An overhyped classic you really didn't like

[Starofthesea89]

Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn. For the life of me, I just couldn't do it. I had to read both for school and I just had to grit my teeth and solider on through.

[MoeBrown]

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald was a bore for me. It was just too showy and (dare I say it lol) too intelligent. There was so many words that imo could have been reduced to simpler words and to be fair I did give it another try when I as much older and thought maybe I could better appreciate it but nope. I still couldn't enjoy the book at all even though I really wanted to.

[maggi3]

It's really interesting to see what others wrote here. I loved books like Wuthering Heights and Great Gatsby, and I love most of the Shakespeare plays I have read so far. I hated Pride and Prejudice the first time I read it, but now I love it. My opinions might change if I reread these books, but I tried to read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and had to give up half way through because I was so bored and disgusted with the main character. I also couldn't make it through Les Miserables. I agree with @MoeBrown about This Side of Paradise, too.

[ephemerai]

In general, I have a difficult time with books that focus on self-absorbed male characters. I mentioned in another thread that I hated Catcher in the Rye and Lord of the Flies, both of which I had to read in school. But I've also tried to read other "classics" on my own which I then found to be exhausting: Heart of Darkness, Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury, and any novel I tried by George Orwell or Ernest Hemingway.

I've never even tried to read Ayn Rand. I knew that wouldn't work out for me.

[Black Jewel]

For me, it would have to be Wind Through the Willows. I didn't get 20 pages into that book before I chucked it into the return bin of the school library and was off to find something more interesting

[Che Sparrowbosa]

Probably Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I'm sorry it was just really drawn out for me like I couldn't wait for it to end because it just kept going on for no reason and the characters weren't getting any better in their personality development. Furthermore Elizabeth's transition to Darcy from disgust to infatuation was just unrealistic and she ended up being exactly everything she hated in women of her day. She was a walking contradiction.

[EternalD]

To Kill a Mockingbird

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

These three books (among many others) are overrated.

[oluwalonimi29]

The hype Lord of the rings got made me anxious to see the movie. But after watching there was nothing for me to like in the movie.

[eggnog]

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka... I didn't like it at all. I thought it'd be interesting but I was really bored to death with it. It's less than 100 pages and still took me a week to finish.

[Bethany Nystrand]

For me it is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nothing captured my attention and I found that I had to force myself to read it. If it had been any longer I would have stopped. It did catch my interest a little in the end, but not enough to redeem the book in any way.

That was the first classic I read for school. I hated it. I spiraled into a week of sadness. Then I had to write a paper on it, and I got like a D on that paper. Absolutely miserable experience.

[Lara_bear0]

I couldn't understand why To Kill a Mockingbird is such a classic reading piece. It was fairly boring and it just had an absolutely absurd story line.

[Hildehraefen]

I feel like the Grinch saying this... mine is A Christmas Carol. I had to write a book report on it in grade school, middle school, high school, AND college. I was so fed up with it by high school that I just never want to read it again, any merit it may have just seems trite at this point.

[Dishita T]

Hm, To kill a Mocking bird and The Catcher in the Rye were both really boring and I had to force myself to finish them. To kill a Mocking bird like Lara_Bear0 said was boring and in my opinion all over the place. The Catcher in Rye was just confusing and the main character was just really well, questionable.

[Xin Teh]

For me, it is the entirety of the Agatha Christie's novels. I love Sherlock Holmes and was recommended Agatha Christie as another well-known mystery author in secondary school (high school) by a friend.

The first book I read was brilliant, the second not bad, but for the third, I could guess the villain before finishing even half the book! The books felt so predictive and have such similar plots that I could have sworn I read the same book thrice in a row. My apologies to any Agatha Christie's fans, but I cannot bring myself to read another book of hers.

[mohamed benziane]

I dont' know why I am finding the books of Shakespeare very heavy to read, their English is so old I can't seem to understand anything, and the writing style is so complex, I figured out that id on't like the plays type of books, dull for me