# What is the most overrated classic novel?

> Every one of these is somebody's favourite book and somebody else's wasted fortnight. Set texts, prize winners and airport sensations together.

*By YPB Team · Published August 14, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-most-overrated-classic-novel*

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## Current results (1 votes)

1. **Atlas Shrugged** — 100% (1 votes · score 1000/1000)
   Rand's 1957 novel, and its sixty-page speech.
2. **Fifty Shades of Grey** — 0% (0 votes · score 777/1000)
   The 2011 bestseller that sold in the tens of millions and was defended by almost no one.
3. **The Alchemist** — 0% (0 votes · score 777/1000)
   Coelho's 1988 fable, one of the most translated books alive.
4. **Wuthering Heights** — 0% (0 votes · score 678/1000)
   Emily Bronte's 1847 novel, routinely sold as romance despite its cast.
5. **Moby-Dick** — 0% (0 votes · score 555/1000)
   Melville's 1851 whaling epic, complete with the cetology chapters.
6. **On the Road** — 0% (0 votes · score 555/1000)
   Kerouac's 1957 novel of American motion and very little arrival.
7. **Heart of Darkness** — 0% (0 votes · score 555/1000)
   Conrad's 1899 novella, argued over as much for its politics as its prose.
8. **The Grapes of Wrath** — 0% (0 votes · score 555/1000)
   Steinbeck's 1939 Pulitzer winner, interleaved with chapters about turtles.
9. **The Great Gatsby** — 0% (0 votes · score 555/1000)
   The 1925 novel assigned in every American high school.
10. **Murder on the Orient Express** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Christie's most famous mystery, and the one critics call a trick rather than a puzzle.
11. **Ulysses** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Joyce's 1922 novel, more often owned than finished.
12. **Lord of the Flies** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Golding's 1954 island parable, another classroom fixture.
13. **The Old Man and the Sea** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Hemingway's 1952 novella, short enough to argue about in one sitting.
14. **Jane Eyre** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel, and the attic nobody can defend.
15. **Brave New World** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Huxley's 1932 dystopia, often compared unfavourably with its rival.
16. **Don Quixote** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Cervantes' 1605 novel, revered as the first and read by very few.
17. **The Catcher in the Rye** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Salinger's 1951 novel, adored at sixteen and often reread with less patience.
18. **A Tale of Two Cities** — 0% (0 votes · score 396/1000)
   Dickens' 1859 novel, famous for its first line above all else.

Tags: books, classics