Books You Wish You Could Like

[Ellie]

 

Elle - I just ran across Girl of Limberlost & wondered if I should put it on my dd#1's summer reading list. Guess you'd say 'No'?

 

 

 

You should try it for yourself, because apparently many people like it. I would suggest reading Freckles first, though. There were enough references to it that I was sort of befuddled in the beginning (which is not why I didn't like Limberlost, in case any Limberlost lovers want to say AHA!, lol).

[Word Nerd]

So many books I love on this list!

 

Dh and I once got Anna Karenina on audio to listen to, in one of our periodic attempts to break our box set addiction...it was painful. I think we lasted two chapters. A dreadful book.

I've tried to read Anna Karenina twice and never made it past the first several chapters either time. I feel like I *should* like it but just can't get into it. Plus knowing how it ends makes me not want to bother.

[Word Nerd]

I know a lot of people who found it life changing, but I only made it through a few chapters of The Ragamuffin Gospel.

[Aspasia]

Anything by Ernest Hemingway. I really have tried, but it's just a snooze fest. I think it's mainly the subject matter--I'm just not into war novels. Which brings me to...

 

Catch-22. I know a lot of people who love it, and it's supposedly a big deal, but it was totally brutal. I couldn't get past the first 50 pages.

 

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Just not my thing. At. All.

 

Winnie the Pooh. Those are the WORST books to read aloud.

 

Just So Stories.

[Eagle]

Anna Karenina.

 

I really enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book. Then it got very draggy. I forced myself to persevere through it and it got interesting again in parts. I just wish there weren't so many tangents.

 

Also, it ruined my 52 books a year goal as it took three months to slog through. :(

 

Now I'm reading The Great Gatsby, which is listed by many of you as another book you don't like. At least it's short!

[dewdropfairy]

Pretty much anything written by a Bronte. Which is sacrilege considering my favorite literature is 19th century British. :leaving:  They're just so overwrought emotionally, and I really hate some of the characters (especially the ones I know I'm not supposed to love, like Cathy and Heathcliff). I won't deny that they are very well written, especially considering the circumstances in which the girls were brought up, but that doesn't mean I enjoy reading them.

 

I also hate reading most series. I get bored with the author's style and the characters after the first book or two. Harry Potter is one of the rare exceptions.

 

 

[Ellie]

Winnie the Pooh. Those are the WORST books to read aloud.

 

:iagree: There are so many things done with capitalization and stuff that you just miss if it is read it aloud. You need to *see* those things for yourself.

[Polgara]

I hated every character in"Anna Karenina" and "Wuthering Heights".

 

Also, I got two pages into reading "The Black Stallion" to my son before I realized I had made a terrible mistake.

[myfunnybunch]

Eragon.

 

So much guilt, but I have tired.

 

 Me too. Bleah.

 

Cat

[Jenny in Florida]

 It's just such a stupid petty book. 

 

You know, it's totally fine to dislike a book. I've never been able to get more than a few pages into Moby Dick, for example, and although I did finally get to the end of Wuthering Heights, I still can't say I like it.

 

However, I am bothered by someone calling a book that many people have loved for close to 100 years "stupid" and "petty." The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels, one of the books on the short list of novels I think one should read to understand America and our history. It is kind of a touchstone for me, personally. Although I certainly don't like most of the characters and would not want to be friends with them, I do love the book. 

 

For what it's worth, I also absolutely adore A Wrinkle in Time. Even as an adult, I re-read that one and its sequels every few years. 

 

And despite my dislike of Wuthering Heights, I do love most of the books by the other two Bronte sisters. 

 

I also like Anna Karenina, Fahrenheit 451, most Dickens (except for Tale of Two Cites, which I've never gotten into) and a whole bunch of the other much-mentioned books on this thread. So, clearly I'm just a weirdo (not the first time I've faced that probability).

 

I can't really think of any books that I feel like I "should" like. There are certainly books I feel like I should read that I haven't been able to finish -- Lord of the Rings is in that category -- but I don't feel a responsibility to "like" them.

[Critterfixer]

I ought to check out Hemingway. I never really read much of his work. As I get older, I am really beginning to see how I really missed out on masculine themes in reading. 

