I just read a terrible book

Oh no I just started this one and I bought the bullet one as it was a special deal. 😯

Ah thank god you said this. Everyone was raving about it and I just didn't get it. Really creepy fetishisation of abuse and self-harm, plus so homophobic.

I don't recall this aspect???

Ralph’s Party by Lisa Jewell. I can’t remember the actual story or characters I just remember hating every page of it. I used to feel I had to finish a book once I’d started but thankfully no longer waste my time doing that.

Recently, the only thing I hated more than the Crawdads wibble was the absolute car crash that was A Little Life.

I loved Piranesi though.

So many different perceptions!

All the BA Paris novels seem to be about men imprisoning women in some way. ('Behind Closed Doors' - the film was cathartic). So I am now avoiding. I have read 'The Breakdown' too.
I enjoyed 'Behind Her Eyes' by Sarah Pinborough but you can only do that twist once. TV version was okay.
I also enjoyed Crawdads although I don't think even in the States a child would have been left to fend for herself alone like that for so long, so it wasn't very realistic.

I read The Therapist by B A Paris last year. It was dreadful. Never bothering with another book by them.

Where The Crawdads Sing was equally dreadful. Didn't understand the hype.

Controversially the worst book I think I've read in recent times was Wuthering Heights. I hated that book so much.

This brings back bad memories

just dire

Lady Chatterley's Lover was extremely racy & shocking at the time. They tried to ban it. These days it's ploddy & tame compared to recent books.

OMG a fellow hater of this book - I have to keep my mouth shut when people rave about this and the follow ups. Utter rubbish money making project for RO.

I managed the first page of Crawdads - I find the fact that the writer’s DS and DH are implicated in the murder of a poacher, for which they have never been questioned, too problematic.

GloomyDarkness You did better than me. I read about 50 pages then started skimming.

Recently, Lady Chatterly's Lover. Absolutely terrible.

I read it a few years ago - it was in news TV or film adaptation coming out or in works - finished it and then wonder why I bothered.

B A Paris seemed to have 1 great book (The Breakdown) & everything else published seems ridiculously far fetched & easy to predict the unbelievable ending.
I really hated Behind Her Eyes, can't remember who it was by. It had a ridiculous supernatural ending & such annoying characters.
Someone's lent me Crawdads, I might not bother!

Man and Wife by Tony Parsons. I threw it out of a window in Manchester.

The Coffin Path. Advertised as Gothic horror, 'the perfect ghost story'. I leaned more about sheep farming in historic Yorkshire than anything else in the plot.

Can't remember the name of another book series but every single one has exactly the same storyline, just changes the protagonists' names (eg Lucy becomes Claire, John becomes Steven). I gave up halfway through the second one. The author really bigs up their own books - I mean, I know they have to to some degree but stuff like 'Game Of Thrones meets Harry Potter' (made these up but you get the gist) when it's about teen romances in the 80s is a load of bollocks.

The last one I half read spent three chapters describing shopping for a dinner party and tidying up the flat.

Another vote for The Time Traveller's Wife being utter bilge.

Also agree with: Anything by Sophie Hannah is usually a real disappointment. Always starts with an intriguing premise, then ends with a ridiculously unbelievable explanation.

Recently, Lady Chatterly's Lover. Absolutely terrible.

Sophie Hannah - Haven't They Grown.

Along similar lines as the OP one sounds, but I guarantee it is infinitely worse. (Woman spots old friend with her kids who were that age 10 years ago or something, ie the kids haven't aged. Sounds stupid - it is.)

thus spoke zarasthara, most awful pointless book ever written

The Photographer's Wife by Nick someone or other. I think it was self published.
Overall message was don't be a woman. Literally a tale about men who shaft women, take the credit for their work.

Keri Beevis "The Sleepover"
It was SO BAD. I only read it to see which of 2 bad endings she went with. And then she crowbarred in a "twist" which was totally unnecessary. Really annoyed me (and I didn't even pay for it)

Karen Fowler "we are all completely beside ourselves". Ridiculous. Couldn't suspend my belief enough for this book.

I once read about 4 chapters of a BA Paris book but the writing was so terrible, I became convinced her name is just a pseudonym for a group of A level creative writing students. 😂

Yes! I stuck it through to the end and have regretted it ever since. I have to fight a shudder whenever I read the words "honey", "smoke" and "tea" now. I don't mind a book that's more style than substance, but this was neither. Absolute rubbish.

Crawdads was awful. So bad. So hyped. I hardly ever buy new books (use the library and buy charity shop books mostly) so I felt robbed!

The Outlander books. Absolute garbage. Loved the first tv series and wanted to find out what happened and ended up skim reading a few, but they're just tripe.

And an old chick lit book called The Tenko Club that almost put me off reading altogether. Every single character was hateful except the supposed 'villain'. I don't think I've ever hated a book as much.

A recent one called (I think) The Nest, where a woman applies to be a nanny with stolen credentials and a man single handedly diverts a river on his own in one afternoon and the ending is basically 'it all turned out alright in the end even though the main character lied to get a job and then we went home'.