Books you "should" love, but just don't

[Anonymous]

Most of Oprah’s book club selections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A Brief History of Seven Killings. It was endless, rambling, had tons of characters, and much of it was written in patois.

I tried to like this one, but couldn’t get past the sexual assault scene early on.

Also couldn’t stand a Man Called Ove. Didn’t finish either of them, because I’m too old to waste time on book I dislike.

I could never get into Jane Austen, much to my mother’s chagrin!

[Anonymous]

Where the Crawdads Sing, a typical book club book.

[Anonymous]

Ask the Dust by John Fante. It came soooo highly recommended but when I finished it, I legitimately said "what the actual f***" out loud. Truly hated the main character and the plot line. Unbeknownst to me, Fante was a major influence on Bukowski -- that should have been red flag #1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where the Crawdads Sing, a typical book club book.

It was so predictable.

[Anonymous]

Came here to say how very trying (and dubious) I found Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Found you all in here already hating on it
The writing and insights on DCUM are better, I'm serious, it's what brings me back to the site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:50 Shades. All my friends loved it. I flipped through and what I read made me sick to my stomach. That kind of garbage is why so many women end up in abusive relationships.

Agree. Terrible. Even worse that my mother in law gave me the books and raved about them. I can’t even watch the movies.

For me, anything by Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters. I don’t get how people can read those books over and over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Came here to say how very trying (and dubious) I found Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Found you all in here already hating on it
The writing and insights on DCUM are better, I'm serious, it's what brings me back to the site.

+100

I was about to post The Cave Dwellers by Christina McDowell and I saw your comment. DCUMers could collectively write a better critique of present-day DC and the the real cave dwellers. Surprised the book got as many positive reviews as it did, especially from Ron Charles.

[Anonymous]

The Night Circus. Got stuck halfway through and could not finish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Vanishing Half. Remote narrator, zero passion. Great plot she did not do justice.

+1 Just read this and was underwhelmed.

I haven’t been able to get past 50 pages. Just sitting on my nightstand and there’s no desire to pick it up again.

[Anonymous]

Hillbilly Elegy. I was bored but stuck with it because of the rave reviews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hillbilly Elegy. I was bored but stuck with it because of the rave reviews.

Same here. Like Wild and Educated, seems like the author either exaggerated or made a lot of things up. It's a book that many people read simply to say they did to appear sympathetic to the plight of white working-class Appalachia, as though the people depicted are some sort of anthropological experiment JD Vance unearthed for his predominantly UMC audience.

[Anonymous]

Jane Austen. I like Dickens, Tolstoy, and Brontë but I just don’t “get” Austen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know those books that everyone raves about .... "must reads". And try as you might, and as intellectually stimulating as they are, you just cannot read one more page.

For me it's A Prayer for Owen Meaney (John Irving). I just found it so tiresome.

What's yours?

Funny you mention this. So many people recommended A Prayer for Owen Meany to me. I finally read it a couple months ago and I hated it.

A Gentleman in Moscow is the book everyone loves but I hated. I read it as part of a book club otherwise I probably wouldn't have read more than 100 pages. It was much too wordy and descriptive for my taste. I did not need long descriptions of furniture in a hotel room.

Thank you for making me feel better about A Gentleman in Moscow. I got bogged down about 1/3 of the way through and don’t feel like I can face finishing. But then I felt like the ending must be great of everyone else loves it so much. But then there’s the possibility that I just don’t like it. But then that makes me feel like a mean hater…. Way too much thought over a stupid novel, but my mom is one of the people who adored it, so I don’t feel right just dropping it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I tried to get through Owen Meany on at least 2 different occasions and quit. I then picked it up again about 2 years later and couldn't put it down. It became one of my favorites. Same thing happened with A Man Called Ove. When I finally tried it again, I really liked it.

I've had that happen to me many times - I can't get through a particular book at one point only to try it again later and I end up really enjoying it. Sometimes I'm just not in the right frame of mind for a given book, or I just don't connect to it at that point in time.

Having said that, I just don't love some of the classics.

Add A Man Called Ove to my did not like list.

A grumpy old man is grumpy. The end.

I did not warm up to him at all. Tedious little book.

Agree!