Classics or "Must reads" that others rave about but you just don't get

[boogiewoogie]

Mine are the following:

The Great Gatsby - I read this a couple of years ago and was disappointed with it and thought I'd missed the point. Gave it another the other day and finished it in 2 days (short book). No, still not getting the hype. No likeable characters either.

Catcher in the Rye- Nothing really happens.

Middlemarch - My fourth attempt at this... I will finish it this time!

The Time traveller's wife - Page turner, yes but "must read", no, no, no!

Started Early, took my dog - I normally love Kate Atkinson and really enjoyed the first three Jackson Brodie books but I found this dry.

The Da Vinci Code - Couldn't get past the first chapter.

Catch 22. Can't manage it at all, and I've read eighty-odd of that BBC Top 100 list that knocks around facebook.

Cloud atlas by David Mitchell. What a big load of pretentious, pointless tripe. Life is also too short to read The Shipping News, Beloved and Remains Of The Day. That's a few hours of my life I'll never get back

Oh boogiewoogie - I loved Gatsby, Catcher and Middlemarch but there are lots of must reads I never even bother with eg Da Vinci Code and Time Travellers. Read what you enjoy. Life's too short

Jane Eyre. Yawn.

Captain bloody Corelli.....tried three times and then gave up

FIL gave me the best advice - there are too many books in this world to waste your time reading something you don't enjoy. He said this after I was complaining about struggling through a so called must read.
Now I'll give a book a good go but if it's not doing it for me I put it down.

Lord of the Rings. Boring. With a capital B

So far I agree with "Time Traveller's Wife". I was very underwhelmed.

Catch 22 - also tried to read it, and got to about 50 pages before I gave up.

May I add "Gulliver's Travels", which I hated.

But I LOVE "Jane Eyre"!

Anything by jane Austin - I've never managed to finish one

The Life of Pi. Great waffly long passages about animal behaviour Zzzzz

A Suitable Boy, i have gotton about half way twice, starting to think i am a bit thick lack the required concentration.

Oh I agree with Life of Pi. Bored to tears.

DaVinci Code is crap. What a shit ending!

I will give most stuff a go, sometimes it takes a second or third read to really enjoy it. I found that with LOTR and also The Historian.

The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings - I've tried but I can't get beyond the first few chapters.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, etc - just don't get fantasy, I think

ALL Dickens' novels - just turgid drivel

One Day - David Nicholls - absolute pile of tosh

Labyrinth - Kate Mosse

We need to talk about Kevin = Lionel Shriver (read it but honestly what a drag)

Shantaram - thought it was too long and the narrator a real pain. Also I second Lord of the Rings as have only ever read the 1st book, and that was a struggle and had no desire to read the second two. Often when I look at top book lists, it's the only book in the top 25 I haven't read.

Any Tolkein,likewise the Northern Lights series,also cannot understand the attraction of Terry Patchett.

Wolf Hall.

Perfume

Any George Eliot. The Lovely Bones. Frankenstein (I so want to like it, but her writing is just gash). A History Of The World In 10.5 Chapters. The Shipping News. Most things my MIL presses on me as a 'must-read', god love her

I only opened this thread because I thought it was referring to MN Classics or must-read threads - there are loads of those that I think you probably had to be there for, i.e. they are actually a bit shit.

i loved the hobbit but lord of the rings was too long and as a result it was boring,

wuthering heights

if i'm not enjoying a book i generally don't finish it though

Captain Corelli - very, very dull with a ridiculous and unbelievable ending

DaVinci code - irritating and pointless. The entire book is spent with the main characters trying to find out a secret which the granny knew all along and could have just told them

the curious incident of the dog in the night - just couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Put it down to the fact that we live and breathe autism 24/7 with ds2 and ds3 so everything seemed perfectly rational.