Famous books you never cared for/understood the appeal of?

I loved the Divergent series, but I can see why the first book would be a turn-off. It starts out as a paint-by-numbers YA dystopia, and then the second and third books start subverting tropes and expectations all over the place.

 

THANK you.

 

I actually can usually only stomach Garcia Marquez's work in the original Spanish.

 

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
I found it so boring. I read The Hours, so I couldn't wait to read this. But I wish I hadn't. What a waste of time.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf.
Boring. Weird. Didn't make sense at all. I read that it was this beautiful book, and I couldn't wait to read it. But I just didn't get the appeal. At all.

The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp.
A man complaining about everything and everyone. I don't get why people like it. Yes, I get it, he's different. Big deal. That does not give him the right to be such a ...

 

Anything by Hemingway.

 

I couldn't get into them either. Because of the buzz around them I tried reading the first book once, but couldn't make it through the first chapter. The writing style made me want to throw the book through a window.
The movies were interesting as visual achievements, but the plot left me cold. I hate the "children can be equal with adults" trope common to YA fiction and anime\manga.

 

I think part of their appeal is sentimentality and age appropriateness. They aren't particularly good pieces of fiction, they just work for a certain age group of younger readers.

 

I wasn't forced to read it like so many are, but I've started and been unable to finish it several times as an adult. No appeal at all.

 

The old man and the sea is a good read.

 

Ugh. It's only redeeming feature is that it is short.
"I caught a big fish once, but sharks ate it, so no one else knows I did it."
The End.

 

Fifty Shades of Grey: Just not my cup of tea, java or anything else
Hunger Games: Not sure why, but just could not get into it. I did enjoy the movies though, go figure
Divergent: Once again, just couldn't get into it, but loved the movies
Loved, Loved, Loved; To Kill a Mockingbird, Gone with the Wind, Of Mice and Men, The Cider House Rules, and Grapes of Wrath, also Game of Thrones and The Wheel of Time.

 

Not a particular work, but Dickens in general. I love most of the Victorian classics and the way the authors use 20 words where 2 would do, but I just don't enjoy Dickens.

 

I was skimming your post and i only just got up, so somehow instead of "The Cider House Rules and the Grapes of Wrath", I thought you wrote: "The House of Grapes." and I was like, what kinda book is that??

 

I didn't mind Catcher in the Rye but it wasn't necessarily amazing. I started reading twilight once and hated it immmediately. Oh and the Hunger Games movies are better than the books. Divergent is a piece of shit.

 

HaHaHaHa

 

The Grapes of Wrath is an excellent novel with many of its core themes just as relevant today, unfortunately.

 

All too sadly,

All too sadly, it is relevant today.

 

It is a great story, but I can see how someone might have trouble with the narrative style. It also doesn't have a firm ending. Some people hate that.

 

But that is how life is too. No exact ending

 

Haha, well I suppose like any other art form it is subjective if you like it or not. I really mliked the simple story, the story telling and also the rule breaking throughout.
But each to their own.

 

Loved the movies, but never could get into The Lord of the Rings. I enjoyed The Hobbit, though.

I've had to read The Great Gatsby twice for English classes and hated it.

I read the first Divergent and thought it was ok enough to pick up the second, but I never finished the second one.

Hated To Kill A Mockingbird, too.

Oh, and I loathe Twilight. All of them. I read all of them, but it was like a car wreck, it was so bad I couldn't look away. I was like, "they've gotta get better somewhere" but they just kept getting worse!

 

I thought the Hunger Games trilogy got progressively weaker, but it seems most people disagree with me. I enjoyed the first one despite the tense. Thought the second was disappointing. The third was unreadable. I read that Suzanne Collins only intended to write one book, then decided at the end of it there was more to say. Mistake, IMO!