Hey hey hey hey hey, you did NOT just do that, Invisible. Nope. You didn't. 

Pratchett doesn't try to be funny and fail. He tries to be hilarious to the tenth power, and he sucseeds. Who wants to read about Death? I do!!!! I'm reading Mort at the moment!!! Death is awesome. And who said books needed chapters?

Rowling: I'm not that big of a Rowling fan, but she's a great author! And who cares about names, they don't have to be perfect.

Tolkien. Well, I see what you mean, but I like it anyway. I love it anyway. But in The Lord of the Rings, too little people  die. I was absolutely sure that both Pippin and Sam were going to die. 

As for my thoughts, The Clique series by Lisi Harrison. It's just all girl a kissed boy b by accident though she wanted to kiss boy a so now boy b wants to date girl a and girl b is jealous and girl c is lying about kissing boy c and everyone's running around and NO DRAGONS (he he sorry about that) and it all works out in the end. Blecchhh.....

And they get the luck to go onto a trip that is like my LBL trip and what do they do?
They make a list of things they shouldn't and should wear, try to kiss boys, sneak in perfume and ipads, bring three wardrobe's worth of clothes, and PUT SPACE HEATERS IN AN IGLOO. I mean, honestly?  

I don't agree. I haven't read any Prachett or Tolkin books, but I have read Harry Potter. Just because you don't like the name of the character doesen't mean the she is a bad author! The reason his name is Harry Potter is because Harry is her favorite boy's name, and Potter is the last name of one of her neighbors. Also, a lot of her other names aree cool because they mean something. Like Malfoy,which mean bad faith in French.

Spammy says iyvg. Ivy g? My last name doesen't start with a g!

Rowling and Tolkien are, excuse me for ruffling your feathers, Invisible, AWESOME. I've only read HP 1-5 but The Hobbit is rather wonderful.

I... raise my eyebrow at you. 

Terry Pratchett is a lot more than just an author of humor (although he is, of course, immensely successful as a humor writer too). The Discworld books are about people, they're about life, and sometimes they're funny and other times they're heartwrenching or terrifying or heartwarming or exhilarating. They're witty and insightful in equal measure. 

The character development is masterful. In a few pages Terry Pratchett can do what most writers need half a book to accomplish; and then he does it again and again and again for the rest of the book. A lot of the characters are cartoons, yes, but they're cartoons that sit very close to home and they possess richly detailed and varied personalities. They're people who have been slightly stylized, not stylizations that have been slightly humanized.

The Discworld books have so many more layers and facets than just the funny bits, however numerous the funny bits may be. Even though they take place in a magical flat world supported by four elephants on the back of a giant turtle, they're some of the most believable books I've ever read because of the topics they confront-- politics and religion and war and good and evil, life and death and love and family and fear and belonging and madness and redemption and so many other things. If you read them just for the jokes, you're going miss the really good parts. That may be why you don't enjoy them. 

Harry Potter, too, is so much more than just a "soppy name." It's about love, friendship, the growth from childhood to adulthood and the trials faced along the way-- and good and evil, too; in fact a lot of what I said about the Discworld series can be applied to Harry Potter as well. The characters are rich, multifaceted, and flawed, the books tackle subjects like deep-seated prejudices and genocide, and the wizarding world, for all its differences, is really nothing but a reflection of our own. 

The Harry Potter books and the Discworld books are, in the end, not about magical people living in fantastical worlds; they're about us. And that's why people love them so much.

...

Admittedly, I can't say I'm terribly fond of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although I did love The Hobbit. Although I do feel the need to point out that the style is not so much "this happened and then this happened and then this happened" (that would be Twilight) as it is a meticulously detailed narrative set in an equally meticulously built world.

The themes you mention, TNO, are universal and common to most great literature, beginning with the Bible.

Admin

Pratchett is decent. I tried to read Feet of Clay but only got a quarter way through because it was really confusing.

Tolkien... is amazing at worldbuilding. (he created LANGUAGES) But, again, I only got partway through LotR because it was really boring.

However, Rowling is amazing. Her writing quality is much better than what you can find today and the characters and the whole wizarding world are well-thought of and well-written. Also, Harry Potter has become a universally-known name and people still enjoy the books, even if Harry's name is homophonic to a hairy potter.

Now... overrated authors and books? SMeyer and her Twi-books of course. The Hush Hush series and the Shiver trilogy. And Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi.

Et porquoi? And why?

Twilight.

In my opinion, the first half was actually really interesting and some of the characters- Jacob, Bella's dad- were decently written (but Bella was really whiny and Edward was just a Gary Stu) But then Edward sparkled and I was like -_- No. And then Bella became even worse.

But the Second Short Life of Bree Tanner which I've started seems good.

Hush Hush

I'm sorry, but you don't write angels like you do in Hush Hush unless you don't know anything about them- legend or not. Because Patch? Dabria? (awesome name though) I'm sorry but they're not even close to angelic. And the writing style isn't that great. Un exemple? The author went to great lengths to describe the main charrie's outfit for one night.

Shiver

It's better than the above two and I might actually finish the series, but it's a bit... weak. The idea of werewolves not choosing when to change is good, but not very unique right now. And Sam (the guy I think) is also known as Gary Stu.

Shatter Me

On GoodReads it has a 4.11/5 which really surprised. It encouraged me to keep on pushing on. But then it became too much. After reading several YA books written in the Twilight/Vampire/Romance period (2010-present ish) Adam was obviously going to be the love interest. The MC described him a hot and nice. Not in those words but it's summed up as that.

Also, WAY TOO MANY METAPHORS. Too too many.

Finally, words were crossed out. Literally. I understand that she (MC) wrote this in a notebook but all the strikethroughs were ANNOYING. It used to be unique but it lost its shiny specialness and descended into head-desk-causingness when she used one in EVER SINGLE PARAGRAPH.

And that... is my long-winded ramble. Now I need to go study. (Three giant tests and one small one Monday through Wednesday and three are in French. kill me now) 

How do you know that they are overrated if you haven't read their books????

My thoughts:

I can't judge the authors Invisible wrote about, since I've never read and/or forgot their books. 

However, I do like Lisi Harrison.  Except for the fact that she writes "serious-leh" instead of seriously and stuff like that (no one I know talks like that), I like how much drama there is.  And I think it's really funny how shallow some of her characters are.

You know what series is really overrated?  Twilight.  The only thing I have to say about it is: Vampires don't sparkle.  They're corpses, how can they?

Tolkein would be on the list of GREATEST WRITERS IN LITERATURE. My dad loves the LotR and kept bugging me to read it, and so finally he decided to read it to my brother and I. If you insult Tolkein, I feel like you're insulting my dad. I know, it's silly. But.

I loved the Wizard of Oz when I was in third* grade! Do you know there's at least 14 books, all of which I would consider reading again?!

And admins, the Bible is NOT a book about a world somewhat parallel to our own where everything is similar but not exactly the same (I'll check TNO's post again, but I think that was how she was describing Discworld.) As a Catholic, it is my firm belief that Every. Word. Is. True.  (however, there are some books, such as parts of Genesis and Revelation, that I think could be taken more figuratively.) I'm sorry if that was rude. I need to... let off steam. 

*I know, third graders do not always read the best literature, but I was rather precocious.

=^..^= 

What I mean is that almost all univeral themes of good literature are in the Bible: Good vs Evil, love, strife, disaster, survival, rebirth, etc.

Admin