Critically acclaimed books you hate?

00112984

More popular than critically acclaimed but:

I hated The Book Thief.

Wasted a full day reading that tripe.

Acacia

"The Catcher in the Rye", I heard great things about it and was so disappointed. Meandering, self-indulgent tripe. Also ''Catch 22'' was a terrible, un-engaging read, though I have been told it's a ''guy book'' so I wouldn't ''get it''. :rolleyes:

quad_red

The Satanic Verses.

I wanted to like it. But I couldn't.

Eoin

I really can't understand how people hate Catch 22 so much. I can sort of understand why they think it's not an all time classic though.

Mal-Adjusted

Dades wrote: »

The Bridget Jones' Diary of angsty male teens.

is that even considered a real novel? i thought it was just a re-doing of Pride & Predudice

Mal-Adjusted

harry potter and the deathly hallows, the ending was alright, but the first two-thirds was pure rubbish. we don't need everything deatailed down to how many bricks in the wall!

Damian Duffy

IronMan wrote: »

I found the master and the margarita to be a very difficult read. Like many Russian novels, it may have been down to the translation I read.

That's my favorite book of all time. I think you need to get the proper translation. It's an unbelievably good book, can't put it into words. As far as I can remember the Vintage Classics version is the bad one but I'll check and edit the post.

CDfm

Mal-Adjusted wrote: »

is that even considered a real novel? i thought it was just a re-doing of Pride & Predudice

The Brontes and Jane Austen were Victorian Chick Lit

Now Mary Shelleys Frankenstein is in a completely other league.

IronMan

Damian Duffy wrote: »

That's my favorite book of all time. I think you need to get the proper translation. It's an unbelievably good book, can't put it into words. As far as I can remember the Vintage Classics version is the bad one but I'll check and edit the post.

Ya, I picked up the Diana Burgin and Katherine O'Connor translation, and it was a fantastic read. Not the first time a different translation of a novel has made an enormous difference to how a story flows.

Sinann

CDfm wrote: »

The Brontes and Jane Austen were Victorian Chick Lit

Now Mary Shelleys Frankenstein is in a completely other league.

I think the reason Austen and her fellows were so admired has been some what lost at this stage.
The books were at the time revolutionary.
They were written by women at a time when women had no rights or voice and they put forward the idea that a woman could choose for herself. What a notion!!!
Today they read as just soppy love stories but put in the context of their time they were a powder keg.

That said thank goodness people like Mary Shelley arrived to show women could write more that love stories.

CDfm

Sinann wrote: »

That said thank goodness people like Mary Shelley arrived to show women could write more that love stories.

Its a matter of opinion I am not a fan of Dickens either. Wuthering Heights is awful and mostly because the narrative style gets in the way of the story. The same could be said about James Joyce. Is unpickupable a word?

I do agree with you on Mary Shelley - exceptionally gifted and far better then the other women and men writting around her.

Bugnug

hatful wrote: »

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

Yes the sea, tried three times and got almost half way on the third attempt but I just couldnt do it, terrible.

Liked the catcher in the rye though.

Just reading Life of Pi, great stuff.

Slugs

The Twilight series. What a load of putrile sh1te. I'm never going near them again. I have a feeling I lost iq points reading it...

Orlaladuck

Slugs wrote: »

The Twilight series. What a load of putrile sh1te. I'm never going near them again. I have a feeling I lost iq points reading it...

I was just wondering where the hell is Stephanie Meyer's atrocity! I have 13 year old illiterate cousins who can write a better book than her. Her writing style is awful, she abuses the thesaurus and then all her characters are Mary Sues! I saw an article in the Independent two weeks ago 'it's promoting chastity!' as well as waiting for 'The One' that's not human, bestiality, pedophilia And abusive relationships.

Also Pride and Prejudice :cool: Yeuck.

jimmymal

Confab wrote: »

Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood. Very derivative and extremely disturbing... not violent, but the content is nasty. I stopped halfway through and tore it up. Sickening stuff.

oryx & crake was i thought a weak enough first sci fi book from atwood that didn't explore the actual idea enough but certainly not extremely disturbing and nasty. just a good post apocalyptic idea written in a slightly naive way. granted not like her usual stuff but i wouldn't think the material would offend or put off any avid sci fi readers. and remember its only certain type of person who consciously deforms a book.

like most of you, i didnt like the da vinci code but couldnt put it down and because of this and this only it reminded me of bridget jones diary.
catch 22 is an amazing book, hilarious and heart-breaking, the sequel(the name of which escapes me) on the other hand is drawn out and very difficult to digest.
4 classics which i couldn't finish were but have promised to go back to
1. the trial
2. crime & punishment
3. lolita
4. don quixote

MultiUmm

I really, really, strongly disliked To Kill a Mockingbird.

