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?

Any of hers*

I adore Wuthering Heights. First read aged 9 and read it at least twice yearly since. DD also read at a similar age and loved it.

I think Charlotte Bronte is overrated - certainly the last talented of the three sisters in my opinion.

I think the Outlander books are vastly overrated!

I think some books you have to catch at the right stage of your life. I read The Secret History in my early 20s and absolutely loved it, reread it many times. DH didn't read it until he was in his 30s, he hated it and I think he was just too old for it by then - I think I would also have hated it at that age for the first time.

I hated The Little Friend and loved The Goldfinch.

I'm struggling to think of books I hate, mainly because these days if I can't get into a book I move on fairly quickly.

Thought The Essex Serpent was awful, really couldn't understand how it had gotten all that hype!

I love The Secret History and The Goldfinch, but hated Donna Tartts other one (can't remember the name of it).

My Absolute Darling was also something I thought was far too hyped up. I can't say I enjoyed it.

Very few, since if a book doesn't really grab me at least by the end of the first chapter, I ditch it. Life's too short. I've only ever ploughed through anything regardless because I had to, for an exam.

Though I do remember being so enraged by one of Anita Shreve's (can't remember the title) could have chucked it across the room. There was a 'cheat' ending - 'it was all a dream' type of thing.

By later standards a lot of Victorian authors could do with a really drastic edit, but that was IMO at least partly because the publishers demanded books in 3 volumes - also demanded by the non-free libraries at the time - more lucrative for them. And books were extremely expensive, unaffordable for so many.

That was one reason Dickens started his own mass market magazines - one cost only 2 old pence a week - for serialising his own novels , and those of his friends.,

Goldfinch - where was the editor?

And why didn’t he just give back the picture in the first 100 pages and save us all the bother.

Terrible plot poorly executed.

Love in the Time of Cholera - rambling narrative and a deeply unpleasant and creepy main character

The Miniaturist is just shite

The Minituarist
Far from the Madding Crowd
Pride & Prejudice
Captain Corelli
Haven't tried 50 Shades!

I thought of another, Deborah Harkness All Souls Trilogy. I enjoyed the first one, found the second slow going, and the third an absolute slog to get through. I just wanted to know how it ended, and it was all too neat and nice.

I think some books you have to catch at the right stage of your life

Agree with that. I read I Capture The Castle in my 30s. Quite enjoyed it, but I found the young heroine slightly annoying, whereas I would have loved to identify with her in my teens.

before I RTFT...
The Alchemist. Far and away the worst thing I've ever read on so many recommendations.
The Kite Runner. God I just wanted it to stop.

Glad that Catch 22 has been mentioned. Thought it was complete and utter wank. I've tried it on a couple of occasions and got to same conclusion each time.

It's a bit old now, but I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse when it came out and everyone was raving about it. Battled halfway though and gave up as I simply couldn't have cared less what happened next (I suspect that nothing happened, as it felt like nothing happened in the first half either)

Tess of the D'urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd

The Essex Serpent

I enjoyed Sally Rooney's Normal People but couldn't see why critics thought it was so original and game-changing. It reminded me of lots of YA novels I read as a teen.

I cannot read The Master and Margarita.
I have really tried. So many people whose literary opinion I respect and frequently share say it's their favourite book, but I just can't get into it. It might be the masterpiece everybody is telling me it is but I wouldn't know because I simply can't force myself to read another page.

Oh god, just thought of Lord of the Rings. Tried repeatedly and it's just so dull. I'm listening to the audiobooks on the way to work and even that's boring. "Oh let's have a song" said Merry. No, let's fucking not as the last twelve times we've had a song it went on for bloody ages and it adds nothing to the storyline. It only really gets interesting at the end of book two, but it's a good three times as long as it needs to be.

The whole multiple names thing really annoys me too. Gandalf who is known as Mitheldris whom the elves call Gangajobs. Travelling to the Misty Mountains that some men call Fanith and where the Dwarfs call the kingdom of Quintelmis. Who gives a shit. Just give it a name and fucking well stick to it.

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, 1350 tedious pages.

Nooooo! This is one of my favourite books ever! I've read it again and again - it's truly wonderful. An Equal Music is also very good although very sad.

I love Pride and Prejudice - it's like reading someone's observational diary. Ditto Jane Eyre. I've never managed to make it through Wuthering Heights though.

The worst books I've ever read are James Patterson and the 50 shades trilogy. The former because he pioneered the use of starting a new chapter instead of a paragraph, meaning that a 250 page book has 40 chapters! I find it unbelievably irritating and so many authors have followed suit. EL James because the books were appallingly bad. They were on the bookshelf in a holiday apartment we rented, where the weather was shit. Sloppy writing, tired and cliched plot devices and the sex scenes were so gynaecological that it felt about as much of a turn-on as going for a smear test. Scrubbing the toilet was more erotic than reading about sexy yet virginal, stunning yet underfed, intelligent yet dim, lip-biting (but no nasty scabs) Anastasia.

Lord of the Rings. I read it when I was ten and thought it was amazing. I was a precocious read when I was younger and read all my sister's A level literature books - anything I could get my hands on. I read it again ten years ago and was so disappointed, It was a load of waffle surrounded by confusion and irrelevance. So. Shoot me!

Gone Girl
Girl on a Train
Apple tree Yard
Magpie Murders
All Thomas Hardy novels
The Essex Serpent
Wolf Hall

Oh as a kid I skipped the LotR songs.

I took the Simarillian out of the library but handed it back sharpish.

Clearly there’s something badly wrong with me as most of my favourite books have been shat on from a great height here!

So glad posters have mentioned Jane Eyre and a Suitable Boy. Jane Eyre is boring, Suitable Boy is pretentious crap. And LOOOOONG.

Jodi Picoult is boring and samey samey.

Catch 22, I just don't think I'm clever enough for it.

Some have mentioned Cloud Atlas. Whilst a very cleverly written book, can SOMEONE please explain the child rape scene???? Why in God's name did he feel the need to include it? I was disgusted and traumatised by it and it still haunts me years later. I feel like he only added it for shock value.

Anything by Ian McEwan. Total, self indulgent twaddle.

And Hardy. It’s not that he’s a bad writer, but his books are too fucking bleak to be endured.

I love the foster carer memoirs, like Cathy Glass, Casey Watson, Maggie Hartley etc. But over the last couple of years, Cathy Glass has branched out into crime fiction, and she's dire. I couldn't finish the first one I started. There was just no plot IMO. She should stick to non-fiction.

I also hated Charles Dickens's Great Expectations when I had to read it at school; I found it far too long-winded. I liked Wuthering Heights, though.

It's noticeable that a lot of posters are citing classic literature, I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that you had to read them at school?