Tolstoy - Anna Karenina V

"A classic, which equals long with lots of context that even a history major won't get."


"The emperor does not have any clothes on! I do not understand how people can think this is a great novel. Nothing about this book makes sense to me ... It seemed like the author was getting paid by the word because most of the words in this book are superfluous."


"Ok, so she throws herself in front of a train? Really? Depressing book."


"If you want to read a story that takes twenty pages to describe something that a modern day writer would only need one page to do, then this book is for you!!"


"this book was B-O-R-I-N-G!!!"


"I don't know why everybody thinks this is great literature. If it weren't Tolstoy, everybody would see it for what it is--a soap opera in print."


"Absolutely the biggest waste of time! It wasn't the size that scared me, but it was so 'dry'. No feeling, no emotions what so ever! So boring, it would put me to sleep. From the very beginning, I felt like it was a very shallow & blah-blah-blah book.....There wasn't a character that I really cared about, except Anna Karenina. ONLY because that is what the title of the book is! The best love-affair ever written, no way! It might have been a scandelous book back in the day, but a total bore. And Levin talking and talking about farming, politics & his religious believes - it was so ridiculous. What got me was Tolstoy would write what the characters are thinking. But when he put in the book what Levin's dog was thinking, I just about threw the book away! Tolstoy NEVER could express emotions in his way of writting on any of these characters. Someone tell me what the big deal is."


"I found the book to be incredibly boring and hard to follow. There were too many details, none of which were that interesting. I kept skipping through pages of words that seemed to drone on and on just to finish the story. It was a tedious text and extremely disappointing."


"This book is 'the best novel ever written.' Of course, the people who say this also rave about James Joyce."


"This 80000000000000000000 page 'book' isn't just boring and depressing, it's frighteningly so. Tolstoy wasn't just writing a boring book, he was trying to convince us that life is boring and dull ... He has here milked life of all it's flavor and left us a soggy tale to digest ... This so-called classic WREAKS......."


"We must ask the question is this a novel of greatness or is it just a long Mills and Boon piece of flummery. The answer is in the book is a tabloid love story.
Leo was the ugly kid at school, the kid who got left out of games. When he got older the girls would laugh at him, he would be the last one standing at a dance. Girls would make up excuses to leave him of their dance cards.

His revenge for the terror of his childhood? This book is he revenge for his childhood."


"As I (apparently memorably) said in my book group, this is the kind of book that gives classics a bad name."


"many of the characters are immoral and scandalous."


"Seriously, Tolstoy, edit."