I Read the Internet's Most HYPED Books and it was BEWILDERING

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Had geographers and hype beasts beware.

[00:00:02]In today's video, I'm coming for you.

[00:00:04]Hello. My name is Bren. It's good to see you. Uh in today's video, we are going to look at the most hyped and trending books on the internet. I've spent unrecoverable hours of my life reading and rereading and thinking about these books.

[00:00:25]And [music] I want to go through them with you today. Um in a playful um but yet hopefully illuminating way to basically pose the question of are they overrated or do they deserve the plaudits, the laurel-wreathed proclamations of their permanence in our literary culture?

[00:00:48]That's kind of the approach that we're taking in today's video. Thank you to our channel members for your amazing support, executive producers and co-producers alike. You allow me to do what I do. So, thank you very much. Let me know if you've read any of these, what you thought of them, did they live up to the hype in your own appraisal?

[00:01:08]Did they leave you feeling more deflated than an old straggled balloon hanging from the branch of a tree long after the cake and champagne have been demolished?

[00:01:17]I would love to hear from you. So, do let me know what you thought of these books. And if you can suggest any other examples of massively overhyped books or popular books that do actually live up to that good reputation. Without further ado, let's dive into it together. I've got a Sally Rooney Normal People. This is Rooney's sophomore offering, her her second novel. Rooney is driving the hype train. She has released a handful of books to enormous wide acclaim, popular and critical acclaim. And so, she's just somebody that needed to be included in this list. Um I've read a few of her works, but I just thought I would talk about Normal People today. Yeah, this book I think does not live up to the hype. Um it's purposefully effortless and flat in tone.

[00:02:12]And I feel like some of the devices that she employs, such as her famous use of dialogue without quotation marks, for me it feels a bit gimmicky, those kind of devices.

[00:02:24]This is the story of um Connell and Marianne who grow up in a small town in the west of Ireland and go through this kind of formative phase of the end of their adolescence and and then, you know, stepping into adulthood and the implications that has for their rather ponderous relationship. It's a kind of primary relationship that is really uh just irritating. They are capricious and moody and a little bit spoiled and I just found little to like in in this novel. It didn't have resonant atmosphere. It didn't have fascinating um psychological depths to it. Um it felt petty and um pedantic at times.

[00:03:13]And um I must say that I'm not here to bash Sally Rooney because I actually really enjoyed Beautiful World, Where Are You?

[00:03:22]Um but every single novel that she has published has had massive massive fanfare and I just think that um Normal People didn't deserve all of the all of those headlines. Um let me know what you think of this novel and if I'm doing it a disservice. Next, I've got Haruki Murakami What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

[00:03:44]Now, Murakami is one of the um superstars of contemporary literature.

[00:03:50]He is a multimillionaire. He is um probably the most famous living Japanese person. Um he is one of the most recognizable and on-brand living authors.

[00:04:04]Um and I actually do appreciate Murakami's work, but um this one, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, was massively disappointing. It's It's billed as a memoir and that made me really excited because I love reading memoirs, especially by um you know, writers of high caliber, you know, fiction or fiction writers or poets of high caliber then turning um their craft towards memoir.

[00:04:31]This thing felt very bloggy. Um it's is a strange attempt to weave together um the practice of writing and his um his other big passion, which is long-distance running, marathons and ultramarathons. And um >> [clears throat] >> it's uh it's disappointing because there is, I think, a fruitful um sort of analogy there between those two activities in terms of endurance, in terms of mindset, in terms of um you know, bodily impact and muscle memory.

[00:05:08]There's so many avenues one could explore.

[00:05:12]And it's all feels a little half-hearted um and out of focus and, like I said, quite a bloggy feeling that it was kind of thrown together at the 11th hour, probably um in conjunction with some publishing deal and publishing deadline.

[00:05:29]So, I was just massively disappointed by this thing. Didn't have that spectral beauty of some of Murakami's better um works of fiction. So, yeah, for me this did not live up to the hype at all. Have you read it? What did you think of it? Um am I being fair in my appraisal? Next, I've got uh Joseph Heller Catch-22.

[00:05:51]Okay, brace yourselves because I think a lot of people absolutely love this novel and I have friends that have Catch-22 tattoos. So, um this one is going to hurt.

