Books to avoid

Oh, yes forgot about that woman who went to bed for a year. Just get over yourself, you stupid cow. And that bloke who quite happily waited on her. And who calls their kids Brian and Brianne, ffs? I didn't finish it and am hoping it ended with everyone abandoning her so she had to get off her lazy arse and do something.

Oh, and Kate Atkinson's writing style also puts me off. I've never got past the first chapter of anything she's written either. I want to read Life After Life but I just can't.

Me Before You - I read the entire book with a on my face.

The Lovely Bones - one of the only books EVER which I've given up on 3/4 of the way through. I just didn't care and couldn't bring myself to pretend anymore. Total shite.

Can't get into Ian McEwan even though the blurbs look brilliant - his writing style does nothing for me.

Anything nominated for the Booker prize. Inevitably a pretentious load of old bollocks

Anything by Jodi Picoult
Anything by Sophie Hannah

Anything by Donna Tartt, seriously don't get all the live for her books

50 Shades of Shite

Gone Girl ( although the other books by the same author were very good imo)

The Hunger Games ( if you're over 14)

Wolf Hall.

Dire. As is so much historical fiction. You don't know wht happened, why are you pretending that you do? It's like a bizarre Fan Fic with codpieces.

I don't like Jodi Picoult books

diagree about the Outcast, it was very moving.

The Historian - so dull I had wiped it from my memory entirely. It promised a good story but it failed to deliver. I was bored long before the end.

Another one - Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes. Just awful. Don't know what I was thinking reading this pile of shite. It was supposed to be satire. It wasn't. Maybe it lost that in translation.

I'm only about a quarter of the way through "how to be both", so judgement is reserved on that. I loved "the Goldfinch " though, even though at times I did feel as the pp says "just give the bloody painting back"..

The historian is one of my all time favourites, brilliant book

The woman who went to bed for a year yadda yadda. I don't remember exact title.

I recently read a newish book called The Ship.

Both of them with utterly self involved main characters.

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova. Got to about 400 pages in and literally nothing had happened. At that point I gave up.

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt. Just tedious.

The Lovely Bones - what a waste of time.
In non - fiction, Dear Fatty by Dawn French. Hated this, it was so disjointed.
I loved The Time Travellers Wife though.

Audrey Niffenburger... read the Time traveller's wife and it left me 'meh' and gave up on Her Fearful Symmetry. Also disliked Gone Girl too

One Hundred years of Solitude...felt like it took me a hundred years to read it

In the Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

I've read quite a lot of Ian McEwan books and disliked more than i've liked but I would recommend Saturday and On Chesil Beach

Dan Brown books

Just remembered, 'The Remains of the Day'.

Just blody tell her you love her, for gawd's sake. So boring.

Loved loads of these

My little blue dress by somebody. The pain has faded but it was so poor.

How to be Both was a pile of pretentious crap. Had to laugh at one Amazon reviewer who said it's the kind of book that some people like to have displayed in their home to show off to visitors about how clever they think they are.

Losing it by Helen Lederer was the worst kind chick-lit and I don't recommend it at all.

I keep reading Sophie Hannah books and then remembering that they annoy me. That bloody policeman (Simon?) is so irritating. Probably doesn't help that I've read them out of order so their relationship makes even less sense. And when the denouement comes I still usually feel like I've missed something.

Oh yes The Goldfinch.
Just give back the painting.

We are all completely besides ourselves, what a load of tripe, cannot understand why it was so popular.

Anything by Sophie Hannah.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
The Casual Vacancy
Apple tree Yard.

The Miniaturist. Ridiculous. Bad characters and then the plot went all soap opera towards the end. Would have been fun in footballers wives but not 17th century Amsterdam. As someone above said, no resolution or even a hint at an explanation either. No idea why it got such glowing reviews.

I also really hated The Famished Road by Ben Okri and Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - I was going through a Booker winners phase but didn't get on with either of them.

I remember flicking through a Cecilia Ahern (is that her name) chicklit thing and getting the rage straight away but it wasn't a serious reading attempt.

thunder - I would really love to hear about the books you find clever if you thought Cloud Atlas wasn't clever enough. I though CA was very clever indeed and would love to read better-constructed and more intelligent books, if there are any out there that I don't know of.