Anybody want to suggest a good Hemingway introduction?

 

I don't have a problem with finding a classic book boring, petty or just downright awful. I just have a problem stopping with that. If you don't like something, it helps to think about why you don't like it. I don't like The Awakening. What that came down to was that I didn't like the helplessness of the main character. At my young age, I felt that she should have been able to pack it up and go on. In my twenties, packing it up and moving on was something I just did, and I didn't care about who's feelings I hurt or who I might ruin. Older now, I can come back to that story and read it with deeper sympathy. I don't think I'll ever like the story, or agree with the themes, but I understand now. 

I sort of wish I'd had a literature teacher who would have grilled me like Socrates over why I had an issue with that story, instead of telling me how foolish I was to not understand that this was a great work and I should appreciate it strictly on that basis. 

 

So I'll go first: Why I have a hard time with the first part of Don Quixote.

1) It seems to jump from incident to incident without any reason beyond developing the reader's notion that Quixote is more than a little crazy. Oh, and that the author is mocking the adventure/chivalry theme. I think he spends too much time on it. 

My hang-up? I've been conditioned to start a story at the last possible second. I tend not to spend the time on characterizing a theme, which was what Cervantes was trying to do. Because almost all modern stories are strongly driven by character, I am not used to reading literature around a theme. 

My other hand-up? A pathetic lack of being able to be still and read. I find the words difficult, particularly ones that the translator says don't really have a good English equivalent. I get bored and rush, because I want to be done with such a challenging work. In doing so I miss the point of reflection on the theme.

 

Why this got better in the second book is that I actually HAD gotten to know the characters through their exploits, not through their conversations or the impressions they made on others. I had learned to slow down and think about what I was reading. I started to see the bond that the two characters had, and I started to see what the world was doing to Don Quixote and how it really hated him, and tormented him. I don't know if that is what Cervantes intended, but that served as the necessary thinking to connect me to the work.

[Seasider]

... although I did finally get to the end of Wuthering Heights, I still can't say I like it.

 

 

Well, that one won't make my "wish I could have liked it" list! But I did read it. I think it definitely has a place in the study of historic literature, as does Gatsby. These give us insights to lifestyles in times we can revisit not literally, but literarily, we can travel there. I think that's rather significant.

[Seasider]

 Me too. Bleah.

 

Cat

 

Well, I figured that since I read Lord of the Rings, and watched all the Star Wars movies, that pretty much covered Eragon for me.

 

Honestly, waiting a jillion years for the fourth book squashed any guilt I may have had for not completing that series.

[Ausmumof3]

You should try it for yourself, because apparently many people like it. I would suggest reading Freckles first, though. There were enough references to it that I was sort of befuddled in the beginning (which is not why I didn't like Limberlost, in case any Limberlost lovers want to say AHA!, lol).

The author of all those books really wanted to write about botany. The novels were better sellers though and so she wrote those to finance her naturalist books. Which IMO is why the descriptions of nature in her books are amazing but the characters not always so much.

[RootAnn]

The author of all those books really wanted to write about botany. The novels were better sellers though and so she wrote those to finance her naturalist books. Which IMO is why the descriptions of nature in her books are amazing but the characters not always so much.

 

Well, I'm working on Freckles now. My brain tends to skip over the nature descriptions much like it did over the flowery descriptions that LM Montgomery always wrote or the lengthy ideological speeches in Ayn Rand's tomes. I'm so not like the type of reader they would want, I'm sure.  :huh:

[Haiku]

However, I am bothered by someone calling a book that many people have loved for close to 100 years "stupid" and "petty." 

 

Why? Just because something is a classic, people can't think it's stupid and petty? I'm not asking to be snarky. I'm actually curious. If something is famous and a classic, are we not supposed to have negative opinions of it?

 

I think Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel is stupid and Not Art. This gives my artist husband heart palpitations. Sorry, dh, but I think it's stupid and Not Art. I feel the same way about Mondrian's colored squares and much of Jackson Pollack's work. It's Not Art. I don't really care whether lots of other people think it is. To me, it's not.

