I just read a terrible book

There is a thread now about A Little Life with people saying they like it!

Ironically, if a thread were started about absolute favourite books most of these would probably be on there 😁

I am more of a fantasy reader so want to add a couple from that Genre.

A Court of Thorns and Roses. Absolute fucking shite along with ALL ofthe other "A Blah of Blahs and Blahs" (titles obviously trying to copy ASOIAF). In fact anything by Mass' goes to charity if it gets passed to me. I don't know how they get such rave reviews. Also Shadow and Bone, who's main character is so painfully boring I wanted to scream. I can only think that these authors, amongst other authors such as Holly Black (who seemed to luck out for being a "Young Author"), paid a lot of money to a lot of people to leave a lot of reviews because the books are awful.

ASOIAF itself was a decent story but there was so much unnecessary drivel in there too. The material could have been reduced down to far fewer books and maybe if GRRM had done that we would have got a decent ending. Same for Lord of the Rings. A good story but hidden in amongst a whole ton of guff.

The Night Circus was slow and predictable with a ridiculously forced love triangle.

Most recently, From Blood and Ash was just all round poor writing. Characters with zero purpose, the bare minimum of worldbuilding.

As for other books, Sophie Hannah used to be a fav until about book 3 or 4 (it's been a while) with Simon and thingy in it. Then Hannah just seems to repeat the same smarmy middle class dithery characters over and over again.

I enjoy listening to her books on audible as I really like her resident narrator Caroline Lee.

Agree about The Historian. It was tedious, but I did read it to the end to see if it was worth reading. It wasn't. I should have DNF'd it.

I loathed All The Light We Cannot See. So many people have loved it, and I've been in the minority. I had so many issues with this book when I was reading it. Apart from being utterly tedious, the ending was ridiculous.

The Historian was terrible. I got about halfway through and gave up.

All the Light We Cannot See. How many pages to describe a radio?

The Little Friend. I just don't get the love for Donna Tartt.

I am not a middle aged bloke but I am obsessed with Lord of the Rings:)I can recite bits of it. ( also borrowed my name from it).

Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

Everyone on Book Tube raving about it-turgid nonsense. It had a pretty cover though.

I read Lord of the Rings as a teen - else I'd have never finished it - my capacity to push though any book has diminished with age.

I had a feeling there was a good story there entire way through but fighting to get read and yes it was hard going.

I did like the Lord of the ring films though but not the Hobbit films though that book was okay.

Richard Osman own comments om QI about his own Murder mystery book put me of trying it.

I had to read Never Let Me Go for a book group and had to force myself to finish it. I don’t know if it’s Ishiguro’s writing style but it felt so flat, not emotionally engaging at all and I thought there’d be far more of a climax - it was very clear from the beginning what was happening and not very interesting proceeding through to the end. I felt angry by the time I’d finished it that it was such a waste of time.

Yes - waiting for something to happen good way to put it but also so many unanswered questions at the end leading to the world building not seeming very through left me feeling frustated with it.

I read a thriller that lots of posters recommended on another thread - Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce. My standards aren’t that high for a fun trashy thriller, but my god this was awful. The main character was meant to be unsympathetic but she was just hideous with no redeeming features and I didn’t care at all what happened to her, her sex-pest affair partner or her tedious husband, and the twist was blindingly obvious.

I had to read Never Let Me Go for a book group and had to force myself to finish it. I don’t know if it’s Ishiguro’s writing style but it felt so flat, not emotionally engaging at all and I thought there’d be far more of a climax - it was very clear from the beginning what was happening and not very interesting proceeding through to the end. I felt angry by the time I’d finished it that it was such a waste of time.

Didnt get more than two pages into Richard Osman’s first one.

However I love BillBryson and A Walk the Woods! Reread it a few times, it makes me wish we had some proper wilderness in the UK.

I recently hated We begin at the end by Chris Whitaker. It wasn't badly written or anything but it was just unnecessarily relentlessly depressing.

@scrivette I’ve read two chapters and am debating whether to carry on reading this. Too many characters to keep track of!

I think when you're writing, you try to avoid clichés so it's tempting to just rummage in the thesaurus for an alternative that might actually be even more crap than if you just used the cliché and had done with it.

Also agree B Bryson is a god, one of the funniest writers I've ever read. that said even I CBA with A Walk in the Woods - I like the faster paced ones.

the books that get your job very wrong are the worst. Don't want to out myself but I read one where the protagonist had my job and spent about 3 month's work doing something you might realistically get one day to do, was so pissed off I can't even remember the rest of the plot.

I love Bill Bryson. A Walk in the Woods made me laugh out loud in public.

Bill Bryson has never really been a travel writer, he's a comedy writer.

I read a B A Paris book on holiday that made me so pissed off that I ended up annoying my husband by going on about it. From memory it was implausible and no one in the UK has the job title or “lawyer” we are solicitors or barristers.

The only reason I finished it is because I needed to find out if the poor wife got away.

Oh I love Bill Bryson and Never Let Me Go.

Didn't like Nine Perfect Strangers but have got that Apples one by Liane Moriarty to read next.

I love the Liane Moriarty books - they're entertaining and easy to read. I also loved the tv adaptation of Nine Perfect Strangers.

Yes! It was so tedious. Someone said it was deliberately so, the banality of evil and all that but eh still time I won't ever get back.

Oh and not forgetting Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty. Utter rubbish. Don’t know why I finished that one.

Sadly true. In fairness I did read a few good ones last year, but surprisingly no ‘new’ stuff. New to me, as in hadn’t read it before, but not newly published.

Thought I’d another one, although nobody I know has read it, which was ‘The Fifth Season.’ The writing was just really adolescent/childish, with a desperation to be ‘deep’ and the point always had to be hammered in to ensure the reader understood.

Verity by Colleen Hoover also dire. A main character completely lacking in any self-respect. One of the Book groups I am in has quite a wide age-range and we older ones started requesting less sexually explicit/abusive/misogynistic choices.