Books you feel were overrated

[ClearSky456]

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.

Completely agree it was a right load of nonsense!

Yes!! I had no bloody idea what was happening I had to give up.

Crawdads - total tosh
Da Vinci Code - what?!
Kate Atkinson's Shrines of Gaiety: I was SO disappointed.

But I loved Captain Corelli's Mandolin!

Oh I agree I couldn’t finish it. All the characters bar one were virtually interchangeable and all anyone did was whinge despite their (utterly unbelievable) success.

Atonement
Parades End
Catch 22
Eat Pray Love
The Great Gatsby
The Alchemist

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was utter drivel! Childish, implausible, ludicrously inaccurate, characters that were not at all believable. I hated it. I got quite enraged by it, actually! 😂

I did, however, love Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The film of it was dire though.

Agreed! The film of CCM was atrocious. I was so cross by the time it finished - didn't they change the ending? I think I've parked it in the far reaches of my memory, well out of sight.

Edited to say that I know there were many other parts of the book omitted too - no doubt because they just couldn't fit nicely into a 2 hour screenplay.

Two recent ones spring to mind...

Yellowface - it was really hyped up but boring and spent whole time waiting for something to happen!

Oh and Verity by Colleen Hoover - what a pile of crap!

Oh thank God. I've tried a couple of times, and it didn't get any better trying to figure out who was who second time round.

I'd add cold comfort farm and a prayer for owen meanie both recommended to me by more than one person, as the. Best. Book. Ever. I have woman in white to read because that's been recommended by different people. I just can't bring myself to read it.

Yeah enjoyed crawdads and chemistry but they were nothing truly brilliant, we're they?

Harry Potter. Load of drivel.

I hated The Slap too, mostly because the characters were so awful.
I couldn't understand why it was supposed to be a must read.

I had to do Wuthering Heights for A Level and hated it. There are other books which I struggled with as a teenager but went back to as an adult and loved (I really enjoy Hardy now but found him hard work when I studied him).

I enjoy the novels of Charlotte and Anne Bronte but found Wuthering Heights unbearable and couldn't face rereading it. Irritating, self-obsessed, over-emotional characters.

Same here.

The lovely bones
girl on a train

Hated them both!

Agree with Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Life of Pi, and Where the Crawdads Sing.

I'll also add Game of Thrones! I hated the first book in the series so never watched the TV series that everyone was raving about.

I did however love Thousand Splendid Suns.

Oh. And can't forget Crime and Punishment. So many attempts to finish that. Never managed it.

Yes and this one!

I think many books just seem to get pushed as “the must read of the summer” or whatever and it becomes more about having a fantastic PR/publishing comps behind them rather than them being any good.

You’re just left thinking “wtf”??

The Thursday Murder Club.

Yes, and I am suspicious of anything promoted by Richard and Judy. Maybe a sweeping statement!

The Secret History. Bloody awful book.

I didn't hate the Time Traveller's Wife, but it didn't have me shaking and sobbing like people said.
And I wouldn't read anything else by the writer. Or watch the film. Or read any other of the eleventy billion time travelly love stories that have come since.

@AlwaysFreezing agree re Cold Comfort Farm. The funniest book ever? People who have read it 86 times? Give over.

@DrJoanAllenby I don't mind HP. It is what it is and there's no going back. But fucking Strike can fucking do one. I only read them to keep the 50 bookers entertained with my sweary reviews.

Really good, actually.

Bought it thinking would be really funny as
she was a script writer for Schitts Creek. It wasn’t

Some of the books mentioned I absolutely loved, but I either couldn't get into or couldn't stand:

Wolf Hall
Cold Mountain
Eleanor Oliphant
A Little Life
The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Milkman
The Slap
Elizabeth is Missing

Oh, do read The Woman in White, it's one of my all-time favourites! I really must read it again sometime.

I read all of them just to see what happens, but JKR's style really grated. She also borrows heavily from Tolkein, but at least she didn't put all those tedious songs and poems in like he did.