[Pink and Green Mom]

I used to subscribe to Easton Press "100 Greatest Books Ever Written" and would get a beautiful leather-bound book every month.  I was obsessive about reading each and every one in the order in which they were received, not opening one book until the one before it was finished (note that I am not one bit like this in any other aspect of my life).

 

I made it up to #58 - The Brothers Karamazov.  I have tried over the years to read this book but just cannot get past the first few chapters.  It has been a while so I don't even remember a single thing about it or why I disliked it.  Just about every one of books 59-100 sits in its plastic wrap.  I don't know what it was about that book, but I lost all interest after that. 

[momto2Cs]

Moby Dick

Robinson Crusoe

Swiss Family Robinson

Redwall

Catcher in the Rye

Lord of the Flies

The Pearl

Grapes of Wrath

Little House, which is funny - I can't stand them now, but loved them as a child. Neither of my kids had much interest though.

Frankenstein, but only because I have had to read it SO many times. High school, once. College, 4 times so far.

[SailorMom]

Anything by Jane Austen makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

Heart of Darkness and Middlemarch... I really did try.

Half of the Narnia books.....

and the big one....

Catcher in the Rye.  Someone please explain to me why people like this book so much?!?!?!?!

[Jenny in Florida]

Why? Just because something is a classic, people can't think it's stupid and petty? I'm not asking to be snarky. I'm actually curious. If something is famous and a classic, are we not supposed to have negative opinions of it?

 

I think Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel is stupid and Not Art. This gives my artist husband heart palpitations. Sorry, dh, but I think it's stupid and Not Art. I feel the same way about Mondrian's colored squares and much of Jackson Pollack's work. It's Not Art. I don't really care whether lots of other people think it is. To me, it's not.

 

Personally, I think it's absolutely fine to have a negative opinion about a piece of art. For example, I find the characters in Wuthering Heights to be impossible to like, although I acknowledge that the writing is compelling. I found them and the story unpleasant and, therefore, disliked the book. I, personally, have never been able to get into Moby Dick. I find the writing style off-putting. To state as though it is a fact that a work that is meaningful and beautiful to many people is "stupid" and "petty" is, to me, not the same thing.

[Haiku]

To state as though it is a fact that a work that is meaningful and beautiful to many people is "stupid" and "petty" is, to me, not the same thing.

 

Fair enough. I guess I don't really see the difference, though. 

[Walking-Iris]

Fair enough. I guess I don't really see the difference, though. 

 

The difference is logic and maturity. I never let my children get away with an "I don't like it just 'cause."

 

There must be a valid reason. 

 

The difference is in personal preference and declaring something "Not Art" just based on your own personal preference. 

 

The fact that you like Pollack or not doesn't really matter in the huge scheme of his influence on modern art.

 

I cannot stand Don Quixote but I can appreciate the importance on literature as a whole. I can personally dislike something, and still hold a place for it being literature. Or art. Or music. 

 

I don't like Mondrian either. But he had an idea, he worked on it, he painted it, others liked it and were influenced by it. So whether or not I like it or not, it's still art. 

 

I find it limiting and too rigid. It feels exposed and bright. Literally "boxed in." I much prefer Agnes Martin as far as modern art goes because her work is softer and more vulnerable. It's open.

 

So why don't you like Pollack or Mondrian, because they Are Art...you just don't like it. and that's fine. But the reason cannot be "just 'cause." IMHO.

[Haiku]

The difference is logic and maturity. I never let my children get away with an "I don't like it just 'cause."

 

There must be a valid reason. 

 

The difference is in personal preference and declaring something "Not Art" just based on your own personal preference. 

 

I never said that it was Not Art just because I don't like it (personally, I find some of Pollack's and Mondrian's paintings aesthetically pleasing, but, to me, that doesn't make them Art any more than the aesthetically pleasing hotel art I sometimes encounter). I stated that to me, those things are Not Art. I actually have reasons for why I feel that way, I just didn't get into them, because this thread is not about why I dislike certain artists. I was responding to the idea that someone shouldn't call a book stupid and petty just because other people think it's a classic. I believe that you can. I'm sure that the person who feels Gatsby is stupid and petty has her reasons; in fact, "petty" is a reason in and of itself, as it means trivial. The characters in Gatsby are, to me, insufferable and behave in petty ways. Therefore, whether it's a classic or not, I dislike it, and I have reasons why.

