I just read a terrible book

Apart from the original Dracula, which is obviously a masterpiece

I didn't like it - and I suspect it was my reading style it slowly build tension and I tend to read fast and don't tend to like diary entry/letter style - Andrea K Höst Touchstone series is only case with diary entries that I think I've ever liked.

DD2 got on very well with an e-mail reading - something MN alerted me to - sends out the entry on the date it say it is in book - slow build of tension.

By contrast Frankenstein wasn't what I expected either but I found it very compelling.

I think I did this to DH with Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan and then later books

To me it was a blend of film noir and sci-fi which I loved.

The main protagonist while extremely violent in a very staked against him word had strong moral code and many of his mentors were women with different backgrounds and motivations and he was basally given no choice but to solve a rich jackass murder by said victim.

I hated the TV show - seemed to miss all that nuance amalgamated many of the female mentors/drivers and I couldn't get past first few episodes - I think DH saw it very like the TV show creators.

@Leirvassbu

I'm glad you agree. I thought everyone might say that they loved it.

It wasn't just that it was about Vampires. It was everything (though admittedly the vampires did put me off)

Vampires are very Marmite, I find. Apart from the original Dracula, which is obviously a masterpiece, it's a genre that's generally very good at delivering what its audience likes. If that's not you, move along.

Similar happened to me. Friend absolutely loved it - but she was really into fantasy and vampires and so on.
I absolutely loathed it. I just hated the language used in the dialogue which didn't seem to fit with the setting.
There were all kinds of far-fetched plots and sub-plots and sub-sub-plots.

A good friend recommended
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

She raved and raved about it so I bought it. Absolutely hated it. I have no idea why I ploughed through to the end - but I do remember thinking at the time - well x said it was brilliant so I should keep going as it's clearly going to get brilliant. It never did. She loved everything that I hated about it. I have never told her though. Vampires featured heavily.

Please, please, please let's not derail this rather wonderful thread any further!

How does any thread end up being about Harry and Meghan 😂 you could post saying ‘my colleague always does massive farts in the lift’ and you can bet someone would reply ‘type of thing Meghan Markle would do.’

And it’s always the people who proclaim not to care about them/people who don’t understand why anyone is interested. Like, you’re the most interested! Obsessed…

Yes, I hate this. Sometimes it's a baby. It's lazy manipulation, you can see it coming a mile away.

I think Louis gives off massive reader vibes.

oh just forget I said anything.

I can feel the unfolding tediousness.

What do big reader vibes look like

Just can't picture it. None of them give off big reader vibes.

Why not?

I can't see any of the royals being big readers.

It's the sort of book Harry and Meghan might like.

Yeah, they needed to switch county. Yorkshire Dales in winter, maybe. Brecon Beacons? Entirely possible. If in doubt, try the wilds of the Scottish Highlands or one of the islands.

But if you want true isolation and horror, try riding the top end of the Victoria line tube all day…🤣

That’s hilarious!

I read a horror by an American author but set in Kent, where the premise was a group of people being stranded in a rural area several hours from any house or human contact. If I set a book in another country I'd at least get one person from there to beta read it...

I wrote a dissertation on a Victorian celebrity who shagged around a fair bit in her youth and ended up advertising Pears soap as an extremely respectable woman in her later life so it can’t have been a tragedy for everyone.

I have no problem believing that - it was just the examples coming to my mind were writers or related to them and that was I remember happening to them - honestly though I think many more people in the past lived more exciting/risky lives than it is popularly given credit for.

I remember reading a book set in Victorian London. We had to part ways when in the first few pages someone sat on a 'stoop'.

I once put down a book set in modern London but was completely oblivious to existence of NHS and plot driver was need for money for fairly mundane medical care - it left so little other impression that's all I remember about it as just wasn't very engaging.

I remember reading a book set in Victorian London. We had to part ways when in the first few pages someone sat on a 'stoop'.

Fuck me. Not only is the author not entirely literate, the text, and I'm just on Sassenach, is littered with American usage, e.g sun up, when sunrise or dawn would be more accurate.

is there a BritEng version available? I love Dick Francis, and back in the days when it was incredibly difficult to get books in English here (Germany) I bought one in a bookshop, delighted to find a) a book in English 2) by an author i love iii) i hadn't read.

It was great but half way through i realised he kept using the word "hobo" and i realised that i'd also read "sidewalk" and things of that ilk. It was the US version. We are divided by a common language, as you notice if you watch things like John Oliver on TV - he has a British accent but uses US words and inflection/intonation to make it easier for the host nation.

And the author has the nerve to pity George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire for his letting the filmed version run away with his narrative.

At least he can write in lucid English prose ya numpty.

I've just started "reading" Outlander as an audiobook, having not seen the filmed version.

Fuck me. Not only is the author not entirely literate, the text, and I'm just on Sassenach, is littered with American usage, e.g sun up, when sunrise or dawn would be more accurate.

Aaaarghhh.

One of my least favourite plot devices is when a character is given a delightful pet, usually a cat or dog, and you just know that about half way through the book this charming animal will be horribly killed. This happens in, for example, books by Penelope Lively, Zadie Smith and one of the early Ruth Galloway books by Elly Griffiths. Tends to put me off a book when this happens.