Top Ten Tuesday Books I Disliked, but I’m Glad I Read for Bragging Rights

1. Les Misérables. Um, yeah, you can tell when authors are writing serials and don’t have enough talent or story to fill them. Sorry, Hugo, I don’t want to read 40 pages each about a minor characters, a Napoleonic battle with the only connection a piece of thievery, and the Paris sewer system. I would like more developed characters. Oh, I grant that the story is epic, but for all those pages, not much seems to be said, developed, or completed.
2. Brother Karamazov. A bunch of absurd, disjointed, irrational, sanctimonious philosophizing. The pathos builds and then falls flat (there isn’t a death sentence for one thing, and I got bored for another). I liked Alyosha the best, but Dostoevsky had to spoil him with some incongruous preaching at the end. No real love story. No real tragedy. No real story. Tons of awful characters. I liked all the legitimate broters, but all the women they loved were . . . I’ll go with harpies, to put it mildly.
3. Plato’s Apology. Something for school. Don’t remember a bit.
4. The Aeneid. Ugh, and overrated and boring. Sorry Virgil, you are no Homer.
5. The Great Gatsby. Overrated in the extreme.
6. The Time Machine. Horror.
7. Into the Wild. Something for school. Bizarre, poorly written, and depressing.
8. Cloud’s by Aristophanes. Something for school. Don’t remember a bit.
9. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I was disturbed by the book (at the end) and by my reaction (I was so fooled for one thing) . . . probably more by my reaction.
10. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I liked this for the historical perspective, but I found most of the characters unlikeable, and the story featured some really freaky, vile episodes.

I’m linking up here for Top Ten Tuesday (late of course).