What books were you 'supposed' to enjoy but thought were a pile of crap? And why?

Has anyone said Wuthering Heights yet? Great song, dull book.

And anything written by Martin Amis of course.

Twilight, obviously - am seriously worried that prepubescent teenage girls are having their emerging sexualities warped by it, but perhaps that's just me? - but although I loathed it, it has an insidious grip and I found myself getting the rest out of the library. Wasn't going to pay Mad Mormon Sex-Is-Baaad Woman anything more, anyway!

I tried a Paulo Coelho book once, on the raving recommendation of a friend. I couldn't get past the first few pages - it is turgid, massively overrated stuff, and I just can't fathom his popularity.

Sophie's World was just boring. Sorry, I know I'm meant to be really interested in a review of world philosophers but I gave up the will to live after Spinoza.

Salmon Fishing in The Yemen. What was the point?? I took it on holiday with us when I was pregnant with DS (ie, the last uninterrupted holiday for blissful, relaxed novel-reading I'll ever have) and still resent the waste of good book space in my suitcase!

Life of Pi - if that was the one with the boy, the tiger and the mangroves. I just did not get it.

My RL name prompted two generous souls to buy me Sophie's World. Yawn.

OHHHHHHH the ham is pure stinking of rotttt

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

I didnt understand it at all and gave up after 3 pages

Oh and Wuthering Heights - great if you're a teenager, I suspect, and can relate to all that hair-tearing angst over not much, but I read it as a 32-year-old and thought 'for God's sake, woman...'

On the Road - tried to read it three times and gave up within 100 pages every time (and those 100 were a struggle). Classic? I just wished they'd stop arsing around and get proper jobs

And The Accidental by Ali Smith. I couldn't believe the hundreds of glowing reviews splattered all over the cover (inside and out). I actually rather like pretentious twaddle usually, but this was just taking the proverbial.

So many books on here I loved (in particular Catch 22 - one of my very favourites, and OMG Flowers in the Attic, I ADORED those in my teens many moons ago)

However, could not stand Capt Correlli and his sodding mandolin.. tried twice cause everyone kept saying how great it was. So NOT great, just boring banal tripe

Also, the Da Vinci code, rubbish in my opinion, what was everyone going on about! Not intriguing, not well written and not true (people were talking to me about it as if it was based on fact!.. it was a novel FFS!)

Tess of the D'urbevilles - god girl, just shoot yourself. I can't stand miserable endings and the whole book was a misery!

Phew... clearly needed to get all that of my chest

Which Stephen King ones have you read? I think he's brilliant - he and Jane Austen are my favourite writers (I clearly have quite broad tastes!).

ah, should not write on public forums after vast consumption of wine

I love Great Expectations, I thought there was a vast array of interesting characters I really enjoyed the changing dynamics of them. I think Dickens is very creative in his writing and build a fascinating picture of people and places.

American Psycho; I understand why it makes you feel sick, the gore was the main thing that stood out for me the first time I read it (the most violent book I have read). The second time the humour really shone through and I was laughing out loud on the tube.

Is the Da Vinci Code that bad, I haven't read it and was considering it.

Harry Potter, not something I thought I would ever read. But I think my baby gave me a lobomy in the final trimester and I found the series very enjoyable, apart from the final book when she tried o wrap things up and did so very lazily.

I think Stephen King (excluding The Shining) is rubbish, or that too low brow for this thread? [wink}

The Da Vinci Code is utter utter shite. I got angry whilst reading it, I hated it so much. Don't care how crazy I sound.

Then there are the books I deeply resented my English professors at university assigning and loathing: The Golden Bowl (Henry James), John Galsworthy novels, Vilette, the list goes on. When I worked out how much the individual classes were costing I was even crosser.

Find quite a bit of McEwan very irritating.

Brick Lane isn't at all believable. Shame on Monica Ali.

Loved other books on here though (Catcher) and I've got Underworld on my bookshelves. Haven't been able to get past the first chapter. I can now forgive myself.

Birdsong is my favourite book ever. I cried and cried.
Also cried over Captain Corelli, God of Small things, Brick Lane and Wild Swans.
I adored Possession. And liked Atonement and To Kill a Mockingbird a lot.

However, I hated the Kite Runner and the Da Vinci Code. Absolutely cannot understand the hype over those.

Hooray, more people hated Birdsong, I'm not a freak!
And The Time Traveller's Wife - hated hated and hated it. But I did lurve Catch 22....

Catcher in the rye,
Birdsong
The Ghost Road
Wild Swans
The God of Small Things.
We need to talk about Kevin.

I only managed to read all of TCINR & TGOST,the others defeated me.I used to plough on regardless,but the older I get the more I realise that life is too short to waste on crap books.

Thank goodness I regularly go to the library and haven't wasted money on the above!
I

I'm finding myself agreeing with more and more of these.

Pippa Lee - trite, trashy, tedious.

The Outcast - yawn. Somebody's been reading Ian McEwan methinks. Managed to make Ian McEwan look like a reasonable writer in comparison (and I can't stand him).

Jasper F..F...Ff...whatever his name is. Silly, not very clever, irritating. And so determined to show off how 'well read' he is by piling cliche on top of cliche and then chuckling at his own jokes.

Cicatrice - my sister gave me We Need to Talk about Kevin when I was pregnant with DS! Nice.

Re-read Possession again recently - quite enjoyed it (but it felt long).

earthpixie - you have to get beyond that bit in Fingerpost - all is not as it seems! (it's one of my faves, though I second the easiness of Iain Pear's daft detective fiction.)

Dislikes;

Great Expectations (not as good as I hoped)
Lord of the Rings (er....)
Birdsong (not a patch on Regeneration)
Foucault's Pendulum (didn't get past the first couple of chapters, was losing will to live...)
Catch 22 (again) (just didn't get it)

I didn't hate Lovely Bones, Book Thief or Shadow of the Wind but I won't be re-reading them or recommending them.

Possession. I can't get passed the bit in the flowery bathroom.

Crime and Punishment. I want to finish it, I do, I do. But I can't.

The Fingerpost thingy. I got to the bit where the heroine was dismembered after her execution. Eeeeeeew.

I really regretted finished American Pscho. Yukky yuk yuk.

I read We Need to Talk about Kevin when I was pregnant.

That was a mistake.

Kate Mosse Labyrinth was just dire. Couldn't finish it.

Iain M Banks The Algebraist, I finished because I wasn't going to let it beat me, but I thought it was terrible. Not enough plot for the length.

The only book I hated enough to actually put in the bin is We Need to Talk about Kevin.

gah!... boring!