Classic books that you HATED

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Replies

  • Crochetluvr
    Crochetluvr Posts: 3,285 Member
    Anything Tolkien...

    I know I'll probably be flamed for that...but I did an extensive Tolkien/Lewis class and Lewis won hands down...

    i just can't force myself to read or enjoy Tolkien...

    Bwahahaha

    I'm re-reading the Hobbit right now!

    I DID like The Hobbit. I got through Fellowship of the Ring but only tot about 1/3rd of the way through The Two Towers before I gave up. :)
  • DominoFrost
    DominoFrost Posts: 68
    The only classic I have problems with no matter how often I pick it up is Pride & Prejudice. Usually if I'm having problems with a novel, I'll use Sparknotes (I know, I know!) chapter summaries to reiterate what I've been reading in the text. But even Sparknotes chapter summaries make me zone out and I just can't get into it. Elizabeth Bennett. We get it. You're feminist theory. Get out of my novel and give me some Wuthering Heights.
  • rchupka87
    rchupka87 Posts: 542 Member
    Beowulf. Complete and utter torture.
  • helenzback
    helenzback Posts: 51 Member
    Tess of the durbervilles, hate it!

    Same here...
  • Alex_is_Hawks
    Alex_is_Hawks Posts: 3,499 Member
    Anything Tolkien...

    I know I'll probably be flamed for that...but I did an extensive Tolkien/Lewis class and Lewis won hands down...

    i just can't force myself to read or enjoy Tolkien...

    Bwahahaha

    I'm re-reading the Hobbit right now!

    Ditto! I love Tolkien, but I also love CS Lewis. As a casual observer, they have similar writing styles.

    they were co professors at the same school, best friends, both fellow Christians who felt it was very important to embed Christianity into their arcing themes...and often critiqued/edited each others work...

    so it would stand to reason they would read similarly...
  • strangewebby
    strangewebby Posts: 72
    Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. I tried so hard to like this book but it read more of a geography lesson on Iceland or a textbook on rocks. I had to force myself to finish it.
  • VictorianJade
    VictorianJade Posts: 705 Member
    Okay. I love Jane Austen, I loved anything by Orwell, I totally loved Shakespeare, and a lot of the other ones mentioned. I read those ones for fun.

    *snickers* But then, I'm a nerd.
  • johnhowson
    johnhowson Posts: 73 Member
    Love reading and I have very broad tastes but could not abide Henry James and Portrait of a Lady. Thomas Hardy so depressing - read Return of the Native just about. Agree with the above love Jane Austin
  • Krissy366
    Krissy366 Posts: 458 Member
    Little Women :yawn: - Got through maybe half, and then just decided it wasn't worth my time as I was taking ZERO enjoyment from it.
  • hypallage
    hypallage Posts: 624 Member
    Pretty much anything I was forced to read in school. I love reading but English Lit at school stopped me reading anything for about three years.
    I must say though, I have since read some of the books we did at school and enjoyed them. It was more the 'what did the author think when they wrote this' kind of questions that annoyed me.
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
    Old Man and the Sea. I wanted to hit that damn old man with an oar and knock him overboard.

    And I loved The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and the Two Towers, but I was ready to let Saron have the damn ring by the middle of the Return of the King. Just to make it all stop.
  • penrbrown
    penrbrown Posts: 2,685 Member
    All of them except The Three Musketeers.

    I even hate Shakespeare.

    Wait. Define "Classic"?
  • rawfitness
    rawfitness Posts: 68 Member
    moby d ick. i HATED that book. its about whaling. i mean come on. really?

    This be mine!
  • skinnybearlyndsay
    skinnybearlyndsay Posts: 798 Member
    The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger......hated every second!

    I hated it too. It's about the only book I hate with the fire of a thousand burning suns.
  • UpEarly
    UpEarly Posts: 2,555 Member
    What? No Fyodor Dostoyevsky or Leo Tolstoy. Most classic Russian lit makes me almost want to hate reading... almost.
  • Becoming_A_Butterfly
    Becoming_A_Butterfly Posts: 2,534 Member
    I thoroughly hated "Romeo and Juliet" and still do. Two dingbat teenagers who barely knew each other and having no problem-solving skills or backbones screw up a hare-brained plan to be together, and that is supposed to be the height of romance? I was just glad they were both dead in the end, but then, almost of Shakespeare's characters are, aren't they?
  • senyosmom
    senyosmom Posts: 613 Member
    Lord of the Flies. It's disturbing and they're all turds. Yeah, I know it's supposed to be that way.

