Weekly Lists #4: Books I wish I'd liked - Walking Through The Pages

Every Wednesday, I post a list of random stuff. This week: 5 books I wish I’d liked while reading.

Now these could be anything from I just plain old didn’t like them to ‘I had to read them for school and that just sort of ruined it for me’ – but either way: I didn’t like them one bit, and I really, really wish that I had…

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1. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Now this one, I actually really wanted to read. I even bought this really, really pretty version just so I could. And then my professor of American Literature put it on the list with set reading last year.
BAM
Out went any willingness I had to actually read the thing, or even just to watch the movie adaptation (and it had Carey Mulligan! I love Carey Mulligan!)
So, yeah, I really wish I’d liked this when I read this, but being forced to read it basically made that impossible, and as such, I didn’t even manage to finish it. (I took the exam based on a summary)

The Great Gatsby (Wordsworth Classics)

2. North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell

Normally, I love these kind of books – I devoured Cranford, I love everything by Jane Austen, I actually even like most of Charles Dickens’ works – but I COULD NOT get through this one.
And I so much wanted to like it…
I’m hoping it was mainly just the time at which I started reading it, though, so I might actually get back to this one – hopefully second time’ll be the charm.

North and South (Wordsworth Classics)

3. Anything by Marian Keyes and Nora Roberts

I love me some chicklit – fluffy, with some difficulty on the way: gimme!
Unfortunately, I’m also really peculiar about how I would like to have that chicklit written. Now authors like Cathy Kelly and Jill Mansell? They get me – they know how to write, and how to create their characters.
Marian Keyes and Nora Roberts, though? Not so much.
I’ve picked up more than just a few of their books by now, hoping that somehow I’d actually find one that I liked – but their books just make me feel uncomfortable. They make me not want to read anything romance-ish ever again, and I love Cathy Kelly and Jill Mansell way too much to ever even consider that, so nope.
But still: I really wish I liked their writing more – I need more authors to love, and Cathy Kelly and Jill Mansell can only publish so many books…

4. Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, Rachel Cohn

I really don’t know why I didn’t like this book – it had Christmas, love, a bit of mystery-ish adventurishness, and yet… nothing
Maybe my expectations were just set too high?
Either way: I’d hoped for more. I really, really did. But I was disappointed.

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares

5. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs

This one I actually liked alright – it’s just that I’d hoped to love it. I’d heard so many amazing things about it, that I was really hoping for something great – which it just wasn’t.

I actually still considered picking up the sequel, but the longer I waited, the more I just felt sort of ‘meh’ about it – I just really didn’t want to waste my time reading a book I don’t particularly care about, when I already have a TBR-list of over 200 books. It’s still in there, though, so I may just revisit it eventually – I just hope no one’s holding their breath for that one.