Classic books that you HATED

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  • poetgurl2005
    poetgurl2005 Posts: 90
    A Turn of the Screw. Worst book ever. I hated every last second of that book.
  • honeysprinkles
    honeysprinkles Posts: 1,757 Member
    My least favorite thing I have been forced to read? The Crucible. Now THAT was terrible to read. Especially when you were tested on knowing EACH AND EVERY CHARACTER.

    Aww, I LOVED The Crucible!! Of course, I'm also a theatre geek and thoroughly enjoyed reading Abigail's part in class :devil:
    Haha I did my A Level English Lit coursework on Jane Austen novels. The most irritating was Sense And Sensibility. If the characters in that had come to life I'd have given them a slap!


    the book you are referring to is The Awakening :) I enjoyed it, much better than some stuff. I love debating the end of it

    Agreed! I liked Pride and Prejudice in high school, so I thought I'd read some more Jane Austen on my own - I HATED Sense and Sensibility! And I gotta say, didn't much care for Emma either - little brat needs to get a life!

    To comment on others from the thread:
    Liked: To Kill A Mockingbird. Most Shakespeare, but not Romeo and Juliet. (Favorite = A Midsummer Night's Dream)
    Okay: Lord of the Flies. The Yellow Wallpaper (I just love that she went thoroughly insane by the end.)
    Hated: The Great Gatsby and Heart of Darkness. I could never remember just what the hell I was reading about, even right after I read them in high school.

    I also hated one that I can't remember the name or most of the book, but it was a dull boring thing about a Victorian woman who ends up committing suicide by just walking into the ocean at the end....exciting as such a scenario might sound, the author still managed to make it as dull as watching grass grow. :yawn:
    The Awakening...I don't know why but I really liked that book. Our teacher told us when we started it that it was usually the least like book of the year and it turned out to be my favorite!

    Mine too! I love debating if she killed her self and why lol
    I thought it was pretty obvious that it was suicide, and the reasons were obvious too. Not much to debate about! but it's been about three years since I read it, so maybe I'm forgetting something.
  • Morgaine_on_the_move
    Morgaine_on_the_move Posts: 228 Member
    This is why I try to pick out more relevant books for my 9th graders...if I hated it back in high school, I'm sure as hell not going to put them through it. If you'd read "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson and "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini while you were in high school, I'm sure that English class would have been a better experience!

    Oh, and the teacher makes all the difference! I read stuff in college that I normally would not have liked, but the good instructors made it all seem interesting and worthwhile.
  • wisters
    wisters Posts: 84 Member
    I tried to read Pride and Prejudice at least three times and just could not do it. I know it's a classic and it's supposed to be one of the best books ever written, but PLEASE! :explode:

    I loved it, but I think it's because I watched the BBC TV series first. It follows the book almost word for word and the acting is phenomenal. When I read the book, I was just envisioning the TV series, so it seemed quite entertaining. So witty!

    And Colin Firth, La Sigh!!!!! Now with him in mind as Mr Darcy......pardon me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard......
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
    A Tale of Two Cities by Charles ****inson

    The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck



    Both were serious snooze-fests for me! :yawn:

    you HATED grapes of wrath? when did you read it? if it was as a teenager, you may want to read it as an adult. it is seriously amazing.

    All of Steinbeck's stuff is so dreary to me. Very depressing reads.

    that's so amazing to me! i find them to be the exact opposite. to me, his books clearly illustrate the beautiful sides of humanity (amongst the ugliness). i cried at the end of GOW. imo, it was so unbelievably beautiful!
  • mommawhtz4dinner
    mommawhtz4dinner Posts: 14
    Great Expectations is the most boring book ever!
  • LinaBo
    LinaBo Posts: 342 Member
    George Orwell's "1984". Holy crap, was that ever depressing. I read it in high school, though, and may not have entirely "gotten it". Still: holy crap, was that ever depressing.
  • CrazyGraciegirl
    CrazyGraciegirl Posts: 227
    The Hobbit, but I absolutely loved it. lol I wasn't pumped to read it so I got annoyed and a little bored but I'm glad I read it. :smile:
    I don't know if I could say I disliked any of the books I've read. I love books.
  • Nerdy_Rose
    Nerdy_Rose Posts: 1,277 Member
    I love books. Especially old classics.
  • dakitten2
    dakitten2 Posts: 888 Member
    Anything Shakespeare. I loved a lot of the story lines, but dang trying to analyze all that crap talk in high school drove me crazy.
  • SabrinaJL
    SabrinaJL Posts: 1,579 Member
    The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger

    Yup. Holden was a whiney little snot.
  • geonbaeLeilee
    geonbaeLeilee Posts: 606 Member
    Alas Babylon !!!!

    I hated this book with. a. PASSION!
  • Huskeryogi
    Huskeryogi Posts: 578 Member
    This is why I try to pick out more relevant books for my 9th graders...if I hated it back in high school, I'm sure as hell not going to put them through it. If you'd read "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson and "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini while you were in high school, I'm sure that English class would have been a better experience!

    Oh, and the teacher makes all the difference! I read stuff in college that I normally would not have liked, but the good instructors made it all seem interesting and worthwhile.

    OMG those are both great books! And great choices for high school reading!

    I hated - Tess of D'urberville, The Scarlett Letter, Grapes of Wrath, A Tale of Two Cities, and anything by Jane Austen ( why does she have to use 4 paragraphs to describe every character the instance they are introduced? Why can't she let you discover some of that with their actions?)

