least favorite books — Page 2

I like the Great Gatsby and don't find it pretentious at all.

Has anyone else read the Historian? Yuck.

All of my least favorite books (I didn't even list them all here) were required reading. I rarely finish a book I'm reading for pleasure if I despise it halfway through. That's sadly happened to me with a lot of baseball-related books. I'm a baseball fanatic, but when it comes to players recounting their days in a long memoir, I tend to tire of it quickly and stop reading.

I'm REALLY picky about books I'm reading for fun. My favorite author is William Goldman - I've read nearly all his books (the remaining few I have on my shelf - ready to savor them). I've LOVED all of them - except one. It wasn't that I DISLIKED it, it just wasn't up to his standard, and felt kind of like a repeat of other books he did better (it was Father's Day, for anyone who knows). I didn't even manage to get through that one - and, like I said - he's my favorite author.

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Great expectations by Charles Dickons
just a pain to read

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Oh, I HATED My Antonia. I was bored beyond words, yet most of the rest of my class seemed to like it. I contend that they probably only read SparkNotes. Another of my very least favorite books tha were required reading was The Awakening.

I'm underwhelmed with Tolkein as a writer... I appreciate his imagination and ideas, but don't find him to be a very good storyteller. I also agree about The Lovely Bones... it had the potential to be such a beautiful book, and devolved into unrealistic, pointless dreck. Going into the weird body switching thing just killed any emotional investment I might've had.

Perhaps I'll give A Tale of Two Cities another try without bothering with the first 200 pages. Honestly, so difficult. Great Expectations was that way to a certain extent, in terms of being tedious but ultimately having a big payoff. I think that you're right, siamese dream, about Dickens having been unnecessarily verbose because he got paid by the word or something like that.

I loved The Great Gatsby, and I've loved most of Fitzgerald's novels.

Updated On: 8/2/06 at 11:03 PM

Grapes of Wrath
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies

awful, awful!

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The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Blech.

That "How I Got Through College" book that everyone was raving about a while back. I thought it was painfully unfunny.

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Baine - I wanted to agree about "The Lovely Bones". The editors needed to make Sebold work harder on the second half and especially on the best fried arch. It was bad.

One book I remember not liking was "Lucy" by Jamaica Kincaid. It wasn't bad but it felt forced somehow. It's bitter tasting because the main character is not entirely likeable and the story not terribly interesting, but there are some beautiful passages.

Anything by Meg Cabot. Back when I was younger and I read The Princess Diaries for the first time (way before the movie) and All American Girl I liked them because I had the maturity of a 10 year old (as I was 10...) now I read Size 12 Is Not Fat and couldn't believe how self-absorbed and stupid her main character was. She tried to make her seem deep but failed miserably. I have no clue why I continue reading her books... they're not even good guilty reads.... they're just trash.

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I read Howard Fast when I was in 6th or 7th grade - and at the time, I liked it. But then again, I was in 6th or 7th Grade.

Watch out DG. I mentioned the Bible earlier and we had an earthquake tonight.

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