Books that you thought you'd love but didn't.

@Gremlinsateit I love behind the scenes at the museum too-- it's one of my favourite books

Although I have got a copy of Wolf Hall from the library off the back of this thread to give it a go! If it fails to impress me in a literary sense it will certainly be useful to have on my bedside table in case of an intruder situation. One bash over the head with it and they’d bother me no more!

I thought the first one, Northern Lights, was very good. Then The Subtle Knife was run of the mill kids/YA fantasy. Then The Amber Spyglass was just rubbish. I felt like he started off strong then just didn’t know where to go/hadn’t properly planned and tried to bring everything together in a clever way but it just felt flat, boring, and a bit silly/amateurish.

Philip Pullman's Dark Materials series.I have had a few tries but something just doesn't click for me.

Educated, what a load of old twaddle that was, so full of inconsistencies & contractions, half way through she even admits that half her family have different recollections of the same incidents.

Nooooo! Really?!

Completely agree re The Corrections, so pretentious.

I loved Behind the Scenes at the Museum and her other books in the same vein, but just cannot read the Jackson Brodie ones after the horrors of the first one - which is a shame as my late dear Dad loved them and liked to discuss them at length.

I hate all Jane Austen books with a vengeance!!!

@MadameCholetsDirtySecret I hated The Lovely Bones too

I enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant and Life After Life. I thought the best part of the latter was the chapter set during the Blitz. It was so vividly written.

SK not DK. Think I need to go and find a cool place to lie down and read a crap book

I was, yes! Was thinking about Sleeping Beauties, which DK did write with OK. I loved all Joe Hill’s other books but The Fireman just went on and on and on.

Ooh, interesting mix! I also hated Crawdads - just couldn't get past the implausibility of it and found the whole thing deeply irritating. And A Little Life I just found grotesque - all that wallowing in the total excess of horror piled on Jude.

But I loved Wolf Hall, have read Life After Life multiple times and love it more each time, quite enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant... and I Capture the Castle, Nancy Mitford and Jane Austen are all lifelong favourites.

Chocolat boring

I was expecting to love "The Essex Serpent", but it was over-written dross.

@EspeciallyDeIighted , both those

I hated the section set in Lithuania. I’ve never been there, but I could tell immediately that the author hadn’t been there either. It was Arrogant American shite.

Re Wolf Hall etc - took a bit of getting into, especially with the multiple Thomases. (A Place of Greater Safety is also somewhat in the same style, unlike her other books that I've read.)

Anyway, I just loved them all. What I really like is they way they take you into history, like you're right there with them, riding in the rain, arguing with Anne Boleyn... Even (and no spoiler here, as I hope everyone knows this!) Cromwell's execution. You don't quite believe it will happen, you think that these events are still in the future not the past and that this "future" can be remade with a different ending.

I absolutely loved it and have read it twice. I agree it is one to immerse in not read a few pages at a time. Definitely worth a try as people really really love it (or really hate it!)

The Flood by Margaret Atwood.

Loved many of her other books including Oryx and Crake, but read a couple of pages and didn't want to continue.
I just felt it was a depressing book and not in an interesting way.

I've been reading Wolf Hall for about 6 years and I have no clue about the various Thomases. I assumed it was because I was reading it on my kindle so it's not easy to flip back and forth.

Thought Crawdads was ok, not sure I'd repeat.

Shantaram. Badly written self centered tripe. In my opinion 😂

I'm halfway through the third book in the trilogy. Really enjoyed the first two, I think The Mirror and the Light is perhaps slightly less good but still very readable.

same here with Kazuo Ishiguro. all my friends rave about him and talk in depth about his books assuming I've read them. I keep trying and just feel bored.

Also Crawdads. Lovely nature writing and I did - just - believe the girl would survive in the wild, but the stories were stupid and the love scenes like something out of Mills & Boon - just ugly awful writing splodged in among the gorgeous passages on nature.

Hamnet. I love anything about Shakespeare but I can't get on with Maggie O'Farrell's writing at all. It's too showy for me.

Unfortunately I don’t remember the last time I could read a book for hours! Maybe one to get stuck into over the hols on my days off. It seems to be one of those books you hear raving that it’s amazing and the exact opposite. Marmite book maybe!

Kate Atkinson and Richard Osman couldn’t get into either. Also didn’t like Life of Pi.

The Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. Should be right up my street but they are crap. For some reason I keep reading them; at least I can have a good rant about them afterward. The one which referred to the time period I know most about was almost thrown across the room thrice.