 

Likewise, I have reasons why I don't like Mondrian and Pollack and why I think they are Not Art. I'm not big on the idea that creating something simply to spark the discussion of "is this art?" (Bicycle Wheel) automatically makes it art. My husband (an art major) and I have had long, long discussions about what is and isn't art. I'm allowed to have an opinion on why something is Not Art.

 

 

 

So why don't you like Pollack or Mondrian, because they Are Art...you just don't like it. and that's fine. But the reason cannot be "just 'cause." IMHO.

 

Never did I say that was my reason.

 

There are many forms of art/literature that I don't appreciate personally buy can still understand the wider significance of. There are other forms of art/literature for which I can understand the artist's reason for creating them but still disagree that they have much significance beyond trying to stir people up. Art is, generally, a very snobby discipline. My husband has told me that people create art, generally, for two groups of people: themselves and other artists. I reject the idea that art belongs only to artists and that we peons who are not artists don't get to have an opinion. I get to weigh in on cultural significance, too. Artists aren't the only ones who get to define art.

[Jenny in Florida]

Fair enough. I guess I don't really see the difference, though.

It is like the difference between saying, "I don't think John is attractive" and saying, "John is so ugly."

 

One expresses a personal opinion. The other is a judgement presented as fact.

 

To say that The Great Gatsby is "petty" because you don't like the characters pretty much misses the point.

[Haiku]

It is like the difference between saying, "I don't think John is attractive" and saying, "John is so ugly."

 

One expresses a personal opinion. The other is a judgement presented as fact.

 

To say that The Great Gatsby is "petty" because you don't like the characters pretty much misses the point.

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

Personally, I don't like Gatsby because it's duller than watching ice melt. :D

[Catherine]

[quote name="fairytalemama" post="5682476" timestamp="1401210324"

 

I've tried several occasions with Anna Karenina and War and Peace and I just can't get over the hump.  One book that took me FOREVER to read was A Tale of Two Cities.  When I finally conquered that beast I was so glad because the end was so good, but man was that a trudge.I love the classics generally, some more than others, and I'm almost always willing to give a book a chance. I found A Tale of Two Cities a tough slog also, the first time I read it, but since have reread several times and it's one of my favorite books. And I agree that liking the characters is not a prerequisite for liking a *book* and understanding the depth and importance of its message. I din't like Heathcliff or Kathryn either but I adored the book about them.

 

But I would classify The Wind in the Willows as a flop for me...and my kids. I've tried to read it silently and aloud, and tried twice even to listen to the recording of it. We just didn't like it. And it's the kind of book I usually like, whimsical and sweet. I even like Pooh!

[Violet Crown]

Nabokov and Murakami. Just because they are dh's favorite writers. I've started so many of them, and just couldn't. I did manage by an act of will to get all the way through Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and I wasn't any better off than when I started it.

 

I'm clearly missing a gene.

[Walking-Iris]

I never said that it was Not Art just because I don't like it (personally, I find some of Pollack's and Mondrian's paintings aesthetically pleasing, but, to me, that doesn't make them Art any more than the aesthetically pleasing hotel art I sometimes encounter). I stated that to me, those things are Not Art. I actually have reasons for why I feel that way, I just didn't get into them, because this thread is not about why I dislike certain artists. I was responding to the idea that someone shouldn't call a book stupid and petty just because other people think it's a classic. I believe that you can. I'm sure that the person who feels Gatsby is stupid and petty has her reasons; in fact, "petty" is a reason in and of itself, as it means trivial. The characters in Gatsby are, to me, insufferable and behave in petty ways. Therefore, whether it's a classic or not, I dislike it, and I have reasons why.

 

Likewise, I have reasons why I don't like Mondrian and Pollack and why I think they are Not Art. I'm not big on the idea that creating something simply to spark the discussion of "is this art?" (Bicycle Wheel) automatically makes it art. My husband (an art major) and I have had long, long discussions about what is and isn't art. I'm allowed to have an opinion on why something is Not Art.

 

 

 

 

Never did I say that was my reason.

