Popular/Highly Recommended Books - you just don't get

[Dainty]

I am attempting to read Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon for the 2nd time, and just cannot get into it.  This is a book I see recommended all the time! An all time favorite by many.  It brought to mind a few others I have started and stopped repeatedly that most others seem to love.  

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

To Kill A Mockingbird

anything by Stephen King

Anyone have a book(s) that is also the case for you?

 

 

[Joker]

Pride and Prejudice 

It sits on my bookshelf and I've tried so many times but I always give up because I really can't stand it. 

[Carol in Cal.]

Almost everything by Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway, both of whom I should theoretically like.

Moby Dick

Don Quixote

The Corrections (what a horrid book, positing happiness as a zero sum game)

I don't read horror and I don't see why people do.  I read a Dean Koontz book when I was about 21 and was scared of basements for like two years.  No reason to do that to myself again.  It's supposed to be entertainment, not torture, people.

[Selkie]

Harry Potter and all of the Little House books except for Farmer Boy

[Pawz4me]

The Goldfinch

[happi duck]

I read Educated for book club and I was the only one who hated it.

I tried Outlander because of threads here and never could get into it.

[gardenmom5]

LotR.  . . . my children' consider it heresy.  I just couldn't' get into them.  They forced me to watch the movies - ok, final credits are rolling, can I leave now?

[gardenmom5]

41 minutes ago, Joker said:

Pride and Prejudice 

It sits on my bookshelf and I've tried so many times but I always give up because I really can't stand it. 

have you ever watched the Lizzie Bennet Diaries?   it's done in a modern v-log format.

[Library Momma]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Oh I have a whole Did Not Finish (DNF) shelf full of them on GoodReads- many of them favorites of other boardies here, and I just couldn't get into them. Different strokes for sure! 

Stephen King ruins every ending imo so I don't get him either, LOL. Gave up in the 90's. 

If it's a NYT Bestseller, or other super popular book, I often read the 1 star reviews on Amazon/Goodreads, because the more hyped a book is, generally the less I seem to like it. Most of the super popular books fall flat with me. Even dh and I have different tastes- it's funny to discuss. One of my most hated series- The We Are Bob/Bobiverse books that I shredded on reviews, is one of his favorites! 

 

I absolutely agree!  

[KungFuPanda]

1 hour ago, Joker said:

Pride and Prejudice 

It sits on my bookshelf and I've tried so many times but I always give up because I really can't stand it. 

I have the same relationship with this book.  I gave up on it years ago.

[Home'scool]

Quote

 

I am attempting to read Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon for the 2nd time, and just cannot get into it.  This is a book I see recommended all the time! An all time favorite by many.  It brought to mind a few others I have started and stopped repeatedly that most others seem to love.  

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

To Kill A Mockingbird

anything by Stephen King

 

Blasphemy!! 

Haha if I was to list out my favorite books these would certainly be in the top 10! 

I used to devour anything Stephen King wrote. Lately though his books have been bad so I don't even read him anymore. But the other two are just heaven for me.

I think it really is just different strokes for different folks. 

I tried reading Ahab's Wife when I was in a bookclub and I felt like I was being pranked. Everyone else RAVED about it and I found it so annoying I couldn't even get through 1/3 of it. It's just the way it goes sometimes!

 

[HS Mom in NC]

Romances by Shakespeare.  It's as demeaning to read them as it is to be a character in them.

[JustEm]

The Happiness Project. I hated that book so much. They way she spoke about marriage made me just stop reading it. I hated it so much that I refuse to read her other books that people also highly recommend

[May]

Harry Potter or anything sci-fi or fantasy😊

[happi duck]

I hated Kite Runner.

[Matryoshka]

What springs to mind for me are two books that are on what seems like all the suggested reading lists for homeschoolers that I hated... Girl of the Limberlost and Five Little Peppers.  I found them both insufferably insipid.

[happi duck]

I love Go Set a Watchman!  ("Sequel" to To Kill a Mockingbird but it's more the first draft of what became TKAM)  My brother is the only person I've met who also loves it.

