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Worst/Most Overrated books

A

azbedwell

New Member
Saw there was a best/favourite books thread and although this may have been done wondered what people saw as the most overrated or simply worst books. The two catagories arent mutually inclusive but i find often are

Overrated/Worst
Testament Of Youth
Silas Marner
Emma (although i would include basically all jane austin)
 
If we're delving into the classics, I would have to say Tess of the D'Urbervilles wins for tiresome melodrama, and (don't hit me, but...) all of Charles Dickens with the exception of Tale of Two Cities, the only book he wrote that I was ever able to finish. The blinding tedium of his excessive detail and wordiness is what gets to me.

Oh, and Wuthering Heights. Each of the three times I read it and in all movie versions (glutton for punishment?), I kept looking for something to like about Cathy and Heathcliff, and some point to their relationship. Wasn't there. I had to admire Bronte for writing a book with totally despicable, non-sympathetic characters and getting me to read it more than once. I'm over that now, and probably won't be going back. But I can still hum the campy Kate Bush song, "Wuthering Heights" to myself in order to put it all in perspective.
 
namedujour said:
Oh, and Wuthering Heights. Each of the three times I read it I kept looking for something to like about Cathy and Heathcliff, and some point to their relationship. Wasn't there.
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I agree entirely with everything you said about this book. I must admit that it is one of only two books I have started and couldn't finish. I knew straightaway that I loathed the characters and didn't care what happened to them. Completely over-rated in my opinion, as are all Thomas Hardy's books (can't stand them).
 
most over-rated:
memoirs of a geisha
the polished hoe
the five people you meet in heaven

and i haven't read it yet, but i'm betting i'll put "the da vinci code" on that list when the time comes.

have i mentioned these are all books from my book club? ;)
 
SillyWabbit is going to hit me, but . . . Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Total snore-fest for me!

<ducking and running while tossing angry penguins behind me>

Cathy
 
Most recently, I'd say it's Memoirs of a Geisha. I read it after people kept going on and on about how wonderful it was. Maybe it was a matter of unrealistic expectations. I thought it was okay, but by the end, I was getting irritated at the main character and couldn't wait for it to end.
 
Off the top of my head...

The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
The Rule of Four (two blokes, forgot their names)
The Testament (John Grisham)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon)
 
"The Da Vinci Code".

And I'm not saying "Jane Eyre" is a bad book or anything, but I have tried reading it twice and both times I didn't make it to the end. So I think I'll have to start over again some day... again.

namedjour, you didn't like "Great Expectations"??? I didn't like it much while I was reading it, I don't know if it was because of the characters or what, but when I finished it, it was good. :)

"The King of Torts" :eek:
The only book I've read by Grisham, I know I said I'll give one of his other books a try, but I'm not sure if I will. :p
 
Maya said:
"The Da Vinci Code".
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I agree! :)

Maya said:
I know I said I'll give one of his other books a try, but I'm not sure if I will. :p
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You bet! I read one his books ( I dont remember which one), couldnt make it to even half, chucked it! I have decided that I will not try any of his books.
 
That was my reaction to John Grisham regarding the The Testament.

Regarding the Dan Brown thing. I had a chuckle recently on a forum when someone said that it was "so cleverly written, able to explain complex codes and symbols, and is able to get the plot across so that a 13 year old year girl could undersatand it! ".

I replied with a link to this with the quote that According to national literacy statistics, half of Americans read at the eighth grade level or lower." which, therefore, at 13 she was within that eighth grade (13-14) age group and it shouldn't be any wonder that explaining "complex codes and symbols" was easy to get across.

Overhyped? Oversimple! And overstayed!
 
Any book that's sold as many copies as TDVC *despite* beginning with the line (paraphrasing, probably badly) "A telephone rang in the darkness, a tinny, unfamiliar ring", is well deserving of its place at the top of the "Overrated" list, surely... :D

Since I expect this TDVC will feature highly in this list anyway, I'll chip in with another:

Generation X - Tales for an Accelerated Culture.
 
