The Most Overrated Book Series Ever!

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Which book series do you think are the most overrated series ever?

Lord of the Rings is in no way overrated (though the movies may be). It's one of the greatest works of fiction in all of English Literature and deservedly so. Frankly, I think a lot of people claim to have read it who never even made it all the way through Fellowship.

All the rest of that list sounds like a tie, in terms of sheer banality, though I have heard it said more than once that 50 Shades suffers from particularly atrocious writing.

I have to say that the "Lord Of The Rings" series is way, way, way, overrated. I've never figured out why these books were so popular; they're boring as all get out to me.

They're boring because Tolkien's writing style is long winded and boring as heck. The plot and characters and great though.


Most over-rated books? Without a doubt the Dune books written by Herbert's son. He literally butchered a masterpiece by turning it into pop-fiction (mass produced, low quality, laughable writing style). Where it took his dad almost 8 years to release a single novel (from all the editing, writing, etc) this guy released nearly 6 books in just 2. UGH ><

Twilight, 50 Shades, and Hunger Games.

Just because you can't percieve the quality of a work, don't mean it's overrated. Believe me when I say that The Lord Of The Rings is genius, if you're able to appreciate it that is.

Having never read 50 Shades or Twilight, I went with The Hunger Games. The Harry Potter books are overrated too, in my opinion, but not nearly as badly as The Hunger Games. I like The Hunger Games, but they weren't that amazing. The actual writing bothered me; I forget exactly why now though. And it just wasn't as deep as people made it out to be. I've heard them called intellectual masturbation and that seems accurate. And The Lord of the Rings deserves all the hype it gets, though I can understand why someone would disagree. Perhaps the movies are overrated, but the books and the world that Tolkien created (more details in the appendices and The Silmarillion) are impressive.

Last edited by UndeadToaster on 26 Jan 2014, 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I love the Harry Potter books -- I felt they were very exciting and thrilling to read.

I don't want to hold them up as perfect or as the most profound thing in the world, just a lot of fun and adventure (and a few interesting things about the power struggles that occur throughout the books.)

I also love LOTR but on a whole different level.

Haven't read 50 shades or Twilight, and probably never will.

Hunger games I'm ok with, but I would say overrated because people go gaga over them, while I do not.

In my humble opinion, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series was pretty overrated. People with echolalia still quote it at me. Disaster Area and Agrajar were ok though. I liked those bits.

One might turn that around and say:

Just because you appreciate something doesn't mean that it's a work of genius.

IMO, it's a tie between the Twilight series and the 50 Shades trilogy.

The Twilight Series
Reason: It's just a cliched good girl/bad boy romance in which both the girl and the boy change each others' perspectives on life.

50 Shades Trilogy
Reason: Who in their right mind thought that fan fiction would make a good best seller?

But it's about BDSM!

True, but I agree with the consensus that the 50 Shades trilogy is nothing more than standard erotica.

Twilight had to suffer through it being read in middle school by teacher and watched in class at high school.

Twilight and Harry Potter.

I think rating the mentioned book series, if being overrated or not, is a bit hard, because most of them being rather niche-products. So they are developed to please a very certain range of customers.

The twiligth series, hunger games series and Harry Potter series, were made with the purpose of "youth books". So the writer had in mind, that he wanted to please a certain peer group of yet non adults. That they dont have an intense plot, may be quiet extreme when it comes to black and white thinking, is normally, thats what they are supposed to be. Out of that I think the Harry Potter series is for adult readers the most pleasant one. At least for me, it rather bores me to read about typical teenage love issues for 50% of the book, and because of the Potter series starting before that age, thank god it avoids that stuff mostly. XD But blaming youth books, for having attributes that are typical for youth books, simply becauses it pleases the peer group, that these books are made for, is a bit weird I think. ^^

Same goes for "50 Shades of Grey". It was not written with the purpose of getting the "Pulitzer-price" for Bellestrik, but in the intense of pleasing a certain audience that wants to read an erotic book, with that. And additional to get some publicity, so that it sells better. ^^ In the end, I did not understand what all of that attention and publicity was about, so that typical love romans exists since decades, and I remember that in the "Al Bundy" series, Peggy Bundy was mentioned several times to read similar "romantic books", so they must have existed in the US area as well. So I really did not understand all that excitement about the existence of such books.

When it comes to "Lord of the Rings", then it hardly can be compared to the ones before. Its an good written book for adults, being in an fantasy setting. There might be in general some better books, but among the fantasy-books its one of the best series existing, due to plot, character design and development... You have black, you have white, you have grey; you have different set of plots to bring variety to the reader but that are as well linked to each other; the plot lines follows classic drama style, ... The writing style is more complicated then the books mentioned before, but in opposition to the above mentioned series, it was not written with the focus of teenagers or sexually bored housewifes, but to interest people with an interest and experience of reading.

Just like I find it weird to blame youth books for their rather mundane plots and characters, I think its weird to blame a book for being focused on readers that are on purpose interested in a more complicated story plot and more matured character styles.

Out of personal interest I´d say Twilight, Hunger Games and 50 Shades to be boring, because the two first mentioned have too much teenie romance plot in it, which bores me and the last one might be embarassing for house wifes, but if you dont get excited about two grown ups, doing in agreement stuff that sexually pleases them, its as well rather boring. XD

Harry Potter I liked because at least it focuses more on a plot, while being more of "easy reading", while Lord of the Rings is quiet the same, but for an more experienced audience. What I miss in Lord of the Rings is more balance to the female actors in it, but it was written about 1940 I think, so from that point of view its ok. ^^