One-Star Amazon Reviews Of Classic Novels Are Hilarious

Reviewers take on the so-called "Greatest Books" in history.

10. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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"A slow epic for the reader of yesterday."

"The characters are unsymathetic and the most tedious elements of the book are their long discourses. I gave up after about 300 pages.”

“I struggled up to about half way then had to admit that I found nothing in it either enjoyable or interesting.”

9. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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"Total s**t, be warned."

"It's even more boring than that thing of Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'. Avoid it like the plague. No. on second thoughts, get the plague, you'll be out of your misery earlier."

"The secret is: the author was a drunk."

"*MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE WHATSOEVER*. I don't care about society standards that is completely ridiculous. That Daisy would even think of staying with Tom dates this book *HORRIBLY* at the very least and more realitically turns into *A VIRTUAL CARTOON*..."

8. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert

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“This book was so lame, it took me many years of putting it down and picking it up again to get through it. Why did I waste my time? Because all my cool literary friends just love it and find it sooo very deep... another book to be avoided like the plague. Most mystifying of all is that many people, even intelligent friends of mine, consider this whiny breach of taste a passionately real and pro-woman statement!”

“Every time I have to help a high-school student or college freshman slog through Madame Bovary, I find myself wondering why the assignment isn't a violation of the Geneva Convention.”

“If you have a choice at all, please, save yourself: back away from this title and none of your innocent brain cells will be needlessly killed.”

“I personally did not like this book. I had no objection to extra marital affairs but the pace is slow, the story line flat and the ending depressing.”

7. The Odyssey, by Homer

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“This is long and repetitive book. I felt like I read the same chapters over and over again. I just can't”

“Let me talk, for a moment, about why we care about "The Odyssey" at all: I DO NOT KNOW. Why has this poem survived?”

"I give this item zero stars, and that's only because I cannot take stars away from it. ACTUALLY, I have to give this item 1 star, which means "I Hate It," because it turns out you cannot give something ZERO stars on Amazon. So I am giving it one star but only because I am being forced to do so by the gods.”

6. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

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"This is an awful book... there is nothing of credit to his writing. It is devoid of any depth. Don't waste your brain, read Dostoyevsky. That is exemplary writing."

"Not bad, but not Karenina. I sometimes read War and Peace in the dull hours of the early morning. I find that the revolving interaction of the 5 familys during the wars leaves a lot unsaid: this I cannot appreciate. Anna Karenina was much more insightful and passionate. I always get a distanced feel from War and Peace, a feel that Tolstoy: never a soldier: did not know the battlefields he spoke of. And yet I continue to read it in those hours."

"While cultural pundits try to convince you that some literature is better than other literature, the truth is that all art is relative to individial tastes. Thus, it doesn't make any sense to think that a novel like this one is really any better than say, Michael Crichton or Stephen King. Aesthetic standards can't be grounded. Thus, don't listen to anyone who tries to distinguish between "serious" works of literature like this one and allegedly "lesser" novels. The distinction is entirely illusory, because no novels are "better" than any others, and the concept of a "great novel" is an intellectual hoax."

"2nd worst book ever read. Tolstoy was such self-important, disrespectful, intolerant, bum! ...I came to detest the characters as amazingly weak, and the story totally unbelievable in its presentation."

5. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

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"This has to be one of the worst plays ever written, Shakespeare or no Shakespeare. While the Bard was the master of English drama, he really slipped up here. The plot makes no sense, the characters motivations are contrived, and the jokes fall flat. I have read this play hundreds of times, seen umpteen productions and films, and am astonished at the plaudits universally accorded to it."

"I fell asleep, it was so boring. This book is very boring and doesn't say much for the man who wrote it! Ofcourse Willy is acclaimed as the best writer of all time, but this is only because of British Media hyping the man, after 400 years."

"WORTHLESS PRETENTIOUS TRASH"

"Hamlet! More like Spamlet! I don't know what Willy Shakespeare was thinking when he wrote this one play tragedy, but I thought this sure was boring! Hamlet does too much talking and not enough stuff. He needs to shape up and show them who's boss. Maybe Shakespeare fans of Hamlet should take a rest on the book tragedy! Ha ha!"

"In my opinion all of Shakespeare's writings are long winded, drawn out words with no possibility of ever coming close to being remotly interesting. Hamlet was actually one of the most terribly boring, predictable, useless book ever written. The plot had no vital juices. The charachters were devoid of all emotion and energy. Even more devastating to the book is how it all ended. I actually got to say once Hamlet,Gertrude, and Claudius died I was leaping with joy, it was impossible to contain my excitment. Why? Because it meant that if every one is dead, well, IT IS FINALLY OVER! Finally, this book not only is long, boring, and an embaressment to the whole romantic time period. It has no long lasting effect on anyone. So, what I'm trying to say is that any poor, unfortunate soul that has to read this book will never even understand let alone remember what actually went on through the course of the play."

4. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

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"I SURE HOPE YOU ENJOY LEARNING ABOUT WHALES... I swear 85% of this book is various lessons on whaling the origin of whales, whale distinction, whale body parts, whale sperm, different color whales."

"Colonoscopies are more pleasant that reading this book."

"essentially the plot to 'Jaws'"

Astonishingly, there are those who consider this "The Great American Novel"; if you like pretentious writing and writing that can't keep to its topic but rather keeps wandering off at tangents, I suppose it is. I suppose it IS rather amazing that he was able to keep his syntax unscrambled in the above-mentioned 469 word sentence, but that hardly qualifies it for the title of "The Great American Novel".

3. Ulysses, by James Joyce

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"Yes, "Ulysses," we are told, is a work of genius; yes, it is multi-faceted and pregnant with meaning; true, it may even be a compendium of all Western Culture since Homer. But, let's be honest: It's as fun as reading a telephone directory!"

Famous as one of the great classics of the 20th century but for nothing else I can think of. (Sort of like the Kardashians are famous for being the Kardashians!)

"That about sums up why this book in truth is an eruption of verbal flatulence, a screech in the literary void by a man who was not capable of doing what lesser writers could: compose a plot."

"There is a famous sex scene in this book where the mental thoughts of the individual coming to climax fills many pages. I asked around and no one I know thinks about anything while climaxing except for a sexual fantasy. Totally unrealistic."

2. Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes

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"Who reads this trash this book SUCKED."

"If someone wrote this story today, the publishers would pass on it. I found the main character more of an annoyance. If it's on your list of must reads, don't bother. Watch one of the movies or the musical, you will have a better time."

"First, the incident of the windmills (and so many others) strain credulity. Second, is it really acceptable to base an entire book (let alone two) on mockery of a man who--as the novel acknowledges--struggles with a mental illness? I think not."

1. In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust

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"THIS IS THE MOST BORING BOOK I HAVE EVER READ. I KEPT ON THINKING THE NEXT LINE WOULD BE "AND THEN WE BRING THE COWS IN" STRAIGHT OUT OF THE ARCHERS... IF YOU WRITE A 3,000 PASERIES OF BOOKS YOU HAVE TO EXPECT SOME DISSIN' HOMIE BOY PROUST. BOYAKASHAKA-LAK. TWO PHAT POSSES ARE INHE HOUSE/DISSIN EACH OTHER SHOOTING OFF THEIR MOUTHS"