A book-lover asked whether people could share the books that they didn’t understand the hype around. Taking to the ‘suggest me a book’ Reddit thread, they wrote: “Overrated books people pretend to love…but actually left you feeling empty?”
They wrote: “Be honest! We’ve all finished a ‘must read masterpiece’ and thought…. ‘THAT’S IT!?’ I want to know the books that everyone hypes but secretly felt hollow, boring, or try-hard to you.
“For me, it was ‘The Great Gatsby’. I get the symbolism and beautifully written, but honestly, to me it just felt like rich people being miserable for 200 pages. What about you guys?
“And if you’ve got an underrated book that deserves the hype instead, even better, please lemme know. Would love some recs”.
Many people jumped in the comments section to share the books that they couldn’t understand the hype around. But keep in mind these are just personal opinions.
Someone shared: “The Silent Patient, City of Gods and Monsters, most of Frieda McFadden, and many so-called self-help books that are done by non-doctors or therapists”.
Another disagreed: “They are garbage, but satisfying in a way. They’re better than 50 Shades or Colleen Hoover, anyway”.
“Verity by Colleen Hoover. My gawd, that was some awful writing,” a woman joked.
A man said: “On TikTok I would sometimes see booktokers say this/another Colleen Hoover book is one of their favourite books ever, and I wonder if they ever read another book in their lives”.
“The Midnight Library — I didn’t get why everyone thought it was so deep,” a Redditor penned.
Someone agreed, writing: “Came here to say this, was gifted this for Christmas and an exclamation that everyone person they’d given it to had claimed it was life changing, to me it was one of the most base tropes in writing. The main character was written well in my opinion which was the only reason I continued”.
“A Little Life. Misery porn. Suffering just for the sake of suffering,” a man seethed.
“Was scrolling to find this. I got to page 300 and realised there were 500 pages left and said f*** this. The traumatised characters with their relentless suffering were just so…insufferable!” somebody else explained.
“Where the Crawdads Sing was not great,” a woman added.
Another suggested: “Eat, Pray, Love. A lot of people I know genuinely loved this! Just not me”.
Which books would you not recommend? Let us know in the comments…