Stewart said:
The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
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Somehow I am not surprised that cropped up!! :D

As for myself, I cant stand Dickens, or indeed most classics, but maybe that is just school education influencing me.

A couple I have read recently -

On the Road - Jack Kerouac (Story went nowhere, the prose was terrible - it is said he wrote it in almost one go ... it shows.)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I dont even remember which book it was but I started reading it and ..... <snore>

Suprised no-one has mentioned J.K. Rowling yet, however much I enjoy the series! :eek:

Phil
 
Just a couple i could remember at the moment.

Dan Brown - The davinci code
Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. (I'm sure someone will disagree with me here).
 
Stewart said:
Regarding the Dan Brown thing. I had a chuckle recently on a forum when someone said that it was "so cleverly written, able to explain complex codes and symbols, and is able to get the plot across so that a 13 year old year girl could undersatand it! ".
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I was on a forum today, where one user actually said Dan Brown was the new Shakespeare. :eek::eek::eek:
How odd is that???
 
Ell said:
Most recently, I'd say it's Memoirs of a Geisha. I read it after people kept going on and on about how wonderful it was. Maybe it was a matter of unrealistic expectations. I thought it was okay, but by the end, I was getting irritated at the main character and couldn't wait for it to end.
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I just thought the author was too detached from the main character in Memoirs of a Geisha - that happens sometimes when men write about women, I've noticed. You saw what she saw and learned what she did, but never felt what she felt. She was at arm's length throughout the entire book, even though it was written in the first person. That made it pretty dry for me.

So I agree with you that it was overrated. The details about life as a geisha were the interesting thing about the book, not the characters or the story line.
 
Maya said:
"The Da Vinci Code".

And I'm not saying "Jane Eyre" is a bad book or anything, but I have tried reading it twice and both times I didn't make it to the end. So I think I'll have to start over again some day... again.

namedjour, you didn't like "Great Expectations"??? I didn't like it much while I was reading it, I don't know if it was because of the characters or what, but when I finished it, it was good. :)
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I liked Jane Eyre, actually, and probably read that one three or four times. You may just need to be in the mood for it, though. I would give it another go.

I have a much lower tolerance for Dickens, overall. I couldn't finish Great Expectations, and I first tried to read it when I was in my "classics" period, and could bog my way through virtually any level of archaic wordiness! But Dickens never, ever resonated with me on any level (except for A Tale of Two Cities, which reads as though it was written by somebody else).

What's interesting and ironical is that one of my favorite authors, Jack Mauro, is a HUGE Dickens fan, and patterns his writing style after him, somewhat. He'll take a scene and milk it, detail by detail, just like Dickens. You can really see the Dickens influence.

But the difference is, Mauro piles on the detail to build comedic suspense. By the time he's painted the entire picture, ever so carefully, you're holding your side, laughing. So Jack Mauro has taken an otherwise sluggish writing technique and transformed it into something funny and extremely readable. (Read "Spite Hall" to see what I mean.)

Having said that, maybe it isn't Dickens' writing style. Maybe it's just that I personally don't like Dickens.
 
namedujour said:
I just thought the author was too detached from the main character in Memoirs of a Geisha - that happens sometimes when men write about women, I've noticed. You saw what she saw and learned what she did, but never felt what she felt. She was at arm's length throughout the entire book, even though it was written in the first person. That made it pretty dry for me.

.
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I thought this was deliberate because the way she is trained as a geisha means that she had to be very detatched, because the majority of the time what she thought and felt and wanted wasn't taken into consideration by others and she had to hide her feelings about her circumstances in order to be the perfect hostess. I felt that it was her detatchment that made her one of the more famous and requested geishas. The reason you found it dry is the reason I liked it :)

A book I reckon is quite overrated is 'The Lovely Bones' (realise I might get lynched for this lol...) It's very good and there's no doubt it's original, but I thought the ending just detracted from the rest of the book and killed my suspension of disbelief completely...
 
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