Book dislikes

I downloaded the first chapter of 'Fifty Shades' and didn't even reach the end of that. Badly written and a protagonist I wouldn't share the time of day with.

I've only ever managed to read David Copperfield and Great Expectations from Dickens. All the rest seemed too wordy. Also don't like Tolkien or other fantasy. Never really took to Thomas Hardy either although I did stagger through The Mayor of Casterbridge once.
From exam reading lists the ones which I really hated were Lord of the Flies and Call of the Wild.

I suppose I should be ashamed to admit this .... as I love 19c literature..but.. I cannot get through ‘wuthering Heights’ . I’ve opened this book SO many times...I can never finish it! Give me Anne Bronte’s ‘Tenant’... any day , or George Elliot. I’ve just re-opened WH’s just to try again. Wish me luck!

Have never been inclined to read anything by Jeffrey Archer!

I read The Handmaid's Tale a good few years ago and enjoyed it but when it was on the telly recently I couldn't watch it - found it too disturbing.

Jalima, Blue Dolphin Country, I read this book many years ago and loved it but gave it away. Then when travelling in NZ I found a copy and read it all over again and still love it and will no doubt read again. Never met anyone else who has even heard of it.

Captain Corelli is my favourite book- hated the film- why on earth change the story so much- the 'happy'ending made no sense at all. I did read it for the first time actually in Kefalonia though & we found the actual beach where they had filmed & took our photos on the wooden jetty ( once we had repaired it!)There were loads of props from filming around & we bathed in the cove where they filmed the landings.
I cannot stand Jane Eyre or - when I was young- Little Women etc. These women/girls were such boring wimps they drove me mad. My Mum made me read these books as she loved them.
I had the misfortune to have to read a Lee Childs book once for book club- never again - but TBH I don't much like American authors anyway- Harper Lee is the exception.

I can't get on with Jane Austen. I hated 'Vilette' by whichever Brontë it was. Also hated 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'.

Or Tolkein. Don't get him at all.

It’s Green Dolphin Country, isn’t it? I read it years ago, along with other Elizabeth Goudge books. I don’t enjoy them now. I think my current equivalent light reading is Miss Read, especially the Thrush Green series.

Books I dislike? What a great subject. So many! I dislike Tolkien, Jane Austen, anything with too many words, so that includes most Victorians. I’m sure there are good ideas in there, if you can dig them out from all the verbiage. I read them all when I was young, but wouldn’t go back to them. It seems so self-indulgent to write like that. This is why I prefer poetry. It says so much more in fewer but more telling words. I also read a lot of biography and letters, and as a teenager I read plays as well, Shaw and Noel Coward.

I loathed Arthur Ransome when I was a child. My brother adored them. I thought the children totally characterless. We both loved Just William, though. Disliked Little Women, loved Katy and Anne of Green Gables. Unusually, I didn't like Enid Blyton. I have tried one Harry Potter, but thought it poorly written

Anything by Hillary Mantel bores me rigid. I very rarely give up on books, but made an exception with hers

Also Tolkien. Just dont get the appeal

Not keen on Lee Child either craftycat though my 90 year old dad loves them - incidentally, Lee is from Coventry. Like many other GNs, I've struggled with Hilary Mantel & Captain Corelli and, although I love crime novels, they have to be English ones as I'm not a fan of American literature. I don't really like highbrow stuff either!

As I like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the nightime I read the author, Mark Haddon's second book, A Spot of Bother. I've never disliked a bunch of characters so much! I made it to the end but was cross with myself for the effort - never get that time back again.
Also, The English Patient. Ugh.

Harry Potters I read first, then passed them to my son who is/was the same age as Harry through the books era! We would discuss the characters and the story lines. This was before the films were made, which made it far more interesting.

Re-re-re-reading Jane Austen, Persuasion at the moment. Quite astonished at how snobby Anne Elliott is!

