Name a popular book you didn't like

[Anonymous]

A heartbreaking work of staggering genius. More recently, normal people. Many of the ones listed, crawdads, nightingale.

[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 …

Love in the time of cholera is perhaps one of my favorite books of all time. Couldn’t get through 100 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Overstory. The first part was good, but once the main story started, I lost all interest. My good friend, who reads as much as I do, said exactly the same thing. And yet it spent many weeks on the bestseller list, at least locally. I wonder how many people actually finished it!

I finished it, although I agree with most of what you said. I guess I stopped thinking of it as a story, and more of a lesson on trees. Because in that respect, it was fascinating.

I loved it. I love trees, but so many of the human stories were relatable to me. Maybe you have to have experienced tragedy. Permanence, longevity, fleeting life, irreplaceable loss. It's all in there, juxtaposed and intertwined. Beautiful.

I hated that book so much.

[Anonymous]

I tried to like Kristin Hannah. I just don’t get her popularity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Well, yeah, I know all that *now*

The only bright spot in this tale is that I feel much better about my towering to-be-read pile. Maybe some other author in there will prove to be not worth anyone's time, and I'll get some time back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A heartbreaking work of staggering genius. More recently, normal people. Many of the ones listed, crawdads, nightingale.

I loved this book. But I've not been able to get thru anything by him since. Maybe it was a teenage crush that pushed me through? Who knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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 …

Love in the time of cholera is perhaps one of my favorite books of all time. Couldn’t get through 100 years.

In principle I like magic realism but not when you have to go back to the complicated family tree at the beginning to place all the characters -// loved House of the Spirits.

I might try Love in the time of cholera … tx!

[Anonymous]

Lincoln Highway
Deceptive title among other things

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lincoln Highway
Deceptive title among other things

I actually really liked Towles’ other books, but I gave up on this one pretty early.

[Anonymous]

I almost always finish what I start, but The Dutch House was so meh put it down 1/3 of the way in

Just didn't want to spend time with those characters

Can't believe I'm the first to say it.

[Anonymous]

To Kill a Mocking Bird
The Death of a Salesman
Twilight

A lot of others I can't think of.

I've been hesitating on Where The Crawdads Sing. Usually if it's really raved about I end up disgusted that I wasted my time.

[Anonymous]

Green Eggs and Ham

[Anonymous]

the Bible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the Bible

fair enough. But there are actually 39 books in the OT and 27 books in the NT, and some of them are pretty good

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I almost always finish what I start, but The Dutch House was so meh put it down 1/3 of the way in

Just didn't want to spend time with those characters

Can't believe I'm the first to say it.

I listened to it but probably wouldn't have finished actually reading it. The plot of the mother not being able to live in the house didn't work for me