Worst book(s) you read in 2020

The Binding - Bridget Collins - unutterable crap. I keep giving her another chance but every book I've read is getting worse.

Also, The Chilbury Ladies Choir by Jennifer Ryan - utter rubbish from start to finish.

The Haunting of Hill House. Oh, it was beyond bad.

The Throwback by Tom Sharpe. Started out thinking it was quite funny (despite it being quite unpc but that’s of its time I guess). Unfortunately, the plot got so confused and farcical I just couldn’t bear it. Just got too ridiculous. I realise farce is supposed to be ridiculous but I think it should still be plausible and this just went into fantasy farce. Plus, the main characters were, without exception, horrible and self absorbed. Shame, as I had never read any TS before and he’s very popular.

The Knot by Mark Watson..utter rubbish.

That should be could Not work out the point if the book

My hands down winner would be " Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad . I could work out the point of the book and was convinced there were chapters missing from my copy. Nothing really happened and the writing was tedious. I love other writers of the era, but just because it's a classic doesn't mean it's good.
I loathed the Goldfinch and agree chunks could have been left out, it was self indulgent and I didn't bother to finish it.
I read Girl, Woman Other, and was underwhelmed. Glad I got it through BorrowBox and didn't pay real money for it

.

Normal People - soooo dull
The mundanity of the description bored me to tears. “Marianne picked up a corkscrew, screwed it down into the cork and pulled it out, then poured 2 glasses of wine” not quoting verbatim but that kind of thing all the way through ... snore... how does this stuff get published and who is her editor 🙈

I don't think I read any really poor books last year which is a bit usual, I can usually pick out one stinker.

If I had to choose my least favourite it would probably be The Nightingale but it did have some really tough competition.

I didn't actually mind Normal People but that's because I was comparing it to the ghastly Conversations with Friends, which I hated. Hated all the characters, hated the premise, hated the stupid plot point of the narrator having agonising abdominal pain, going to see a specialist for the first time ever and being told immediately 'you have endometriosis'. Because frankly that's about as likely as a whole herd of pigs flying I may have ranted about this before So on top of hating it, I didn't believe it either.

Crawdads x100.

I agree Sweet Sorrow is rubbish. If a woman had written it (or any of his books actually) she'd be dismissed as 'chick-list'/'mum-lit'.

The Binding was promising but just didn't come off.

On Phillip Pullman, TBH I can well believe the new ones aren't very good; while I agree Northern Lights is a masterpiece, IMO the rest of the trilogy just gets worse.

I've managed to avoid or stop reading very early on anything really bad. I would say that Burnt Sugar, while not a 'bad' book as such, is a tough read though.

I will go to the wall for The Mirror and the Light. Love the whole trilogy.

It's reassuring to see other people haven't liked The Book Thief. I read it last year and really didn't like it. Can't recall what I gave it on Goodreads, but just couldn't get on with it. I can't see what it is that other people love about it.

I'll also add:

• Crawdads: so bad it makes me angry just thinking about it
• Ducks, Newburyport: this wasn't bad per se but I just couldn't get into it. Which was sad because I really loved the idea of it.
• An American Marriage: did not grip me at all, I dumped it very early on
• I am Pilgrim: I found the narrator utterly unbearable

Park Avenue Summer by Renee Rosen, which I didn't finish. Looked really interesting as it is set in the Sixties and was about the early days of Helen Gurley Brown's editorship of Cosmopolitan. HGB is portrayed as constantly being either on the verge of tears or calling her husband to help her out. Maybe she was like that in real life, but it doesn't seem likely. I finally ditched it when an office was described as having "Orla Kiely wallpaper", which was impressive as Orla Kiely was born in 1963.

Jamie McGuire also writes “romance” which is just abusive relationships with a frothy front of not even love, it’s barely like.
I’d of enjoyed it more if she called the police, took an AVO out on him, moved out, did a freedom course and never ever saw him again.
STOP WRITING ROMANCE THATS SO SHIT.
It’s not fucking romance. It’s domestic violence.

And they are the reason I read months of Zombie apocalypse books after and returned to Sci-Fi.

I re-read some Colleen Hoover books I brought forever ago and thought at the time were quite good and romantic. (And read on public transport to work)
I was young, innocent and obviously a moron. Now?

All if them are abusive relationships dressed up as romance. They were all shit.
I’m actually now horrified it was even sold as romance not as a cautionary tale of bad relationships you should run like your in fire from.
(Don’t actually run if your on fire...You stop drop and roll!)

Normal People. Cannot understand the hype. Disliked the main male character and found the relationship demeaning, miserable and nasty.
Got the Crawdads to read.
Just read Just My Luck as got it at the end of the year as aChristmas present. This author churns a book out every year and it shows in my opinion.

Devil's Day by Andrew Michael Hurley and The Summer Visitors by Fiona O'Brien. I found both so bad I irrationally felt insulted that they were even put on the shelf to sell in the shop.

Crawdads, a book I’d never have chosen for myself but so many people raved about it that I stupidly bought a copy. Badly written drivel.

Also, reluctantly, The Mirror and the Light. I don’t know if it was just the inevitability and finality of the plot but it just didn’t intrigue the way the earlier 2 books did.

I agree with pp who said nine perfect strangers, I couldn't even finish it.

Just remembered Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris.
Badly written and disrespectful.

Normal People. Just dull.
Crawdads. Ridiculous book, hyped up on here, otherwise I’d never have heard of it.
Nine Perfect Strangers. I still can’t believe I finished it. I feel a bit ashamed of myself.
And I always mention This is Going to Hurt, by the smug misogynist that is Adam Kay in these threads. I’m still furious at him for writing about the gynaecological problems experienced by older women in such a dismissive and faintly disgusted way, all for a cheap laugh.
I’m currently reading The Snakes by Sadie Jones, and hoping something might happen soon.

@LooneyLovefood

And the sheer level of racist language had me wincing too, realistic to the era or not

Another vote for Crawdads and Eleanor Oliphant. Both nonsense. Although I enjoyed both at the time and was quite happy to be swept away by them. Every diet needs a bit of junk in it.

Normal People I hated the characters and wanted to knock their heads together but think Sally Rooney is a fab writer and hope she is allowed space to grow so when she's lived a bit more I can read the books she writes in her 40s.