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?

No I stopped after the first three. Loved the tv series too

The first sequel wasn’t truly terrible although I thought the third was dull. The next trilogy though where history is rewritten and everyone adores Aunt Edwina and Uncle Robin...da fuk? 😂

I really liked the catcher in the rye. My English teacher in secondary school recommended it to me when I confessed that I actually really enjoyed of mice and men (which is still one of my favourite books 12 years on).

Agree with a pp regarding Dickens. Dull, miserable plots with tedious characters and generally just all a bit depressing. A Christmas Carol being the exception.

I don't rate anything by the bronte sisters either, load of boring old drivel.

Lord of the flies could have been great but it's just written in a way that puts me to sleep very rapidly.

The 100 year old man with book title that is ludicrously and unnecessarily long is also just not that good. Couldn't relate to any of the characters and the plot is a bit too unbelievable (I have met 100 year old men. They do not move)

Also Tess of the d’Urbervilles

To my shame I’ve never got beyond chapter 3 of any Hardy. And I did Robert Browning for A Level so trained at school to read and decipher the truly turgid

Da Vinci Code! Oh gods it's so awful. I know it's generally acknowledged to be badly written, but as long as one single person thinks it's an ok read, it's overrated !

Yes to Catch 22 - awful. Why didn't he just shoot himself in the foot and get out that way>

Posted too soon!

Midnight's Children couldn't get past Chapter 1 - really did not care about anyone in it.

All of Douglas Adams's later books esp Goodbye and Thanks for the Fish. What was a good idea (HHGTTG) milked and milked beyond all reason.

Yes to Catch 22 - awful. Why didn't he just shoot himself in the foot and get out that way>

He couldn't get out that way because that's Catch-22.

The Great Gatsby is shite,also hated the woman who went to bed for a year couldn't believe it was written by the same author who wrote Adrian Mole

SamBaileys - I didn't like Eleanor Oliphant either.

But loved The Goldfinch and Secret History

But annoyingly couldn't get in to The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Hated The Da Vinci Code with a passion

Hated Sophie's World from the first page to the last

Hated myself for liking Eat Pray Love - the film ruined that so that's OK

I seem to like the Strike series (the new one looks ominously long though)

Also second Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Da Vinci code was almost in the 'so bad it's good' category! The sequel Angels And Demons was a laugh....World renowned 'symbologist' arrives in Rome shortly after the pope dies and says something like 'oh yes, I forgot they were electing a new pope at the moment!' Yeah, right. I nearly threw the book into the hotel pool on several occasions.

The actual worst book I have ever read was Anything for Her by Jack Jordan. It has a "look inside" thing on Amazon and I defy anyone to go and read the first few pages and tell me it isn't absolute shite. But it has four and a half stars and people calling it "very well written".

Bananas I agree with you 100% about everything but the bananas.
I do love a 'nana

Fifty shades, wtf, forced myself to finish it in the hopes that it got better. Nope.

LOTR forced myself to finish it as it's considered one of the "greats". Kept thinking I must be missing something as I found it so endlessly dreary. Again nope.

Shall also add The Da Vinci Code. Tripe.

Op - Sophie's World?! I adore that book!

I thought EOliphant was...okay. It wasn’t horrific but it was very predictable and pretty dull. Meh from me.

Definitely The Alchemist. What a load of utter twoddle. Ditto Fifty Shades. No, just no.

I really loved “Kevin”, and I have a love/hate thing with Picoult. She’s quite formulaic and I thought My Sister’s Keeper was pretty dull. However, Small Great Things and The Storyteller are genius.

Pp*

Speaking of Adrian mole, the first Adrian mole was bloody brilliant and had me in hysterics multiple times, but the cappuccino years is utter dross.

Tolkien wrote some truly brilliant stories, very very badly.

Now he really did need an editor.

nobody has mentioned the French Lieutenant's Woman -a more pretentious look how clever & original I am book in my life - I mean really? lets mix up several in complete story lines that are all about the most tedious pair of people … & of course if you had any pretence to be an intellectual you had to have read it - but I would say for many books here its a matter of taste & the age you are when you first read them & if you had to read them at school (which puts you off the book for life :) )

The Girl on the Train was both tedious and stupid. I heard it was like Gone Girl (which was so much fun) but couldn't believe how bad it was.

Everything by Tolkien is painful.

The Alchemist was absolute drivel. It's only redeeming feature was its length.

Chavs by Owen Jones - waffly and felt like a poorly written advert for the Labour Party. It didn't really seem to stick to the subject much from what I can recall.

Life of Pi - The end was alright but god it took its time to get there.

Mrs Dalloway - I don't think the stream of consciousness stuff is for me.

Read the god of small things aged 15 and my god I agree. I actually didn't finish it (rare)

The handmaid’s take. Feels so good to say that!

The awful Philip Pullman dark materials trilogy. What a load of tosh.

The Time Traveller's Wife
The Kite Runner - or Shite Runner as I like to think of it.
The Book Thief - painfully forced use of imagery. Trying to be Dickens and can't do it. Overlong. The film is worse, though.
Catch-22 I read and re-read in my 20s. Came back to it this year. What shit.
Paul Coelho's oeuvre.
I hated Catcher In The Rye reading it in my 20s, but got to really like it after having to teach it.

Sally Rooney - can’t understand the excitement around her novels at all? I’m trying to get through “Normal People” for my book club this month and I’m just so bored.

“Wolf Hall” was a drag but I got there eventually.

“Kevin” is one of my favorites - I’m always surprised when someone doesn’t like it?!

Atonement - starts well but ends up super boring. Still remember reading about one of the characters walking down a road in the war (or something similar). Seemed to take up chapters!

Some Marian Keyes stuff I have really enjoyed (particularly The Other Side of the Story). Others seemed to drone on and I couldn't finish them.

Agree many 'classics' are boring. Love Jane Eyre though!

The worst book of all time is Veronika decides to die by Paul Coelho, I get the rage just thinking about that self indulgent load of old shit. I also hate Heart of Darkness, so bloody boring! And a special mention to On Chesil Beach, what a bag of utter wank that was!

I do like Hardy, Austen, the Brontes and We need to talk about Kevin. I even quite enjoyed Gone Girl and The Woman on the Train.

Anything by Jasper Fforde, trying so hard to be clever and funny and are not. Had to judge three of his dreary books for awards, they didn’t win.