Perhaps I should have given it more of a chance, but I read as far as about page 85 and I packed it in.

God awful book imo, entirely overrated.

CDfm

jimmymal wrote: »

catch 22 is an amazing book, hilarious and heart-breaking,

try good as gold

4 classics which i couldn't finish were but have promised to go back to
1. the trial
2. crime & punishment
3. lolita
4. don quixote

Solitary confinement in san quentin wouldnt force me to reaquaint myself with crime and punishment.

Didnt like the Trial but the Plague by Camus is great.Mother courage and her Children -a play by Brecht is another great read if you want to cover the same ground.

The Old Man and the Sea must be on any list of stonkers and deserves a place alongside the writtings of Checkov or Ibsen.

brrrr- hey you could burn the books without feeling guilty.

jimmymal

CDfm wrote: »

brrrr- hey you could burn the books without feeling guilty.

this has some truth to it but make sure there's no-one with a camera around just in case you happen to be waving to a passer by like all these people...

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/bookburn.htm

also just remembered a couple more
drab andy mcnab.... with 2nd or even 3rd rate action thrillers
zadie smith..... cant believe i wasted so much time and took away so little

ive recently read old man and the sea and to kill a mocking bird and lapped both of them up very eagerly. but then a day in the life of ivan denisovich is one of my favorite books...

Vim Fuego

I'm going to put in another vote for 'We need to talk about Kevin'. That was a huge struggle to finish, even if the ending is 'satisfying', it goes nowhere for a long time and the main character is a detestable shrew.

Malari

Vim Fuego wrote: »

I'm going to put in another vote for 'We need to talk about Kevin'. That was a huge struggle to finish, even if the ending is 'satisfying', it goes nowhere for a long time and the main character is a detestable shrew.

I loved that book It's in my top 5. I really identified with the main character (probably because I hate children) and thought it really portrayed the kind of argument that couples have without really saying what's bothering them.

I recently read Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks and thought it was incredibly disappointing. The main character in that was someone I never really got to know and didn't care at all what happened to him by the end of it.

Sconsey

Slaughterhouse 5 - just finished it, muck, that's the second (and last) Vonnengut book I will ever read, didn't like Breakfast of Champions either.
I read it based on all the recommendations on this board, I just don't get it, loads of other books I've read based on recommendations I loved but Vonnengut just does not do it for me at all.

Denerick

Although I didn't hate it, I'd have to say that 'Brave New World' gets my goat. Its not written well and the dystopia isn't particularly dystopian. And it was dull. Huxley has written far better books but he will always be remembered as a dystopian writer! Not fair!

Eliot Rosewater

I never really did understand the hype about Brave New World. Its strikes me as a poor mans 1984.

@Sconsey: I'm sorry you didn't like Slaughterhouse 5. I kind of feel responsible Even after I read it I said to people "if the someone didn't get the book their liable to hate it." Its also probably down to your personal taste; I liked Breakfast of Champions too. They're not very conventional books in fairness.

CDfm

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I never really did understand the hype about Brave New World. Its strikes me as a poor mans 1984.
.

#

I agree but its got a better title

Flex

"Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom. Didnt enjoy it at all and

thought the ending was terrible

. His other book "The Five People You Meet in Heavan" on the other hand I thought was excellent and far better. Dont get why people thought "Tuesdays with Morrie" was so excellent.

zesman

The Catcher in the Rye, I just couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Stella777

Orhan Pamuk:
I've tried so many times to finish even one of his books but I never manage. I think I have an above average attention span and I've been to Turkey several times and have always been interested in the culture and history there, but something about his writing style just doesn't click with me. It's like he's trying too hard to show how well read and intellectual he is and forgets he's writing a novel.

Denerick

Stella777 wrote: »

Orhan Pamuk:
I've tried so many times to finish even one of his books but I never manage. I think I have an above average attention span and I've been to Turkey several times and have always been interested in the culture and history there, but something about his writing style just doesn't click with me. It's like he's trying too hard to show how well read and intellectual he is and forgets he's writing a novel.

I thought Snow and White Castle were fantastic. Unfortunately 'The New Life' was a pile of dung, and I couldn't get past the first 100 pages. I wouldn't agree that he's too intellectual, but his writing style is quirky. Snow is one of his easier read novels, I'd recommend reading that.

Dunjohn

I've spent the last year or so starting, quitting, and restarting Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It's so densely-packed with unfamiliar Chinese names and characters whose history is built up - usually with more Chinese names - only for them to be cut in half in the next paragraph, and never mentioned again, that I just can't keep everything straight in my head.

I don't hate it. I will beat it some day. I just might need help from MSExcel.

Mal-Adjusted

anything by that &%£*$...person...Celia Ahern...and believe it or not, for no other reason that she just isn't any good!