post your unpopular literature opinions?

Of Mice and Men is racist and sexist and should no longer be taught in schools.

Most American literature is derivative rubbish.

Amy was the only decent character, I thought as a girl. Marmee is insufferable, and neglectful, and Jo an affected prig.

It was just one of those preachy, sanctimonious, lightweight 19th century novels. The sequels get progressively worse.

I didn't like it either!

I couldn't bear "All the Light We Cannot See". All my friends were raving about it. I absolutely loathed it!

I don't like fictional stories set in wars anyway. There are so many memoirs from people who actually lived through it. I've read dozens of books by Norwegian resistance members for example. It's personal preference of course, but I'd much rather read a true account of those times than something a late 20th or 21st Century writer has come up with themselves.
That probably makes me sound like an obnoxious twat but this is meant to be "post your unpopular opinions".

I can't bear science fiction and fantasy. The entire genre. Sorry. Not sorry

Shantaram was 500 pages of self-indulgent humble brag from a ex con turned white saviour.

This 100 per cent! I didn't like him at all!!

Jane austen isn’t romantic, and to read her books as such is to fundamentally misunderstand them. She’s a cynic and a pragmatist.

Anything written by one of the ‘great american novelists’ is self indulgent tripe by mid century men with main character syndrome

dickens is great. so is jane eyre

no one should read shakespeare and expect to enjoy it, in the same way no one should read the script of a film and expect to enjoy it. It’s meant to be performed!

I loved The English Patient and didn’t find it dull.

EDIT: Replying to KStockHERO (quoting didn't work)

Honestly, I did feel there was a weird self-insert thing going on there too that really put me off and made it hard to place my feelings about it. I'm also a bit sick of the "Am I a bad feminist because of my bedroom habits?" theme, which just seems to be all over the place in contemporary lit flick.

Martin Amis is basically unreadable

Agreed! Totally and utterly unreadable.

WitcheryDivine · Today 12:22

Ian McEwan has a weird preoccupation with child abuse/sexual assault.

Now you mention it…….
Do his books come with trigger warnings?

I liked the down at heel characters in Enid Blyton such as the Carltons and naughty Suzy innSecret seven as the others were such saps

C.S. Lewis' Narnia books are the ramblings of an elderly religious nut.

Normal People seemed like the ramblings of a woman re-imagining her childhood as if she wasn't a complete loser at school, and living that through her unrealistic, one-dimensional characters and plots.

Boring, badly-written tosh.

In A Bouquet of Barbed Wire there is a passage in which the father (who is the head of a publishing company) muses on this very thing. What is it about the English language, he wonders, that makes it fair game for people who think they have a book inside them? that just because they speak the language adequately, they think that they can write it so that people wan to read it? I always remember this bit when I see a novel by a TV personality/former politician/actor.

‘Everyone has a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.’

https://interestingliterature.com/2015/04/who-said-everyone-has-a-book-in-them/

Ian McEwan has a weird preoccupation with child abuse/sexual assault.

I think Rooney's popularity is mainly driven by millenials. That's not meant as a disparaging remark, I am one. She's seen by a lot as the first "major" millenial author capturing a lot of that zeitgeist anxiety of the generation.

I don't know where I sit with the book personally. I finished it in a day, which I don't often do, but then when I was done I just sort of didn't know what to think. I did think the deep sense of dissatisfaction or at least complacency to the ending was kind of the point (the whole millenial thing) but I don't know. I genuinely don't know if I thought it was very astute and perceptive or if it was just dross? And that's such a weird thing to be unsure of. I've never ready anything else of hers

I did actively hate the depression sub-plot though which was utterly anemic and did the topic no justice as the guy's experiences were reduced to "not wanting to do anything" and none of the actual anguish.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a brilliant book (and tonnes better than Birdsong I agree).

I found the structure of Birdsong quite funny - shagging, shagging, WAR WAR WAR.

Anyone setting out to write “literature” rather than a story needs their writing privileges revoked.

Most Jacqueline Wilson books are basically misery porn for kids.

This thread is cathartic.

Re: Richard Osman, I can't decide if he is shaping his writing to appeal to a particular demographic, or is it that he can't write any better? Agree, he seems a nice guy.

I don’t disagree, @Brefugee , that both those books are much better. And @Catscatscatscatscatscats and @Maireas I concur sadly. I like Richard Osman very much as a quiz host, but not as an author.

100% agree about Normal People – it was so, so self-aware and I just don't get the hype around it at all

The end of The Miniaturist had my so confused and I felt like I'd wasted my time reading it. But others thought it good enough to turn into a TV series...

I agree her books are unreadable as an adult but I have huge admiration for how many children she has got reading.

Enid Blyton did the same for me as a child. All the teacher/parent-approved books for 7 year olds were soooooooo boring. Reading the Famous Five was like a light going on.

@Leafmealone1 haha cross posted with you!

A Little Life is repetitive, self-indulgent misery porn and the characters are completely one dimensional. I only finished it because I was hate reading it to the end