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Original poster

Books you want to throw across the room

236 replies

tobee · 19/08/2016 11:49

Over 20 years ago, on holiday I took The Chamber by John Grisham. I'd heard it had (at the time) the biggest amount for film rights ever paid. When I finished I literally threw it across the room in disgust. (Actually poolside area). It was such a load of hogwash! Now I look back and wonder I bothered to get that far.

Any books that have provoked a similar reaction in you?

OP posts:
Wombat44 · 20/08/2016 00:48

The Danish Girl

The characterisation of the main character was so shallow, and she was constantly being described as being "like a little girl" although she is well into adulthood. Including scenes where it's really inappropriate in context to describe her as being like a little girl; unfortunately I can't describe the most flagrant example without giving a spoiler.

Also she is repeatedly described as being extremely shy, but then somehow wins an award for being saleswoman of the month in her job.

I read it on Kindle but if it had been a paperback I would definitely have thrown it across the room.

EnthusiasmDisturbed · 20/08/2016 00:22

Eat Pray Love

What utter indulgent twaddle

I hated her by the end of the book and felt pity for everyone she met on her tedious journey of finding herself

How I ever got to the end i don't know

HopeClearwater · 20/08/2016 00:16

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I'm getting angry just thinking about it.

Cooroo · 19/08/2016 23:57

The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. I was leant it by a lovely friend who adored it, and I absolutely loathed it.

quitecrunchy · 19/08/2016 20:49

The Dark Volume (2nd in the Glass Books of the Dream Eaters series/trilogy/whatever). Still annoyed with myself for ploughing through it to the end. I didn't even particularly enjoy the first one - obviously a glutton for punishment.

Also 50 Shades. Glad I didn't persevere with that.

GreenBudgie · 19/08/2016 20:44

Sepulchre by Kate Mouse. Inaccurate i.e. unseasonable flowers mentioned and limited vocabulary. Sorry Kate , binned it after chapter 1.

Quodlibet · 19/08/2016 20:43

Can't remember what it was called but was by Jodi Picoult. I was stuck in a place on holiday where that was the only available reading material in English and I couldn't bear it.

Lules · 19/08/2016 20:39

Salman Rushdie's autobiography. He was like he took tips from Father Ted's Golden Cleric speech

MermaidofZennor · 19/08/2016 20:34

The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh. If it hadn't been a library book I would have ripped it into tiny pieces, stamped on them and then thrown them into the compost bin, and let it rot and be eaten by worms.

lionheart70 · 19/08/2016 19:28

What they do in the dark by Amanda Coe. It was so unpleasant and it filled my head with images I couldn't erase. I really felt upset and angered by it.

Original poster
tobee · 19/08/2016 19:24

I think we get such visceral reactions because not only have we usually thought carefully and spent money on a book and time reading it but it's such a personal experience, a contract between just us and the author that a let down seems like, dare I say it, a betrayal.

OP posts:
TaraCarter · 19/08/2016 19:05

I couldn't throw it, but I returned Betrayal by Fiona Mackintosh to the library unread. I had never, ever, ever done that before in ten years of owning a library card.

To this day, that book (and another whose name I don't recall) define my rock bottom for printed fiction.

Tatlerer · 19/08/2016 15:14

This reminds me of quite a well- to-do friend's mum who bought 50 Shades as she thought it was a thriller ( of the crime, not the knicker variety). A chapter or so in, when she got the gist of it, she had to go outside and put it in the wheelie bin (not any bin inside the house!).

SlinkyVagabond · 19/08/2016 15:08

Yy to Da Vinci Code. So badly written I threw it across the room, got out of bed and threw it again.

TheSolitaryBoojum · 19/08/2016 15:02

I'm a book addict. A serious one, over decades.
There are books I hated and didn't finish, but others called them classics and amazing and fabulous, so I let them live on in a charity shop somewhere.
Every few years I read a book so appalling that I can't let it pollute anyone else, so I tear it into bits and stuff it in the bin. Or use it as a firestarter.
Then I delete it from my memory so it's dead to me as well.
So I can't give you titles, but yes. There are books I eliminate.

ItsNiceItsDifferentItsUnusual · 19/08/2016 14:52

Oh no! I'm about to start reading A Little Life.

I hated Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White'. The way he described women made me want to scream.

Sooverthis · 19/08/2016 14:51

The Minaturist every reviewer must have either been sniffing glue or paid to say it was 'gripping'

fruityb · 19/08/2016 14:48

We are all completely beside ourselves - utter bilge.

Zoo by James Patterson. I love a Patterson but this one bored me rigid!

dalek · 19/08/2016 14:41

One Day - what a waste of time! I actually persuaded a woman in a shop from buying it as she was umming and ahhring between it and The Help.

Also Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Put it in the bin on holiday

TheTartOfAsgard · 19/08/2016 14:38

The simarillion. I love lotr and Tolkien but I just can't get to grips with it! I've started it 3000 times but it's been lobbed at the wall each time

dietborebingo · 19/08/2016 14:35

Da Vinci Code. Written like a self congratulatory wank. It's awful.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 19/08/2016 14:33

Totally agree about The Bunker Diary. I should have known better than to read it in the first place - an earlier one of his, The Road of the Dead, is also horrible, not as shocking but just constant unredeemed violence.

AlmaMartyr · 19/08/2016 14:32

Outlander.

mumhum · 19/08/2016 14:16

Gosh yes I agree, A Little Life wad too much and lost all its message somewhere along the way.

Ohlalala · 19/08/2016 14:14

50 shades was thrown in the bin. Had never done that before!

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