Books you hated - let off steam

R

Rose65

Well-known Member
Location
United Kingdom
I am such an avid reader but I don't love all books by any means. Sometimes I know immediately I am going to hate a book, other times it takes a while and I realise it's just not happening for me. Often I feel I 'ought' to love a book because it's a 'classic' and everyone else raves about it.

I tried 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot and oh my word I was just so bored and hated it. Lately I've been listening to 'Heidi' by Johanna Spyri on audio, thinking I must give it a go. I started off thinking it was very delightful but gradually I just grew irritated and impatient with this child who is so unrealistically and annoyingly good and keeps bursting into tears and causing mayhem. Far too many tears and blatant sentimentality for me.

If it is ok shall we have here any reviews of books you have hated? Especially classics that we are supposed to enjoy because everyone else seems to. I need a place to say the unthinkable - such as I don't like Shakespeare, I find it all boring. I also find Charles Dickens far too heavy and cumbersome. There, I said it!
 

Rose65 said:
If it is ok shall we have here any reviews of books you have hated? Especially classics that we are supposed to enjoy because everyone else seems to. I need a place to say the unthinkable - such as I don't like Shakespeare, I find it all boring. There, I said it!
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I hate any books that are over the top graphic whether that's violence, sex, or whatever. My imagination works just fine filling those things in and I don't need some hack writer trying to paint the picture for me. I also detest profanity... in speech *or* in books. šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø
 

CallMeKate said:
I hate any books that are over the top graphic whether that's violence, sex, or whatever. My imagination works just fine filling those things in and I don't need some hack writer trying to paint the picture for me. I also detest profanity... in speech *or* in books. šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø
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Oh me too. If I see the f word, forget it.
I tried to read the odd rock autobiography and couldn't even start, horrid drug fuelled lives that many heavy rock stars led or lead. I do not need that in my head.
 
After about 125 pages, I quit on the extraordinarily ponderous, "Wellness" by Nathan Hill. 624 pages - that's a lot of book. Too often a full page is a single, tedious uninvolving paragraph, describing main characters who are themselves tedious and mostly uninvolving.

This book needed ruthless editing, but like many authors with previous highly regarded works ("The Nix" - which I haven't read), the balance of power shifts almost entirely to the author. Not a good thing in this instance.

Despite "Wellness" being an Oprah Book Club pick, a NYT besteller, and NPR's "Best Book" accolades, not one person in my book club of avid readers liked or bothered to finish this book.
 
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My husband could list off dozens of books heā€™s hated but the only ones Iā€™ve disliked are ones we HAD to read at school. They were mandatory in getting the credit.

All other books I dislike, I walk away from and find one I like. Unlike my husband who feels a sense of loyalty to the writer. Heā€™ll read hundreds of pages while thoroughly hating it.
I just canā€™t understand that but I donā€™t have to.
I am patient & kind. šŸ„°
( pretending to be in my car šŸš—)
 
Herbert is a bore and a hack. Couldn't stand Dune when it first came out in serialized monthly form. I put it in the same pile as nearly everything by Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury, which range from snoozefests to sheer drek with few exceptions.
 
Rose65 said:
I am such an avid reader but I don't love all books by any means. Sometimes I know immediately I am going to hate a book, other times it takes a while and I realise it's just not happening for me. Often I feel I 'ought' to love a book because it's a 'classic' and everyone else raves about it.

I tried 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot and oh my word I was just so bored and hated it. Lately I've been listening to 'Heidi' by Johanna Spyri on audio, thinking I must give it a go. I started off thinking it was very delightful but gradually I just grew irritated and impatient with this child who is so unrealistically and annoyingly good and keeps bursting into tears and causing mayhem. Far too many tears and blatant sentimentality for me.

If it is ok shall we have here any reviews of books you have hated? Especially classics that we are supposed to enjoy because everyone else seems to. I need a place to say the unthinkable - such as I don't like Shakespeare, I find it all boring. I also find Charles Dickens far too heavy and cumbersome. There, I said it!
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I wholeheartedly agree on all the mentioned books and Shakespeare and Dickens in general. Regarding 'Middlemarch' the BBC mini series from 1994 is much better as the never ending book and even full of wit. And Juliet Abrey is ravishing.
Middlemarch (TV Mini Series 1994) ā­ 7.5 | Drama, Romance
 
I disliked 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis. It was announced as a capitalism critique, but reading was so boring because of mentioning all the brands of perfume, fashion and so on, that I stopped reading it after hundred pages.
 
Dear DaiwaGuy, why are you sad on my comments? Please explain, I'd like to know the reasons to understand you better.
 
Generally, any book written by a Ph.D.

To me, they tend to: 1) condescending to the reader, and 2) generally replete with subscripts, superscripts and notes ad infinitum that I lose track of what it is I'm reading.

First thing I check when considering a read is the dust cover bio of the writer. If Ph.D. appears anywhere in the description, back on the shelf it goes.
 
DaiwaGuy said:
Your lights aren't on a timer? Why?
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I have never used a timer. It would make no sense since my wife and I go to bed mostly together and switch the ligths off manually. In former times our cat Lilou was sleeping with us, but she is gone for some years now.
 
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