Do you have a particular book that everyone liked, it was a big hit, but you didn't like it?

Hamnet

People raved about how they loved those Anne Rice Vampire Lestat novels, so I tried one and thought it was poorly written junk.

Most of those books with "girl" in the title. I liked Gone Girl, but the ones that came after it weren't very good.

R2 seems Anne Rice has a style that's very polarising, Marmite. I enjoy her vampire novels fwiw, but on the level that I know it's overblown and oversexed melodrama, raw and unedited fantasy fodder. I feel that way about V.C.Andrews, as well.

A Little Life- trauma porn and if a Japanese woman had written the same content with black characters there would have been outrage (rightly). I say this as a biracial woman. Something was 'off' about the whole book and the hoopla surrounding this.

IQ84 or whatever it was called. Fucking boring and Guy-In-Your-MFA pretentious. Likewise, Norwegian Wood.

Also am not into Ian McEwan, and think that only Tories and bootlickers enjoy his anaemic 'writing'.

My Pet Goat was so overrated.

In 2016 everyone was reading “The Girl on the Train” by Paula Hawkins. I thought it meretricious and boring.

In Library World we use James Patterson generically, signifying titles that everyone clamors for, even though readers never truly enjoy them, and libraries have to spend a lot of money on books that we’ll simply throw out within a few months.

Gone Girl. What a load of crap.

In Love with the Night Mysterious. I just didn't get it.

I read some shitty book by Harper Lee about 12 yrs ago that really sucked.

I loathed [italic]The Da Vinci Code[/italic].

Yes R6! Murakami is SO overrated.

The Shack

The Horse Whisperer

Absolute Power

Personal History-Katherine Graham (she bought that Pulitzer Prize)

Two Serious Ladies Naked Lunch

R13 say this. Honestly though, I struggle to articulate why I hate his writing so much, just that it leaves me cold and unmoved and unimpressed in some vague why.

Ryu Murakami is vastly superior, but less well-known in the West. Both his 'Toyko Decadence' (an anthology) and 'Love & Pop' (a novel) are startling and raw and profound reads, and were adapted into powerful films.

I second A Little Life. Garbage.

Normal People by Sally Rooney. In fact anything by Sally Rooney. Snooze fest

R18 all I see these days when I walk into a Waterstones or WHSmiths is copies all over the tables. Either everyone's already bought it and read it so there's surplus stock, or the popularity was all manufactured hype.

Sex by Madonna

I hasn’t heard of A Little Life so I had to look it up. The wiki summary reads like a parody. It sounds like an exhausting read.

*hadn’t

Da Vinci Code and all the other Dan Brown crap. Terrible. He cannot write. He must've been sucking dick. The Twilight vampire novels. Terrible.

Third vote for A Little Life. I hated it so much. Guessing it started as fanfic of some kind, because that’s what it reads like: a 15 year-old girl who “ships” gay men, writing trauma porn.

The Bell Jar. Couldn't finish it. Could not care less about the main protagonist and her downward spiral.

The Rabbit books by Updike

My 80-year old middle-class grandmother is obsessed with Jeffrey Archer's writing, and I cannot fathom why.

I tried hard to like H is for Hawk - I think it was on Obama’s reading list — but it just wasn’t for me. Too overwrought, perhaps.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Eat Pray Love. So annoying, like she was the first person who had a relationship that ended badly. We all have. But none of us got a $100,000 advance to indulge ourselves afterwards.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

I never read Watership Down, but it looked stupid too.

The Little Prince

Spare

Any self help book with "fuck" in the title

Frau thread: a memoir

Twilight and Eragon - both read like they were written by twelve year olds.

The DaVinci code - horrible and an even worse film version

Any of the formulaic " read it at the Airport " books by guys like James Patterson.

The Bible.

The Goldfinch. Wanted to love it as I did Tartt's other work, but alas...

Harry Potter. I like JK Rowling as a person but just don't get the books.

I remember seeing everyone in the 80s reading "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" so I bought and read it.

