I just read a terrible book

The Lady of Hay by Barbara?
Got it for Christmas and honestly it makes me want to scream. No one talks in it, everyone is angry and shouts. It's utter tripe.

I disliked it so much I started a thread about it 🤣.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/4409708-How-to-kill-your-family-by-Bella-Mackie-CONTAINS-PLOT-SPOILERS?reply=113007426

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton is as thick as a telephone directory and rambles on and on with so many plots that never come together.

The worst thing is it won the Man Booker prize and if you don't like it some intellect wannabe is always there to point out they love it because Eleanor's rambling makes one question what we want from a story.

Well I want a good plot and if you're writing a book which is over 800 pages long you owe it to the reader.

I will never read a man booker prize winner novel again!

I can’t remember the name of it but many years ago I read a book about a
man who left his wife, set up a new life abroad with a new woman who was totally accepting of the fact he’d left his wife and children after the death of their baby son.

the twist was he’d killed the son by leaving him unattended in the bath and watched him drown from the doorway. And he’d done it because he believed the son wasn’t his, and was his best mate’s because he’d once caught him his best mate anally raping his wife but thought it was consensual sex.

it was all bloody mental.

Yeah, if it's about women they must be straight unless otherwise specified!

Filth!

because the readers who love books like the, shudder, Thursday Murder Club, enjoy the books that are all on Richard and Judy’s summer reading list.

Not for me. I quite liked TMC but hearing the other books they plug leaves me cold.

Oh I love Kind Hearts and Coronets, so there's another reason for me not to read it. I had initially been put off it by the fact that she's a literary nepo-baby.

I loved Pirinesi. I remember reading Lady Chatterley's Lover as a teenager (hopeing for some racy bits) and being very disappointed in it. My friend's more magazine was far more explicit!

I recently read The Old Man and the Sea for a book club. I can see why the writing style is famous but the plot is surprisingly tedious for a very short book. You only really need the first and last 10 pages and you've got all of the important points. Is it about the futility of the fight or the fight against futility? Who cares, just throw the effing fish back in.

Haha, agreed re Tattooist of Auschwiz and The Midnight Library -- both complete rubbish, I just don't understand the hype.

My most recent toe-curling read was Every Day is Mothers Day by Hilary Mantel.... when her death was announced I figured I better read one of her books and - oh my, it was just so unbearably unsettling, actually made me nauseous reading it. But I couldn't find anything to commend it - not even well written and the characterisation is shit.

The Seven Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. Not worth the effort of disentangling the overly convoluted plot.

The Foundling by Stacey Halls. Thin on characterisation, hurried-through plot and a limp ending.

And it's a bloody awful plagiarism of Kind Hearts and Coronets (or the novel Israel Rank perhaps).
Genuinely the worst novel I have ever read.

However - I quite liked The Miniaturist, and I enjoyed Matt Haig's Midnight Library when I read it a few days ago.

The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory. I normally love her, but this one I just found repulsive, it made me feel dirty.

I can't find the film I referred to as being carthartic version of BA Paris's Behind Closed Doors. I must have confused it with something else but the nasty husband was locked in the house without food as the friend helped the wife escape to the airport.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain I have to admit I've tried no other D. H. Lawrence books as I was so underwhelmed by Lady Chatterley's Lover - I was a bit worried I may have written him off too soon but maybe not.

I know it's a Mumsnet favourite but I hated secret history by Donna tartt. Also agree with all those who hated a little life - just unceasing misery from the first page to the last. Really should have given up on it, but I'm usually one for ploughing through once I've started.

I enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant, it was quirky.

I recently read The Girls Who Disappeared by Claire Douglas. I enjoyed it until the ridiculous implausible ending.

I find so many books get ruined by the last quarter feeling rushed and an intriguing story turning to utter rubbish.

The ending of Gone Girl was infuriating and unbelievable.

I recently picked up the Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont. I've been an Agatha Christie fan since childhood and was looking forward to this fictionalised story of the Harrogate disappearance. But OMG it's dire.

Cliched characters and odd prose with unusual. Sentence structure that. Made me want to. Hurl it at the wall.

Glad I'm not the only one thinking 'A Little Life' - it's such a long book too so really wasted a lot of my time ploughing through that one!

I listened to the audiobook for book club and the narrator sent me to sleep. I love the night circus and this was disappointing

I like a lot of SF’s books (with the exception of the overlong, self-regarding Human Traces) but I do find them all a bit derivative, even pastiche. They never quite find their own voice.

That was my conclusion but still felt like a waste of time.

Middlemarch felt similar for different reasons that perhaps I'd missed the point by not being from the time period I found it very dry and cared little about the characters.

Wuthering heights felt mis sold - didn't feel like a great love story to me even as teen - and at time I quite like melodramas - while I could see the love story in Jane Eyre and issues with it.

The Room by Emma Donoghue, I hated it so much I threw it in the bin.

I picked up a copy of IIRC The Phoenix in a charity shop, readthe first page and it was like a Cold Comfort Farm parody (rather than the other way around). Burst out laughing and haven't taken Lawrence seriously since.