    Appreciated but didn't love or hate - The great gatsby, catcher in the rye, Anna Karenina, A prayer for Owen Meany

    I Love - Gone with the Wind, East of Eden, and The Power of One (ok not a classic, but the one book assigned in high school that I liked and it's my fav book of all time)
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
    George Orwell's "1984". Holy crap, was that ever depressing. I read it in high school, though, and may not have entirely "gotten it". Still: holy crap, was that ever depressing.

    I remember when I read this, I said to my brother, "man, this is a drag. I hope it ends well." he just looked at me kind of sad-like.
    I loved it anyway.
  • geonbaeLeilee
    geonbaeLeilee Posts: 606 Member
    Paradise Lost. Just could not plod through that one although heaven knows I tried.

    I had an AWESOME instructor who taught a Milton course, and we had to read Paradise Lost. If any other instructor taught the class, I would have hated it! This same instructor also made The Odyssey, Aeneid, The Faerie Queen, Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde (CT and TaC both in Middle English), and anything by Christopher Marlowe some of the best books I've EVER read, especially since now I understand the humor in them, too. It's amazing what ONE great instructor can do.

    After awhile, though, I think he thought I was stalking him because I took EVERY class he taught regardless of if I needed it or not. >.>;
  • mom2BandD
    mom2BandD Posts: 98 Member
    Loved most of the Tolkien books, my mom started reading those to me when I was a toddler (not appropriate at that age I know).

    Charlotte Bronte's stuff is good.
    Shakespeare good.
    John Steinbeck good.


    Oh wait I am suppose to mention Classic books I hated. Cannot think of any that I hate.

    Books I do not like: Anything by Margaret Atwood. Yes she is Canadian and I should like her but her writing style is just NMS.

    I like Classics, I like light writing styles like that of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series or the Twilight series or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series or Harry Potter.

    Thank you for posting this, I have not read a good book a while.
  • jsukhan
    jsukhan Posts: 149 Member
    Beowulf.

    I took Beowulf in Jr High (i think its called middle school now) and loved it. But I like stuff of that era. We divided up the poem and the students each did a portion in costume. I make a large wooden broad sword for my part. And still have it. That teacher was my most favorite teacher, on the last week of 9th grade I gave him his own sword (that my father and I made) years later when I visited the school he still had it in his classroom.
  • jsukhan
    jsukhan Posts: 149 Member
    Tess of the durbervilles, hate it!

    Took it in 12th grade wasn't a fan either.
  • geonbaeLeilee
    geonbaeLeilee Posts: 606 Member
    Great Expectations....every time I had to read it (high school and at least three different college classes), I kept praying that the convict would kill Pip.

    I condemned Pip to death so many times... I kept hoping one of Miss Havisham's rats would eat him!
  • runningfromzombies
    runningfromzombies Posts: 386 Member
    Hemmingway everything.

    I'm an English major but I just can't get behind his writing style. It annoys me.
  • MsTanya77
    MsTanya77 Posts: 357 Member
    The Scarlet Letter
  • HLeAnn
    HLeAnn Posts: 261 Member
    Moby D!ck *SNORE* ....and I generally LOVE literature...but that one went on and on. That was the ONLY novel I faked my way through the paper on. Spark notes, anyone?


    Edited because apparently MFP won't let us write D!ck spelled out, so I had to add the !... :laugh:
  • postrockandcats
    postrockandcats Posts: 1,145 Member
    Catcher in the Rye and Wuthering Heights. GAAAH
  • jmartin1219
    jmartin1219 Posts: 31 Member
    agree!
  • tyrannosarousREX
    tyrannosarousREX Posts: 28
    Honestly I have to say. Either Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm. Could not motivate myself to read those books more than once.
  • Shannota
    Shannota Posts: 308 Member
    I made it to page 20 of "A Tale of Two Cities". My English teacher was very confused at me (I was one of her top students) missing more than half the questions on the test over that book. She asked if I had the right answer key to grade it. I just said, "Yep" and walked away. I wonder if it would be as bad if I tried to read it again...16 years later.
  • ReclaimingSarah
    ReclaimingSarah Posts: 250 Member
    I hated Cormac McCarthy's Child of God so much that I couldn't finish reading it. I wrote a 5 page paper critiquing the portion of the book that I did read and then defending my position on why I would not finish reading it. My teacher gave me an A because he'd never had someone with such a passionate reaction to a book.

    Also, I hate Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness with a passion. I had to read it for a class in high school and again a few years later in college...hated it both times.
  • Mom0fTwo
    Mom0fTwo Posts: 326 Member
    Great expectations, great story unfortunately it doesn't get anywhere till chapter 21 or something, my god it took forever
  • SeanNJ
    SeanNJ Posts: 153 Member
    The Sirens of Titan. Firstly, because the ending sucked donkey *kitten*. Secondly, because my English teacher wanted us to be impressed that she made a sci-fi book required reading. She underestimated our tastes. An awesome book would have impressed us even more.

    *sigh* Probably my favorite Vonnegut novel.

    Now, if you want bad "classic" sci-fi, William Gibson's "Neuromancer" is simply intolerable.
  • etherealdoll
    etherealdoll Posts: 25
    Awh, I'm seeing a lot of my favorite books listed here. The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1984, A Separate Peace, Catcher in the Rye...I really hate it when people say they hate Catcher in the Rye because Holden is whiny and annoying. Congratulations, you just missed the entire point of the book.

    We had to read The Once and Future King, and it was the worst experience of my life. Actually, I didn't even read it. I got through the first few chapters then sparknoted the rest because I couldn't take it any more.

    Oh, and this short story by Hemingway (something about a river?) that was like 20 pages long and had absolutely no plot whatsoever. It makes me angry just thinking about it.

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