This post has not been vetted or endorsed by BuzzFeed's editorial staff. BuzzFeed Community is a place where anyone can create a post or quiz. Try making your own!
Michiko Kakutani has written book reviews for the New York Times since 1983
She has won a Pulitzer Prize, is notoriously reclusive, occasionally writes reviews from the point of view of fictional characters like Holden Caulfield and Elle Woods, and has a fondness for the word "limn".
Most of all though, she has a reputation as an extremely harsh critic. If she doesn't like a book, she will slaughter it. Mercilessly. Basically she's the book-reviewing equivalent of this guy:
Nobody can escape her withering gaze, as shown by her incredible take-downs of otherwise acclaimed authors. Here are twelve of her very best (or worst) from the last three decades:
Martin Amis - The Second Plane
Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake
Jonathan Franzen - The Discomfort Zone
A. M. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life
Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant
Toni Morrison - Paradise
J. K. Rowling - The Casual Vacancy
Salman Rushdie - The Ground Beneath Her Feet
John Updike - Seek My Face
David Foster Wallace - Oblivion
Michiko Kakutani, we salute you! But also, we pray that if we write a book you never get your hands on it.
Share This Article
