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

[Liz CA]

"A hundred years of solitude" --- "landmark novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez." Couldn't get past page 15 or so. Felt like a primitive, unsophisticated reader admitting this on a WELL TRAINED MIND book thread but I have to keep it real. 

[Wheres Toto]

1 hour ago, Lady Florida. said:

Anything by Kate Morton, Kristin Hannah, Nicholas Sparks, or Jodi Picoult. 

Eat, Pray, Love
Little Women
All of the Little House books
The Power - I read it for book club and was the only one who didn't like it. It felt to YA to me and I don't care for most YA novels.
Lord of the Rings

I devoured Stephen King (his early stuff) when I was in my 20s but just can't read him anymore. I can't even reread the books I liked back then. They just don't appeal to me anymore.

Nearly all YA and especially paranormal (YA or otherwise). 

I rarely like popular novels.
 

 

I read the first one and liked it okay but didn't love it. I couldn't get through the second one and decided I was done with that series. I read all kinds of books and I don't mind books where I dislike the characters or can't relate to them, but I so disliked everyone in these books that I felt no reason to keep reading them. I wanted to like them because they take place near where my mother's very poor family came from. I thought it would give me some insight into their lives before they came to the U.S. and even some insight into their character. It did neither.

Yes, Nicholas Sparks!  I hate him for the same reason I hate Jodi Picoult.    Stupid endings that are for nothing except shock value.   I went to see the movie Nights in Rodanthe when it came out because oldest dd was going to a movie with friends.  She was seeing a horror movie that I didn't want to see, not even remotely, and Nights was playing at the same time.  I knew nothing about it except it was supposed to be this amazing romantic story.   Blech.  They're together for like 2 weeks and he dies.  What's romantic about that?

This thread also reminded me that I couldn't get into Cloud Atlas and there was another author Hiriku or something like that (Google isn't helping) that had some book that was supposed to be amazing, and I couldn't get into it.  I don't like when things are too stylistically weird.  

I like YA and especially paranormal YA, science fiction/fantasy and similar (as long as there isn't too much graphic s8x).

[Lady Florida.]

On 12/30/2019 at 1:54 PM, 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. 

Oh, maybe you hit on something there. In my 20s I loved Dean Koontz, Stephen King and Robin Cook (medical thrillers). Now none of those authors or authors of similar books appeal to me. 

On 12/30/2019 at 9:18 PM, Momto6inIN said:

 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. 

 

Add James Patterson to that list. I enjoyed his early books with the Alex Cross character but at some point the plots jumped the shark and I was just done. Now he barely even writes his own books and the last few I tried (several years ago) I ended up abandoning.

On 12/31/2019 at 2:19 PM, Arctic Mama said:

OH I THOUGHT OF ONE!  Eat Pray Love has always struck me as such a vapid piece of work, I’m amazed it has such enduring popularity in the last two generations of women (my mom’s and my own).  Like, I must be missing the gene that cares about someone else’s journey of self discovery and acceptance.  Give me pulpy fiction, fantasy, or nonfiction historical works any day.  

Ugh. I could not get past Eat and didn't care one bit about Pray or Love after that. I don't understand its enduring popularity either.

I will add to my list almost title that starts with "The Girl" or ends with "____'s Daughter"

Edited January 1, 2020 by Lady Florida.

[RootAnn]

4 hours ago, Chris in VA said:

That's why, as Anne becomes happier and more mature, the nature of the writing actually changes--less verbose descriptions,  more succinct vocabulary.  

If the descriptions ever decreased, I sure didn't notice... But I never had her 'scope of imagination. Some of my kids do, though. I use a lot of her sayings like bosom friend, kindred spirit, and tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it.

3 hours ago, IvyInFlorida said:

I so empathize with her fierce love for her home.  I was shocked when I read recently that the Pat books are considered the worst of all Montgomery's novels.  ... I can't fathom this at all.  Pat's emotional struggles seem so real to me.

I've never loved any house like she loved Silver Bush, but I didn't find any major character anything less than real in those books. LMM makes me smile, laugh, and cry everytime-no matter how many times I read her books.  

[KungFuPanda]

1 hour ago, Liz CA said:

 

I have to ask...

is it the story line? The outdated expressions / style of writing or something else all together? Did you try the movie, and if so, liked it better or not?

I honestly do not know.  I made it through Emma on the first time, so I have a tolerance for it.  I also tend to finish even bad books or movies just to see how it ends.  I'm not a particularly lazy reader either, so I don't know what my problem was with Pride and Prejudice.  I started it several times in my twenties and thirties and would just put it down, walk away, and never make it back.  I don't think I saw the movies and attempted the book in the same decade, so I can't make a fair comparison.  I've read sillier things.  I've read harder things.  I'm not horribly picky.  It's a mystery.

[PrincessMommy]

1 hour ago, Liz CA said:

 

Is this the Jim and Elizabeth Elliot Story? It's not a story but what happened to them. There is a movie, I think titled "At the end of a spear."

I think there was also a book written in the 60s or 70s. Elizabeth Eliot wrote about it.  I don't remember the name but I remember reading the book more than once as a teen

[Bluegoat]

2 hours ago, Liz CA said:

 

Is this the Jim and Elizabeth Elliot Story? It's not a story but what happened to them. There is a movie, I think titled "At the end of a spear."

 

It's based on that but it's a fictionalised account.  So the characters from the 50s are mostly based on the real people though most of what goes on is imagined - conversations, people's inner thoughts etc.  And part of the story takes place in the present and is totally fiction.

Part of my feelings may be that I am less and less crazy about this kind of fictionalised account of reality. 

[Tree Frog]

The Mitford series by Jan Karon. I think I got just a few pages in the first book and had to put it down. It was the literary version of watching paint dry. Too much description and not enough of anything else. My MIL gave me a boxed set for Christmas one year. I tried to read the a couple of times and just couldn't stick with it. 

[Lady Florida.]

3 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

 

However, I am going to make a confession that I have read every single Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum novel even though they jumped the shark about 12 books ago and are complete cotton candy fluff. But they are my fun brainless reads- so much so that I ran out of new ones with the sick kids and have gone back to the first few which almost made me sad because I knew they were better, but I had forgotten how much better they are than the more recent ones. Now having reread the first two it's glaring. 😞 You know how people want term limits for politicians? Sometimes I think publishers should put series limits for authors. 

I loved the early books in that series and would quite often laugh out loud while reading one. Dh would ask me what's so funny but you can't describe it to someone who doesn't know the charaters. I think I gave up somewhere around Eleven. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Lady Florida.