Name a popular book you didn't like

Anonymous
100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and many Salman Rushdie novels - he is apparently brilliant but I can’t warm to his writing style …
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Recently, “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. Oof. Her writing is painful.


Yay, I have found my people! I read it and thought it was “okay.” But then I heard so many raves that I accidentally checked it out a second time thinking it was a different book. I got about 1/3 of the way through before thinking “wait, this seems VERY familiar….” I actually quick-read it a second time, thinking maybe I had missed its brilliance, but nope.


I have a facebook friend who is an English professor and raved about this book. I thought it was just ok as well.


Rushdie's style seems like a very brilliant author who is determined to show his reader just how brilliant he is. Madame Bovary is my all time, how is this awful book a classic?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:I am so jealous of the people who knew better than to waste their time on Hillbilly Elegy. I slogged through out of a sense that I had a moral duty to be open to the story of someone from a much different background than mine.


Except he's full of shit, not really from Appalachia, not connected meaningfully to its people other than through a grandparent whose story he exploits. So not even the "different background" justifies it.

I'm from Appalachia, and trust me when I tell you everyone thinks that book and vance himself are exploitive and full of it.
Anonymous
Devil Wears Prada. Movie was great, book was trash.

Also, Atonement. I almost didn't see this movie because that book was so bad to me but the movie was good.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and many Salman Rushdie novels - he is apparently brilliant but I can’t warm to his writing style …


Magical realism is most definitely not for everyone.

I loved 100 years, back when I read it. Rushdie’s best work is Midnight’s Children. Satanic Verses is such trash, I don’t think anyone that actually read it would bother getting worked up over it, and bring more attention to it.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Recently, “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. Oof. Her writing is painful.


Yay, I have found my people! I read it and thought it was “okay.” But then I heard so many raves that I accidentally checked it out a second time thinking it was a different book. I got about 1/3 of the way through before thinking “wait, this seems VERY familiar….” I actually quick-read it a second time, thinking maybe I had missed its brilliance, but nope.


I have a facebook friend who is an English professor and raved about this book. I thought it was just ok as well.


Rushdie's style seems like a very brilliant author who is determined to show his reader just how brilliant he is. Madame Bovary is my all time, how is this awful book a classic?


I thought Madame Bovary was the biggest whiner ever when I read it in college. Now that I’m older, I’ve warmed to her and her predicament.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Recently, “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. Oof. Her writing is painful.


Yay, I have found my people! I read it and thought it was “okay.” But then I heard so many raves that I accidentally checked it out a second time thinking it was a different book. I got about 1/3 of the way through before thinking “wait, this seems VERY familiar….” I actually quick-read it a second time, thinking maybe I had missed its brilliance, but nope.


I have a facebook friend who is an English professor and raved about this book. I thought it was just ok as well.


Rushdie's style seems like a very brilliant author who is determined to show his reader just how brilliant he is. Madame Bovary is my all time, how is this awful book a classic?


I thought Madame Bovary was the biggest whiner ever when I read it in college. Now that I’m older, I’ve warmed to her and her predicament.


Except she doesn't actually whine at any point.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Recently, “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. Oof. Her writing is painful.


Yay, I have found my people! I read it and thought it was “okay.” But then I heard so many raves that I accidentally checked it out a second time thinking it was a different book. I got about 1/3 of the way through before thinking “wait, this seems VERY familiar….” I actually quick-read it a second time, thinking maybe I had missed its brilliance, but nope.


I have a facebook friend who is an English professor and raved about this book. I thought it was just ok as well.


Rushdie's style seems like a very brilliant author who is determined to show his reader just how brilliant he is. Madame Bovary is my all time, how is this awful book a classic?


I thought Madame Bovary was the biggest whiner ever when I read it in college. Now that I’m older, I’ve warmed to her and her predicament.


Except she doesn't actually whine at any point.


Pp here. But she’s always disgruntled with her situation.
Anonymous
I used to love magic realism but I don't love it now.

I really, really hated Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. If I had to spend ten minutes with that sanctimonious know-it-all I would poke knitting needles through my eardrums.

I hadn't thought about that book for years, but not cropped up in my WaPo feed today.
Anonymous
It, not not.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Recently, “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. Oof. Her writing is painful.


Yay, I have found my people! I read it and thought it was “okay.” But then I heard so many raves that I accidentally checked it out a second time thinking it was a different book. I got about 1/3 of the way through before thinking “wait, this seems VERY familiar….” I actually quick-read it a second time, thinking maybe I had missed its brilliance, but nope.


I have a facebook friend who is an English professor and raved about this book. I thought it was just ok as well.


Rushdie's style seems like a very brilliant author who is determined to show his reader just how brilliant he is. Madame Bovary is my all time, how is this awful book a classic?


I thought Madame Bovary was the biggest whiner ever when I read it in college. Now that I’m older, I’ve warmed to her and her predicament.


Me, too.

I still hate Edna Pontellier in The Awakening, though.
Anonymous
The book that’s YA about a bunch of rich kids on the island where they summer. I think there are two girls and two boys?It was so awful, I can’t remember the name. But people rave about it and ask me if I’ve read it. Never remembering the name, I say no and realize halfway through their description that I have read it and really really disliked it.

Anonymous
This Ends With Us

It’l feels like it’s written for 12 year olds.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:The Vanishing Half. But, I dislike the often cold and remkoved narrators of litfic.


Yes! Came to say this. It was torture
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Recently, “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah. Oof. Her writing is painful.


Yay, I have found my people! I read it and thought it was “okay.” But then I heard so many raves that I accidentally checked it out a second time thinking it was a different book. I got about 1/3 of the way through before thinking “wait, this seems VERY familiar….” I actually quick-read it a second time, thinking maybe I had missed its brilliance, but nope.


I have a facebook friend who is an English professor and raved about this book. I thought it was just ok as well.


Rushdie's style seems like a very brilliant author who is determined to show his reader just how brilliant he is. Madame Bovary is my all time, how is this awful book a classic?


I thought Madame Bovary was the biggest whiner ever when I read it in college. Now that I’m older, I’ve warmed to her and her predicament.


Except she doesn't actually whine at any point.


Pp here. But she’s always disgruntled with her situation.


I think the point of the story has passed you by.
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