Ugh. Hard question.
I'm going to go with Moby Dick (Herman Melville) because I didn't enjoy reading it at all and I never actually finished it. Which means a lot because I like to punish myself by forcing myself to read books until the last page even if I'm not really enjoying them. I can't remember a lot about it other than those were painful classes and painful times trying to read the book. I felt like it was dry and endless.
I know I wasn't a huge fan of Life Before Man (Margaret Atwood) or Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray) or Middlemarch (George Eliot), but I can't think of anything else at the moment - I'm sure there have been a number of books I haven't enjoyed, but maybe I've just suppressed the memories very very well! I also think that certain books might not be very good at certain times in our life, but we may enjoy them at another time.
I read The Sound and The Fury (William Faulkner) in grade eleven and hated it. I had to read Light in August when I was in university and while I was dreading reading another Faulkner, I really enjoyed it. I went back and reread The Sound and The Fury and discovered it was quite good, I just probably wasn't mature enough for it at age 16. So all four books mentioned in here might get a different reception if I were to read them today!
Did you enjoy any of the books I didn't like? Did you also dislike them? Is your memory better than mine and you remember why you liked or disliked them? What are your least favourite books?
Yeah. I just realized what book I absolutely hate. JESSICA by Bryce Courtenay. The whole time I read it, I was mad. I was mad at the world while I was reading it. Even though the world did nothing to me. I actually didn't finish reading it because I hated it so much and it made me so mad.
ReplyDeleteNow, I LOVED The Power of One, so it's not Bryce Courtenay I hate, it's the plot of Jessica. It makes me so mad that someone could treat their own child and sister that way - who steals their sister's baby??? And apparently it's based on a true story.
I'm getting riled up just thinking about it...so go to Wikipedia if you'd like to see what it's about.
Grrr....