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

Owen Meany
No 1 Ladies Detective Agency
A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine
To Kill a Mocking Bird
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

This thread is great, I am in total agreement with so many people (although must confess that I absolutely LOVE The Time Traveller's Wife).

Would also like to add The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory, An Interpretation of Murder, Love in the Present Tense, and many of the smug, self-satisfied I'm-so-original literary adventures by Jaspar Fforde - Lost in a Good book etc (although the nursery rhyme ones are OK)

I agree with Getorfmoiland about Wuthering Heights. I was sooooooo angry when I finished reading it, thinking about all the hours of my life wasted on that stupid book.

Another book that makes me super-angry is The Line of Beauty, but I think that's more to do with the whole snobby class system thing that goes on in it.

I agree with so many on here!

Lovely bones/PS I Love you/anything else with baby blue and pink on the cover
Pillars of the Earth (so slow and predictable)
Anything by Dickens (wading through sludge)
Thomas Hardy (you know it will all end badly, and was analysed to death in English A-level)
Catch 22 (never finished)
Crime and Punishment
That Jilly Cooper about a school (way too much about minors having sex, all felt slightly wrong....)
I'm sure there are more!

Balloonslayer - I read Woman of Substance when I was about 12, it was one of my fave books then! I can still remember the story in microscopic detail.

Do I do remember it as being ropy old tosh. Can imagine if I read it today I probably wouldn't love it!

The Great Gatsby

(Actually, I don't know if it's a load of crap or not, because I just couldn't get into it - so didn't finish it)

The Lovely Bones - probably one of the worst books ive read that everyone raved about at the time.
Also some R&J book, think its was the Diary of Pippa Lee or something like that, utterly crap!

I loved The Island by Victoria Hislop which I know a lot of Mners hated, also didnt mind the Time Travellers Wife either.

I have never read any of the Harry Potter books but I think Id hate them

My fave book ever is This Book Will Change Your Life by AM Holmes (and if anyone has a copy they dont want i'd love to read it again, I give all my books to the charity shop but its one I shouldve kept)

Here's mine:

Karma Sutra (thought it would be more interesting than it was).

The 19th wife (the one about polygamy & Mormans - just bored the pants off me).

White Teeth (put it down one day & never gone back to it as always have better things to read).

There's loads actually, & its not that I've got a short attention span, I love LOTR & have read Ulysses from start to finish. Its just that there are so many shite books out there.

Life's too short to struggle through books for the sake of it!!

Read a Discworld book instead!!!!!

Haven't read 'em all yet Ladyaga, but it has to be said, Hard Times is not one of his best...

Some more votes for:

A Suitable Boy
Catcher in the Rye (although wasn't there a thread on here recently about how if you re-read it when older you "get" it? But I can't be arsed.)
Lord of the Rings
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (have heard it said that Capt Corelli is "a man's book." Discuss.)
Frankenstein - had to read it at university - one of those books that, when you have finally finished it, makes you want to throw a party.
Anyone remember A Woman of Substance? Everyone was always reading it on the train and when I tried I was incredulous that she had even managed to get it published, let alone have it become a bestseller.

I am surprised to see Dickens mentioned here so many times. I absolutely love his writing.

I have lined up Hard Times as my next read....... IF I can ever finish reading "women in love" by DH Lawrence, my god it's a struggle. Unlikeable characters so I couldn't care less what happens to them, and the most pretentious dialogue.

The next time I read the Ursula "cried" something the book is going in the bin.

I also hated We Need to Talk About Kevin... good idea but written in a very indulgent way.

Could never get past the 3rd page of Peter Pan... does anyone know if it's worth the effort?

Loathe Mansfield Park, particularly since I love all of Jane Austen's other novels. Just couldn't stand Fanny Price.

Whilst on classics I can't stand Jane Eyre and Wuthering sodding Heights either.

I would also add Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis to the list of the unreadable.

I used to be very patient with books and plough on through even if I hated it, as I so hated the thought of not finishing a book. Now though if something doesn't appeal in the first paragraph I give up. Unless I am on holiday and there are no books around in which case I will read anything out of sheer desparation and necessity, past horrors include that bloody Kate Mosse travesty, something by Marian Keyes, some nonsense about life in France called 'A Year in the Merde' (it was) and some Tony Parsons nonsense. Also have read a pile of Mills and Boon stories when stranded in Kenya once, actually they were great fun but shocking in their attitude, could have been written in the 1930s.

Agree with some of these but not all. My two worst were Birdsong and anything by Martin Amis.

I agree with so many of these although i did enjoy The girl with the Pearl Earring (and all Tracy Chevalier books in fact). also quite liked The Life of Pi but that may be because the tiger has the same name as my brother!

I can't believe no one has yet mentioned The Bridges of Madison county. I was given this as a gift but what a lot of over-hyped tosh that was!

Birdsong
London Fields
Enduring Love
That thing by Kazuo Ishiguro about cloning
The True Story of the Kelly Gang (or some title like that)
The English Patient
The Famished Road
Lark Rise To Candleford
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time (I know it's a kids' book but it was marketed at adults)
Anything by Thomas Hardy
Most things by Dickens - I know it's valuable social commentary but I can't get past the twee names and mawkishness
The Heart of the Matter
Anything by Margaret Atwood but especially Alias Grace

I loved A Confederacy of Dunces but agree you have to plough through the first 30 odd pages

Captain Corelli's Mandolin- the film was bad enough, the book eurgh!

One thousand splendid suns- boring twaddle
Kiterunner likewise.

Ladies Detective Agency- banal, surely this is really for children?

Eat, Pray, Love- shallow and self-absorbed.

I hated The Picture of Dorian Gray. Enough with the aphorisms, Oscar.

The Book Thief
Mr Pip
Anything Thomas Hardy
Rachel Papers, or anything Amis
Henry James

Really hated them all.

I enjoyed The Lovely Bones, Life of Pi, The Little Friend/Secret History by Donna Tartt and No1 Ladies Detective Agency series

I loved Midnights Children, and Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell too, I thought they were totally absobing and original.

Life of Pi

Agree with Captain Corelli's Mandolin - couldn't finish it; could barely start it.

First chapter of LOTR great; but then deteriorates quickly.

Biggest recent disappointment was The Olde Curiosity Shoppe - such an old pot-boiler, with a terrible plot and I certainly couldn't give 2 hoots about Little Nell and her untimely demise.

Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year - he had the great idea of deliberately writing badly so he could make out that it was written by a non-author...

Anything by Thomas Hardy is just so depressing and having read many of his novels for study purposes,I lost the will to live by the end of each one. Such drudgery...... and oh God yes, Middlemarch, bloody hard work!

Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

I just couldn't get into it at all and I always try to read a novel to the end. Got to the end of Chapter One and gave up. Absolutely hated it.

Middlemarch[Dorothea's goodness irritates]
Life of pi [couldnt get into it at all]
I find a lot of modern 'intellectual'fiction tries too hard to appear clever.
My best recent reads have been 'The Inkheart Trilogy'by Cornelia Funke-given to me by my 8yr old dgd who loved it-wow vol 3 has over 700 pages!!and 'The Long Road Home'autobiography by John Grogan[Marley and me].

yes if I do manage to find a book you want in the 3for 2 table I lose the will to live trying to find another 2 and give up

On The Road
Owen Meany
LOTR
Started them all so many times but just can't get through them.

Used to try really hard to finish any book I started but now have 50 page rule. If it hasn't got me by then I give up & don't feel guilty. I was always a big reader but since having kids just don't have the time so not about to waste precious time struggling through stuff that doesn't grab me.

Oh and I hated Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.