Books everyone thinks are great but you hated (and vice versa)

[Poot]

Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez but in particular Love in the Time of Cholera, which is the worst, most contrived, most patriarchal rubbish ever passed off as good literature.

I read 100 Years of Solitude recently and hated it. Everyone has the same name and there's incest. And that's the best thing that I can say about it.

 

[Orang Utan]

Terry Pratchetr, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams - that lot
Ian Banks’ Dead Air and also Complicity were very disappointing, but got praised all the same.
Charles Bukowski’s Ham On Rye. Just no.
China Miéville’s King Rat is embarrassing considering the rest of his work.

 

[Orang Utan]

I read The Da Vinci Code and while marvelling at its shiteness, I also begrudgingly admired Dan Brown’s formula. It works, so fair play to him for that.

 

[frogwoman]

Terry Pratchetr, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams - that lot
Ian Banks’ Dead Air and also Complicity were very disappointing, but got praised all the same.
Charles Bukowski’s Ham On Rye. Just no.
China Miéville’s King Rat is embarrassing considering the rest of his work.

Terry pratchett? Why?

 

[frogwoman]

I read The Da Vinci Code and while marvelling at its shiteness, I also begrudgingly admired Dan Brown’s formula. It works, so fair play to him for that.

I didn't think the da vinci code was that bad tbh. It was definitely a fun read. It has some historical inaccuracies but I think it was pretty clear all along that it was fiction.

 

[scifisam]

Yeah I don't understand what's cosy about a book that has a murder in it. If the book is funny etc and doesn't have much explicit violence, then that's fine, but I really don't get that as a description and think that as the name for the genre sounds a bit cringey

It's not about comedy necessarily, it's about it being overall slightly light of touch, focused on domestic relationships with crime as the driving force behind the plot, and in the UK pretty much always rural. The ending can be sad but not depressing. It seems to be a British thing, really.

I was about halfway through writing one set on a baking show knock-off about leatherworking when someone published a book set in a knock-off of the Great British Bake-Off. Shame, I was enjoying writing it, but not enough to continue when it's already been done.

The US has some TV shows that are similar even if they don't seem it on the surface, but they're in cities because their rural is not the same as ours.

 

[weepiper]

Norwegian Wood.

 

[frogwoman]

Is it the sort of thing that often has an elderly protagonist and a body gets found at a cake sale or that sort of thing? Yeah books like that have to be quite special for me to want to read it. Then again The Twyford Code got described as cosy and I didn't think it was at all.

It's not about comedy necessarily, it's about it being overall slightly light of touch, focused on domestic relationships with crime as the driving force behind the plot, and in the UK pretty much always rural. The ending can be sad but not depressing. It seems to be a British thing, really.

I was about halfway through writing one set on a baking show knock-off about leatherworking when someone published a book set in a knock-off of the Great British Bake-Off. Shame, I was enjoying writing it, but not enough to continue when it's already been done.

The US has some TV shows that are similar even if they don't seem it on the surface, but they're in cities because their rural is not the same as ours.

 

[Orang Utan]

Terry pratchett? Why?

Just think he’s rubbish.

 

[frogwoman]

Just think he’s rubbish.

Seriously? I loved his books as a kid. It was the sort of thing I could get lost in. I haven't read any of them as an adult though

 

[Orang Utan]

Seriously? I loved his books as a kid. It was the sort of thing I could get lost in. I haven't read any of them as an adult though

Perhaps it’s cos I only read him as an adult. Just wasn’t keen on that kind of fantasy setting and that kind of humour. Same kind of humour as Red Dwarf and Douglas Adams. Not my cup of tea at all. Those jokes write themselves.

 

[frogwoman]

Perhaps it’s cos I only read him as an adult. Just wasn’t keen on that kind of fantasy setting and that kind of humour. Same kind of humour as Red Dwarf and Douglas Adams. Not my cup of tea at all. Those jokes write themselves.

That's fair enough. I loved his books as a kid though although I don't know how I'd feel if I read them now.

 

[quimcunx]

The Confederacy of Dunces. My friends all loved it. I didn't get why at all.

 

[Yossarian]

i put off Moby Dick for many years, becuase it came with such a reputation that i thought my soul would be shaken by reading it. then i read it - or much of it, i skipped a few hundred pages becuase i found it to be spissous tosh. when i got to the "dramatic" ending i just wanted it to be over.

when i voiced this opinion (elsewhere) i was met with enthusiatic agreement.

I liked Moby Dick a lot, eventually, though if I hadn't been traveling in Central America with no internet etc. and not many other books I doubt I would have stuck with it for more than a couple of hundred pages

 

[petee]

I liked Moby Dick a lot, eventually, though if I hadn't been traveling in Central America with no internet etc. and not many other books I doubt I would have stuck with it for more than a couple of hundred pages

i'd read more of his stuff, people who like him think he's the greatest, and he wrote, y'know, shorter books.

