Popular book that you didn’t enjoy

[Wanttocry]

Not really a TAAT but inspired by the Crawdads thread.

What’s a book that has been raved about, but that you didn’t really enjoy? For me it would have to be The Goldfinch, I just didn’t really get it.

When I was about 10 - loved FHB The Little Princess but found The Secret Garden rather boring (too much about horticulture and not enough of interesting characters and things going on).

A Little Life. Misery porn. I read half of it and thought it was well-written, but I had to stop. It was so upsetting. I put it in the bin in the end as I couldn't face giving it to a charity shop in case it upset someone else. Grim.

All the Light We Cannot See. So unbelievably boring.
The Little Friend. Over long and slow.
The Historian. Utter drivel. Thought a vampire hunt would be exciting, it wasn't.

Not sure if this counts as I don’t know how popular it is necessarily but I’ve remembered I did Lord of the Flies as part of my GCSE, so I assume it’s considered to have literary value.
I hated it so much. It’s possible I wouldn’t have hated it quite as much if I’d read it myself, rather than at school, where we endlessly re-read chapters and analysed every word. This is why I didn’t do English lit at A level, I didn’t want to risk the over-analysing ruining books I actually liked.

@Wanttocry I was also forced to read that shite. I hated it.

The Girls. Over-hyped.
The Midnight Library. Interesting concept, frustrating characters. Could have been the fiction equivalent of a blogpost - went on for far too long.

@BrimfulOfBaba

Vox by Christina (Christine?) Datcher. It was hyped as an important feminist work a la Handmaid's Tale but it was poorly written drivel (great concept though!)

I'll add the sequel to Handmaid's Tale (I can't believe Margaret Atwood actually wrote that), anything I've tried by Jodie Picoult (mostly due to book clubs) and controversially, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

There are some on this thread I absolutely love- The Kite Runner, Life of Pi, Eleanor Oliphant, 100 years!

@BrimfulOfBaba totally agree with you about Margaret Attwood! I thought The Testaments was shocking - and the fact that she won a prize for it before it was even published made me

It's the literary equivalent of 'and then I woke up and it was all a dream'.

Philip Pullman books
Fault in our Stars

The Cows, bizarrely sexist and judgy and just thought it was awful

I hated Lord of the flies just wasn’t interested.

@TheWindOnTheMoon I think it’s odd that we constantly compare WH and Jane Eyre anyway tbh. Just because they were sisters or two women writing at the same time. I guess they are both gothic in some respects but we never seem to discuss The Woman in White and WH/Jane Eyre or whatever.

I use ‘we’ in the very general sense.

@Kottbullar

Atonement On Chesil Beach The Children Act Thursday Murder Club

On Chesil Beach

No-one needs a whole novel about a sexually inexperienced dude spraffing in his pants. Ian McEwan, I'm sorry that happened to you mate but honestly, you could have kept it to yourself.

*On Chesil Beach

No-one needs a whole novel about a sexually inexperienced dude spraffing in his pants. Ian McEwan, I'm sorry that happened to you mate but honestly, you could have kept it to yourself.*

Oh I had forgotten that one, yes, I completely agree. I like most of his other books but that one, no.

[quote LunaNorth]@StyleAndLasers how funny! Should I post a list of my favourites and we’ll see if you hate them? [/quote]
I was going to ask you that but thought it would be cheeky!

Thursday murder club. Awful!

@VienneseWhirligig

I can't decide if I love or hate The Bone Clocks. I've read it twice, first time I really liked it but then the second time found it odd. Not sure if it was because the twist was already revealed the first time I read it though

Can't read Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I've tried but it leaves me cold. As does anything where I can't pronounce the names of the characters or have a good go at it - if I can't picture them in my head, or get mixed up by the names, it turns me off.

I adored the first chapter of The Bone Clocks - I had read mediocre book after mediocre book for quite a while and thought I'd finally found something amazing to read. The second chapter and the end were ok - I didn't enjoy the intervening chapters at all - found them really self indulgent and boring. I was so disappointed.

@StyleAndLasers ha, here goes! Some of my favourites...

Wolf Hall
Americanah
The Goldfinch
Mr Loverman
The Stand
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Cold Comfort Farm

Ooh so I have Americanah on my list to read, am currently reading The Goldfinch, and I did like Wolf Hall and Cold Comfort Farm. Haven't read the others, apart from The Stand which was so long ago I can't remember it.
I think what this tells us is I just have no discrimination and like almost everything. Apart from A Little Life, Chesil Beach and Game of Thrones.

I love Cold Comfort Farm!

Did you know it was a sort of piss-take of DH Lawrence (who, actually, I also love!)?

Ha, yes, that’s what I love about it. I think it’s a bit of a snark at Thomas Hardy and his misery-fests!

@StyleAndLasers

Ooh so I have Americanah on my list to read, am currently reading The Goldfinch, and I did like Wolf Hall and Cold Comfort Farm. Haven't read the others, apart from The Stand which was so long ago I can't remember it. I think what this tells us is I just have no discrimination and like almost everything. Apart from A Little Life, Chesil Beach and Game of Thrones.

It’s good to have broad tastes!

@NattyDiamondDoll

To kill a mockingbird

I agree completely.

I studied this for O level English Lit, and picking it apart made it even worse, and took away any vestige of enjoyment I might have had in this book. When she published her second book, I decided there was no way I was going to read it.

I think I must be the only person in the world who fell in love with the books that I studied, precisely because we took them apart. TKAM was one of them and I have read it many times, including last month. I have a special place for Macbeth too.

The Great Gatsby. I remember making myself read 20 pages per day just to get it out of the way. Found it terribly dull.

Lord of the rings. I got a couple of hundred pages in didnt have a clue what was going on so gave up. Tried the films but they were just as bad.