Books that everyone likes except you?

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.

I never finished
The Time Travellers Wife
Madame Bovary
Wolf Hall
Midnight’s Children

"Fifty Shades of Grey". I couldn't read it. Awful, awful.

But, to keep things light hearted, I'm copying the following from Digital Spy... made me LOL!

- here are some gems from the narrative - with the appropriate response -

"Desire pools dark and deadly in my groin."
Ana should probably get her doctor to look at that.

"I have become my own island state. A ravaged, war-torn land where nothing grows and the horizons are bleak."
U OK, hun?

"Sometimes you're so closed off... like an island state."
Enough with the island states, already.

"A small moan escapes my mouth as my insides melt and unfurl."
An unmistakable symptom of Legionnaires' disease.

- and, my favourite -

"I could watch you sleep forever, Ana."
Spoken like a true murderer.

I think you've really got to have more than a command of the English language to write about erotica. I once watched a film (it might have been a French fil, but it was so long ago I can't remember). A couple are sheltering from the rain, but both are already soaked through. They try to dry off, and smile at each other. He eventually puts his hand gently on her knee. No words are spoken at all, and nothing happens... the whole gamut of emotions is played out through the way they look at each other. It was intense - I remember the whole cinema watching, studying the scene... my mother included who just smiled at me and said something along the lines of "subtle isn't it"? It was all left to the audience's imagination.

That's the thing with 50SOG, there's no subtlety, no 'magic'... nothing to make you hold your breath.

But it was a best-seller!

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

Yep, I can't do fantasy books- so no, thank you Lord of the Rings et al, and I loathe Jane Austen - aka known as Miss Sniffy .Can't cope with Donna Tarrt, award winner, unbelievably. I also have feelings about certain children's books, too: those awful Mr Men books for starters.

GrannyGravy13

One book that have been trying to finish since before Christmas is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides my DiL loved it. I am about 6 chapters in and not enjoying it, so have put it on my bookshelf to be read another time.

Don't bother with The Silent Patient GG it's rubbish! I plodded on, highly implausible tosh, just not worth the effort.

I read Lord of The Rings, and enjoyed it, in my younger days I was 18 or thereabouts, when I actually hauled it up to London to read on my daily commute, that was then, this is now and I couldn't be doing with any of that other world fantasy elf stuff these days. Even the film versions have me running for the hills. .

I confess to liking a couple of Thomas Hardy once too, they wouldn't appeal now, my son went through a phase of reading a lot of miserable books he actually enjoyed Tess of the D'Urbervilles a real tale of woe if ever there was one.

I found Cloud Atlas heavy going, several people I knew thought it was sublime, although I thought it was a clever premise I can't say I enjoyed it.

Hated Lovely Bones, Time Travellers Wife, more lately Midnight Library and that awful and vastly overrated book by Richard Osman

The Leopard - Giuseppe di Lampedusa, a classic I believe, Rick Stein said it was absolutely one of his best books when he was promoting Sicily where it was set, certainly not one of mine.

My absolute worst book ever would be Lincoln in the Bardo which won all sorts of accolades including The Booker Prize, it wasn't that it didn't have a linear narrative, I found it positively unreadable.

However, I did enjoy some others' horrible books, Crawdads, The Goldfinch and Atonement (once I got about 50 pages in, it took a while from what I remember)

The Luminaries, forgot that, another Booker Prize winner, over 800 pages [yawn] hours of my life I won't get back again and when it was dramatised why? , it seems the general consensus was, that it was dead boring, yes too right!

Oh yes Dickens! Another teacher at school had the 50 Shades books. I borrowed one after she'd finished it but never even got as far as the rude bits. I was so distracted and appalled at the writing, I couldn't bear to read on!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.