Critically acclaimed books you hate?

BLITZ_Molloy

Everybody likes different things so it's only natural that some people hate what are generally regarded as classic pieces of literature. I'm probably going to be a bit vague cos I haven't read these books in ages.

Catcher In The Rye
The protagonist is boring, pretentious and just drifts about in a morose angsty teenage fashion. He's a mopey, self pitying little tosser and I'd rather not listen to his moaning. The 1950's dialogue is horribly dated. It feels 10 times longer than the 250 or so pages.

Lord of the Rings
Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels in general, but the ones that I do enjoy like Wizard of Earthsea ramble less and make a hell of alot more sense. Gandalf is the only good guy who's able to take care of himself, yet he tends to feck off at various points for no reason, despite the ring being the most important thing to him. So you've got the Hobbits left to save the world by themselves, which they do through pure luck because they're utterly powerless, or because Gandalf decides to magically reappear and save the day.

ncmc

I totally agree with both of those and would also add: anything by Irving Walsh and Ulyssis (couldn't get past page 10 after three attempts!)

buttersbrady

Lord of the rings.
Rather be beaten with iron bars than attempt to read that sh1t again.

studiorat

+ 1
catcher in the rye - the only saving grace is when

that little prick gets a hiding

DapperGent

East of Eden is awful. Hated Great Expectations as well.

Tar.Aldarion

catcher in the bleh.
You need to read other to read other tolkien books to know where gandalf was.

FruitLover

ncmc wrote: »

anything by Irving Walsh

Never heard of him.

Cokehead Mother

The Pearl. WTF was that?

EamonnKeane

BLITZ_Molloy wrote: »

Lord of the Rings
Admittedly I'm not a huge fan of fantasy novels in general, but the ones that I do enjoy like Wizard of Earthsea ramble less and make a hell of alot more sense. Gandalf is the only good guy who's able to take care of himself, yet he tends to feck off at various points for no reason, despite the ring being the most important thing to him. So you've got the Hobbits left to save the world by themselves, which they do through pure luck because they're utterly powerless, or because Gandalf decides to magically reappear and save the day.

Aragorn can also take care of himself. And the hobbits save the world through the Power of Friendship, British Pluck and their Never-Say Die Attitude.

Shryke

Hate is a strong word but 1984 was just poor, dour and dull.
The Pearl definitely, though I haven't read it since I was in school.

I loved Catcher in the Rye.

Dades

Catcher in the Rye.

The Bridget Jones' Diary of angsty male teens.

monkey9

Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

I just finished it and God, it was a struggle. I really hated it and the thought of reading another one of his novels depresses me. It was just so boring! The same thing, repeated over and over.
I've read a few 'end of the world' type novels like I Am Legend and Girlfriend In A Coma and really enjoyed them, but this was just tedious.
I realise i'm in a minority here completely cos i haven't heard one bad thing about it. but it was a major disappointment to me

Shryke

I thought The Road was so so. It didn't do anything for me. I thought it was incredibely hyped by everyone but even so I didn't have high expectations. It didn't leave an impression. McCarthy is great though. I highly reccomend Blood Meridian for a very different kind of read. It's a western with biblical type narrative. Powerful stuff.

Oh ya, Jane Austin. Though I don't know if that's just because I'm a man. Probably not worth mentioning.

delop

'We need to talk about kevin'

And of course Joyce ( I must be thick, I just get his books, well only read 2)

SeekUp

Sandor wrote: »

Oh ya, Jane Austin. Though I don't know if that's just because I'm a man. Probably not worth mentioning.

Pfft. I'm a woman, and Jane Austen doesn't do it for me . . . the number of times I've tried - and failed - to get through Pride and Prejudice (and Emma) is shocking.

BenjAii

The Life of Pi, which won The Booker prize a few years back - insipid new age parable.

Did like The Road I have to say, as bleak as it was, you're never going to get a better description of a nuclear winter in literature!

Eoin

The Invisible Man for me. Well, I didn't hate it as such, but found it very hard going and just didn't enjoy it.

Edit: "Portrait of the artist as a young man". Really did hate that one.

meglome

Remains of the ****ing day... bored me senseless.

bullpost

The Sea By John Banville

Just didn't engage me at all.

Poloman

The bible

Lizzykins

My Name is Red is one of the few books I couldn't finish. Hated it intensely. Likewise Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was completely incomprehensible to me too. The reviewers raved about it. My name is Red won the Impac prize. Don't see how.

Rockshamrover

War and peace was a bit of a struggle.

phelixoflaherty

Monkey 9 re. The Road. That was one scary book, though the end was pure rubbish.

If books don't hold your interest they usually get the bin. The only exception to this is in secondary school.

Certain types of Irish books are uniformly disappointing. They just blather along. The Sea and The Heather Burning. Trapped with them on holiday.

Best ending ever was in The Periodic Table - Premo Levi.

shockwave

Catch 22....Load of tripe!

brianthebard

studiorat wrote: »

+ 1
catcher in the rye - the only saving grace is when

that little prick gets a hiding

Second that, thought it was terrible.

fasterkitten

The Gathering infuriated me.

HalloweenJack

Curious Incident of the Dog.

It wrecked my head. I didn't like the way it was written and I hated the protagonist.

Gaspode

Ulysses.

megadodge

The Pearl and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - While very well written in terms of style, the relentless misery, bleakness and hopelessness was nothing short of disgusting.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac - terribly dated and downright boring.

Anything by Jane Austen - 'Boring' doesn't even come close...

Anything by Shakespeare - 'Hatred' doesn't even come close...

hatful

+1 The Sea John Banville was very hard going for very little reward.

skybluejay

Totally agree with Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Rings... ugh.

I can't stand Tom Wolfe - I really hate the way he writes.

In recent times I've encountered so many people who've read Catcher in the Rye and reckoned it was massively over-rated. I adored the book when I read it, but I was about 14 at the time. I wonder is it a book you can only really relate to when you're an angsty teenager yourself?