I'm going to go ahead and take a dump on Joseph Conrad real quick, because Heart of Darkness straight up put me to sleep within 5 pages, no matter where in the book I tried to read it from. I haven't read anything else by him but goddamn is that book overrated.
I don't know what it was about it, maybe I'll revisit it sometime and find out that he's actually worth reading for some reason, but seriously, that book sucked ass.
I enjoyed that book. Surprisingly.
It was a slough though. I admit.
an author I loathe with a passion is Ayn fucking Rand.
a) because Objectivism is retarded
b) her novels were only written to push that retarded philosophy
c) Due to this she doesn't develop her characters really. They're just representative of things she hates - flat characters. And her prose is friggin awful.
How her books attained their status, I have no idea.
One book I thought was just a mess was Slaughter-House 5. Now, I found the idea interesting. And some of it did stick with me. But god, it felt like the author wrote a linear story, and then cut and pasted random bits back and forth until it was a convoluted knot. maybe that is how he approached it. I don't know. I won't say Vonnegut is a bad author though, I need to read at least one more of his to make that decision.
a lot of people find Les Miserables by Hugo a hard read. I friggin loved it.