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?

Looking forward to reading this thread later, but for now I'll say every Sophie Hannah book I've read (about 3 of them - the blurb always sucked me in against my instincts, not any more) and A Little Life, which I'm sure others have mentioned.

Wild Swans. DH bought it for me and kept asking if I was enjoying it. I got to the foot binding bit and was like eeeeek. Didn't get any further...

A Little Life. Badly written, overblown melodrama.

I think Sally Rooney is brilliant. I read a lot of literary fiction and until I read her books I’d been mostly “meh” towards most the last couple of years. I think her studies of people are exceptional.

Anything by Thomas hardy can be simplified as him whinging about his dead wife and the weather

Sophie Hannah's later books are spoiled for me by the bits about the detectives - police procedural stuff really bores me. I still read them, but just skim read the police bits.

Can I say 'Harry Potter' without being flamed? I tried to read two of them but couldn't get into them at all.

I've been trying to read 'Sophie's Choice' but keep getting put off by the narrator going on about yet another woman that he fancies. I've put it down in frustration and I'm not sure whether I can bear to pick it up again.

Eleanor bloody Oliphant. Largely because of the excessive hype for what is essentially a very mediocre book.

I've never been able to read further than a couple of chapters of Wuthering Heights.

Enduring Love, just complete and utter pretentious wank

I find Jodi Picoults book always seem interesting in concept but boring to read, like I'd rather just read a Wikipedia summary of the plot points than trudge through the whole novel. Except for My Sisters Keeper, cried like a baby in that one.

Love Cloud Atlas though, movie was also excellent imo but I love mind fuck time travelly/reincarnation type movies I get why people don't like it though, its confusing first time round. The cinematography and music/score is so so good though.

Totally agree with you re Jodi Picoilt

Agree with Captain Corelli and Sophie's World.

Also A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. And anything by Thomas Hardy. So unrelentingly bleak and miserable.

Normal People by Sally Rooney at the moment.
How on earth is that a bestseller? Thankfully I got it out of the library.
And seeing as so many others have said it, I will admit to The Catcher in the Rye. Couldn’t wait to finish it. Maybe it was ‘of it’s time’.

Also agree re the Sally Rooney books. Thought it was just me. I like people studies but a bit of a plot wouldn’t go amiss.

Oh goodness. Lots of my favourite books have been mentioned, but then I love 19th century literature which clearly many people don't. I found Crime and Punishment and Silas Marner pretty hard work for the first few chapters, but were well worth the effort.

The only classic I haven't been able to finish is The Pickwick Papers. I also failed to finish Sophie's Choice. Perhaps I need to try them both again.

My vote for most over-rated goes to Catcher in the Rye.

I finally read Wuthering Heights last year and it was a real slog, didn't enjoy it at all. I also read Tess of the D'Urbevilles (sp?) a few years ago and hated that too. I guess because it is from a different time, where women are treated so differently, but it made me so angry that I just couldn't enjoy it with my 21st century eyes.

One I've seen loads of people recommend but I'm really not a fan of is The Night Circus as well. Wanted to love it but I found the characters so one dimensional, I didn't feel any connection to them and it just felt a bit boring, which is a shame as it's such a magical setting

Go Set A Watchman

How did I forget this one? I resent the losing the hours of my life I will never get back reading this horror

I have set myself the task of reading the 100 greatest novels of the 21st century, as listed in The Sunday Times a couple of months ago.
It has been a revelation. I have found some of them challenging to get into, and many of them I would never have picked up by myself, but I think that they must all have something to them to have been listed and I try to find it and appreciate it.
You may think a book is 'overrated', 'boring' or 'crap' because it doesn't appeal to you, and it's perfectly legitimate not to like it.
That doesn't mean it isn't a great book.

Jodi Piccoult's novels are very samey, and she uses far too many similes. She also seems to shoe-horn in prison scenes wherever she can, all full of cliched characters.

I have to disagree on 'The Catcher in the Rye' and 'A Kestrel for a Knave' - I loved both of those.

I've never tried Elinor Oliphant - the blurb was enough to put me off.

Three books I have never been able to penetrate beyond chapter 1:

1. Wolf Hall
2. The Time Traveller's Wife
3. Wuthering Heights

As an English graduate and teacher, I'm a voracious and enthusiastic reader, but sometimes the text gets in the way of itself, and despite trying several times I just find these impossible to wade through. If it's a struggle, there's no point!

Jane Eyre
Hobbit
Lord of the rings
Any fantasy really.
Liked Narnia and Harry Potter though

Avoid any book with a pink cover. Saves a lot of time.

Booker Prize winners throws up a few I wish I hadn't picked up, True History of the Kelly Gang took a cracking basic story..

Catcher in the Rye , though I liked it as a teen.

Nowadays Harry Potter. Though I liked reading them with the kids I feel outside of the fanclub.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, 1350 tedious pages.

I've tried 3 times but have never managed to finish it.

Agreee so much about brick lane.

I've not read any others for a few years now, but I remember thinking g Jodi Picoult's books were liking writing by numbers for me. Very predictable, and never live up to the hype from her die hard fans.

More recently, I thought The Tattooist of Auschwitz was a pile of badly written guff. More like a plot outline than a novel.