[Lori D.]

Anything by 18th-19th century author William Thackary -- I read The Snobs, and watched a BBC version of Vanity Fair. His satire is just downright vicious meanness. No thank you!

Also not at ALL fond of Katherine Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved or Bridge to Terebithia. (Although, her book The Master Puppeteer was a hit here.)

Edited December 30, 2019 by Lori D.

[mom2scouts]

1 hour ago, Home'scool said:

Blasphemy!! 

Haha if I was to list out my favorite books these would certainly be in the top 10! 

I used to devour anything Stephen King wrote. Lately though his books have been bad so I don't even read him anymore. But the other two are just heaven for me.

I think it really is just different strokes for different folks. 

I tried reading Ahab's Wife when I was in a bookclub and I felt like I was being pranked. Everyone else RAVED about it and I found it so annoying I couldn't even get through 1/3 of it. It's just the way it goes sometimes!

 

When I was a teen, I loved Stephen King books. When I tried to read some of his work years later, I hated it. I don't even bother to pick up anything by him anymore.

[MEmama]

Harry Potter. 

Sorry. I just don’t get the love. 

[MEmama]

4 hours ago, Selkie said:

Harry Potter and all of the Little House books except for Farmer Boy

Oh yeah... Little House books...I LOVED them as a kid, but found reading them with DS to be torture. Thankfully he didn’t lIke either. He kept correcting the grammar. 😂

 

[Annie G]

41 minutes ago, happi duck said:

I love Go Set a Watchman!  ("Sequel" to To Kill a Mockingbird but it's more the first draft of what became TKAM)  My brother is the only person I've met who also loves it.

I really liked it. All my friends hated it. 

[BarbecueMom]

4 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Almost everything by Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway, both of whom I should theoretically like.

Moby Dick

Don Quixote

The Corrections (what a horrid book, positing happiness as a zero sum game)

I don't read horror and I don't see why people do.  I read a Dean Koontz book when I was about 21 and was scared of basements for like two years.  No reason to do that to myself again.  It's supposed to be entertainment, not torture, people.

That's interesting.... I read Franzen's first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City, and wanted to like it so, so much because of the subject.  And then it went completely off the rails the last 40-50 pages.  He wrote himself into a corner, but I hoped his later novels would be better.  I'll lower my expectations.

[Selkie]

Thought of another one - the Anne of Green Gables books. 

[Annie G]

9 minutes ago, Seasider too said:

 

I’m afraid to read it!

It’s a quick read so even if you hate it you won’t have a lot of time invested in it.  I really love TKAM so I was surprised I enjoyed it. 

[Kareni]

4 hours ago, Truth said:

Popular/Highly Recommended Books - you just don't get

Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree is a story that absolutely rubs me the wrong way.

Regards,

 Kareni

[Guest]

Lord of the Rings and, until recently when I listened to it on audiobook, The Hobbit. The narrator for the Hobbit was extraordinary and it really helped a lot but I have tried to read The Hobbit a dozen times over the years and I can’t stand it. I also think Bilbo should slay Smaug and not have all that nonsense war dragging the book on. I hate reading fictional battles. Just loathe it! 
(That was also what I hated in Ender’s Game.) 

[happi duck]

33 minutes ago, Annie G said:

I really liked it. All my friends hated it. 

Same.  I suggested it for book club and no one liked it

[RootAnn]

Farmer Boy

Johnny Tremain

anything by Rainbow Rowell

Tess of the d'Ubervilles

Little Women

anything by the Brontë sisters

[Terabith]

2 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

What springs to mind for me are two books that are on what seems like all the suggested reading lists for homeschoolers that I hated... Girl of the Limberlost and Five Little Peppers.  I found them both insufferably insipid.

Well, objectively they are.  Ugh.  I assumed they were popular just because so few people were writing children’s books in those days.  But I read Five Little Peppers at about 8 and Girl of the Limberlost around 12, so maybe I would have a different opinion now.  But I doubt it.  
 

John Grisham and Jodi Picoult both write terrible endings.  

