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Books you feel were overrated

296 replies

ClearSky456 · 27/03/2024 13:36

Just finished Lessons in Chemistry and kind of wondering what all the fuss was about?! Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it but given so many people had told me I HAD to read it, I was left feeling a bit underwhelmed.

Anyone else felt the same, or anyone felt like this about another book recently? I had the same feeling with Daisy Jones and the Six too.

OP posts:
BIWI · 27/03/2024 13:37

Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I've tried to read it three times (the last time after a very enjoyable trip to Kefalonia!), but just can't get into it. Massively overwritten.

Riverlee · 27/03/2024 13:40

Eleanor Oiphant - didn’t get the love for this and the main character really annoyed me.

candgen625 · 27/03/2024 13:40

BIWI · 27/03/2024 13:37

Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I've tried to read it three times (the last time after a very enjoyable trip to Kefalonia!), but just can't get into it. Massively overwritten.

Snap! I tried this so many times Just can't get into it

Lovelyview · 27/03/2024 13:49

I agree about lessons in chemistry. It seemed like a fable rather than a book about actual people. Having said that our book group (age range 57 to 70s) had some eye opening stories about workplace sexism in the 70s and 80s especially in the sciences.

OooPourUsACupLove · 27/03/2024 13:50

Da Vinci Code. One of the worst written and most derivative books I've ever read. Managed the amazing feat of being published 25 years later than the book that satirized it (Foucault's Pendulum)

SirChenjins · 27/03/2024 13:52

Where the Crawdads Sing - not only was it overrated, it was utter rubbish.

Ringpeace · 27/03/2024 13:55

Life Of Pi.

One of my few regrets in life is having that as my sole companion on a 14-hour flight.

ASighMadeOfStone · 27/03/2024 13:56

Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns.

Just because a subject is hard, doesn't make it automatically a good book, or even well written.

I often say this- they both felt like the writer (who iirc is American) brainstormed everything anyone might think they know about the area and threw an example of each onto paper.

RaraRachael · 27/03/2024 13:57

BIWI · 27/03/2024 13:37

Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I've tried to read it three times (the last time after a very enjoyable trip to Kefalonia!), but just can't get into it. Massively overwritten.

Same here. I tried 3 times and got nowhere.

I'd add any classics too. I just find the language too hard to cope with.

DD hated Where The Crawdads Sing - couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

oddgirl · 27/03/2024 13:58

I’m with you with Lessons in Chemistry. I enjoyed it but never really understood why others found it life changing!

MagpiePi · 27/03/2024 14:06

I’ve just given up on Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light.
Thomas Cromwell is always referred to as ‘he’ so it was confusing to know if it was him or another male character that was speaking or acting. It just seemed to waffle in a stylistic way and take a long time to actually move the story on.
I got to page 115 out of 182.

BIWI · 27/03/2024 15:25

I had a problem with Wolf Hall for similar reasons - too many Thomases, and I never knew which one was which!

Vicliz24 · 27/03/2024 15:39

BIWI · 27/03/2024 13:37

Captain Corelli's Mandolin. I've tried to read it three times (the last time after a very enjoyable trip to Kefalonia!), but just can't get into it. Massively overwritten.

I gave up at the third time too . So stodgy .

ASighMadeOfStone · 27/03/2024 15:40

I started Wolf Hall on holiday in 2017.
I restarted it last year and finished it. I had to make a Thomas diagram first though.

AllProperTeaIsTheft · 27/03/2024 15:44

Wolf Hall
The Magus by John Fowles

tinytemper66 · 27/03/2024 16:02

That Elinor Ophilant one

GingerReader · 27/03/2024 16:05

ASighMadeOfStone · 27/03/2024 13:56

Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns.

Just because a subject is hard, doesn't make it automatically a good book, or even well written.

I often say this- they both felt like the writer (who iirc is American) brainstormed everything anyone might think they know about the area and threw an example of each onto paper.

That’s really interesting as I massively enjoyed (not because it was fun or lighthearted in any way lol, the opposite in fact as you know) A Thousand Splendid Suns when I read it years ago. I wonder if now if I read it again I will see it with different eyes!

GingerReader · 27/03/2024 16:06

ASighMadeOfStone · 27/03/2024 15:40

I started Wolf Hall on holiday in 2017.
I restarted it last year and finished it. I had to make a Thomas diagram first though.

Sometimes I think doorstop books like those can be made more digestible via an audiobook at 2x the speed 😆

GingerReader · 27/03/2024 16:07

SirChenjins · 27/03/2024 13:52

Where the Crawdads Sing - not only was it overrated, it was utter rubbish.

Isn’t the author herself also a bit dodgy (somehow involved with a murder??)

GingerReader · 27/03/2024 16:10

I do not care for Jane Austen 🙈 (but love the film adaptions of her works!)
I don’t think my problem is with the unfamiliar / old fashion language either since I’ve read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and loved that. Could simply be a taste thing - not enough happens in Jane Austen’s works for me perhaps!

EndlesslyDistracted · 27/03/2024 16:14

I agree about Crawdads, it was complete tosh

CharlotteRumpling · 27/03/2024 16:17

So many but off the top of my head
The Silent Patient
Catcher in the Rye
The Kite Runner ( so orientalist)
Eleanor Oliphant

I loved Wolf Hall.

irts · 27/03/2024 16:18

Catcher in the Rye.
Absolute nonsense!!

Redlarge · 27/03/2024 16:19

Midnight Library
Anything by Anne Tyler 🥱

Pocketfullofdogtreats · 27/03/2024 16:19

The Buried Giant. Most of my book group loved it. I've read other Ishiguru books and enjoyed them (especially the one about the robot, Klara And The Sun) but The Buried Giant was truly awful in so many ways (e.g the woman calling her DH "Husband" in every bloody paragraph was really grating).
I enjoyed most of Lessons in Chemistry but I found the SA scene really hard to read and jarring amid all the light-hearted stuff, although I realise It's part of the character's story. (It's just my own SA experience colouring this. I wish this kind of thing had a TW like it would in a TV programme.)