with the intrusive and controlling nature of social media. In fact, when the main character has his phone turned on, the pages are split in half, with one side telling the main story, the other a social media flow. This makes it difficult to read and focus on, but it is presumably deliberately the case. Quite a fascinating book.

Catch-22 and almost anything by Joseph Heller challenges me. The first is mentally acrobatic, jumping from here to there in the plot and also linguistically. An excellent book. I've read all his others and enjoyed them on different levels.

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers works on several levels. You always have the feeling that the story has been properly crafted. You could say the same for The Handmaid's Tale and The Testamants by Margaret Atwood and even Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

Happy reading!

I've read The Secret History a few times and absolutely loved it. The Little Friend is another story. It's actually put me so far off her stuff, I've been avoiding The Goldfinch. If you're 80% way through and do want to know more about how the Robin mystery pans out, definitely keep going. It would be difficult to say it really improves very much from here, but from memory, the pace does seem a little faster. Good luck.

>but I just couldn't explain to myself what exactly it was or why it affected me so much.

This is exactly how his characters feel. This is why it works.

Favourite Carver story - and one I'll recommend - is called 'Fat'. He just gets so much so right. He sees his world way more clearly than anyone else. Just beautiful stuff.

It's very, very good. Will not say anything more if you haven't read it yet. :-) But do enjoy it!

100% agree with you. Nothing particularly original in there. And the framing device with Monique is nothing more than the literary equivalent of clickbait.

Will recommend The Seven Deaths of Eveleyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. Similar name, but completely different. A lot of original - even clever - things going on in it. Everything the other book failed to deliver.

Yep, personally stumbled into Evelyn Hugo as a result of this.

Evelyn Hardcastle was a wonderful, original, intriguiging book. Wouldn't really use any of those adjectives for Evelyn Hugo. It's not a bad book, just a nice way to pass time. The amount of hype is ridiculous.

There is an example of 'happy' person who believes in the system: Tom Parsons. Yet, as we see, despite him swallowing everything, raising his kids in the beliefs of the party, etc., he still isn't happy at his core and, by talking in his sleep, inevitably demonstrates he wants something different ... Parsons is determined to accept the party philosophy, but still isn't able to convince himself to do so.

It's possible that the battles are inserted after the rest of the novel is written. They might be needed for pacing, and as the futures of these characters are already set and written, it's simply easier for no one to die.

It's also possible that the battle is only there as a means of allowing the speeches/thoughts -as exposition - and the loss of a character would distract from this exposition. This may therefore be more important than the 'realistic nature' of a battle.