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?

Mansfield Park - I didn't like those people, none of them, on any page.

Glad to find a fellow Charlotte Sometimes lover on this thread! Always a favourite book of mine as a kid (as was the song by The Cure). But I have to disagree that Ulysses is overrated. Brilliant, funny, original, sleazy, upbeat yet pessimistic at the same time: I love it. Tolkein fan here, too.

Overrated ones:

I'm with PPs on D H Lawrence. Contrived, stilted dialogue, plus he's inhibited about sex.

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. It's a poor carbon copy of Jane Eyre (which wasn't that great either) and has exactly the same plot.

Frankenstein (sorry). It's the literary equivalent of Bohemian Rhapsody and suffers from overexposure.

The Handmaid's Tale is a horrible book. Distasteful in the extreme.

John Fowles's The Collector (agree with PP on French Lieutenant's Woman too). Rank misogyny.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is really weak, badly-constructed, poorly-written literature. Come to think of it, that applies to Huxley in general and his nasty satires of his contemporaries.

Jane Austen's Emma. Slow, meandering, dull plot and the most unappealing heroine ever.

Ditto Bleak House. Esther Summerson is insufferable. As is her angsty mother. Ada and Rick are drips, and Jarndyce has strangely skewed motives.

Don Quixote. Repetitive and interminable.

Narnia leaves me cold. I don't know why.

Agree with pp about the Time Traveller's Wife. Thought he was creepy.

Loved the Lord of the Rings as a child but don't think I would as an adult.

And How to Stop Time - I kept reading thinking it would get better. It didn't.

Why do you reckon he was inhibited by sex, Mariel? not being a smartarse, im interested. I would say in taking LC's lover into acount he was less so than people of his time, but more so than us now.

I like DH Lawrence as well. For similar reasons I like Hardy. Both complete arses really though.

Have to chip in on DH, he was banned for being so open about sex, remember context. Also one of the first working class writers to write about working class life, often an undercurrent/sub plot.

I was also driven up the bloody wall by Deborah Levy's Swimming Home

It was this book that made me pledge to myself that I'd never again waste time finishing a book I hated. It was my holiday book, and actually ruined my holiday.

That woman who wanders around naked all the time . And the girl needing hugged all night because she started her periods?

Utter shite.

No I'm drawing a protective line around CS Lewis - I bloody love the Narnia books and still go back and read them.

Feeling regretful at buying Shantaram a few weeks ago now - it's on my bookshelf to read!

The Goldfinch and The Alchemist.

Oh and Shantraram and the Time Travellers Wife.

And has the Life of Pi been mentioned?

The boy in the striped pyjamas was 💩 in my opinion

The curious incident of the dog in the night time-read ain't if it years ago and it was rubbish

Have to chip in on DH, he was banned for being so open about sex, remember context. Also one of the first working class writers to write about working class life, often an undercurrent/sub plot

Grade A misogynist though.

Also, the sex scenes in LCL are (a) totally unsexy (b) read as if written by a virgin.

The Time Traveller’s Wife.
Loved Eleanor.

Took me about 5 years to get through Tristram Shandy, which was rather less time than he took to get born, which was about two thirds of the book. The rest of it seemed positively pacey in comparison. It's stayed with me, though, and every now and then, I wonder if it would be better second time round, and then I come to my senses. I don't think it's over-hyped, but it is hard work. Editing has developed massively since it was first published, so it would be a very different book if it first appeared today (it probably wouldn't appear at all.)

I agree about the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It wound me up pretty much from the first page. I am not going to have another rant about it just now though!

Why do you reckon he was inhibited by sex, Mariel? not being a smartarse, im interested. I would say in taking LC's lover into acount he was less so than people of his time, but more so than us now.

Yes, there were lots of 'fuck' and 'cunt' words, and a couple of explicit sex scenes, but I think that's more unusual in view of the censorship laws that generation were writing against - and the fact that Ulysses' publishers had been prosecuted because of the 'Nausicaa' episode. Mellors is a strange one. He's ludicrously delighted and thinks he's a wonderful lover because they both came at the same time, even though it happened by pure chance! Seems to me he needs to learn a bit more about what women need - and it's not just a bit of rough in the undergrowth.

Also, look at his portrayal of Katherine Mansfield' and her husband John Middleton Murry in 'Women in Love'. There are definitely some inhibitions there. For one thing, I think he was shocked by Mansfield's promiscuity (even though he was promiscuous himself) and for another, there's a something about weird about his 'blood brother' pronouncement between himself and Murry that's edging on the sexual. A bit of evidence out there suggests they were sexually attracted, even if unacknowledged.

IMO, James Joyce wrote about sex far better than DHL, as in her own way did May Sinclair who was writing at about the same time.

I also know lots of DHL fans who would rip me a new one for what I've just said! But I love these book chats, and the differences of opinion.

NB. I can't stand epistolary novels. Something about that form drives me demented: it kills the pace and makes even the brighter stories seem dreary and dull.

Also, the sex scenes in LCL are (a) totally unsexy (b) read as if written by a virgin.

I didn't see this before I posted my reply. But YES to that!

The time traveler's wife. Hate it

Thats interesting because I have thought the same before and a lot of people have said due to his health he likely was a virgin, as in impotence.

I know a lot of people say he hated women but I think he just hated everybody. It was a blessing he died before fascism took off.

Would explain a lot.

For the Tristam Sandy readers, Steve Coogan has adapted it into a hilarious film.

How was DHL a misogynist? Joyce wrote incredibly misogynistic things in his letters and has been criticized for his treatment of his wife and daughter. My point being ALL male writers of that time were. O have never found DHLs writing to be so.

There's a few here that I agree with and couldn't get past the first few chapters - The Alchemist, Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye.

Reading Hardy is tedious.

Absolutely loved: Captain Corelli's Mandolin, God of Small Things, The Secret History

Currently reading The Power and very meh about it. It's okay but not a brilliant story IMO.

Also agree that Eat Pray Love was privileged white girl navel gazing (and I say that even as a privileged white girl who is prone to a spot of navel gazing).

I just wanted to slap her and tell her to grow up.

I HATED 50 Shades...not just for the absolutely fucking terrible writing but the main female character was such a weak wimpy idiot it gave me the actual rage.