 

There are many forms of art/literature that I don't appreciate personally buy can still understand the wider significance of. There are other forms of art/literature for which I can understand the artist's reason for creating them but still disagree that they have much significance beyond trying to stir people up. Art is, generally, a very snobby discipline. My husband has told me that people create art, generally, for two groups of people: themselves and other artists. I reject the idea that art belongs only to artists and that we peons who are not artists don't get to have an opinion. I get to weigh in on cultural significance, too. Artists aren't the only ones who get to define art.

But you're still basically saying that  what you don't like (or if you disagree with the intention behind it) gets the title of Not Art (even the use of capitals here is a bit elitist).

 

And that's where I disagree with you. No one is saying that you don't get to have an opinion. What I am saying is that your opinion doesn't make it Not Art. As if Not Art were some category needing capitalization.

 

But whatever.

 

Books I wish I could like:

 

Authors such as Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Ken Kesey, Vonnegut, Joseph Conrad, Upton Sinclair, Dostoevsky,Tolstoy...basically the stuff my DH reads.

 

We just have very different tastes in reading. He likes Herman Hesse and I can read those. He likes the Beats, and I can read those. 

 

I tried really hard to read Don Quixote. It was annoying me because I would tell my DH some scene from it that was particularly bothering me and he would laugh. He felt like it was Monty Python-ish and liked it. I also couldn't tolerate War and Peace or Brother's Karamavoz. Both things my DH enjoys. Unless he's reading bios about musicians or hockey, then he seems to think reading should be a struggle, not enjoyable.

 

Children's books: those Paolini books did nothing for me. And although I like CS Lewis's adult books, I have always had a hard time getting into Narnia. 

[Haiku]

And that's where I disagree with you. No one is saying that you don't get to have an opinion. What I am saying is that your opinion doesn't make it Not Art. As if Not Art were some category needing capitalization.

 

I think we have a failure to communicate here. Sorry about that. I don't know how to explain myself any differently, but I feel like you are somehow missing what I am trying to say.

 

And I was being tongue-in-cheek about Not Art. My husband and I talk about Art and Not Art a lot. I wasn't trying to be elitist. Oh well.

[Ellie]

The author of all those books really wanted to write about botany. The novels were better sellers though and so she wrote those to finance her naturalist books. Which IMO is why the descriptions of nature in her books are amazing but the characters not always so much.

 

I got bogged down with the way Elnora's mother treated her (and it's been almost 30 years since I read it, so I might not have the details correct), then jumped on board with her plans to go away (to school?), and sewed a whole wardrobe for her in a day, and did some sort of beauty treatment on her face, and advised her to wash her hair at least once a month or some such thing...for some reason, Little Women is ageless to me, and Little House, but those dated details in Limberlost put me off.

[Tanikit]

There are a number in this list I have not tried yet - may get there some day.

 

I didn't enjoy Wind in the Willows, The Little House series (possibly as I am not American - there are an awful lot of pioneer books that get suggested for homeschooling and I have not been into any of them), Wuthering Heights (I have tried that book so many times and never finished it), many of the Dickens books, of the Narnia series the only one I struggled with was The Horse and his Boy - the rest I enjoyed. Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson did not excite me as a child but I may try them again and see - I almost wrote them off as being "books for boys." I didn't enjoy The Jungle Book either.

 

I have found though that whether I like a book often depended on how old I was when I tried it, if there was a teacher teaching it then it would depend on how well she taught it, and when reading to my child it might depend on whether I have chosen the book at the correct stage for the child - I hated Winnie the Pooh when I first tried it with my elder daughter, but when I picked it up when she was older it was a lot better - maybe I enjoy a book based on how excited my kids get. I enjoyed the Maida (Maida's Little Shop, Maida's Little Island etc) books when I was younger but think they would be a real slog to get through with my children now and I know my mother struggled to read them to us. Same with the Princess and Curdie and Princess and the Goblin which I read myself, but couldn't cope with reading to my kids now.

[Guest]

I could never get past the first few pages of Moby Dick either.

 

I might try it again when I'm in my 60s, though. I remember really wanting to read it so bad in my 20s because I thought it would be good for me.

