Great expectations! So which books were actually ^better^ than you thought?

[Kentishwoman]

All of you who have already said your piece on which books were supposed to be great but actually sucked - which ones did you read reluctantly but end up loving? I'll get the ball rolling with The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I read it because I thought I ought to, but expected it to be fairly turgid and dull. Ended up completely hooked from start to finish.

Angela's Ashes
Lovely Bones
We Need to talk about Kevin
My sister's keeper.

All extremely hyped- which tends to put me off. Loved them all.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Have just finished it and once I got over the huge lists of Scandinavian names rather enjoyed it.

I had to read Middlemarch at university and sat down expecting it to be dull, but found it riveting.

Can't help but laugh at the fact that I've seen both Lovely Bones and We need to talk about Kevin on the rubbish books thread.

The others may well be on there too I suppose.

FWIW I loved Lovely Bones. Keep meaning to try We need to talk about Kevin but was slightly put off by the slating it got on the other thread...

Agree about My Sister's Keeper .... I think the Richard & Judy thing put me off but I thought it was a great book

Half of a Yellow Sun and A Thousand Splendid Suns were both hyped to me and I was expecting to be disappointed.

I also tried to read Donna Tartt's Little Friend and hated it, so wasn't expecting great things from A Secret History, but, again, I loved it

I'd have to stick Dickens on this list as well, now I come to think of it. Grew up just assuming I'd hate him. Got on reasonably well with Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, but really loved A Tale of Two Cities.

ps SarahL2, definitely give Kevin a go, because if you like it then you'll probably really like it, IYKWIM. I thought it was great.

TSMum, agree re Donna Tartt, but the other way round. Read Secret History first and loved it, but then thought Little Friend was tripe.

Sunset Song - read at school and was a bit indifferent to it - reread recently ad think it's fab !!

Kevin- definitely a Marmite book

I immediately thought of Middlemarch and The WOman in White when I saw the thread title.
George Orwell's novels - I was unprepared for how f*cking brilliant 1984 would be, and was not expecting anything at all of The Clergyman's Daughter so was totally blown away by it.

We Need To Talk About Kevin, definitely! I was scared off because of all I'd heard about it, plus it sounded like it'd be v sensationalist. I finally read it while 7 months pregnant , and loved it.

Didn't think I'd like The Time Traveller's Wife because it was so over-hyped, but love it. (This also seems to be a Marmite Book!)

Ah, now you see TTW irritated the bejaysus out of me!

Anna Karenina. I didn't expect it to be as brilliant as it is. Same for 100 years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (though I know plenty of people HATE that book).

Always Coming Home by Ishiguro - as I've said on the other thread, normally I hate 'literary' books, but I really loved this one. Perhaps because it sneaks into my radar as sort of sci-fi?

Usually I have got a pretty good hunch when it comes to books, but I have to say I remember being totally surprised by The Three Musketeers.

It was one of only a handful of English books in the library of the chateau in France where I was an au pair many moons ago, and I was desperate for easy reading material. I was convinced it was going to a boring boys adventure yarn like Treasure Island or something, but in fact it was truly pee-your-pants hilarious and a great fun read.

The Lovely Bones - dp got it from the library for me and I started it only so as not to offend him. I actually liked it a lot apart from the v silly sex scene towards the end.

A series of books about a Bow Street Runner which a colleague lent me. Not desperately well-written but I found myself gobbling them up.

A Dean Koontz which a different colleague lent me because he knows I like Steven King. It was surprisingly not as awful as I'd expected it to be!

'March' and the one about Eyam - forget who by. I liked both of those a lot and thought they would be historical-novel-twaddle.