Hey there everyone! I finished reading Saramago’s ‘Blindness’ a while ago and… I have to admit that I had to push myself through to finish it, much to the bafflement of many people who consider it a ‘masterpiece’. When I wrote its review, I pointed out how the written style was blocky and nearly a headache to read due to the lack of proper punctuation, paragraphs and so on.
But now I’m sort of curious, what sort of book you thought was ‘overrated’ and why?
by Internetsurvivor
16 Comments
Shantaram by Greg Roberts. I found the writing lame and the characters over-the-top cheesy and unbelievable.
Pet Sematary. Wasn’t necessarily bad, I just thought it was a letdown for such a long, drawn out book
Klara and the Sun. Supposed to be great sci-fi but it was just boring and a depressing ending.
I hate saying this was over rated because I don’t think I’m any sort of authority on what’s good and what isn’t but…
The Foundation by Asimov was recommended to me because I enjoy “hard sci-fi”. Everyone said it was the best of the best. I couldn’t finish it. I couldn’t even get that far into it. So much boring politics.
Also, I’ve tried Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit like 3 times and cold not get into them. Never finished.
Moby Dick
Excellent beginning but then he went on about trying knots and types of whales. Totally unbearable.
The Lovely Bones. I read 90% of it and had to put it down. Didn’t even Google the ending. Did not care what happened. 🫤
The Devil in the White City
In Cold Blood
The Three Body Problem. Couldn’t pound my way through it. Not sure what a lot of readers are seeing in it.
I love these posts. Every single top comment will be masterpiece after masterpiece and every single mass downvoted comment will be YA that has 5 stars on Goodreads.
Kafka’s Metamorphisis. Story could have been a third of the lenght.
Unfortunately, All the Pretty Horses. I’ve read it three times now and I just don’t get much from the experience.
I’m a huge fan of McCarthy’s first five novels, but after Blood Meridian, his style changes pretty drastically and loses a lot of its depth.
The last time I read ATPH, I was reading through McCarthy’s first 10 books (in anticipation of The Passenger/Stella Maris). Going straight from Blood Meridian to ATPH makes ATPH almost read like parody.
All the light we cannot see. Pretty much anything that wins a Pulitzer.
Any Colleen Hoover book.
Normal People was so not my kind of book. I don’t even remember one thing that happened
I’m going to get downvoted for this but… Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. It was fine, if extremely cliche, but I was expecting much better from a book that’s currently rated 4.6 on GoodReads and I’m pretty sure was closer to 4.9 when I originally picked it up (there’s been some review bombing lately I think but I’m not touching that drama with a 10 ft pole). In my opinion, it really should have had the romance scenes toned down and been marketed as YA rather than adult.
Richard Powers’ *The Overstory*. I was so bored for almost the entire book, and the characters were so plain and caricatured.
Edit: Also completely agree with you on *Blindness*. I just was not inspired at all.