Classic books summed up in hilarious one-line reviews

It was the best of reviews, it was the worst of reviews. Or, in these cases in particular, they were the shortest, strangest, and/or simply most blunt of them.

We rounded up the funniest and strangest reviews of classic books we could find on GoodReads - the home of some of the most cutting, brutal and succinct views around.

Now, we’re reconsidering all of our favorite high school reads. (Mainly Catcher in the Rye.)

Enjoy!

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

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Guess Tolstoy never got the memo?

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

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In a way they’re not...wrong?

1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four), George Orwell

Credit: GoodReads

Credit: GoodReads

Big Brother is not pleased by either of these.

Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

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GoodReads

Okay, ouch.

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

GoodReads

Hey, whatever works.

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

GoodReads

Oh, okay. That tracks.

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

GoodReads

Something’s rotten in the state of the review section.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

GoodReads

Whatever floats your boat, Cristin.

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

GoodReads

We can get on board with any classic chick lit Taylor Swift crossover.

Lord of the Flies, William Golding

GoodReads

This isn’t even a bad synopsis.

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

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Well. It’s factually correct.

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

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She’s trying to buy them for herself, Nate!

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

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Evergreen review. Relatable. Five stars.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce

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Moocoow is literally the 14th word in the book, and then the 22nd. Surely Nathan must have been pleased.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

GoodReads

Duly noted.

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

GoodReads

Extremely fair analysis.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain

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Another solid analysis. Kids these days! (Or...a century ago.)

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

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Yeah, and tell Moby Dick’s Ishmael to just get over the whale? Not happening, Matt!

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

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Hey, you don’t know that.

The Stranger, Albert Camus

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Definitely going to use this to get out of conversations. “You know who you remind me of? Have you read The Stranger?”

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

GoodReads

Ah, a bittersweet conclusion: Contemporary and classics colliding.

And scene.