I didn’t care for Lord of the Rings at all.  I love sci fi and fantasy, and Tolkien gets mad props for world building and inventing high fantasy, but they’re not exactly the best written. I loved The Hobbit though.  
 

All the women I worked with years ago adored Twilight and those awful sex books and were shocked I didn’t because I am a big reader, but no. I have read better fan fiction written by 11 year olds.  Just, no.  
 

Lots of books I just didn’t love even though they’re good literature. 

[mom2scouts]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Stephen King- Ending of IT. No more needs be said imo! That is so creepy and weird I wonder what the hell was going on in the 80's that it was totally a-okay to end a book with a pervy child sex scene! WTF?!? 

This was one of the reasons I completely stopped reading Stephen King and also the reason my dad gave for not reading his books anymore. He started adding totally unnecessary and perverted sex scenes to every book. I've always liked mysteries and thrillers, but I want to be scared or surprised, not disgusted by the story. 

Edited December 31, 2019 by mom2scouts

[Momto6inIN]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Stephen King- Ending of IT. No more needs be said imo! That is so creepy and weird I wonder what the hell was going on in the 80's that it was totally a-okay to end a book with a pervy child sex scene! WTF?!? 

I think he was on a LOT of drugs at this point in his career. Not that that makes it any better, but at least it's a little bit explainable. And I guess like somebody said about Grisham, the editors probably don't read them at that point in an author's career, just put them on the shelves to sell as fast as possible. 

30 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Twilight and whatever that S&M series for women 10 years ago that got made into a movie was almost the line in the sand of friendships for me. Women I knew who hadn't read in YEARS read those books and thought they were amazing. I liked them better when they were unread. 

Preach it! I railed against those books on facebook and posted so many links about how abusive that relationship was that I think people thought I'd gone off the deep end. My opinion of several people was permanently lowered by hearing they'd read and liked those books.

[Momto6inIN]

3 hours ago, Seasider too said:

 

Much as I like the earlier works, I think both he and John Grisham needed to take a lesson from Carol Burnett. I haven’t read King in years (except to listen to the special anniversary edition audiobook of The Stand), but I think the publishers must let John Grisham manuscripts skip the editors’ desks nowadays in order to get them to the cash register faster. Major plot holes, disappointing endings, endlessly repetitious themes,  gratuitous/unnecessary sex... overall his stories are just not as clever as they used to be writing used to be.  

For sure! A Time To Kill and The Firm are great, but his stuff over the last 20 years is baaaaaad.

[Momto6inIN]

7 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Oooh good old Dean Koontz. I read him a ton in my teen years and now I look back and wonder WHY?!?! I think I enjoyed being scared more then. 

Me too! Watchers has held up over time, but none of the rest of them.

[Terabith]

42 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

For sure! A Time To Kill and The Firm are great, but his stuff over the last 20 years is baaaaaad.

A Time to Kill was great.  The Firm had a great beginning and middle, but even at 12 I was angry at him for just giving up and basically not writing an ending.  

[Bluegoat]

I hate some of the ones you guys mentioned, The Kite Runner, and I really dislike the Harry Potter books.

I also hate almost every Margaret Atwood book.  

Re; Stephen King, there seems to have been a period in the 80s/early 90s where they wanted to add a lot of sex to novels, I seem to remember reading that publishers insisted on a few steamy scenes per book.  Though I don't think that explains the bit in It, I think that was supposed to be something else.

[NorthwestMom]

I agree with you all on so many of these.

I recently found Where the Crawdads Sing to be full of one-dimensional characters. 

 

[Teaching3bears]

The god of small things

One Hundred Years of Solitude

The catcher in the rye

I finished them but did not enjoy them.

[mumto2]

I have to admit I like The Hobbit and LotR.  Actually planning to reread in 2020 so will see how I feel in a few months.

I can’t seem to finish anything by Jane Austen but like the adaptions and the movies.

Edited December 31, 2019 by mumto2

[PrincessMommy]

Moby Dick - I tried, really I tried...got about 3/4 done but just couldn't make myself finish. 

Harry Potter

Outlander - that one made me mad.  