[00:06:03]But I I was quite disappointed by this novel. Um it obviously has had a massive cultural impact and continues to be held up as this exemplar of American satire and um criticism of, you know, the American empire and um of war writing. For those of you that haven't read it, it is the story of character um named Yossarian and a sort of motley crew of of colleagues of his um who are pilots, bombadiers in the Second World War and they're stationed um in the Mediterranean and are sent on flying missions to bomb European cities um on behalf of the Allied Forces. Heller's writing around aviation is sublime. There are passages of soaring Excuse the pun. There are passages of soaring beauty and lyricism describing, you know, the sparkling Mediterranean and the clouds and the the horrifying, you know, explosions of flak and the acrid smell of burning engines.

[00:07:20]It's visceral in that sense. But for me, the satire was painted in such primary colors, in such interminable garrulousness, I found it so taxing. Um I I really did.

[00:07:34]It's six hundred odd pages and it is got a massive sense of circumlocution.

[00:07:42]Um everything just endlessly goes round and round and it's the kind of text It's the kind of humor that um either you absolutely relish it and then you can't get enough of that looping and loopy zany incomprehensible mindless babble and you just lap it up.

[00:08:04]Or if it grates on your nerves, if you find it, you know, long-winded, you then you're in for a then you're really in for um a trudge because it goes on and on and on. Um It is a Now, what what can I say in praise of this um novel besides um what I said about some passages of of rare beauty in in its descriptive power? Um it is a good match of like external structure and internal structure because it is all about the insane bureaucracy of the American empire and of you know, war and the intrigues and political backstabbing and like mindless idiocy of those in power in in the hierarchies of political systems. And then that kind of spills out into the language, into the characters' minds, but it really is um the lunatics running the asylum.

[00:09:09]Um it's just endless unraveling prolexity, circular mind-bending inanities and um like I said, circumlocution of the absolute most innumerable windings and turnings and spinnings and circling back. Interminable in that sense. It's just not a good match to my own sensibility. I love humorous writing, but I need satire in in pretty light touches and doses and this is like heavy broad strokes um you know, across a a massive canvas. And for me, it it doesn't live up to the hype. So, where do you fall on the question of Catch-22?

[00:09:55]Does it rankle you or does it rank in the upper upper reaches of your own personal canon? I would love to hear from you about that.

[00:10:13]Right, then I've got Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. This one is translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori and published by Granta.

[00:10:24]This book had a huge amount of praise and it's had a very fashionable proliferation across the internet when it came out. As we said with Catch-22, this is a good match of the external formal structure and the internal semantic structure of of the text itself. This wouldn't do in an 800-page tome.

[00:10:45]This needed to be light and snackable because it is about a sort of anti-hero who's just humbly working in a convenience store. There is something eerie about it, her almost religious dedication to this menial existence. It's sweet and salty at the same time.

[00:11:04]And it's something that you can read in a couple of hours. But does it live up to the hype? A work of literature needs to have some kind of sustenance to it.

[00:11:16]It doesn't need to have sustenance, but it needs to have sustenance to withstand the buffets of time and of fashion. It feels insubstantial and it's meant to feel insubstantial, but does it have literary excellence to elevate that quality to something noteworthy and paradigm-shifting in its formal and stylistic approach?

[00:11:43]For me, it doesn't.

[00:11:45]It's well-executed, but it's just a little on the flimsy side and for me it does not live up to the hype. Let me know what you think of Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.

[00:11:55]Next, I've got Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan and this one is translated by Irene Ash. This is like a cult classic and with that crossover element of also being a bit of a modern classic in many people's eyes. It's a story of Cécile who's 17-year-old dilettante and her father Raymond who is quite libertine and childish and sort of the the ultimate man-child and womanizer and the setting is the French Riviera. It's all about the glitz and the glamour of that setting in the 1950s. Now, what's impressive about this novella is that Sagan was literally 18 or 19 when she wrote it.

[00:12:40]It was a book that really saved her because she dropped out of school and she was kind of wayward and lost and directionless and she wrote this novella. It was an instant bestseller and she never looked back. She went on to have a long career as a novelist. She lived a pretty high life jet-setting and hobnobbing with all of the the fashionable figures of her day and in a way this novel kind of established an image of her that she was never really able to shake off. Does it live up to the hype?

