Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

“The Marriage Plot,” by Jeff Eugenides, and “The Stranger’s Child,” by Alan Hollinghurst. I’d heard Jeff Eugenides on NPR and immediately wanted to read his novel. I adored the first two Hollinghursts. But I found both of these novels somewhat cold and inanimate. That said, there are so many books that I wasn’t able to appreciate until I’d made two or three tries — “Middlemarch,” for example, or “Swann’s Way” — and these may fall into that category. Reading is so contextual, like wine.

via Sylvia Nasar – By the Book – NYTimes.com.