Is there a book you used to love but not any more?

[CurlewKate]

Brideshead Revisited used to be my favorite book. I reread it regularly in my 20s and 30s. Now 20 years later I am reading it again, and it seems trite, shallow and pretentious. I'm so disappointed!

I absolutely loved The Famous Five when I was growing up, and read them over and over.
I thought it might be fun to read them again as an adult but didn't get very far because those kids are insufferable 😂

The Brigit Jones series was always a light and easy read (and the films were the same easy watch) but I tried a book and film over Christmas… yuk!
Couldn't stand to see or read them! Just so dated and I wanted to drag her away from the stupid men in it. Well past it’s time now.

@Papergirl1968

Oops, cross-posted!!😁

I don't often re-read books as I have so many I've not read yet piling up in my house! I have revisited a couple of authors I used to like as a teenager recently and the books were dreadful. Damaged by Martina Cole and a couple of books by James Herbert (Ash and '48).

I loved that book. Quite a revelation at first reading.

Agreed!

Pride and Prejudice, loved it for years, read it many times and then suddenly I found Mr Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett to just be horrible snobs. All my sympathy was with Mrs Bennett when I hadn't liked her when I was younger.

Sting of the Dump.

I loved it as a child, then tried reading it to my own son. Dear me, it was dull.

Same goes for the Mr. Men.

When I was a very small child I adored the Winnie the Pooh stories. I so much looked forward to reading them to my own children. But when the time came, I found them nauseating, twee, arch, contrived, middle class, sentimental. I couldn't bear them at all.
Really wish I had left them alone as an adult. I think what I really loved was my mum's brilliant voicing of all the characters.

Tess Of The d'Urberviles by Thomas Hardy, I absolutely loved when I was younger. I tried to reread when I was in my 40s and wanted to throw it away. Just one appalling incident after another for poor Tess.

A book called Venus envy by Louise bagshawe

Loved it as a teen, found it in a charity shop recently and Oh my god !! The constant internalised misogyny, vile characters and message through out the book that a woman is nothing with out a man, ideally a very rich man .

Nooo the book (first one at any rate) is a work of genius! Bridget is the ultimate unreliable narrator, the whole point is that she's not fat but thinks she is. That's why I hated the film where they just make her fat and you lose all the humour and nuance of the writing. Yes, it is of its time but I think it's still very clever and sharply observed.

I agree about Mr Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett being horrible snobs, @Iwasafool . But I think that adds to my enjoyment of the book. Mr Bennett is culpable. I'm sure Jane Austen realises that. And Elizabeth is seduced by his cynicism (probably as the second daughter of a man who wanted sons she knew from an early age that she must ape him or lose his attention).
She would certainly have gone the same way herself if Darcy hadn't come along She would have spent a lifetime laughing at her neighbours, failing to engage seriously with any of the duties of love and friendship. Just like daddy.

Seriously???

Rebecca.

Loved it as a teen and early 20s. Read it over and over.

Read again a few years ago and just want to kick Mrs. du Maurier #2 up the arse! If i could spend a bit of time with one character it'd be Rebecca.

Still love the descriptions of the food though! All those piping hot crumpets and floury scones ... 😊

Almost anything I re-read. I don't seem able to recapture the wonder of reading a story for the first time.

Particularly noteworthy is The Three Musketeers - utter shite 40 years on - and the Mary Stewart Merlin/Crystal Cave trilogy.

I don't know, to be honest. It just seemed very dated and shallow, and nowhere near as funny as I used to find it.

@Laiste I can't re-read Rebecca because it made me so angry! I'm on her side. The rest of them were bloody awful bastards.

There is an amazing podcast about this by You're Wrong About. So so funny.

Another book(s) I can't reread is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not because I would think they were crap now, but because the effing films have destroyed my mental images of all the characters. I don't want to see Viggo Thing when I should be seeing Aragorn. Or the mimsy film Frodo when I should be seeing the real thing. Or stupid movie Samwise who is like an extra in The Archers.

I came on to say Rebecca !
Brilliant idea of a story but 2nd Mrs D.W is so weak and i can't be doing with the way she fiercely defends Max knowing he murdered Rebecca and without giving any thought to Rebecca's experience of the marriage.
Wuthering Heights too , i loved this book and have read it probably 10 times since age 12ish , i thought it was so passionate and romantic, now i see it for what it is -a disfunctional family ,cruelty, obsession and violence , everything you don't want in a relationship.
Would'nt turn down a snog with Ralph Fiennes Heathcliff though !

The babysitters club series. I know at 41 those books aren't aimed at me. But I used to love them and now I'm thinking those parents must have been mad letting 11-13 year olds looking after their dc. When Dawn joined the club she said she had been babysitting since aged 9! And Mr and Mrs Pike go on holiday with their 8 children and then barely spend any time with them. Sometimes older babysitters are hired but they spend all the time on the phone and ignoring the dc so it's back to the 11-13 year olds again. A lot of the families seem to have a lot of problems which the babysitters have to sort out.

Any/All of the Point Horror and Goosebumps books. Still think they’re great, but they certainly aren’t what you think they are when you’re a teen.

Agree re Rebecca. I LOVED it as a teenager

i read it recently and all I could think was that we only have Maxim’s word for all of this. He was a murderer! He could have made the whole story up. I believed it all as a teen

ps actual lol at Go Ask Alice. I remember that so well - I think Mizz gave it away for free 😂😂

There was a similar book to Alice which I also got for free from a magazine about an Italian girl / in Catania, I remember - having lots of sex and how AWFUL this was