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Original poster

Books you enjoyed as a young 'un and now think are utter nonsense

192 replies

LadyJaye · 21/12/2020 19:25

Inspired by a previous thread.

The Catcher In The Rye: brilliant when you're 14, insufferable at 41.

On The Road: ditto

American Psycho: the only book I've ever refused to finish reading

Anything by Tolkien: my undergraduate degree was in linguistics.

OP posts:
SarahAndQuack · 21/12/2020 21:30

The Bone People. I read it aged 19 or so, and thought it was amazing and poetic and wonderful.

Re-read it a few times, then suddenly the penny dropped and I realised it's a very bizarre way of glamourising someone who beats the shit out of a three year old child for no reason at all.

Also, Louis de Bernieres' Latin American trilogy. I wouldn't say they're utter shit - there are good bits in there - but I can't cope with the gratuitous violence and the pervasive 'happy hooker' stuff any more. I think I am influenced by him as an author, because it turns out he is a bit of a dick in real life.

Priddypuddycat · 21/12/2020 21:48

The series with the brother and sister in the the attic ! Don’t dare read them know thought they were moving and romantic at the time 😱

Jhust · 21/12/2020 21:50

Flowers in the attic!

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Books
PerditaNitt · 21/12/2020 21:55

Christopher Pike books, which were the slightly more grown up version of Point Horror. Still think about how weird some of the storylines were, even today.

I loved reading my aunt’s mills and boons books on the sly - I thought I was so grown up! Ah, how disappointing my romantic life was when I grew up and didn’t meet a single “Blake”, “chase” or “Troy” with a chiselled jaw line.

Aahotep · 21/12/2020 21:56

@QueenofLouisiana
I can confirm that Forever Amber is still fantastic. A friend who is in her 70's and read it as a teen gave it to me and I absolutely loved it. It was in print around 10 years ago as the copy she gave me was new then. She bought it to see if it was still as good as she remembered.

partyatthepalace · 21/12/2020 22:15

Lace!

I tried to re-read it as an adult and good god... but it had me gripped at 13 (goldfish!!)

On the other end of the scale I just gave a 7 year old the first Mallory Towers which I got at that age and turned me into a screaming bookworm. I haven’t tried to re-read that but don’t think it would go well.

Zeetah · 21/12/2020 22:17

Flowers in the Attic series - really should re-read that!

InterfectoremVulpes · 21/12/2020 22:19

Malory Towers.

Darrell, Alicia et al were all horrific bullies and poor Gwendoline Mary was a victim.

woodhill · 21/12/2020 22:20

Yes, definitely Virginia Andrews stuff and Jackie Collins

Rae36 · 21/12/2020 22:21

I read Flowers in the Attic again recently and it was awful. I just read the first one, I couldn't face the sequels again. And Sophie's World, when I was an older teen I thought it was the height of sophistication. And The Celestine Prophecy. I thought it was so profound.

Phyzzy · 21/12/2020 22:22

Books I read in the 70s / 80s
Lace
All Sidney Sheldon
All Leon Uris
All Clive Cussler
Jackie Collins
Tolkien

At 14 I was transfixed by Lobsang RampaBlush

Cam2020 · 21/12/2020 22:24

Point Horror - I recently re-read some during lockdown. Some were OK, other that I remembered loving were just awful.

IHaveBrilloHair · 21/12/2020 22:25

I think Judy Blume holds up, she's a great writer.
I also loved Jackie Collins, she never pretended to be anything other than traah funGrin
Virginia Andrews is questionable though, it was all incest and very weird.

Kokapetl · 21/12/2020 22:26

Pretty much all the Enid Blyton books. I used to love Famous five, Malory towers etc but now they seen so sexist, classist, and racist. Also the characters and their abilities and actions are completely implausible.

rollinggreenhills · 21/12/2020 22:27

I hate to say it because it is a modern classic, but Lord of the Flies.

gurglebelly · 21/12/2020 22:28

@DrDavidBanner

God yeah, Catcher in The Rye! I thought Holden Caulfield was so cool as a teenager, irritating little twerp 😂

I dunno, I read a lot of Jackie Collins as a teenager but her books were pretty trashy really weren't they.

Oh he is an insufferable prick, I can't for the life of me understand what people saw/see in Catcher in the Rye
DorotheaDiamond · 21/12/2020 22:29

All the later Robert Heinlein books.
Flowers in the Attic.

FiveToFour · 21/12/2020 22:29

I'm now wanting to know what is wrong with Tolkien if you are a linguist?
Please?!

gurglebelly · 21/12/2020 22:31

@ArtichokeAardvark

I read a trashy book called Jemima J when I was a teenager and adored it. I was very overweight and it was about an obese woman who shed all her excess weight, moved to California and snared the love of her life. I used to think that if she could do it, I could do it too.

I reread the book around 5 years ago and was appalled. The author clearly thinks fat people are grotesque and unworthy of being loved, and the ways in which the main character loses weight are frankly dangerous. I was so upset and angry with myself that I felt the book was something to aspire to as an impressionable teenager!

I loved that book, but recently re-read it and was quite disgusted by Jane Green and how she describes Jemima
Theorangeorange · 21/12/2020 22:32

Point Horror!

IrenetheQuaint · 21/12/2020 22:37

@ArtichokeAardvark

I read a trashy book called Jemima J when I was a teenager and adored it. I was very overweight and it was about an obese woman who shed all her excess weight, moved to California and snared the love of her life. I used to think that if she could do it, I could do it too.

I reread the book around 5 years ago and was appalled. The author clearly thinks fat people are grotesque and unworthy of being loved, and the ways in which the main character loses weight are frankly dangerous. I was so upset and angry with myself that I felt the book was something to aspire to as an impressionable teenager!

Oh I read this too! It was implausible in many levels, though perhaps the most ridiculous plotline was that our heroine loses the weight, becomes very stylish overnight and starts shagging a hot American, only to discover that he is only with her because she looks good on his arm and he actually fancies and secretly shags obese women as a sort of fetish.
Original poster
LadyJaye · 21/12/2020 22:43

@FiveToFour

I'm now wanting to know what is wrong with Tolkien if you are a linguist? Please?!
The thing was is that if you were, as I and a few fellow linguist PPS experienced, forced to study him as an extremely dry and dusty academic, his fiction just lost any attraction or shine.

I can't find any enjoyment in The Hobbit now, endless essays on The Etymologies killed it stone dead for me.

OP posts:
Original poster
LadyJaye · 21/12/2020 22:45

'The thing is that if...'

I promise you, I have a degree in the study of language.

Damn you, lack of edit button. Grin

OP posts:
kennypppppppp · 21/12/2020 23:13

Mr men is a pile of shit. All they seemed to do was to go for a walk

Also rupert Campbell Black would surely be in prison now for a jillion reasons.

HopeClearwater · 21/12/2020 23:19

think I am influenced by him as an author, because it turns out he is a bit of a dick in real life

So many middle aged white male novelists turn out to be dicks in real life ...