    Now I enjoyed Lord of the Flies. I cried when they smashed Piggie's glasses.
    I too liked Lord of the Flies ---- but it really was weird
  • DawnieB1977
    DawnieB1977 Posts: 4,248 Member
    I can't stand Jane Austen. I hate romance novels to begin with but her's are vomit inducing. Mr Darcy is an a**hole.

    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 most dull book (well, play) I read was The Winter's Tale. Of all the Shakespeare plays we could've studied, why choose that one??

    As someone else said, I really enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird. The best play we studied was Dr Faustus.
  • mandersatx
    mandersatx Posts: 86
    I hated everything but "A Christmas Carol" by ****ens, all of the Bronte sisters' works, and Heart of Darkness. Gah, all of them were just awful. My BA's in English, and I find it frustrating from a (former) teacher's perspective that students are forced to read that crap. People wonder why kids don't like to read. There are so many more wonderful books that are interesting to kids/teenagers that have literary merit.
  • rlmadrid
    rlmadrid Posts: 694 Member
    Lord of the Flies. It's disturbing and they're all turds. Yeah, I know it's supposed to be that way.

    Now I enjoyed Lord of the Flies. I cried when they smashed Piggie's glasses.

    I fricken loved that book!
  • jaxCarrie
    jaxCarrie Posts: 214 Member
    Not a huge Hemmingway fan. And Bewoulf.....painful.
  • WifeNMama
    WifeNMama Posts: 2,876 Member
    A Tale of Two Cities by Charles D ickens

    Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

    Bam.
  • superpapa16
    superpapa16 Posts: 244 Member
    I'd second (or third) the hate for Tolkein. I read The Hobbit in like 8th grade and hated every minute of it. Had to read The Scarlet Letter in HS hated it too, although I did enjoy some of Hawthorne's short stories (i.e. Young Goodman Brown). Also read Romeo & Juliet in HS and I was the only kid in class who was glad they were both dead at the end. A few years ago a good friend gave me a copy of The Catcher in the Rye and it's just awful. I still have the book only because it was a going-away gift otherwise I would have pitched it years ago.
  • Danielle_2013
    Danielle_2013 Posts: 806 Member
    Compliments of an English degree I learned to hate anything by Faulkner.. and came close to burning my copy of Catch 22 (Heller).
  • Shannon2714
    Shannon2714 Posts: 843 Member
    I LOVED reading the novels we were assigned in HS....the only book I remember truly hating....1984 by George Orwell
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,228 Member
    A Tale of Two Cities by Charles ****inson

    The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck



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


    Ha ha, they blanked out ****inson.

    at least know the name of the author you're going to rip on. :huh:

    Yeah, I realized after I posted that I screwed that up. I was just too lazy to go back and fix it.

    Chill out! Several of my favorites made this list.
  • ingalynn
    ingalynn Posts: 136 Member
    Wow...a lot of what was mentioned I loved! All Quiet on the Western Front, Tolkein, Wuthering Heights, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hawthorne. I must be a little weird.

    Plodding through Moby Dlck now just bc I never read it before ( haven't missed much, really)
    Wasn't crazy about Catcher in the Rye, but now that I am older, I might try it again.

    The worst for me was Sound and Fury :yawn: . That was another I read bc I had never read it before. Looks like a nice quick read bc it doesn't have many pages, but oh boy! Took me forever to get through!
  • Danielle_2013
    Danielle_2013 Posts: 806 Member
    The worst for me was Sound and Fury :yawn: . That was another I read bc I had never read it before. Looks like a nice quick read bc it doesn't have many pages, but oh boy! Took me forever to get through!

    Faulkner... confusing and yet boring all at the same time.. and you know he's just doing it to be difficult. I HATED this book too. :wink:
  • MostlyWater
    MostlyWater Posts: 4,294 Member
    i'm a huge reader but hated all the books we had to read in school.
  • BaconMD
    BaconMD Posts: 1,165 Member
    First of all, as a kid I read Lord of the Flies before seeing any movie, and it was absolutely riveting and I still hold it as one of the greatest books of all time. There, now that is settled.

    On the other hand, Great Expectations was most certainly not great, nor did it live up to my expectations. It's not even worth the 49 cents or whatever it cost for the paper it was printed on.

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