 

I'm liking Five Little Peppers so far (first time I've ever read it) but I can still do some editing on the fly without little ds catching me if the ending turns out to be "and they all lived happily ever after in the boarding school the rich man paid for because everybody knows that poor people shouldn't be allowed to have children and rich people shouldn't have to pay cleaning girls and scullery maids and seamstresses anything they wouldn't have just thrown in the trash anyway".

[Ellie]

I could never get past the first few pages of Moby Dick either.

 

I might try it again when I'm in my 60s, though. I remember really wanting to read it so bad in my 20s because I thought it would be good for me.

 

 

 

I had to skip all the whale natural history stuff. As long as it was just the story of the white whale and Capt. Ahab, it was pretty good.

 

Which makes me remember Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates. It was the same thing: as long as it kept to the story, it wasn't too bad, but there was all this history of the Netherlands and I don't know what all that killed the story for me. I think Disney might have made a movie of it, which might be better than the book.

[wingedradical]

Jane Austen. The Brontes.

 

Tolkein and modern fantasy.

[happypamama]

Many.

 

Now, I liked Wrinkle in Time (really the only scifi book I've ever liked -- and I'm really glad, because my DD and I have very different book tastes, and she adored the whole Time series), and I have read each of the LHOTP books at least six times, I think, and I love Pooh (except the one chapter where they conspire to steal Baby Roo, because that just seems mean and out of character to me), but there are a lot I don't like. Some of that is because we read them in an accelerated program in middle and high school, which was great, except that I think we were too young to appreciate some of them, or we hadn't had the relevant history yet (like Great Gatsby in ninth grade, when we didn't really get good US history until eleventh), and I might appreciate the Brontes or Austen more now if I have them a shot.

 

One of my classmates rated Great Expectations "the most boring book ever written." I somewhat agreed -- until we had to read all one thousand pages of Les Miserables the summer before tenth grade. Ugh. I also did not, despite loving medieval history enough to get a degree in it, care much for Connecticut Yankee. But I really think some of that was immaturity, plus being a very early and fast reader who was very bored in school and thus developed a taste for quick-to-finish fluff books. I aim to do better for my kids.

 

But my "I really dislike this book, and it gives me physical discomfort": The Giver. There are some redeeming qualities to it, but the scene with the release bothers me too much, probably more than it should, and I'm not really interested in sharing it with my kids.

[Seasider]

Many.

 

Now, I liked Wrinkle in Time (really the only scifi book I've ever liked -- and I'm really glad, because my DD and I have very different book tastes, and she adored the whole Time series), and I have read each of the LHOTP books at least six times, I think, and I love Pooh (except the one chapter where they conspire to steal Baby Roo, because that just seems mean and out of character to me), but there are a lot I don't like. Some of that is because we read them in an accelerated program in middle and high school, which was great, except that I think we were too young to appreciate some of them, or we hadn't had the relevant history yet (like Great Gatsby in ninth grade, when we didn't really get good US history until eleventh), and I might appreciate the Brontes or Austen more now if I have them a shot.

 

One of my classmates rated Great Expectations "the most boring book ever written." I somewhat agreed -- until we had to read all one thousand pages of Les Miserables the summer before tenth grade. Ugh. I also did not, despite loving medieval history enough to get a degree in it, care much for Connecticut Yankee. But I really think some of that was immaturity, plus being a very early and fast reader who was very bored in school and thus developed a taste for quick-to-finish fluff books. I aim to do better for my kids.

 

But my "I really dislike this book, and it gives me physical discomfort": The Giver. There are some redeeming qualities to it, but the scene with the release bothers me too much, probably more than it should, and I'm not really interested in sharing it with my kids.

 

I have never been comfortable with the idea that this is a children's (Newbery level) book. 

[momacacia]

Chesterton's Everlasting Man. I really tried, but could he get to the point already?!

[macmom28]

Ah, such a fun thread!

 

My couldn't stand as a child include:  Alice in Wonderland; Peter Pan; and The Call of the Wild.  In high school, it was The Ra Expedition, Catcher in the Rye (couldn't get what was the big deal) and the Hobbit.  

 

[macmom28]

I hated Chopin's The Awakening. I still don't think I'll care for it, but it's time to take it on again.

 

Ooh…one I actually did enjoy and might even like to try again.  Thanks for the reminder!

