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?

All Spot books. Where's his ball? Under a fucking flap! Steve the Monkey hiding? He's under a fucking flap!! Lost bone? Guess where that could be!!!

Too predictable. No suspense. The last one I read was just a waste of half an hour.

The Book Thief. Shit. Have also failed at Tristram Shandy about 65 times so that too.

Devil Wears Prada - awful

I love Catch 22. I found a lot of it really moving. Love Dickens too and most of the big Russian classics. Anything with a shit title like Salmon fishing in the Yemen will piss me off.

Oh, I'm envious of those of you who are able to stop reading books you're not enjoying. I just trudge on and on....and on.

I just read A Little Life and loved it. My read for 2019, I was totally invested in all the characters.

(I realise this isn't the point of the thread at all...!)

The 'Nunferno' twitter parody of 'Inferno' was bloody fantastic though. Sadly deleted but some kind soularchived itfor posterity.

That was excellent, thank you Ferret!

@Mysterian

All Spot books. Where's his ball? Under a fucking flap! Steve the Monkey hiding? He's under a fucking flap!! Lost bone? Guess where that could be!!!

Tsk! Could you please not post spoilers

Ooh, I LOVE the Count of Monte Cristo!! Best book ever! Edmond, spare my son!

Mysterian I’m with you. And don’t get me started on Peppa Pig. Just grim.

Poisonwood Bible is one of my desert island books and l love To Kill A Mockingbird. I thought Kevin was disturbing, poignant and well written and really enjoyed All The Light You Cannot See but am totally with everyone on all the others listed. Special loathing goes to The Great Gadsby, Room, White Teeth, Brick Lane and authors Austen, Hardy and Shakespeare. Virtually every book I read the blurb of sounds like it’s going to be improbable, stereotypical crap these days. I’m getting old and cynical.

Apologies for any repetition but my browers is playing up and I can't rtft.
Lord of the Rings has to be one of the most boring books I've ever had the mistoftune to try to read.
Cloud Atlas came second - way too confusing a format and dull characters.
I reasonably recently reread The Mill on the Floss and wanted to lamp Maggie Tulliver for being so pathetic.

Vox
50 Shades
Eleanor Oliphant

I love to read but really can't get through most Dickens.

I also think Emma by Jane Austen is really awful, I have no idea how it's so popular.

The last one I read was just a waste of half an hour.
A SPOT book? Half a minute max, surely?

(And yes, they're bloody awful.)

Catcher in the rye - I would rather rub glass in my eyes
JG Ballard - crash - ruined a holiday wasting my time bothering
TTwife terrible too
Loved midnights children
Loved virgin suicides. Read it at least 5 times

A Little Life - I couldn't believe how utterly depressing it was - got about 2/3 of the way through and gave up. On the other hand I have loved most things by Kate Atkinson, Donna Tartt and Lionel Shriver.

What is it people dont like about Hardy? I think a lot of people think its very Conservative and victorian twee when it isnt

What is it people dont like about Hardy?

The unrelenting misery.

Shantaram

Oh lord yes.

The Alchemist

Everything by Jane Austen but especially Northanger Abbey.

Chaucer too!

Jude the Obscure is pretty relentless in its misery, but I don't think that's true of all Hardy. Plenty of misery, certainly, but not relentless. Under the Greenwood Tree is not at all depressing.

I'd forgotten Tristram Shandy. I had a number of false starts with that, but did get there in the end, and quite enjoyed it. It's not something I would bother to re-read.

Shantaram
The Miniaturist
Brideshead Revisited
Wuthering Heights
the end of 'His Dark Materials'
a lot of Ian McEwan

The Alchemist ~ pretentious twaddle
Time Traveller's Wife ~ had no sympathy for the ghastly characters
Anything by Joanne Harris ~ holes in the plot you could drive a tractor & trailer through
The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window ~ he should have stayed in bed

Nunferno has just made me properly giggle.

50 Shades