Challenge: 50 Books discussion

Hello!

This week's question is: What is a book that you have read that you thought was really overrated?

Share your thoughts with us!

I can think of two books that I have read recently that I thought would be great, either because of the premise or the critical acclaim I'd read about the book. Which just reminded me you shouldn't always listen to the critics.

The first is Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. I am trying to read more books from the Modern Library Top 100 Books list, and this one is the top 10. And yet I have no idea why. I like modernist texts, so it isn't that. I just didn't care at all about the characters.

The second book is The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds. I read this book because another reading goal I have is to read more books that have either been shortlisted for or won the Booker Prize. This one was shortlisted, and again, I have no idea why, unless it was a weak year. I love stories that are historical fiction and feature or include a writer in the fiction. I thought I would love this book, but it was in my mind definitely overrated.

Has anyone else read these books? What did you think?

1) Catcher In the Rye (Salinger)
2) Confederacy of Dunces (Toole)
3) Damned (Palahniuk)

i have read Breakfast at Tiffany's and i don't really like it.. i don't know maybe it not really into me.. people said it is a good books

The Elegance of the Hedgehog No word to decribe how much I despised this book (sorry Faye). Didn't like the premise 10yo girl genius so bored w/life she's decided to kill herself? And the whole being my friend won't kill you thing. Was that irony?

Although I've read many Barbara Kingsolver books and liked them, I just cannot understand why there's been so much fuss over The Poisonwood Bible. I was underwhelmed.

Rose

Off the top of my head, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde and A Clockwork Orange. Neither of them lived up to what I'd heard.

The Da Vinci Code

The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

All of them vastly overrated

I would actually like to mention a couple of authors:

Donna Tartt
Jonathan Franzen

Both of these authors are wonderful writers, but their stories are not worth reading.

I have two books that I think are really overrated.

1. The Giver
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The Giver was a good book right up until the ending, which ruined it for me. It was one of those endings that really isn't an ending and made me regret reading the book.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is the only book I've never been able to finish reading in my whole life. It's just too crazy for me and I don't know why it's so popular. I was made to watch the movie and it isn't good either.

Ashlee wrote: "...One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is the only book I've never been able to finish reading in my whole life. It's just too crazy for me and I don't know why it's so popular. ..."

Ooh, me too! Me too! I don't think I even made it to the 50-page mark. It just was boooooring.

Obsessedreader wrote: "Although I've read many Barbara Kingsolver books and liked them, I just cannot understand why there's been so much fuss over The Poisonwood Bible. I was underwhelmed.

Rose"

Me too, Rose!

Tiffany wrote: "Ashlee wrote: "...One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is the only book I've never been able to finish reading in my whole life. It's just too crazy for me and I don't know why it's so popular. ..."

Oo..."

You have to read it out loud in your sophomore English class and come up with creative replacements for the f word so the Dean of the Department doesn't feel the need poke his head into the room to give your teacher the hairy eyeball and find out if he really heard what he thought he heard. Mr. Coventry you were the bomb.

Donna wrote: "Tiffany wrote: "Ashlee wrote: "...One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is the only book I've never been able to finish reading in my whole life. It's just too crazy for me and I don't know why it's so p..."

hehehe... That does sound like a fun unit in English class :)

I read Billy, the stutterer. I guess he realized Nurse Ratchett would've been typecasting.

I read mostly YA, and one that really did not live up to all of the hype was Vampire Academy.... Noooope.

The Lord of the Rings? Haha