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What Are the Books That Make You Feel Dumb?

Rebecca Joines Schinsky

Chief of Staff

Rebecca Joines Schinsky is the executive director of product and ecommerce at Riot New Media Group. She co-hosts All the Books! and the Book Riot Podcast. Follow her on Twitter: @rebeccaschinsky.

Rioter Swapna struck a nerve last week when she wrote about the perils of feeling dumb while reading. It’s a phenomenon every reader has experienced at some point–maybe you read something everyone else loves and you just don’t see the appeal; maybe you read something everyone else loves and they actively make you feel like you’re dumb for not loving it; and maybe you read something that’s supposed to rock your world and you just plain don’t get it. Several commenters on that post mentioned specific titles, so we got to wondering: what are the books that make you feel dumb?

Share your answers in this poll by 11:59pm, Sunday, April 20th. We’ll tally the totals and come back with results in a few weeks. Maybe we’ll find out there are just some books that do this, and it’s not YOU, it’s them.