Ever read a book you thought you should like but didn't?

[jetcoffee18]

I just got done reading "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" and I was very let down. I knew it would be a short book but alot of the writting felt like it was just dragging out the pages. When people ask me about it I just say it was a waste of 178 pages. I expected more from Stephenie Meyer.

[carolsue]

I probably do myself a great disservice, but I won't even attempt to read a book if it doesn't seem like something I would like, not matter how much someone recommends it. Now that I have started getting e-books from the library I am getting a little more adventurous and may find myself trying and liking books that I normally would pass up.

Carol

[siddi]

[quote="aornis"]The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
Such a bestseller and I also heard a lot of people declaring they absolutely loved it, but when I read it I was a bit disappointed. Not that it was badly written, I suppose it just didn't strike a chord with meyeah, same here. I thought I'm going to love it but I didn't.
As far as Catch 22 is concerned, I absolutely loved it, and thinking about some of it's charecters still bring smile on my face. Also Catcher In The Rye was also one of my favs. I identified a lot with the language used by main protagonist,and his rants, like yeah whatever. But then again the reason could be that I read it when I was a teenager too. Just shows how people have different tastes......

[cuteyface23]

yes! i always made the mistake of judging a book by its cover because sometimes it catches my eyes everytime with the beautiful illustrations.

[mjmooney]

I never could get into Shakespeare. Ive tried to read some of it, but It never did anything for me. Its fairly easy to understand if you take your time, but I dont like a book where you have to read parts over again to get the full meaning. Too cumbersome for me. I must be used to easy to read cheap trashy books.

Shakespeare needs to be seen on stage, not read.

My blind spot is Dickens. Everybody tells me he's the greatest novelist ever, but I find his books unreadable. Trite and contrived plots, nauseating sentimentality, overblown language, and worst of all cardboard stereotype characters with ridiculous names. I cannot even begin to take them seriously. Awful, awful stuff.

[GotThatSwing]

I never could get into Shakespeare. Ive tried to read some of it, but It never did anything for me. Its fairly easy to understand if you take your time, but I dont like a book where you have to read parts over again to get the full meaning. Too cumbersome for me. I must be used to easy to read cheap trashy books.

Shakespeare needs to be seen on stage, not read.

And I like reading Shakespeare but dislike seeing on stage

Maybe I should but didn't like that much The Great Gatsby, it seemed to me too... i don't know, melodramatic.
But I actually don't think that we have to like everything just because it's classic or (even more) because it's popular right now. I'm very suspicious about bestsellers because most of times I can't understand all the hype about them and they turn out waste of my time. I disliked so popular Eat, Pray, Love, The Da Vinci Code or My Sister's Keeper for example and I don't think I should like them at all.

[Bighuey]

Ive read some or started to read some of the modern books but most of them dont do anything for me. Writing styles have changed to something I dont understand. I read mostly the older classics or not-so-classics except for non-fiction books.

[mjmooney]

TBH, I find most 19th Century English literature tedious. Funnily enough, I'm OK with Russian, French, etc. books in translation, but the whole Austen-Bronte-Gaskell-Dickens-Trollope genre does nothing for me.

And yet I agree that many contemporary novels seem to be insubstantial and shallow.

It's the period in between that I love - first half of the 20th Century, broadly "modernism". Proust, Joyce, Musil, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Mann, Scott Fitzgerald, that lot - even up to the beat generation. But not much beyond.

[shazi]

I never could get into Shakespeare. Ive tried to read some of it, but It never did anything for me. Its fairly easy to understand if you take your time, but I dont like a book where you have to read parts over again to get the full meaning. Too cumbersome for me. I must be used to easy to read cheap trashy books.

Shakespeare needs to be seen on stage, not read.

My blind spot is Dickens. Everybody tells me he's the greatest novelist ever, but I find his books unreadable. Trite and contrived plots, nauseating sentimentality, overblown language, and worst of all cardboard stereotype characters with ridiculous names. I cannot even begin to take them seriously. Awful, awful stuff.

well it really depends on your mood and taste , i am really a fan of Shakespeare his way of writing was simply best , based on the reality , i think you should read "world is a stage" where explains the stages of men very simple way but really true ....

[ambvoz1920]

I'm glad I saw Catcher in the Rye listed earlier...as touted as it is/was and infamous for being banned for so long, I just couldn't get it together for ol' Holden. I always thought I was missing something, but then realized you don't have to connect with every character. Loved Nine Stories though.
I've never been able to get more than 4 chapters into Catch 22, but I keep giving it a go every couple of years. The main character reminds me of the protagonist from A Confederacy of Dunces, which, when you get the feel of the guy's ridiculous personality, is hilarious, so I keep expecting to get the same response from Catch and coming up short. Maybe next year!
The most disappointed I've been however, was with Harry Potter #1, after all the hype...but so happy I kept up with the rest of the series. The rest are wonderful and engaging; perhaps the characters were so young in the beginning or there was so much back-ground development, or Rowling hadn't gotten into the stride that really made the rest of the series flow so well.

[mjmooney]

Well, I've heard all the arguments in favour of it, but I'm afraid I STILL don't understand adults reading the Harry Potter books.

[Bighuey]

Ive never read the Harry Potter books, I wasnt that impressed with the movies. The books are probably better. Some of those kids books are quite entertaining. Im ashamed to admit it, but Ive read the Doc Savage books as an adult and found them to be pretty good books. Not the best written books ever, but still a fun read. I even read Andrew Lang's Lilac Fairy Book a while back and was surprised, it was imaginative and entertaining even for adults.

[Carrie R]

Well, I've heard all the arguments in favour of it, but I'm afraid I STILL don't understand adults reading the Harry Potter books.

I find it difficult to read YA literature. Just not my thing. But I did read the Harry Potter series with my son. That was our special time together. But if not for him, I never would have read them. I suppose I'm missing out by not reading things like "The Hunger Games" and such, but there are so many books to be read that I never get around to those in the YA genre.

[Yelibenwork]

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Many friends told me to read this book. I started reading it but could not finish it.


Most characters go nameless and featureless as just the boy, the shepherd, the English man, the merchant, the maid, the shopkeeper, the thief, and so on. But that is the least of the reasons I could not read The Alchemist.

I always regret the time I wasted reading half of that book.

[BooksNJoy]

Azazel by Isaac Asimov.

Though it's a good book I expected better. The introduction was very good but the book became less and less interesting.
My favorite works from him are still the short stories on robotics