[Ellie]

Ah, such a fun thread!

 

My couldn't stand as a child include:  Alice in Wonderland; Peter Pan; and The Call of the Wild.  In high school, it was The Ra Expedition, Catcher in the Rye (couldn't get what was the big deal) and the Hobbit.  

 

See, I thought Peter Pan was...hinky. I decided not to read it to my dc.

 

Oh, and Pinnochio was also not so great. I didn't read that to them, either.

[Guest]

I can't read Peter Pan to ds. I don't remember if I read it to my olders or not, but it has just been appropriated by certain....um...shall we say politely say people who are creative in the bedroom?....to the point that I no longer see an innocent children's story. It just looks like filth to me.

 

My ex-boyfriend thought he was hurting me when he stole a 100+ year old copy that had been in my parents' and perhaps my grandparents' but it felt like a very small price to pay to get rid of him.

 

I can't get past the "all little boys need to go to school even though school is icky" sentiment in Pinocchio either. We owned it at one point, but I wound up donating it to the library.

 

 

[kristi26]

I really dislike Great Expectations. I have friends who think it's wonderful.  I hated everything about it. :glare: 

 

I want to like the "Little House" series, but I'm not really wild about them.  

 

Growing up, I hated "Island of the Blue Dolphins" but reread it in the last month or so and really enjoyed it.  I was glad to see that one change as I toyed with the idea of my DC reading it...

 

I know there are more, honestly, but I can't think of them right now.

[Ecclecticmum]

Don Quixote.

 

I actually like the story, found it quite amusing, but the writing style just makes it really hard for me and I cannot get through it. Perhaps its the translation (I chose a recommended translation), but its awkward and slow. Its like watching the TV Show Neighbours, you could skip 10 episodes, come back and that same cup of tea is still boiling.

[KrissiK]

I tried getting through Don Quixote several times, but just couldn't do it. I really can't do Jane Austin and Hemingway.... I just felt like he was so vague. I'd read a chapter and I had no idea what was going on. It was like I needed to read between the lines, or there were some assumptions of knowledge that I didn't have. I tried to read Farewell to Arms and then I stopped and read a synopsis and was like, "it was really about that?" I felt so stupid.

[NCMom]

I like/love the majority of the book PPs mentioned except Eragon, which I found horribly derivative and boring as heck. 

 

The books I can't.make.myself.like are usually modern books like Life of Pi, The Shack, ANYTHING by Nicholas Sparks, The Five People..., etc.  I don't know why but I literally loathed the first two on the list and have not managed to ever finish any of the others.

 

I am not sure if I really want to like them, but everyone else around here surely does, lol, so I feel left out frequently.

 

Georgia

[journey00]

Prince Caspian. 

[TravelingChris]

I can't think of anything I wanted to like but didn't.  Generally, I like it or I don't and I really don't care whether anyone else shares my opinion.  While I read classics while I was in school and in college, I haven't read that many since then.  I would say that almost all of the ones I have read I have liked because I don't finish things I don't like.  I see that many of the things I like are disliked by many others- like The Great Gatsby- which I actually like better since I have seen the latest movie version but which I tolerated well enough earlier on.  I have never read anything by the Bronte's, and don't plan to since they are way too sentimental for me.  Now I have been reading mostly short to medium length books that are classics over the years.  So I haven't attempted Dickens or Tolstoy and my one attempt at Moby Dick occured after I saw the movie, which I liked, but I ended up not reading it because I was too busy with other things I needed to do. 

 

The ones I did try to read and was pleasantly surprised that I did like them was Heart of Darkness, Middlemarch, and As I Lay Dying by Faulkner.  I had only read a short story by him in college and was not impressed.  But I liked that book.  My only experience with Hemingway was in high school with The Old Man and the Sea and I absolutely hated that book. 

 

Anyway, I am totally with a PP who said she doesn't read books like Nicholas Sparks books and a list of other pop fiction out there.  Those are books I don't read and never want to read. 

[candicane]

The Great Gatsby and Ender's Game are my top two. It could have been mostly from trying to read them using an audio tape in school (I prefer reading myself not read alouds) but I know Sci-Fi type books aren't my type, so Ender's Game is a lost cause.