Most overrated books

[Snowfalling]

I'll probably get flamed for some of these choices but here's my list:

1. Brick lane by Monica Ali. So badly written and researched, i was embarrassed for the author, as I'm from a similar background to her.

1. The God of small things. There was one sentence that was repeated over and over again to the point of toe curling cringe. Something about the twin's hair bobbing. Also generally didn't enjoy the writing or plot. Just absolute crap. I don't get the adulation for this at all.

1. Anything by Maggie o'Farrell or Kate Atkinson. I know people love them both, i just don't get it.

1. Sophie Hannah's more recent books are just dire. The earlier ones were great.

1. Catch 22. Just gibberish. You probably have to be drugged up to enjoy it.

I'm sure I'll think of more.

So which books do you think are overrated?

Oh, sorry, I was thinking of Brokeback Mountain.

Poor Jane, loved it as s child read it 3 times. Any Dan Brown, Patterson, Martina Cole ( I call these band boy books). I cant stand bad writing, grammar, over using words by adding an ity, fy or ality to it.

Just thought of one that didn't stand the test of time.

I absolutely loved Flowers in the Attic as a teen and avidly read the whole series as a sexually interested teen. Came across it a few years ago in a charity shop and decided to have a trip down memory lane - my word what a load of perverted tosh.

For those who loved the Time travellers wife, did you not find him to be a creep who was just waiting for her to come of age so he could 'consummate their love'? I think she was only 16 or 18 and he was over 40? Since he was a time traveller, surely this liaison could have taken place when the age gap between them was much smaller?

I think if I was reading it now I would think exactly that, OP, but when I did read it I just loved it.

A lot of books have been ruined for me as I've got older!

Ah, yes, Brokeback Mountain is a short story, and a very good one, as are all of them in that compilation.

Shawshank Redemption is a short story, too

Outlander.

Load a wank written by someone who obviously never lived in Scotland. Then they cast an Irish woman who can't truly disguise her accent (which is beautiful, btw) to play an English and American character.

I have to put Booker Prize winner, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Pretentious and boring. I'm sure it won for political reasons

Not the first or the last to win for politically correct reasons! I bought is during a trip to India, seemed appropriate, and it's set around my date of birth, I'm sooooooo old!

Anything by Steven king

What was that bloody awful book about travelling across the seas with a load of animals? Life of Pi.
I’ve loved all the books slated here - Maggie OF, Ian Mcewan, Donna tartt, Zadie Smith, everything . . . Apart from Life of Pi. That was awful.

Time travellers wife and the dice man

For those who loved the Time travellers wife, did you not find him to be a creep who was just waiting for her to come of age so he could 'consummate their love'?

It didn't bother me but then again I read it when I was a slightly horny 18 year old who always had crushes on older men I might feel differently reading it now!

Virtually anything by D.H. Lawrence

John Irving's 'The World According to Garp'

Stephen King, absolutely. I love horror and having to wade through shelves and shelves of his dross to find a good book is the bane of my life. I truly don't understand how anybody enjoys his writing or finds his books scary.

A Little Life is incredible for not giving a Hollywood sheen to childhood sex abuse. I see why so many can't hack it but I love it for that.

Perfume by Patrick Suskind is a masterpiece.

Catch-22 is very clever satire but I think it's difficult to sustain over the length of a novel. After a while I wanted it to be a bit less clever and just tell a story.

Love Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jane Eyre but, speaking of Victorian literature, find Dickens very overrated. I read somewhere he was paid by the word and that would explain a lot. His writing is dull.

The interesting premise carried me through the Time Traveler's Wife and I liked the way the hero was always transported without his clothes or any foreign bodies such as fillings. Parts of it did read like a teenager's fantasy and were annoying - particularly the bit where they revenge themselves on some boy that's mistreated the heroine. I think it could have been cut by 100 pages or so and been better.

Catcher in the Rye. It's a readable story but not even remotely good enough to be worth the reputation it has.

I love Jane Eyre but on the other hand I can't stand Wuthering Heights, tiresome to read and full of characters who act in stupid and not-believable ways.

I don't mind Ian Mcewan books but you can just tell that the author is an egotistical arse from his writing.

Also dislike Dickens with the exceptions of Great Expectations and a Tale of Two Cities, everything else he wrote is just not good.

The Night Circus. My friends all loved it, I just hated it and I'm not even sure why.

No, 'Cold Mountain' is a full-length novel. I thought it was good and it had a happy ending, unlike the movie.

It had the SAME ending as the movie?

And I thought both were crap.

I recently tried to read catcher in the rye and hated it!!

Catcher in the Rye, annoying and pointless
Ulysses = I just cannot read it
The Secret History
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Ryan makes no sense to me whatever had to force myself to finish it

Gerald's Game - Stephen King (the only one of his I didn't like)

Did you ever read Needful Things? That was terrible. Read like he’d phoned it in.

I absolutely loved Flowers in the Attic as a teen and avidly read the whole series as a sexually interested teen. Came across it a few years ago in a charity shop and decided to have a trip down memory lane - my word what a load of perverted tosh

While I agree it was weird as, I didn’t mind FITA. But the sequels! Weren’t they just three books about how desirable Cathy was and how every man she encountered fell madly in love with her? She didn’t have many redeeming qualities from what I could tell either, apart from being pretty (the latter she was painfully aware of too as she made enough references to how fabulous she looked)

The Kite Runner - was astounded it is held in such high regard. I thought a pp's nickname for it was very apt: The Shite Runner

Agree re. Captain Corelli.

The Martian - read like it was written by some nerdy sixth former for his a-level coursework. Just awful.

Also thought Birdsong was terrible. All those cringey sex scenes 😱

But this is a bit defeatist .... a book does its job even if it invokes fits of rage ...

It is those books where you get to the end and are just instantly forgettable .... when you actually ask yourself when reading the synopsis if you remember it ...

My SIL raved about the Twilight books, literally wouldn't shut up about them and thrust them on me.
I got half way through the first one and couldn't force myself to read anymore. I was actually embarrassed that a sensible woman in her late 40s at the time thought they were great.
Worse still, she wanted my opinion on them so I had to be diplomatic. I've never taken any book recommendations from her since. She's as bad with films.