what's the worst book you've read for a book group?

[lucydogz]

I love the book groups I've been to - they make me read books that I would usually never have picked up, but sometimes they throw up absolute stinkers. I thought the worst ever was the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but this has been surpassed by A Memmonite in a Little Black Dress. Absolute drivel. I'd love to hear other's bad books

[KeithLeMonde]

Street Cat Named Bob - horrendous sanctimonious drivel. I even hated the cat.

[Ragwort]

David Beckham's Biography - I left after that choice.

[FiveShelties]

I also thought the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was really bad, but then someone recommended The Kite Runner. That was really bad!

[lucydogz]

Yes! Kite Runner, imo, was dross.

[spidey66]

I loved The Kite Runner, though it's not a patch on A Thousand Splendid Suns.

My two worse book club reads were Bury My Head at Wounded Knee and The Hare With the Amber Eyes. Both were as dull as dishwater and i think I managed a fraction of both of them.

[Unsureneighbour]

I hated We Need To Talk About Kevin, everyone else in the group adored it. I thought I was going mad until I found the 1* reviews on Amazon and discovered there are a few others who felt the same as me!

[Toomuchsplother]

Loved Kite Runner.
The Loney, The Keeper of Lost Things and When you disappeared come to mind!

[Namethecat]

Cold comfort farm - boring !

[outnumbered77]

Dawn French - according to yes. Awful. Loved kite runner though.

[Bear2014]

50 shades of Grey 🤣🤣🤣

[KichenDancefloor]

Good grief we read A Streetcat Named Bob too. I thought we would be the only ones daft enough.

The worst was The Slap. I really worried about the mental health of the author if he thinks all human beings are that awful. Most of us didn't get to the end.

[ChristmasFluff]

I quite enjoyed The Loney and The Slap!

The Night Manager was just awful. I was the only one to finish it, only finished it out of duty to the book club, and was well pissed off to find out everyone else had given up on it. Great TV series, but quite possibly the worst book I have ever read - I normally don't plough on with books I'm hating.

[StarbucksSmarterSister]

I bought The Hare with Amber Eyes a few years ago, it's still unread. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is heartbreaking, I really don't see how the story of what is, in effect, an attempted genocide can be called dull but each to their own, as they say.

I also loved The Keeper of Lost Things.

I normally loved Kate Atkinson but hated Life after Life. I was so disappointed Ted because I've loved every other book she wrote.

[AnnaMagnani]

I loved The Hare with the Amber Eyes so much I dragged my husband round Vienna to pinpoint their house!

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - well, you can't love it, as after about the 5th massacre you know what's coming for the rest of the very long book. Maybe not a book group choice.

I liked the Kite Runner until the point he wouldn't bloody finish the book and kept dragging it out and making the poor boy's life worse and worse. At which point it felt like a creative writing exercise, not a book.

I left my book group after The Secret River, which was apparently the best book anyone else in the group had ever read. Group leader raved about the depiction of Victorian poverty in the first chapters and how she had been to India, dontcha know... My comments that Dickens and Dostoyevsky had done it before and better were unappreciated

[CalmConfident]

Linked on another thread - on chesil beach..so frustrating and depressing. I was bored senseless by hare with amber eyes, the slap divided the group, eat/pray/love utter drivel

[CalmConfident]

I liked the Loney too.

[Rinceoir]

I loved the Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Also We Need to talk about Kevin.

I hated “Never Let Me Go”. All the rest of my group loved it!

[annandale]

My little blue dress by Bruno some body. Infuriating to think of all the great books that are never published, in favour of that. But the whole club were incandescent about it which was very bonding.

[InfiniteCurve]

Yes,Rinceoir! I read Never Let Me Go for a book group ( and saw the film too...)
I hated it,and yet everyone else was very keen!

[ScribblyGum]

I think there’s a big difference between a bad book, and a bad book for a book club.
For example Elouise by Judy Finnegan is possibly one of the worst books I have ever read in my life, and yet the discussion we had at book club (do you believe in ghosts) was one of the most enjoyable and memorable.

In my book club Skippy Dies has become the benchmark for terrible books we all hated and yet I know I've had to read far, far worse tripe since, The Liar's Chair comes to mind. I think rather fondly now on Skippy and wonder if it actually was rather good.

[BookWitch]

Crosstalk by Connie Willis

Utter bilge

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

There’s been a few. The Life of Pi and When God was a Rabbit both spring to mind.

[Ragusa]

Autumn by Ali Smith.

I so wanted to like it but I found it muh, much too fussy and verging on the pretentious. The poetry didn't agree with me and I found the characterisation weak.

Everyone else seemed to love it though.

[Pebblespony]

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks.

[Pebblespony]

If it was just a book you were reading & you didn't like it, you'd just throw it aside. But you feel obliged to struggle on for the group.