It's a good book for housewives who's read the latest Jackie Collins and are trying to be a bit more classy!

R40 Potter was a slog for me too, but I (scan) read them all because at the time literally everyone my age was—did I ever learn my lesson about peer pressure.

Think what I hated most was the middle-class boarding school setting and culture. Back when the books were new and massive, I was still a bullied kid/young teen at school, and hated almost every second of it, so I didn’t even want to read about a fantasy version of it. For me, the books got more readable in the final parts, when they were half-Ghost-written and the characters weren’t even at school anymore.

Anyway, I preferred Animorphs for dark and fantastic wish-fulfilment YA lit. Those books don’t get the respect.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Life of Pi

Another vote for Anne Rice's Vampire novels. I read 50 pages of the first volume and threw it across the room. I returned the other two. I couldn't believe my friends had such bad taste. The movie version was the first post-Risky Business Tom Cruise movie I didn't see.

I didn't realize how much I hated Gone Girl until I'd finished reading it. I have never seen the movie.

I found A Little Life to be inauthentic, but I'd gone into it knowing it was written by a woman, so I wasn't as upset by it as some. I would definitely see the movie version if I like the cast. James Norton were to repeat his role as Jude in the film, I'd be there opening night. I'd wondered as I read it how I would have liked it as a dramatic work.

The reverse:

I loved The Little Friend by Donna Tartt but my book club spent 45 minutes talking about how boring it was. Oof.

The 1986 Fall Preview issue of TV Guide.

Jesus, what drivel.

R47 Magazine, not a book. Being petty. Now volunteer a book that people will be outraged that you hate. I challenge you........

The World According to Garp

[QUOTE]The World According to Garp

Not a book. Or even a magazine.

Agree with R 50. World according to Garp. I wanted so much to like it . I’m overly sentimental, my kids say emphasis on the mental.

I loved the movie, but the book, I just couldn’t …

Songs in Ordinary Time. This was one of the early books promoted by Oprah and her book club.

I read the whole damn thing and wondered, why is this supposed to be so good? It was boring and just ok.

Interview with a Vampire

I knew within a few paragraphs that the book would be a chore to read. After about 10 pages, I couldn't take it any longer and I flung it in the garbage.

And FWIW I didn't care for the movie either. I may have even nodded off in the theater.

R41, I loved the Two Mrs. Grenvilles. My mother had it and I read it as a t eenager.

Pierre Lemaitre trilogy. I stopped after Couleurs de l’incendie.

R26 How dare you! Updike is a god and Harry Angstrom and his dim wife Janice are my favorites. I came to say "The Corrections", glad someone else did. Let me add also any Anne Rice and also "I know this much is true". I love that author, really struggled through the book. I see the show is on my Hulu and wonder if I should give it a shot.

The Joy of Sex.

Normal People by Sally Rooney. HATED IT.

R53 why didn’t you throw that book across the room like you did the other one?

Lovely Bonds. Depressing beyond words

Shades of Gray

I still have never been able to get into any Toni Morrison book I've tried to start reading.

[quote] The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Ooh, same. Franzen is a tiresome bitch.

The Corrections was just a soap opera. Like a beach read. Not sure why Franzen got so up himself about Oprah. She’s chosen far better books than his.

I’ve thought Margaret Atwood was a very good writer. Some good ideas but she’s never really written a decent line of prose.

*Ive never thought Margaret Atwood was a very good writer.

Dr. Seuss- Green Pussy and Ham

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

What a slog, what a disappointment.

I understand that certain white straight men find this novel EPIC and TRUE.

R52- I read this the summer going into my senior year of college, and I loved it. I have such a visceral memory of reading this fat book in the summer heat, and being so invested in this fucked up family. I liked it so much that I’ve consisted rereading it, which I never do. To each his own, I guess.

I don't mind Atwood's prose, but she can't write a conclusion to save her life. Her books just kind of noodle off.

[quote]R53 why didn’t you throw that book across the room like you did the other one?

R59 - what other one? I mentioned only that one book.