[00:13:17]For me it's impressive because she was so young.

[00:13:21]It's obviously precocity there and you know, what a marvelous way to launch your career.

[00:13:29]There's something very organic in her ability to imbue the pages of this novella with a sense of veracity and loveliness, but we don't only judge works, you know, on how old the author was when we wrote them. It is, you know, out of respect for her as an artist we judge this book in and of itself for its literary merits or its weaknesses and for me it just didn't really hold together. Characters that are vain and unlikable and a plot that feels a little too forced.

[00:14:05]The ending feels kind of rushed and a bit lazy and convenient in its turns of the plot which I won't spoil for you if you haven't read it.

[00:14:15]But it it it was a bit disappointing for me, so I don't think that this book lives up to the hype. Next, I've got a Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451.

[00:14:24]This is a cult classic. It's another crossover really, I think, between something that is, you know, earned its reputation or has claimed its reputation in the, you know, canon of American 20th century fiction writing while being a cult classic, while being a book that pops up in, you know, books to read before you die lists. This novella is, of course, famously the story of Guy Montag who is a fireman in this dystopian world in which ideas are banned and books are too dangerous and his job is to obviously, you know, burn burn books when they are discovered, these illicit hordes of books.

[00:15:01]So, the ideas behind the book are, you know, eerily as relevant as ever and I stand by that.

[00:15:08]But in terms of literary execution, it feels very rushed and clunky, lacking in solidity which is because Bradbury, you know, knocked this thing off in a matter of, you know, a few weeks of frenzied writing. It does feel hasty and lacking that fleshed-out world-building and sensory voluptuousness that I think gives fiction writing a more coherent and all-encompassing immersion in terms of the reading experience. I feel like Fahrenheit 451 misses that, but it's been at least 15 years since I read it.

[00:15:50]So, perhaps I need to reread it and rethink my my feelings about it. What do you think about Fahrenheit 451?

[00:15:57]Next, I've got Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. This is just a definitive cult classic and also has been made into a wonderful film.

[00:16:09]A rare instance of adaptation that lives up to the original. The film is exceptionally well-cast, well-acted.

[00:16:18]You know, every shot has a real granular depth of meaning and significance. It's a absolutely nightmarish story of addiction and young lives left in in ruins through substance abuse.

[00:16:35]And the film is based on this book by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting. The film has narrative completeness, but the book is actually a series of interlinked short stories and it's a little jarring to get into because it's written in Scotch dialect, but don't be daunted by that resistance or opacity that you might feel in the beginning because you will acclimatize to the that Scotch dialect and and it's really groovy and gritty and a real delight to read.

[00:17:09]For me, this book definitely lives up to the hype. There are stories in the book that don't make it into the film that are absolutely harrowing and inexplicably dark and really indelible.

[00:17:22]It's excellent writing. It's not for the faint hearted, but for me Trainspotting definitely lives up to the hype. Have you read it? What did you think of it?

[00:17:31]Would you describe it as overhyped or deserving of its accolades?

[00:17:43]The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. This [music] is the ultimate dude bro arm-curling centerpiece of that kind of faux stoicism that proliferates on YouTube and on the internet. This is a book that I have quite ambivalent feelings about. On the one hand, it is a singular historical document. I mean this guy was a Roman emperor and he sat down every morning as a part of the 5 a.m. club.

[00:18:16]But he did sit down every morning and record short entries that are preserved here and he was a Roman emperor, but he actually wrote in Greek which was a more philosophically rich and supple language and was the language that he was schooled in, so he felt more comfortable and I think more sort of elevated and detached from his Roman surroundings. Perhaps it was like a kind of cool draft that allowed him some semblance of escape from the daily grind of being this toga-clad world leader. Now, my cousin James with Jones is a um is a well-respected philosopher who's has specialized in stoicism and he actually has published a couple of videos introducing the technical terms and the foundations of stoicism, so I will leave a link to that. Now, James is much more adept at explaining stoicism than I am but I will just say that this is not a tract of stoic philosophy.

[00:19:25]It's it's more of a kind of almost therapeutic practice that he engages in which is interesting in a formal sense, but is quite tiresome and repetitive. He is going over and over the same principles and kind of maxims as a way to kind of cajole, coax or encourage himself to uphold his principles. Now, I think what will surprise a lot of people in reading this is that for a record of his daily thoughts and musings, it's very impersonal on the surface. It's he doesn't um really talk about court intrigues, he doesn't talk about his personal life.