 

[Orang Utan]

i'd read more of his stuff, people who like him think he's the greatest, and he wrote, y'know, shorter books.

I read Bartleby The Scrivener recently and it’s short and sweet and inspirational on how I conduct myself at work

 

[hitmouse]

JM Coetzee. I'll tell you what's a disgrace, me being daft enough to read more than one of his shitty books.
Dostoyevsky. So many people seem to love him and I don't get it at all, just feels like utterly flat one-dimensional characterisation to me.
I didn't totally hate Brideshead Revisited, but the ending's silly enough that I just think of it as "that book with the silly ending".

As for the other way around, I really loved No One Is Talking About This, but I think people who didn't like it tend to really not like it. Dunno if that counts as a book that everyone hates though.

 

[tim]

I read 100 Years of Solitude recently and hated it. Everyone has the same name and there's incest. And that's the best thing that I can say about it.

Incest, but sadly no Morris Dancing.

I've been thinking about reading that one and now I kinda think I won't bother

It's quite short. You could read that and "The Heart of Darkness" on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

 

[Brainaddict]

Oh, and Paolo Coelho's the Alchemist deserves a special mention for being absolute trash of the highest order, and politically suspect too. It's not true that everyone loves it but I have had many, many rave recommendations for it, mostly from hippyish people while travelling but from more ostensibly sensible people who ought to know better as well.

 

[frogwoman]

Incest, but sadly no Morris Dancing.



It's quite short. You could read that and "The Heart of Darkness" on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

What, the Thursday murder club? I've only seen hardback versions of that book and it looks like a doorstopper!

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I tried reading James Joyce's Ulysses three times. Gave up each time about 25% of the way through. Will never bother trying again.

 

[tim]

What, the Thursday murder club? I've only seen hardback versions of that book and it looks like a doorstopper!

I was refering toThe Great Gatsby, which is 130 pages or so.

 

[Orang Utan]

I didn't think the da vinci code was that bad tbh. It was definitely a fun read. It has some historical inaccuracies but I think it was pretty clear all along that it was fiction.

It wasn’t the innaccuracies that ‘bothered’ me, just his terrible writing style. It also bothered me that despite his dreadful prose, I kept on reading - such short chapters and a mini-cliffhanger at the end of each of them. It seems that’s all you need to keep people reading such arrant nonsense.

 

[frogwoman]

It wasn’t the innaccuracies that ‘bothered’ me, just his terrible writing style. It also bothered me that despite his dreadful prose, I kept on reading - such short chapters and a mini-cliffhanger at the end of each of them. It seems that’s all you need to keep people reading such arrant nonsense.

Tbh, if it kept you reading, it couldn't have been that bad. Writing decent cliffhangers is a skill in itself.

 

[Orang Utan]

I read 100 Years of Solitude recently and hated it. Everyone has the same name and there's incest. And that's the best thing that I can say about it.

I loved it when I was a teenager, but doubt I’d feel the same now. I loved Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children when I read it at a similar age, but read it again about ten years ago and found the writer’s voice insufferably pleased with itself.

 

[frogwoman]

I was refering toThe Great Gatsby, which is 130 pages or so.

Oh OK, the post you referred to was about the Thursday murder club. I'd like to read the great gatsby as well though.

 

[frogwoman]

Tbh I tend to reserve 1 star for books that are so terrible I don't even finish them. If I do read it to the end, it usually gets 2 stars even if it is awful.

 

[Orang Utan]

I’ve never been that impressed with Zadie Smith. She was impressively young to write White Teeth, but it’s not very good. I tried a couple more and she improved somewhat, but not enough to put her on a pedestal as the critics have done.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

Not liking Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Joyce? Bunch of philistines in this thread.

I've never understood what everyone sees in Haruki Murakami. Also If on a Winter's Night a Traveler tends to get a lot of plaudits but I found it tedious.

 

[frogwoman]

JM Coetzee. I'll tell you what's a disgrace, me being daft enough to read more than one of his shitty books.
Dostoyevsky. So many people seem to love him and I don't get it at all, just feels like utterly flat one-dimensional characterisation to me.
I didn't totally hate Brideshead Revisited, but the ending's silly enough that I just think of it as "that book with the silly ending".

As for the other way around, I really loved No One Is Talking About This, but I think people who didn't like it tend to really not like it. Dunno if that counts as a book that everyone hates though.

Someone I know was saying he thought Brideshead Revisited was the greatest book of all time recently. He's obviously wrong - Gone Girl is the greatest book of all time.