I just read a terrible book

Bees - allegorical bit of whimsy

@ThreeKneeRepeater really sorry to say this but I HATED lessons in Chemistry, however millions love it so enjoy 😝For me it's only bearable as a complete fantasy in which physical reality, history and actual people don't exist. Like watching your 5 year old play with Lego.

The Animals at Lockwood Manor, Jane Healey - truly awful lmao, really really naff. Because of You, Dawn French - utterly implausible. The Vegetarian, Han Kang - pretentious shit, it was like two completely unrelated stories forced together. The Secret Magdalene, Ki Longfellow - one of those books where you read it for hours and look at the page number, and you've read fewer than 100 pages. Turgidly dull. Possibly the worst was the Roanoke Girls by... someone.. the twist was that the only male in the family was sleeping with his daughters and granddaughters but he was just so handsome they couldn't resist! Utterly vile book.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Anything which is generally described as “deep” is going to be rubbish, I should know better.

The Time Traveller's Wife gave me THE ABSOLUTE RAGE but because of what she did rather than the novel which i thought was really good.

I used to be "I've started so I'll finish" but i will give them 100 pages and if it's not grabbing me, gone. I need to cut it down to 50.

I feel I have found my people on this thread!

I also hated Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan, and I didn't enjoy either of the Sally Rooney books that I read either. Everybody gets a second chance, but I'm certainly not reading her third novel! I'm also not enjoying Really Good, Actually which I'm ploughing through at the moment. I think I'm just too old for all this , female, navel-gazing, untangling my incredibly deep thoughts and feelings while simultaneously knocking back copious quantities of alcohol and having mindless sex, style of literature.

And I thought Crawdads was completely implausible!

eleanor oliphant is completely fine - utter GARBAGE and I hate it when shit books gain momentum and everyone starts talking about it. They are always shit and it's what happened with this one.

I get most of my book recommendations from here, so I was excited to get Piranesi from the library.
I couldn’t get past the first chapter. Life’s too short.
I’m now on the waiting list for Lessons in Chemistry.
I regretted the time spent reading Crawdads.

I’m still cross just thinking about A Little Life. And now I hear it’s on stage, imagine the horror!

Also recently hated It Ends with Us. Terrible.

The Interpreter by Brooke Robinson. Not even published yet, due June 2023. Interesting premise: the most dangerous person in the courtroom isn’t the accused, but the interpreter who might deliberately mistranslate what someone says to make them look guilty. But oh my goodness what an implausible plot with hideously awful, stupid characters.

The Da Vinci Code.

I loved Piranesi!

Also, I'm ploughing through SPQR at the moment, and I'm sad because I so wanted to love it, Mary Beard is such an icon, but I'm finding it dull and confusing, and it's really not bringing ancient Rome to life for me in the way I thought it would.

Which book is this?

A walk in the woods by Bill Bryson. It was literally like reading a boring version of my daily dog walk.

Sounds familiar OP
please tell us.

Oh the Alchemist was dire. I kept waiting for the BIG REVEAL thinking it must be imminent as it’s such a short book. Nup. Never comes.

I did however love bird song and time traveller’s wife.

I bloody loathed the paper palace too... stuck with it because people said it was amazing. Rubbish.

Yes I like Richard Osman as a presenter- I think he's funny and smart and fun to listen to. But it just goes to show that doesn't necessarily translate into being able to write fiction. I couldn't get on with the Murder club book and gave up half way through.

The Best Things by Mel Giedroyc.
Its the only book which has ever made me angry because it was so awful. I don’t know what I was expecting but it’s utterly two dimensional, unbelievable, shallow and completely not engaging with a haughty privileged perspective.

Agree re Piranesi. Absolute bollocks. I felt the same about The Vegetarian.

Oh no @Wallabyone I've just started Exciting Times and had high hopes

I barely managed any of The Thursday Murder Club.

I used to belong to a book club and almost all our reads were hard work - they felt like homework! Particular lowlights would be David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and the Ukrainian Tractor thingy.

I think it's award winning books, tbh. They try too hard to be clever. Honestly, if Stephen Fry can write readable novels with engaging characters, strong story lines, layered messages, imagery etc then it's clearly doable.

What's your worst book and why?

putting my hard hat on: The Alchemist. I have read a lot of awful awful books. But never one that is so hyped up by so many (millions) of people. Such a load of tosh.

Also Birdsong. I remember thinking at the time that if i want to read about a French adultress i can read Madame Bovary. And if i want to read about WW1 i can read All Quiet On The Western Front.
Gah to both of them

@Howeverdoyouneedme yes!!! So he's with Layla, who dissapears. A period of time passes then he gets with Laylas sister Ellen. Who is actually a mentally ill Layla who has reinvented Ellen, who is actually dead. Honestly I feel angry even writing this down, what a load of old bollox.

This has got RL Stine c.1990s vibes. I'm sure there was a Fear St book a bit like this. Great when you're about 12!

Me too! And such is the power of marketing I’m feeling tempted to read the second one in the series even though I feel I’ve read it and dismissed it already.

The State of Us. The last bit makes me furious and wanting to reveal all.