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

Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Lemex, Jun 6, 2015.

  1. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    It is quite interesting and I think you may be right. I don't know what category or genre you would put my tastes in, but I suspect there a few people here that share it.
     
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  2. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    Ah! Okay, maybe we need three categories. :)
     
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  3. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Four, in case there are some crazy people out there who like both.
     
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  4. Darth Batman

    Darth Batman Member

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    Never heard of either.
     
  5. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Okay, yes, there's a fifth group...
     
  6. doggiedude

    doggiedude Contributor Contributor

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    I remember loving F-451 in high school but never read The Old Man and the Sea.
     
  7. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    Okay, we'll have a fifth category for superhero fans who don't have a basic background in science fiction. ;)
     
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  8. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    "Catcher in the Rye." I never met a more spoiled, vain, self-absorbed idiot than Holden Caulfield. This was supposed to be some epitome of the 50s/60s. I was too busy working myself up from being the son of a NC cabdriver to feel much identity with a brat like him who suffered enormously from being born with too much money. His willingness to identify everyone else as "phony" was, I think, Freudian.
     
  9. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I read the book as that being part of the point. He was an anti-hero, not a hero...
     
  10. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Anti-hero or not, I hated the book as pointless drivel which I was forced to read/report on in HS. I think my report was about what I said above. Also on the list is "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon (sp?) set aside after 1/3 of the way through, never again touched, also due to self-absorbed, endlessly introspective characters.
     
  11. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Alice in Wonderland.

    Just don't get OR enjoy it.
     
  12. 7XshadowolfX7

    7XshadowolfX7 Member

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    Harry potter, Hunger games, 50 Shades, Maze Runner. Basically all those sucky young adult books. Except 50 Shades. That's not young aldult.
     
  13. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    Oh yeah, Maze Runner... I couldn't get into it at all. Gave it a couple of chapters of pure unenjoyment and deleted it from my Kindle.
     
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  14. doggiedude

    doggiedude Contributor Contributor

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    Glad I wasn't the only one.
     
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  15. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Yeah me too, and the film was worse

    Also Fanny Hill (memoirs of a woman of pleasure) dificult to read and very very disapointing
     
  16. G. Anderson

    G. Anderson Active Member

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    Well, 50 Shades of Grey was one for me. People had told me that it wasn't a great novel in terms of writing or nuances. But it was popular, so I was willing to give it a chance. I thought it would be entertaining and sexy. Unfortunately, to me it was neither. But it clearly spoke to a lot of people, so I don't want to disrespect that.

    The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Moby Dick were two novels where I really felt the whole spectrum of their plot, emotions, thoughts and what not could have been explained in a novella instead :)
     
  17. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    I didn't read 50 shades but saw the movie and my takeaway was the same.

    Thomas Wolfe, my hometown author, was best on his first book, "Look Homeward, Angel" but went downhill from there. I didn't care for his stream of consciousness writing, but found the vignettes of Asheville NC from the teens and 20s to be interesting. Especially since I inherited his newspaper route that he described in Angel 40 years later.
     
  18. Rainer

    Rainer Member

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    I always thought Lord of the Rings sucked balls. I don't get what's so good about it. It's just a bunch of similarly-named characters walking for miles.
     
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  19. Shn1010

    Shn1010 Member

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    I never even bothered about The Fault in Our Stars. My friend cried after reading it.
     
  20. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Doesn't sound like you ever read any of it. Which isn't to say there's no legitimate criticism of it. It's stylistically old-fashioned and in many places very slow-paced by modern standards. If you don't like that sort of thing, you're not going to enjoy these books.
     
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  21. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    I hated Moby Dick, and couldn't finish Les Miserables if my life depended on it.
    And Hemingway bores me to death.
     
  22. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    I like Hemmingway's shorts a lot more than his novels. His shorts are so nuanced that they only get better each time you read them.

    If you're interested (not that there's anything wrong with not liking him, haha), Now I Lay Me and A clean, Well-Lighted Place are both fantastic short stories. Full of vibrancy and subtle brilliance that I certainly missed the first time I read either.
     
  23. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I'm re-reading Moby Dick for the third time, now. Great book :D
     
  24. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Shantaram

    So disappointed in myself reading this horoscope bollocks. Should have read David Icke instead, anything. Shaming episode, at least I'm only half-way through.

    Will never purchase an Australian book ever, ever, ever ever, ever again.
     
  25. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    One of my all time favorite books is Australian.
     

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