DaVinci Code.

Another one for The Happiness Project

Infinite Jest (why is this book a thing??)

 

[Tanaqui]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Twilight and whatever that S&M series for women 10 years ago that got made into a movie was almost the line in the sand of friendships for me. Women I knew who hadn't read in YEARS read those books and thought they were amazing. I liked them better when they were unread. 

 

Fifty Shades of Gray, which I think was originally Twilight fanfic or something of the sort.

And seriously, if you want to read kinky dubcon, have fun! But don't pretend that it's healthy when it's not (what's described in the book is not safe, nor sane, and don't get me started on the consent issues) and don't pretend the writing is all that when, again, it's not. You're not reading that book for the literary value anyway, and everybody knows it.

[Joker]

7 minutes ago, NorthwestMom said:

I agree with you all on so many of these.

I recently found Where the Crawdads Sing to be full of one-dimensional characters. 

 

I had so many people recommend that book and I ended up disappointed. It wasn't awful but I also didn't think it worthy of the praise I was hearing either.

[Lori D.]

Well, like mumto2, I adore Tolkien's writing. 😄 And I find Lord of the Rings to be incredibly powerful and moving, with so many rich  "life lessons" and spiritual depth about the Christian walk of faith. I've read the trilogy close to 2 dozen times, and have twice taught a year-long LotR Lit. & Comp. class (teaching it again next year, woo-hoo!), and every single time I read and/or teach it, I find new treasures to savor. 😉

And -- I do have a quibble with Terabith's "not exactly well-written" assessment. Tolkien was a philologist, so his rich vocabulary and precise word choices actually are strong support that something is well-written. And he was consciously echoing some of the medieval epic poetry techniques in his writing -- especially the use of alliteration, rhythm, and other sound devices -- again, another sign that the work was well-written, when you can successfully add poetic depth to your prose writing.

However, I'll totally accept the opinion that a person does not care for Tolkien's writing style, or that a person prefers fantasy writing that is more plot-driven, or has more fast-paced action, or about sudden twists, which tends to be the writing style of many contemporary fantasy books. And none of that is part of Tolkien's style. Nor his stated purpose (which was to build a world and inhabit with the peoples / cultures / histories and their stories so that they would speak his invented languages).

I think we sometimes forget that Tolkien was the innovator, and truly "kicked off" the modern adult fantasy genre.

End of quibble, and I DO respect your personal dislike of Tolkien's trilogy, Terabith. 😉 

[Tanaqui]

Quote

I think we sometimes forget that Tolkien was the innovator, and truly "kicked off" the modern adult fantasy genre.

 

And consequently, many of the things he did which were new and innovative are now expected and almost cliche. That's often the way - we build so much on the proverbial shoulders of giants that the giants themselves seem to shrink.

[Terabith]

34 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Well, like mumto2, I adore Tolkien's writing. 😄 And I find Lord of the Rings to be incredibly powerful and moving, with so many rich  "life lessons" and spiritual depth about the Christian walk of faith. I've read the trilogy close to 2 dozen times, and have twice taught a year-long LotR Lit. & Comp. class (teaching it again next year, woo-hoo!), and every single time I read and/or teach it, I find new treasures to savor. 😉

And -- I do have a quibble with Terabith's "not exactly well-written" assessment. Tolkien was a philologist, so his rich vocabulary and precise word choices actually are strong support that something is well-written. And he was consciously echoing some of the medieval epic poetry techniques in his writing -- especially the use of alliteration, rhythm, and other sound devices -- again, another sign that the work was well-written, when you can successfully add poetic depth to your prose writing.

However, I'll totally accept the opinion that a person does not care for Tolkien's writing style, or that a person prefers fantasy writing that is more plot-driven, or has more fast-paced action, or about sudden twists, which tends to be the writing style of many contemporary fantasy books. And none of that is part of Tolkien's style. Nor his stated purpose (which was to build a world and inhabit with the peoples / cultures / histories and their stories so that they would speak his invented languages).

I think we sometimes forget that Tolkien was the innovator, and truly "kicked off" the modern adult fantasy genre.

