Most overrated book?

I'd like to nominate "Birdsong" (just couldn't care about the characters) and anything by Hilary Mantel.

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Comments

  • +1 with Dano

    and anything by Dan Brown
  • Where the Wild Things Are

    image 

  • +! to Dan Brown.

    Harry Potter - not that I've actually read any. Just can't believe the hype.

    Emma and Wuthering Heights. Overhyped to the maximum by my English Lit teacher.
  • Would have to agree about Birdsong; liked the war bits, but otherwise it was dull and self-indulgent.

    Was completely un-moved by The Kite Runner too...

  • Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

    Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

    The first of that series of books by the Swedish bloke - Girl with the somethingorother

  • Ian MIan M ✭✭✭
    Ulysses.
    Well not so much overrated, just unreadable.
  • Anything by Jane Austen .... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! 

    Persevere with the Milleneum trilogy Parky, first 100 pages of the first is confusing and dull, the rest is excellent!

  • Ohh! I love Jane Austen.

    Overrated: anything by Dickens.  Especially the stupid comedy names he gives people.

  • Stangely enough, Dickens was my second choice MF.

    Both make a good basis for a telly series though.

  • The Da Vinci Code - WTF???  It's a very average book so why did everyone rave about it?  At least in his subsequent books Dan Brown managed to lift his writing from average to terrible.

    Millenium Trilogy - Good books but not at all great.  I've no idea why everyone thought they were so good.

    Dano, the Bible is actually a number of books.  Is there a particular one you think is over-rated?

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I recently read Breda by Paulo Coelho.

    I'd not read any hype about it (I think it's been around a while), but it was, apparently, an international bestseller.

    It was, in fact, really rather dull.

  • M.ister W wrote (see)
    Dano, the Bible is actually a number of books.  Is there a particular one you think is over-rated?
    As far as I am concerned, it comes in a singular book form, ergo, its one book.
  • You clearly haven't read it then image
  • I've read enough of it to make a snap judgement on it image
  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

    Had to read that recently for my book club. I didn't finish it though (only one of the group did). Extreme tedium.

    I loved Kiterunner. 

  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭
    Little Ninja wrote (see)
    +! to Dan Brown.

    Harry Potter - not that I've actually read any. Just can't believe the hype.

    Emma and Wuthering Heights. Overhyped to the maximum by my English Lit teacher.


    I love HP!!! I was determined to dislike it because I didn't believe the hype, but now I'm hooked image

    Dan Brown - urgh. What a bad, bad writer. Terrible writing style, ridiculous plots and absurd characters.

    Twilight. I just don't get the appeal. I've tried to read it, but the hyperbole of it all was just nauseating image

  • Emma. She has to be the most irritating character in literary history. Total bimbo. I actually find myself getting angry at the thought of her....clearly I have issues!

    Also I agree on Wuthering Heights - I just don't get it. I know the point is that all the characters are to a degree unlikeable but I just can't bring myself to be remotely interested in any of them.

    Da Vinci Code is utter drivel and generally appalling in every way.

    Harry Potter is wonderful.
  • danowat wrote (see)
    I've read enough of it to make a snap judgement on it image


    image

    The Blind Assassin - apparently it won a bunch of awards but it's rubbish.

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I agree, M.ister W - another one that left me cold.

    I've been put off the "the Girl Who....." books, by all the hype.  Having read the blurb on one, I just didn't fancy it.  Should I be more open-minded and give it a try?

  • danowat wrote (see)

    The bible.

     End of thread.


    + 1

    You beat me too it image

  • Ooh-ooh I just remembered, I read about 5/6ths of a book called Labyrinth by Kate Mosse when I was in a guesthouse in India.

    The story was really gripping but unfortunately the style of writing was rubbish.  I stayed hooked because I wanted to find out what happened to all the characters but unfortunately the guesthouse wouldn't let me swap my books for it and I had to leave it behind.

    Later in the Guardian I read that Kate Mosse was judging a prestigious book prize and thought WTF.  Her writing skills are hardly up to scratch, although if the story was hers, her imagination obviously is.

  • Wilkie wrote (see)

    I've been put off the "the Girl Who....." books, by all the hype.  Having read the blurb on one, I just didn't fancy it.  Should I be more open-minded and give it a try?

    I started reading the first one but got fed up with all the family tree stuff.  TP suggested I should've persisted, but I was on holiday and couldn't take the book home with me.  (As above!)
  • BookyBooky ✭✭✭

    Completely off topic, but I find the names of Mills and Boon books hilarious:

    My favourite - Forbidden, or For Bedding?

    http://www.msn2.me/msn/data/thumbnails/45/Hysterically%20Laughing.gif

  • PhilPubPhilPub ✭✭✭

    When I first heard people talking about the Da Vinci Code I thought it was some academic work of ground breaking research into the foundations of Christian belief.  So then someone bought me it as a Christmas present and it turned out to be a trashy, badly written novel with ridiculous characters.  I still read the sequels that came with it though!  image

    At risk of becoming the subject of a burning effigy I'd like to add the Quran to the list of overrated (in the strongest sense possible) books along with the Bible.

  • It won't be the best book you've ever read Wilkie but once I got over the first dull bit I did find it good for the type of book it is.  Second one, I liked as well.  Third one I'm about 3/4 way through but it's left somewhere else and I can't reposess it for a week!

    Labyrinth, I couldn't get into.

    There's an article on R2 at the moment about war poetry ... now I never ever get bored reading poetry.  If I have to pick one book to take anywhere it's usally an book of poems.

  • Wilks - P's persuaded me that I should give the "Girl Who.." trilogy a go......and I will when I finish Cormack McCarthy's "The Road"

    for me to read anything but Sci-Fi is a major step forward - and there's only one sf book I have never finished as it was dull - "A Canticle for Leibowitz". supposed to be a classic but it bored me daft

  • I hope you aren't as dissapointed with the ending of The Road as both me, and my missus were!.

    I am about 75% of the way through Swan song, love SF.

  • I read the first 100 pages of The Da Vinci Code while I was waiting for someone and found it similar to Labyrinth in that it was gripping but the writing was terrible.

    I wrote some essays on Scottish War Poetry for an evening class.  I shed many tears poring over some of the beautiful but deeply sad writing. image

  • Emma is absolutely dreadful. 

    Hotel du Lac I quite enjoyed.

    Thomas Hardy should have been banned from ever putting pen to paper.  

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