Classic books that you HATED

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  • 1Kristine1
    1Kristine1 Posts: 697 Member
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    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 have re-read the first pages of that book a few times trying to get into it, never did finish it.
  • cjwo57
    cjwo57 Posts: 2 Member
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    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.
  • slkehl
    slkehl Posts: 3,801 Member
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    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 have re-read the first pages of that book a few times trying to get into it, never did finish it.

    I couldn't stand the first part of the Hobbit. I was reading it for a class and slogged through Baggins End for a while. But then I ended up getting really into it and LOVED it by the end.
  • slkehl
    slkehl Posts: 3,801 Member
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    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.

    Just be glad you didn't have to read David Copperfield. It's the same thing but a million times longer.
  • NYChick84
    NYChick84 Posts: 331 Member
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    I'm an avid reader, but I hated a lot of the books I was compelled to read in school.

    The two that stand out most are I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Scarlet Letter

    I teach both of them....and The Scarlet Letter is AMAZING - Anything Hawthorne I'm a fan of!! I'm a big Hawthorne fan.
    Also Arthur Miller - his plays are phenomenal!! I loved 'Death of a Salesman' and 'The Crucible'.
    I'm a huge fan of reading plays - 'A Doll's House' by, Henrik Ibsen oh!! And how can I forget 'The Glass Menagerie' by Tennessee Williams!

    Ok, I'm an English teacher - I love to read....Just some of my favorites.......

    All-time favorite short story is 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    And anything Edgar Allen Poe ('The Tell-Tale Heart', 'Annabel Lee', 'The Bells', 'Lenore', 'The Raven' )

    And.....Shakespeare. lol I can read him all day long too....

    *kitten*....I sound like such a nerd!!! grrr....lol

    And for what I didn't like to read lol ...um..... 'The Red Badge of Courage' by Stephen Crane........YUCK!!!

    I like so much more....just won't even attempt what I love to read on this thread since it's about what I DON'T like....
  • tvanhooser
    tvanhooser Posts: 326 Member
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    The storyline of Les Mis itself is great...when you can get to it. But when you have to wade through 90 pages of detailed description of every twist and turn in the Paris sewer system just to make the point that it was nothing short of a miracle that Valjean and Marius got out alive.....that's a bit of overkill!! I can see how it could turn people off...but it's my FAVORITE musical!!


    Les Miserables. The longest boringest book in history.


    [Old Man and the Sea. I wanted to hit that damn old man with an oar and knock him overboard. ] his baseball fixation just bored me.. i thought it would be great to read on a caribbean vacation. wrooong....

    Hahhaa! I had to read that in high school as well and I TOTALLY agree!!
  • amanda_catherine
    amanda_catherine Posts: 101
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    the ginger bread man.... a cookie running around taunting people and animals... = not cool... not cool at all :( (at least he got what was coming to him)
  • shanae727
    shanae727 Posts: 546 Member
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    My bf says he hated Scarlet Letter

    I hated Great Expectations <---yawn
  • Silverkittycat
    Silverkittycat Posts: 1,997 Member
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    :frown:
  • allie7383
    allie7383 Posts: 865 Member
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    I'm an avid reader but I def have to second Tolkien.. and The Old Man and the Sea.. Not a fan of Catch-22 either.

    Loved The Great Gatsby!
  • TaraBS
    TaraBS Posts: 5 Member
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    My least favorite was Brave, New World! ugh vomit vomit
    I did not like Grapes of Wrath, Beowolf, Canterbury Tales or Homer (Illiad and the Oddessey). And, i also hated any of the dog books where the dog or dogs died (Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, those may have been middle school)

    Tess was bad, Charles ****ens was bad.

    I do remember loving Lord of the Flies, Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Separate Peace, Slaughterhouse Five, The Outsiders, The Glass Menagerie.

    I love to read, but they did make us read lots of depressing crap!
  • ThePhoenixRose
    ThePhoenixRose Posts: 1,985 Member
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    The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger......hated every second!

    ^^ This.
  • ChristiH4000
    ChristiH4000 Posts: 531 Member
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    Romeo and Juliet.
    They say a good beginning is what gets you hooked into a book.
    A thirteen year old boy is crying about how another girl wouldn't sleep with him, sees Juliet at a party and magically gets over the first girl and falls in love with her. The thought of it was just strange. I never believed in the whole love at first sight thing.

    Othello is too underrated in comparison. I'd rather have grown up learning that revenge backfires than to believe in love at first sight.

    I love the sentiment of the thought that we should read Othello over Romeo and Juliet! The former is a much more important lesson.

    Wuthering Heights is the only book that comes to mind when I think of classics that I particularly didn't like. To be fair, my mom told me to read the book because I like to read, but she warned me that the book starts slow. She told me not to give up on it though because it really ended up being a great read. I didn't make it to the good part. Maybe it is time to try again?
  • Hummmingbird
    Hummmingbird Posts: 337 Member
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    The Reivers by John Steinbeck...I love to read but holy hell that sucked lol. And wow, talk about censorship....we cant type ****ens? Its a dudes name!!! Sheesh....

    Favorite book i read was Fahrenheit 451 and Beloved.


    oh p.s. Im now back in college and if I have to see/read Arthur Millers "Death of a Salesman" one more time im gonna puke.
  • honeysprinkles
    honeysprinkles Posts: 1,757 Member
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    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!

    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 liked book of the year and it turned out to be my favorite!
  • femme62209
    femme62209 Posts: 327 Member
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    To Kill A Mockingbird

    Lord of the Flies

    Of Mice and Men

    Brave New World


    They all disgusted me. And I'm an English major :)
  • mbk830
    mbk830 Posts: 164 Member
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    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - it was so bad!
    Billy Budd wasn't my fave either.
  • KuroNyankoSensei
    KuroNyankoSensei Posts: 288 Member
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    Great Expectations. Only highlight was when Mrs. Havisham caught on fire. LOL.
  • Laura_Suzie
    Laura_Suzie Posts: 1,288 Member
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    A Tale of Two Cities was a snoozefest! It's not really a "classic", but in school I had to read "The Giver". EVERYONE loves that stupid book so much and I HATED it. It was really creepy too.

    I mildly enjoyed "Of Mice and Men".

    Let's just say most of the books I was forced to read in high school were actually read via summaries off of sparknotes or wikipedia...
  • kayemme
    kayemme Posts: 1,782 Member
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    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.

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