Books that everyone likes except you?

i dont get how people like harry potter i think its terribly written

After watching Jaws, I was reminded how much I disliked my brief foray into Moby Dick!

I agree about reading books too early. Middlemarch, George Elliot was on our A level syllabus. It is primarily a study of marriage and, even at 16, I struggled with it and felt it was dealing with a subject I had little experience of.

I read it again at 40 and still struggled, then about 2 years ago I had another go, aided by an extra-mural class at my local university. I now feel that I have mastered this monumental work and love it.

Callistemon21

"^Hard Times", was the book that finished me with Dickens for life^
?
I must try it again.

Hard Times - I didn't enjoy it it all.

I've read nearly all of his works twice over, but I cannot read that again.

Dickens had to make the novel fit within the format of the magazine that was publishing it in serial form, so it became his shortest novel. It didn't feature any of the humorous scenes that were typical of his other works and it was rather dreary - as was the subject (utilitarianism).

I can understand why you didn't like it.

"^Hard Times", was the book that finished me with Dickens for life^
?
I must try it again.

Wonderful, Dickens (good name!!)

I did like some Dickens at that age but we read Hard Times which I didn't take to at all.

dolphindaisy

We had to read My Family and Other Animals for O level Eng Lit and I hated it, to me it was a family of upper class twits. I can't even watch the recent TV version.
I also never enjoyed reading Jane Austen though I did like Colin Firth in the wet shirt.

I did "My family and other animals" for O levels as well.GMB examining board, I was thankful for it it was easy-going the other class got "The reason why".Can't say the same for A level books".Hard Times", was the book that finished me with Dickens for life.

Callistemon21

M0nica

Ailidh I am with you. Most of these books I have never even heard off, let alone read. To be honest I read very few novels, preferring a good factual book to a novel any day. When I do read a novel, it tends to be, 19th century, Anthony Trollope, Mrs Oliphant, George Elliot, rather than anything more recent.

Reading Trollope for 'O' level put me off for good.

I think there could be an age where some literature could be introduced and 15 is perhaps not the best time.

think there could be an age where some literature could be introduced and 15 is perhaps not the best time.

Totally agree.

As a teen, I loathed Dickens - then, in my early 30s, couldn't get enough of him. After I'd lived a little bit of life, traversed some of the older parts of London; spent a considerable amount of time in the East End (my late ex was a Waterman & Lighterman and I used to meet him from work and frequent the docks and pubs around that now vanished area).

Again and again I read "In Chancery" from Bleak House...

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke)...

... and so on. Wordy, but sooo descriptive of a dismal November day in London... apart from the mud, it's a London I remember from the 50s.

M0nica

Ailidh I am with you. Most of these books I have never even heard off, let alone read. To be honest I read very few novels, preferring a good factual book to a novel any day. When I do read a novel, it tends to be, 19th century, Anthony Trollope, Mrs Oliphant, George Elliot, rather than anything more recent.

Reading Trollope for 'O' level put me off for good.

I think there could be an age where some literature could be introduced and 15 is perhaps not the best time.

This reminds me. I too like Madame Bovary and have read a few times.

I've never been attracted to Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, I just can't see the attraction at all.

Ailidh I am with you. Most of these books I have never even heard off, let alone read. To be honest I read very few novels, preferring a good factual book to a novel any day. When I do read a novel, it tends to be, 19th century, Anthony Trollope, Mrs Oliphant, George Elliot, rather than anything more recent.

Gosh. What I'm slightly taken aback at is how many of these already listed that I haven't heard of, let alone read. I often think of compiling a reading list - thank you for a place to start!

As to the ones I can comment on:
Yes! A Christmas Carol is the only Dickens I can get my head round. I have tried.

Read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings before they were trendy. Quite liked them but not enough to go back to them.

I enjoyed Catcher in the Rye well enough when I was 15 but it was a set text, so it didn't grab me, any more than the poetry of Tom Gunn and Ted Hughes, also on the curriculum. Although I did like The Wind.

I loved Madame Bovary, and also Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies and have read all of them twice.

Loved Time Traveller's Wife. Also enjoyed Kevin - it was gripping but some of Lional Shriver's books are a bit "odd" I find.

Not keen on Thomas Hardy, Donna Tart or Matt Haig. Finished Crawdads but couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Ditto Essex Serpent. Browsed 50 Shades of Grey while in the library and put it back on the shelf.

Life's too short to persevere with books I'm not enjoying. I'm not back at college and having to write an essay, so I give them 50 pages and if I'm not into it by then, it's goodbye.

FannyCornforth Taught by Frank Skinner??? How brilliant was that?

There are far too many awful children's books Chocolatelovinggran to mention here. The Mr. Men books are awful though and along with the little vampire books are among my most disliked.

Callistemon21

I really enjoyed Chocolat!
There aren't many books I read twice but I read that one again years afterwards.

Me too. And I loved Madame Bovary, Maggierose

FannyCornforth

Jane I was born in Netherton; went to school in Quarry Bank; grew up Amblecote / Stourbridge (drank in The Mitre).
And I went to Halesowen College.
I probably caught exactly the same bus!
My dad worked at the MEB Office there too.

I remember a friend of mine cheekily saying, ‘people in The Lye aspire to live in Quarry Bank’

I am a Worcestershire girl but married a Black Country boy. One of my first boyfriends came from Amblecote. I worked in The Midland Bank in Halesowen and somebody from the MEB came to pay in money every day. In the 1990s we visited an Aunt in Canada, she moved there under the assisted passage scheme, she introduced us to her best friend and she was from Halesowen. It really is a small world.

Grandma70s, eazybee i am completely with you on Hardy, cannot read the books, but love the poetry.

GagaJo I was introduced to Hardy's poetry when I was 15. He was the set poet for O level English Literature and I fell in love with ihis work immediately. It was so subtle and nuanced and one, Beeny Cliff, remains my No 1 poem, in a large collection, to this day. the use of langage is exquisite. 'grey, washed out, grieving narrator' anything but.

We had to read My Family and Other Animals for O level Eng Lit and I hated it, to me it was a family of upper class twits. I can't even watch the recent TV version.
I also never enjoyed reading Jane Austen though I did like Colin Firth in the wet shirt.

I have just remembered another one, I finished this but struggled to connect with any of the characters, The Woman who went to bed for a year by Sue Townsend.

I didn’t like that Pilgimage of Harold Fry ( or whatever it was called. I kept thinking how silly it was eg why didn’t he get blisters etc. Which is strange because I’m quite happy reading about elves and fairies. I just couldn’t suspend disbelief with that one.

A book I hated that others raved about was "The Hundred year old man who climbed out of the window" (or something like that). I did finish it but I didn't find it clever or amusing - just annoying.

Grandma70s

eazybee

Any book by Thomas Hardy. I have tried and tried, particularly since living in Dorset, but find them really hard-going.
Enjoy some of his poetry, though.

I think Hardy is a far better poet than he is novelist, but most people only seem to know the novels.

Hahaha, I had a GCSE class six years ago who would disagree. Hardy's poetry was a choice on the syllabus. All very samey. Grey. Washed out. Grieving narrator.

annodomini

I know I'm in a small minority, and I can't put my finger on why I didn't love Where the Crawdads Sing. I might try reading it again and see if I change my mind.

I'm another that didn't really like this one.

Would like to have been a fly on the wall gagajo when you were admitting to disliking Dickens to your HoD. Dickens was a real mainstay in the last school I taught in as was Hardy. I list Wuthering Heights as my favourite of all time and have read it more times than I can remember.