Top 5 Tuesday: Classics I Didn't Like

 Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Meeghan Reads 

Today's prompt is "top 5 classics I didn't like".  I don't often finish a book if I'm not enjoying it, so most books I don't like I just abandon.  Here are four that I did finish and didn't like, and one that is giving me grief right now.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë  (1847)

Why do people insist on calling this a great romance?  It definitely fits the gothic novel genre, one of my favorites, with its atmospheric and dreary plot, location, and characters.  However, rather than a love story, it's a novel of abuse -- physical, emotional, and mental -- and a perfect picture of abusive relationships. That trumps any good about it, in my opinion.  It is, in a word, icky.  

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878)

I don't look at adultery as romantic, the prose (maybe my translation?) was not engaging, and I couldn't find anything about Anna that I sympathized with or liked.  The worst part was, when I FINALLY got to the climax and she did what I was expecting, the book just kept going.  

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (1594)

Here is my review of it when I reread it in 2018.  I can't believe this thing is still being performed!

Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers (1934)

HOW is this so popular?  Do people say the love the book when they haven't actually read it, because the love the (so different) movie?  Mary Poppins is a horrible woman and I'd let her be alone with my children over my dead body.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1846)

I haven't finished this one yet, so it doesn't really count, but oh my gosh, y'all. 

I don't like the Count at all; I find his obsession with vengeance appalling; I hate the use of hasheesh, the immorality of some of the characters, and his treatment of Ali and Haydée. His perfection at EVERYTHING from manipulation to info gathering to shooting with a pistol to picking out horseflesh to speaking fluently multiple languages to --  you get the picture -- is eye-roll inducing.  How could he have possible learned all that? 

I've come so far -- I've read nearly 800 pages this past month -- and I've STILL GOT SEVEN HOURS' WORTH LEFT TO READ.  

For now, I'm setting it aside and it feels like such a relief.  If you have any advice that will make this a better reading experience for me, please tell me.  I'd hate to have wasted all the hours spent reading this.