Classic books that got horrible reviews when they first came out

Not all of the reviews are horrible, and not a few of the books are classics only in the sense that they've been successfully crammed into the American high school curriculum.

Some of the reviews are dead on - Salinger, Vonnegut, Lee, Mitchell. Okay, maybe most are.

Meh. Not worth much, honestly: For each book there is a single quote out of context from a single review.

This sort of cherry-picking can support any thesis, any conclusion.

Every book, every single one, receives at least one bad review.