Most disappointing books you've read this year?

He has! He's published two Canon Clement mysteries.

I LOVED In Memorium. The characters were so vividly drawn for me. The ending was a but unrealistic though.

The Warriors by Sol Yurik.
It isn't much like the film (the film is what it is and a bit of an acquired taste in itself).

The gang members are very young in the book and none of them are likable. The book is more geared towards social commentary on race, misogyny , poverty and social class in 1960s New York. There's very few moments of fighting or much action at all in the book. Most of the characters were underwritten and 'flat'.

I didn't think it was a total disaster though, the part where Ismael is shot is better in the book. He was shot by a gang member who thought he was setting the gang members up, calling the meeting and informing the cops on where to find a load of gang members in one place. In the film Luther, a member of the Rogues (a gang that doesn't exist in the books) tells the Warriors the reason that he shot Cyrus was that "I just like doing things like that".

The names of the gangs and the clothes that they wear were a lot better in the film though.

I hated Demon Copperhead. But I think I gave up on it before it got good ( about 3/4 of the way through!) My book club loved it. I agree about Lessons in Chemustry. An awful, unbelievable main character and stupid story. I've just finished Tomorrow and tomorrow and Tomorrow. Absolutely loved it and didn't want it to end. I'm not into gaming but I just loved it anyway! I was reading it by a pool though.

As a lover of crime fiction I've just this past hour finished a Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan novel, which was awful. Lazy plot device of making the bad guy a cop - won't say which book, as we don't like spoilers do we?

Reichs, like Patricia Cornwell, found out sometime around the turn of the millenium that she could churn out any lazy, cliched formulaic garbage and a lot of their fans would lap it up regardless. Shame, because the early stuff from both of them was excellent.

121 pages into Robert Harris's Act of Oblivion and finding it rather flat. It's got the usual hyperbolic reviews - 'so enthralling that if you'd disembowelled me while reading it I doubt I'd have noticed!' er, I rather think you would, somehow 🙄Another 400 odd pagesto go so maybe it picks up.

Completely agree about When the Coffee Gets Cold. It was an interesting concept but all the female characters were indistinguishable from one another and I could see the ‘twist’ a mile off.

I’d read every Kate Atkinson book apart from Human Croquet which has say on my shelf for 29 years as I knew it was going to be a let down. It was.

Also read Penance a few weeks ago and only got to the end by skipping big chunks. I think m 20 years too old for it.

I loved Where the Crawdads Sing. Took a while to get into it but once I did I was hooked.

I'm currently trying to read the Wim Hoff book but my god, it's the worst piece of writing I've ever read. It's written stream of consciousness style, he rambles on and on about how amazing he is, how he was born to be the ice man, lots of pseudo science and spiritual bollocks thrown in. I really want to start cold water swimming this year and I can't imagine it will be as painful as trying to read this book.

Agree with this - I was reading it when I first commented on the thread....definitely very disappointing!

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. Plot holes you could drive a jcb through.

We read The Great Gatsby in book club and I thought I would love it. It left me cold. It's basically about how the rich and selfish elite always come out on top

Somehow, our book club ending up reading 'Glasgow Kiss' as someone recommended it saying it was hilarious... worst book I have ever read, yet see lots of people reading it and the sequel(s?).

Wholeheartedly agree

Murder Before Evensong. He's such a nice guy and I was really hoping to like it but I really struggled to finish it.

(Also, it did irritate me that it was subtitled "A Canon Clement Mystery" right from the start. This is the first one! You only get to call it "A ... ... Mystery" when you've published more than one!)

Hamnet left me cold too and Lessons in Chemistry is gathering dust, only got a few pages in and just dumped it.

Small Pleasures by Claire Chambers.

Loved it right to the end. Then hated it more than almost any other book!

Nothing happened in the majority of the last half of Lessons in Chemistry ! So much so that I had to skip back to check I wasn’t re-reading a huge chunk of it. What a snooze fest. I thought it started quite strong in a twee light read sort of way, but then in the second half there were just pages and pages of her disobeying her boss by saying science words on the telly. A waste of time.

I hadn't heard of Lessons in Chemistry before I read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Someone mentioned Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller, which is probably my favourite of the 60+ books I've read this year.

I don't think I'd be disappointed by Richards Osman and Cole as I expect them to be shit.

As a lover of crime fiction I've just this past hour finished a Kathy Reichs Temperance Brennan novel, which was awful. Lazy plot device of making the bad guy a cop - won't say which book, as we don't like spoilers do we?

Before the coffee gets cold - do not understand why it is so popular?

(I loved both Hamnet and Lessons in Chemistry 😱)
My most disappointing book was The Great Gatsby. I just didn’t get it and thank goodness it was short as I found it so dull.

Late to the game but "Girl, Woman, Other". Gave up on it. Didn't get why it won awards.
Wasn't her bff on the judging panel or something like that?
Horrible characters and didn't care about any of them.
There were too many of them so nobody got full attention or depth of character. The book was merely random peoples' lightweight thoughts; it was less than the sum of its parts.
Gave up on it.
It ended up with all the female characters coming together in one place to celebrate one of the women but, for some reason, the chapter focused on a (pretentious/pseud) male instead.

Another one thoroughly disappointed by Lessons in Chemistry. Really thought it would have a bit more about it. Silly, and not in a good way. Story just skipped along far too conveniently. Trite. Lacking wit and edge. Didn't bother with the show after reading it.

Late to the game but "Girl, Woman, Other" . Gave up on it . Didn't get why it won awards. Horrible characters and didn't care about any of them.
Also "Again, Rachel". I loved Racbel's Holiday" when it came out but Marion Keyes has turned the Walsh family into a shallow bunch of materialistic, shallow airheads. Hated it. Designer label after designer label. Yawn.

I couldn’t finish Lessons in Chemistry - really don’t understand what the fuss was about. It was unfunny, ridiculous and the main character(s) were all obnoxious.

The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer was not good at all.

The worst for me was Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason- I nearly threw it out of the window

A Little Life, just so depressing

Where the crawdads sing
Fat Chance