Disappointing Bestsellers

With The Secret History I think you have to be at the right age and time in life to enjoy it. I read it yearly all through my 20s, but if I picked it up now I would find it utterly pretentious. I had studied classics and ancient history though.

DH read it in his 30s and thought it was awful.

I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers.

I’d actually recommend this, except for one thing, and I need to avoid spoilers. I found the setting, characters and the central idea (of a terrible incident kept secret between friends) very engaging but to me the incident in question just seemed highly implausible.

But the relationships and the psychological impact on the characters were well done.

Her detective stories (well most of them) are pretty good too.

I loved Wolf Hall, I’ve read everything of Mantel’s and I love her style. I also like We need to talk about Kevin.
Top of my list of disappointing books would be anything by Martin Amis apart from Time’s Arrow. I loved that and was serially disappointed that nothing else he wrote comes anywhere close to it.

Going back many years, but Midnight's Children was truly awful. I really did not care about anyone in it and chucked it (literally) after 3 chapters.

Good for you! Yes, she stuck to her particular niche and did it well (GH).

Just remembered one I didn’t finish - Angela’s Ashes. Just unrelentingly miserable.

I quite liked a lot of the books that are mentioned, including Orbital. I find it quite difficult to find books to read these days, everything seems to be either crime or a thriller, neither of those appeals to me.

Because it’s boring. As is the film. I know it allegorical but it would have been better for me if the tiger had just eaten him. Similarly Jane Eyre would have been vastly improved if she had caught consumption from her friend in the first chapter and died. Would have saved a lot of tedious mimsy nonsense.

I haven't, I was so annoyed by Purity I've never picked up another of his books! Maybe I should forgive him and try it. I see it's cheap on kindle so I'll add it to my reading list 🙂

Oh but have you tried crossroads? It's sublime. Loved it. My gateway to Franzen.

Oh dear, I'm on holiday atm and have brought Butter along (not started yet). I'm dreading it now, not many positive comments on here.

Unlike many other posters though I loved Crawdads, the Da Vinci Code, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Harry Potter ... so who knows! Thought the Salt Path was boring, the real/scandalous truth is much more interesting. Really enjoyed the first two thirds of Yellow Face but the last third just seemed to turn in circles with the author unsure how to conclude and the ending was a bit weak and tailed off. Most gripping recent holiday read was Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent.

I'm currently reading Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty which i picked up at Heathrow About 5 years ago and forgot it was in the pocket of my rucksack. A couple of chapters in i realised I had watched the TV adaptation with Nicole Kidman a couple of years ago and thought it a bit meh and can't even remember what happened. Yet I'm enjoying the book much more so far ... hope I'm not disappointed.

Oh I love The Pillars of the Earth, a gem of a book.

I loved the books and was a bit worried the TV series wouldn't do them justice. I needn't have worried, I loved it. I haven't read the books for many, many, years but was captivated at the time.

A Little Life is probably my most hated book - just gratuitous misery and pain, as if the whole point of it was to make the reader witness awful scene after awful scene, just for the sake of it. I wish I hadn't bothered to finish it.

They are Enid Blytonesque, so work for kids. The Strike novels are much better.

Loads of the fantasy/romance books recently seem to be classified as young adult.

What I find really odd is this genre has some serious themes eg poverty, war, brutal deaths of loved ones etc so the characters have hardship and have to grow up pretty quick. But the love & sex relationships are from a 14 yr old perspective. You can go into battle & are happy to sacrifice your life for your friend but you are too embarrassed to act on the longing stares you give each other in case of rejection. I don't get it!

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - given as a gift. It was awful

Another piece of book club torture.

Awful.

I hated it.

Everyone in my book club raved about it but I just knew from the off it was going to be disappointing and it really was.

I left the book club in the end. I cannot read any more 'popular' fiction.

Nothing wrong with doing one particular thing well - signed: the woman who has read every one of Georgette Heyer’s regency romances and doesn’t care who knows it.

Oh just thought of my biggest ever disappointment! Having loved The Corrections and Freedom I was so excited to read Purity when it came out. I pre ordered it, duly went to collect it on publishing day and what a load of shit! That must be ten years ago and it still sits on my bookshelf so I can try again sporadically but I've never made it past chapter 3.
I hate it so much I can't even bring myself to re read my previously loved Frantzens.

I listened to the Fourth Wing audiobook and will definitely move onto the others. Where Yarros is good, she's brilliant. My favourite in the genre so far is Samantha Shannon's Bone Season and although there is an undue fixation on the love interest (even for me and I fancy him too) the long, graphic sex scenes that are a feature of Fourth Wing aren't there. Nor does she have her central couple smash the room up when they finally get it on 😆

Loads of the fantasy/romance books recently seem to be classified as young adult.

Iv found once get past first one or two book in series authors like mass, yarros, scarlett st claire, Armentrout - they cut down the ridiculous long sex scenes and actually concentrate on the story. Perhaps sex sells so they are told to put more in their books on the beginning

I loved point horror books and t f most of the othe point series

Agree with all but Wolf Hall which is superb and which I re-read every couple of years to revel in different aspects of the whole darkness of it. Admittedly it improves as you get into it.

Only book I haven't been able to finish (or even really read much of it) is Cloud Atlas. Sat on bedside table for 6 months before I gave up.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - given as a gift. It was awful