End of quibble, and I DO respect your personal dislike of Tolkien's trilogy, Terabith. 😉 

That’s entirely fair.  I think I came to them too late in life and having read too much fantasy.  And while reading it, I felt like his philological concerns really hampered the flow.  Which is totally a preference issue, but he IS a master.  
 

I have never understood Catcher in the Rye. Even as a teen, I felt like it combined boring with melodrama.  
 

Actually felt the same way about Jane Austen, but at least with her books, I felt like she was a master but I hated her characters.  Just not my cup of tea.  
 

Couldn’t get into Outlander either, and I am a sucker for time travel books. 

[KrissiK]

1 hour ago, NorthwestMom said:

I agree with you all on so many of these.

I recently found Where the Crawdads Sing to be full of one-dimensional characters. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Joker said:

I had so many people recommend that book and I ended up disappointed. It wasn't awful but I also didn't think it worthy of the praise I was hearing either.

I didn’t like it, either.

Jane Austin bores me, and Hemingway.... I just couldn’t even understand what he was talking about. I think I read the first chapter of Farewell to Arms 3 times and still hadn’t the slightest idea what it was even about. 

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Add me to not getting Catcher in the Rye- my bff found it lifechanging when we were teens and told me I had to read it and I seriously did not care for it at all. But she was so wrapped up in it I felt horrible to tell her it wasn’t in my top anything. Good thing there wasn’t GoodReads back then to have to rate it! 

Catcher in the Rye is one of my most-hated books of all time.  I totally don't get it.

[Lori D.]

36 minutes ago, Terabith said:

That’s entirely fair.  I think I came to them too late in life and having read too much fantasy.  And while reading it, I felt like his philological concerns really hampered the flow.  Which is totally a preference issue, but he IS a master...

That is totally understandable. I have a similar difficulty in that while I love sci-fi, I'm not really a fan of Jules Verne -- who, along with HG Wells, is one of the "fathers" of the sci-fi genre. I wish I did find his works more interesting, but alas, too much sci-fi under the reading bridge to be able to fully appreciate/enjoy Verne...

36 minutes ago, Terabith said:

...Catcher in the Rye. Even as a teen, I felt like it combined boring with melodrama.  

lol -- That was my reaction, too. I read it in my early 20s. At the time, I thought the problem was that I must have missed the window of opportunity for clicking with it (that it's a book that resonates with teens) -- but it sounds like, no, it's the book. 😉 🤣

Edited December 31, 2019 by Lori D.

[KungFuPanda]

7 hours ago, MEmama said:

Harry Potter. 

Sorry. I just don’t get the love. 

I loved the books. I get the love. I had a very enjoyable summer reading them. I don’t get making them a religion. I swear the early days of Dianetics must have looked  just like this. 

[Negin]

15 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

The Goldfinch

Hate both of her books. I can't believe that I read two of them. The worst part is that I can't get parts of them out of my head. 

15 hours ago, happi duck said:

I tried Outlander because of threads here and never could get into it.

I couldn't get beyond two chapters. Hated it. 

14 hours ago, gardenmom5 said:

LotR.  . . . my children' consider it heresy.  I just couldn't' get into them.  They forced me to watch the movies - ok, final credits are rolling, can I leave now?

I've never been able to appreciate Tolkien. 

13 hours ago, hjffkj said:

The Happiness Project. I hated that book so much. They way she spoke about marriage made me just stop reading it. I hated it so much that I refuse to read her other books that people also highly recommend

Can't stand that book!

Other books that may have not been mentioned yet:

Any of the Twilight books

Water for Elephants

The Alchemist -  to me, the idea has been sort of plagiarized/copied from the children's book, "The Treasure", they're both very similar, except "The Treasure" was written first

Watership Down

Picnic at Hanging Rock

The Immotal Life of Henrietta Lacks 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Lottery

The Power of Now

Speak

The Thornbirds

Love You Forever

The Giving Tree

Pretty much anything by Dan Brown

The Hunger Games

Edited December 31, 2019 by Negin