@glacial I reread Wuthering Heights about two years ago, and although I don’t love it (because, like you said, it is so, so whiny), I came to have a grudging respect for Brontë‘s writing style.
@wildpotato I am actually teaching Anthem now! It’s in the tenth grade curriculum at the school I teach in. I’ve grown to like it as I’ve taught it; I think I liked it when I read it back in the tenth grade, too. Your opinion is definitely in the majority, though, as far as my classes are concerned. Every year I get a handful of kids who love Anthem, but most find it anathema. I introduce it using a variety of dystopian short stories, as well as a dystopian episode of The Twilight Zone (“Eye of the Beholder”. That seems to help. I’ve never read Ayn Rand’s other works. I do have a copy of Atlas Shrugged on my ever-growing To Read pile.
The books I mentioned in my question description were books I’ve read recently that I found overrated; I’ve been thinking about them, and how much the people who like them really like them, and how I really just do not. I’m trying now to think of the absolute most overrated book I’ve ever read, since that is the question I posed, and I should answer it. Heart of Darkness was on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t think it is actually overrated, I just don’t like it. The same with The Scarlet Letter. The worst book I ever, ever read was Edgar Huntly, or The Sleepwalker by Charles Brockden Brown; I read it for an Intro to American Fiction course in college annnnnnnnnnd it’s awful. But can something nobody’s ever heard of be overrated?