As promised, you will find below a list of books that I hate and why. There are some shockers in there. These are in no particular order:

1. The Invisilbe Man: Let’s take a moment to talk about books that ramble and ramble and ramble and make the same point 1600 times. Also, I was reading this book for class in high school when a giant tornado hit our town and we were out of school for 4 days and I was 200 pages behind where we were supposed to be so I tried to read most of the book in one sitting (mistake) and hated it. I know it makes good points about race and I’m not a hater of the topic or the importance of it, I would just rather eat paste than even think about reading this book again.

2. The Scarlet Letter: I think my hatred for this book is purely situational. We had a teacher in high school who talked about this book everyday as the benchmark against which all uses of symbolism in literature should be measured. She talked about this book like it was better than sliced bread-although oddly, she never had us read it. So, in college, I finally did. And hated it. The whole point of the book is who knocked up Hester Prynn when it’s pretty obvious from about page 3 (of about 400) who did it. So then there is this giant reveal at the end but by that point I had already been bored for 397 pages. This is one of those things where I know that it was absolutely SHOCKING when Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote it but is now basically a children’s book (okay, not quite, but certainly not shocking). The only positive about it is that it did indeed have great use of symbolism. Way to go, Nate!

3. Hamlet-Yes, I said Hamlet. Senior year of high school, we read Hamlet and our teacher went on and on about how Hamlet is a Hero. What?! If by hero you mean got carried away by emotion and led to a mass slaughter of family and friens and the ruination of lives, then yes, hero indeed. And so, being me, when we had to write an essay about Hamlet’s heroism, I did not. I wrote an essay detailing my thoughts to the opposite and was give an F on that paper. I am still pissed about this because while it didn’t agree with her opinion, it was well written, damnit! My beef with Hamlet is the same beef I have with all of Shakespeare’s tragedies. I think the moral of every tragedy he wrote is “ask a question”. In Romeo and Juliet, before killing yourself, ask a question (Romeo-are you dead? Juliet-are you dead?). Moral: All the heartbreak could have been avoided if one of them had merely asked a question before killing themselves. In Julius Ceasar if Brutus had only asked Ceasar if he was evil then he wouldn’t have had to kill him. Moral: before killing your leader and friend, ask a question. In Othello, if Othello had simply asked his wife is she was cheating on him he wouldn’t have had to kill her. Moral: before killing your wife, ask a question. I’m just saying. People are always talking about the brilliance of this man for other reasons, but I think he was brilliant for writing so many stories that are all basically the same story and being praised as a genius for hundreds of years. Well done, Will!

4. Love in the Time of Cholera-this book was one where I didn’t like it when I was reading most of it, liked it for a second when I read the end and have since come to hate the more and more I think of it. I mean, “Love”? in the time of cholera? That’s not what the book is about. Obsession in the time of cholera would have been more appropriate. I hate books and stories like this where one person pines for a million years for the other person and finally when that other person is out of all other options, they return the love. What kind of crap is that? Who wants that? How is that love? It’s the Ted Mosby’s of the world (fictional character from How I Met Your Mother) that think that that’s romantic, whereas I think it’s sad and a little insulting to the person who was pining the whole time and a mark of their very low self-esteem. I think it also hurts me here in that I don’t believe in love at first sight or fate and those are pretty much the foundations of this book.

5.  Catch 22-This is another example where the author feels the need to make the same point for 500 pages just to make sure it’s been thoroughlly beaten into your brain. And while I get that that’s sort of the point overall, it still drove me crazy and I hurried to finish the book just so I wouldn’t have to keep reading it. And yes I do realize that having to keep reading a book that I hate in order to stop reading the book that I hate is in itself a Catch 22 and that is ironic and funny but I didn’t appreciate the humor.

6. Haunted-this book was written by one of my favorite authors, the guy who wrote Fight Club. Sadly, Chuck sold out with this one and instead of being great new work it was really his short stories (which I had already read) worked into a new and boring story arc. Boo!

7. A Prayer for Owen Meany-This is the book that Simon Birch the movie was based on where there’s this strange little kid and he accidentally kills his best friends mom and what happens after that. Except that I cannot tell you what happens after that because stupid John Irving won’t tell me. It’s been hundreds of pages and nothing really happens and he keeps flashing forward to the future life of the kid whose mom it was and he’s a priest and he’s so boring and just talks and talks and talks….and I confess, I started this book in 2005 and still haven’t finished it. It’s still on my shelf and I sometimes think about going back to it but just can’t torture myself in that way.

Okay, here’s the big one:

8. To Kill a Mockingbird-Yep. Hated it. Hated the story and the discussion and the work we did on it and the movie. And I have a secret dislike for Gregory Peck because of the film. Sorry. But leave it to me to hate the book often called the greatest American novel ever written.

Those are the only ones I can think of right now, but I’m sure I’ll come up with more and I’ll let you know. Now, this may seem like a big number, but for someone who has read 50-75 books a year the last 4 years, it’s really a very small percentage. And most of these did not even come from that period of time.

Also, my dislike for many of these stems from the larger issue that I’m not going to like something just because it’s a “classic” and I’m supposed to. Not going to do it. Several of these book fall into that category.

P.S. If any of you want to share about the books you hate, I’d love to hear about them.

P.P.S My apologies to those of you who are angry about two straight days of book blogs. And my your welcome to those of you who liked it-Grandma and Erica!