50 Famous ‘Literary Masterpieces’ That Actually Suck

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36. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I could never finish Brave New World.

I loved 1984, and I loved the world-building in Brave New World, but just…something about Huxley’s writing style makes it an absolute bastard to follow, and you can go through 50 pages of it without anything actually happening.

That, coupled with the way he spends three pages with entirely unrelated and fragmented ideas in a row rather than putting them into a cogent narrative just ruined it for me. I know I SHOULD have enjoyed it, but I really just couldn’t.

37. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I know it’s how things probably would have been handled in the time, but I just wanted to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to have more gumption and not be so passive about her life.