Books everyone seems to love, but you just can't

[Ralif Redhammer]

From the Beat generation, I'd certainly rank Burroughs and Ginsberg way ahead of him.

I quite enjoyed Steinbeck; but if we're talking about American classics; the author I cannot read is Jack Kerouac. Tedious. It does indeed read like he splurted his books out while drunk and never bothered to revise anything. That's supposed to a virtue. It's not - the final product is unreadable crap.

Pretty much every Eddings book could be summarized as "they had adventures, bantered wittily, overcame all the difficulties without breaking a sweat, and nothing bad happened." I can understand why people like them as popcorn reads, but I'd hardly call them fantasy greats.

David Eddings' work- I read the Belgariad, though I thought it was pretty awful, because of how much people had talked it up. I kept expecting it to get better. Ugh. Then I started the sequel series, egged on by its fans- but it read like the same story over again, so I tossed them aside and gave up a few chapters in.

 

[Mallus]

I read most of American Gods, and while it was a good story, I couldn't see what the super big deal about it was, or why so many people lavish all over Gaiman. I'm more of a fan of him personally than of his writing.

Have you read Sandman? My guess is a lot of people's opinion of Gaiman are based on his run on the comic, especially the first half or so, plus Death: The High Cost of Living. Which are, admittedly, fantastic.

Gaiman kinda bores me as a novelist. I must have started American Gods three or four times without finishing it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I read the whole Gormengast series...more out of curiosity than enjoyment. It seemed to be a bad impression of Charles Dickens, a writer I only liked a couple of things by anyway.

I also took a completist attitude to reading Storm Constantine’s Wraethu novels.

I started Julian May’s Pliocene novels. I have all the books, but only got halfway through. Not sure what stopped me...

I usually enjoy Patricia McKillip’s work, but the Riddlemaster of Hed series lost me after the first book.

 

[Mallus]

I started Julian May’s Pliocene novels. I have all the books, but only got halfway through.

For a long time my favorite fantasy character was Aiken Drum, the Nonborn King, with his glorious upraised middle finger coat-of-arms.

But I could get 10 pages into the semi-sequels set in the Galactic Milieu.

 

[DemoMonkey]

The Bible.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I got through the first 4 books of Wheel of Time. Then decided, nope, not going to read more.

The old man and the sea, by Hemingway. We read in in an English-course at the university college. It was so boring, and way overrated imo.

 

[Helldritch]

My wife put me on a dare. I lost. I couldn't get passed beyond the first half of ... 50 shades of Grey...
We are big readers. Our libraries (yes plural) holds about 4000 different books. From bibliography, to historical books (my wife is an historian) to sci-fy, Agatha Christie, murder and mysteries and fantasy, we have many genres (and yes I do count my RPG books in there). But 50 shades... no thanks...

 

[The Green Hermit]

The 4th book is when I gave up on Wheel of Time also. And I gave up on the Honor Herrington books when the war was over . . . so they started it again for a reason that all sides knew was inane.

In a completely different genre, though, Nora Roberts. Individual paragraphs are outstandingly written, but as a complete book, she is boring as all get out.

 

[Gradine]

It's definitely the weakest in the series, but I think it serves mostly as the basis for Taran's development in the final book. If you've read it once, you can skip it next time you reread the series, or at least only read the final confrontation with the outlaw at the end, for all the symbolism.

Last time I saw a thread here with Prydain nostalgia everyone was waxing poetic about how great and formative Taran Wanderer was for them. To each their own!

For my money The Castle of Llyr was my favorite but I know everyone has a soft spot for The Black Cauldron (but not the movie (which I actually enjoyed too no matter how far it veered from book(s)))

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I was sad to see news of her death. the Wraethu series was like someone commissioned David Bowie to write the Lord of the Rings.

I also took a completist attitude to reading Storm Constantine’s Wraethu novels.