It’s a question inspired by this post https://www.reddit.com/r/books/s/s2jK2DzFrA by u/oh_sneezeus
Is there any book that is considered a classic or regularly shows up on the “100 books to read before you die” lists and such, you had high expectations before reading and then you ended up absolutey detesting?
For me it’s Blindness by José Saramago, it started off good and then page after page it was becoming more unbearable for me to read, I hated the characters, the things they were doing and the conclusions of the book. I was really disappointed because the plot seemed really good and all I ended up with was frustration.
Is there a book that did the same to you?
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No way! I absolutely LOVED Blindness. And I really enjoyed the conclusion - to me it seemed like a rebirth of hope again, after an intense exploration of the human spirit: the potential for unspeakable violence and cruelty, with persisting kindness, respect and hope amongst those willing to not succumb to their instinct for self-preservation above all. Saying that though, I’ve never been more happy to finish a book. The writing style could be really arduous, every page demanded concentration from me. And the endless melancholy and despair was hard at times too. As much as I ploughed through and felt immense relief at the end, I also really enjoyed that exhausting journey. The lack of a satisfying conclusion just solidified the uncertain nature of human beings and their choices, and what the future could hold.
The alchemist- it’s a classic “maybe it was the friends we made along the way” story
Les Misérables by Victpr Hugo.
Ru never liked the protagonist Jena Valjena. He was a fool to sacrifice himself for Cosette, he would have liked to have traveled the world and collected lovers. I would never do that.
The Last Tycoon. It’s an interesting plot, but somehow the book made it so boring, and the prose just felt dry.
idk if its a classic or anything but ik one book i hate the absolute most is Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, i stg i hated it, hes an old ass edgy emo man who is dating 20 yo women jus cos hes a “rock star” like it grossed me out sm
The Great Boring, Made-Up-Ass-Opinions-by-Lit-Majors-On-Symbolism-That-Wasn’t-Intended by-the-Author Gatsby.
Pretty sure I’m gonna get crushed for this, but… The Silmarillion. Reads like the Bible, and Beren and Luthien - the story about the two most beautiful people ever who are super good at everything - is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. Their dog has a one v one fight with Sauron and wins.
Not everything in it is garbage. But I have to actively put the garbage out of mind to enjoy the books and movies as much as I used to.
The movie based on Blindness was god awful and the only movie I’ve actually walked out of.
The Bell Jar, The book has a lot of promise, but it just never delivers anything. I was not able to understand the characters motivations, or her line of reasoning, nor did it give any insight to why she killed herself Sylvia Plath.
I hated lord of the flies
I understood what it was meant to be doing, I just absolutely hated the execution. I hated the characters, I hated the style, I hated everything about it. I could barely finish it, it was actually so shit.
Definitely Finnegan’s Wake. Couldn’t make it through more than like 30 pages of that. It feels like someone printed 6000 cans of alphabet soup.
I’ve always thought that Finnegan Wake awake is an example of a troll. He wrote it as a joke, he made up a new language. He expected that everybody was gonna bother to learn the new language, and read the book but almost nobody reads that book.
There was a lot of overrated shit they made us read.
Frankenstein, and anything by Shakespeare.
I think it’s great that Frankenstein was written by a teenage girl with that maturity in writing, but it was so boring to me.
Shakespeare is just straight up weird. People in that time period loved the dramatic plays, but I think the whole storyline is just weird.
Both were required books for school. I feel like teachers always pick the strangest books. And having to write a report on why a character did this or the author wrote this part ruins it and makes you dread reading the book. This is coming from someone who LOVES reading. I am picky, but everyone just has certain things they don’t like.
Verga’s novels. They’re greatly written, I give them that, but the author’s pretension to describe the world as it is while depicting a world that is so unrealistically cruel to the point of being funny…It annoys me to no end.
Also, Thucydides. He is a great historian and a great writer, but he has always this bleak way of telling everything because blablabla human nature is evil, and he is always insulting Herodotus under the lines because he is so sure of being a better historian than him.
If I want someone yelling that the world sucks I’ll just turn on the TV news. And you know what? I despise the TV news for this exact reason.
Great Expectations and Great Gatsby . I fucking hated reading these in high school.