The surprise author to me was Wilkie Collins. I didn't come across him until a couple of years ago. But I agree mainly with you re Harry Potter, Wuthering Heights etc. Robert J Crane an American author had me gripped with his Girl in a Box series. Another surprise as I don't usually go for scifi and super hero stuff.

Homer
Dare I say Shakespeare?

This is a good thread, I like to read other peoples' reading turn offs, as much as their favourites. At the moment I'm reading a book, I use that term loosely, because it's almost unreadable. "Lincoln in the Bardo" which won the Booker Prize just gone. Thankfully it was given to me I didn't waste money on it. There's been such a buzz around it, I'd wanted to read it for a while. What a disappointment! I'm keeping going because I keep wondering if I'm missing something, it's pretty devoid of a narrative and mainly comprises of the numerous citations of dead people. I want to like it but I don't. I'm only reading it on the side I've got another, more enjoyable book on the go.

Reading through other's comments here, I think Margaret Atwood's books can be a mixed bag. I absolutely loved "The Blind Assassin" one of my best ever reads, also thought "Alias Grace" and "Cat's Eye" were both excellent. Really didn't like "Hagseed" or her latest "The Heart Goes Last". I never bothered with Hilary Mantel's historical novels, I did enough about the Tudors at school to last a lifetime, but did like the Ghazza Street one set in Saudi Arabia. Struggled with David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas", my son loved it and I can see what a clever concept it was, but for me it was all a bit of a penance. I've never read Martin Amis but my husband has and thinks he is seriously over rated. A stand out hated book of mine was "The Lovely Bones" I really loathed it, I remember when Richard and Judy first launched their book club it won their best read category, pipping the sublime "Star of the Sea" by Joseph O'Connor at the post. I loved the latter so much, it was runner up, when the winner was announced, I picked up the steaming pile of turgid bones and hurled it a the telly

I was so looking forward to reading Hilary Mantel as I love history but, even though I was determined to get through it, I didn't get past the second chapter. It just didn't make sense. I was so disappointed and actually started the book 4 times in the hope that I could 'get it' but it didn't improve. ?

Hated Treasure Island, Harry Potter, Attwood, Anything that has ever won a prize! Hilary Mantel, Philippa Gregory and above all the Gor series!Not keen on Sci-fi or anything that Stephen King has written since about 1980. Actually I do like Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austin, and recently reread an Elizabeth Goudge which I still found enchanting and hightly readable

Have tried Captain Corelli several times but never finished it. Love Harry Potter series but find Mantel’s books I’ve tried wearisome. The Hobbit is a favourite to reread, but I’ve only made it once through Lord of the Rings. Dickens, who used to be a favourite seems too verbose now. I like Bill Bryson but my OH put the books into the charity pile as he found them dull. I used to love Elizabeth Goudge books. I wonder what I’d think of them now?

Wildwsan16, the film representations bear no relationship to Tolkien's novels. 'The Hobbit' was the first book I ever borrowed from a school library, aged 9. I never watch any of the films but I can go back to the books time and time again.

Early Iris Murdoch was readable and entertaining - The Sandcastle, the Flight from the Enchanter: I enjoyed both. But after The Sea, the Sea, I couldn't get to grips with her. Kurt Vonnegut is, I suppose, an acquired taste but I consider him the best author never to have won a Nobel Prize. Slaughterhouse Five is, to my mind, one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. Sorry - I know this is supposed to be about 'dislikes'!

I also couldn't get into Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. The idea of a backstory to Rochester and his first wife* sounds like a good idea but there seems something inherently wrong about using other people's work as a springboard.
* It is a prequel to Jane Eyre for anyone who hasn't come across it.

Has anyone ever read Dadland by Keggie Carew ?- think it won a Costa prize and I've tried to "get into it" past the first couple of chapters but cannot seem to. It should be worth reading because of all the good reviewstuff!

Don't know where "stuff" came from!!