Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Great Gatsby - Maybe I was too young when I read it, but for most of the book I was like "yawn"
Romeo and Juliet - Job tvoju mat', kakaja eta uzhasnaja kniga! For real man, the relationship in the book lasted barely a week and resulted in like six deaths.
Brave New World - Im in love with the dystopian novel genre, so I really expected a lot more from this book. Between the incessant whiner (who also happens to be the main character), the short guy with a massive case of Napoleon Complex, the classic Alpha-male who thinks that everyone else is beneath him, and the woman who can't go more than ten minutes without wanting sex, this book should be a finalist for "The Most Unlikeable Main Characters Ever" award.
You could also say that The Catcher in the Rye was overrated because many claim that it's the best book ever written, but considering that I also think that it's the best book ever, I think it's rated just about right
I second the Great Gatsby. Read it as a teenager, then again as an adult and put a negative review on Amazon. Boy did I get the angry comments for that. The characters were all unlikeable, and the prose bordered on purple. Or lilac, anyway.
Little Women. I suppose it was ahead of its time, portraying females as actual human beings. But since I read it in the 20th century, I found it shallow and demeaning.
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. I read that in the 1970s, and still wanted to slap her for portraying women as needy victims. (I am female, BTW.)
I'm not much of a reader, so my choices may be more recreational...but...
After reading Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, I thought I would also like The Five People You Meet In Heaven. I was wrong. I just couldn't get into it.
The Tale of Two Cities - I made it through 3 chapters and moved on to somthing else. Maybe another time I will try it. I just ordered "The Grapes of Wrath" and hubby tells me I won't be disappointed.
Pretty much every "classic" novel (from Faulkner to Austin to Dickens, etc). Sherlock Holmes was brilliant, as was GWTW...neither taught in high school. Meanwhile, I am reading garbage like Catcher in the Rye.
Why should I think, just because my liking of a book is not as great as that of the consensus, that it is thereby overrated?
The very idea is absurd. Writing is an art. That is not a statement of grandiosity; that's just what a purely creative work happens to be. And art affects different people in different ways due to individual tastes.
I prefer Steinbeck's largely overlooked To A God Unknown to his almost universally acclaimed The Grapes of Wrath. So? It would be rather self-centered of me to insist that the former is underrated and the latter overrated just because I like the former better than the latter.
People need to get over the idea that there is some sort of objective rating a work of prose deserves. There isn't.
Lately I have been enjoying "memoirs" as opposed to biographys or auto biographys. One that comes to mind was a book by John Cheever's daughter and another by Lindeburg's daughter. It is an interesting perspective of him and his wife by one of their own kids.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