[00:20:10]You want the kind of um juicy details of of a life in Rome, you know, in the in the first two centuries um of the common era. That's really I think massively um engrossing that that kind of um detail and pettiness of of daily struggle, and that we don't have that at all. But, we can read between the lines through that repetitiveness that I mentioned, um we can sense his humanness and his needing to return to those almost mantras of um principle and trying to consolidate his mind and his self um through those repetitions and those kind of cycles of thought. To give you an example of of a of a recurrence which which rings like a motif through this text, Marcus Aurelius will list famous historical personages, um whether that's other emperors or philosophers, he will just list them off and then he'll say what has become of them. They have gone to dust. Posterity eventually forgets them, too, and we will all eventually be dissolved to nothingness. He uses that as this kind of chant of self-reproach to let go of pettiness um and also to be fearless. But, I think it also speaks to a real vulnerability um because it is daunting in an existential way to consider the vastness of time and space and the kind of um frailness of our little microcosm of human life as individuals, as a community, and as a planet. In reading between the lines, we sense his fears.

[00:21:53]But, my gosh, he would make such a boring main character in a novel or in a film because he's so intent on this probity and this like moral soberness.

[00:22:08]We just don't get him in his, you know, Technicolored contradict contradictory um you know, claws and fangs humanness.

[00:22:20]Like, we just don't see that part of him. And that is just ultimately pretty disappointing. There's there's a million other things that we can say about uh the Meditations. And um but, we need to ask the question of does this book live up to the hype? It's obviously published in Penguin Classics. It's one of the most talked about books in this very trendy application of the of this term Stoicism as a source of interesting exhortations and epigrams and um you know, insights into the mind of a Roman leader a a Roman ruler writing in Greek um you know, in the 2nd century of the common era or AD, however you want to phrase that.

[00:23:05]Um it has historical interest, it has some amount of philosophical interest, but it just is not a book that one can fall in love with. This book uh is overhyped, but not completely overhyped. It has value, just not in the way that you would expect. The Meditations is translated um and with notes by Martin Hammond. Have you read the Meditations?

[00:23:31]What do you think about it? Do you think it lives up to the hype? Um what what parts of this book have I left out? What could I have explained better?

[00:23:38]I would love to hear from you about that.

[00:23:41]Let's move on.

[00:23:43]All right, a few of you might have been waiting for me to get to this one. And this is Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, hyped hypest of hyped um you know, books in terms of social media um clout. And it's a book of poems. It's uh number one New York Times best seller. And yes, I read this thing from cover to cover. This book is without a doubt one of the most overrated titles I've ever encountered in my life. It is absurdly vapid. It's insubstantial. It has a real paltry emotive force. Um it is derivative to uh an astonishing degree. It feels very much dashed off without much forethought. Don't feel that the author has been very solicitous about the quality of the writing, about you know, honing her literary craft. Um that doesn't mean that it's not poetry.

[00:24:41]I don't think anyone has the right to say that Rupi Kaur should not continue to write books or um or publish them. Uh and I'm not saying that, you know, somebody who reads this and enjoys it is, you know, unworthy of calling themselves a reader.

[00:25:00]If this book um is a gateway into more serious and substantial works of literature, then that's that's fine. Uh and I'm not uh a snob. I'm absolutely omnivorous in my reading. So, before anyone says that I'm being a snob about this or elitist, I I'm not. It's just plainly poor writing. Here we've got, "I am a museum full of art, but you had your eyes shut." Okay. "You whisper, 'I love you.' What you mean is, 'I don't want you to leave.'" Am I being fair to Rupi Kaur with Milk and Honey? What do you think of this if you've read it? Let me know. I'm going to wrap it up. I'm going to leave it there.

[00:25:38]Um thank you for watching to the end.

[00:25:40]Thanks again to our channel members and to all of you that participate in this community.

[00:25:46]What do you think about um my our discussion of these books?

[00:25:50]What do you think about the question of, you know, hyped literature in this age of social media? And how do we enter a work of literature without being influenced by that massive wave of fanfare? Um I would love to hear from you guys. Thank you for watching.

[00:26:06]Speak to you all soon.