That moment when the book turns terrible

I did the same. I was so furious with the ending!

I tried Orlando three times and just can't get far. It's awful.

“Behind Her Eyes, This book is so bad it made me think I could write a book and get published.”

I loved that book! It was such a different idea - and a proper beginning, middle and twist at the end. A very satisfying read I thought. I recommend it to others! 😳

(I probably won’t now though.)

Yes, I kept thinking it was WW1. That period's principle bad guy's family were killed in a coach accident when their horses were frightened!?

I might give Thorneyhold a go👍

Yes, I've had this experience several times. With the following, there was a moment when I thought no, not reading this any more.

Iris Murdoch The Severed Head (I love Murdoch, but this is her one novel I couldn't finish)

Aldous Huxley The Genius and The Goddess (I love Huxley too, but gave up on this one too)

Virginia Woolf Orlando

Oh, I'm glad it wasn't just me who had Weyward as a DNF. The basic idea of it appealed to me, but it was such hard going. The part which was set in the 1940s made it feel more like the Victorian period; lots of forelock tugging and strict father stuff, it didn't ring true. Mary Stewart's Thorneyhold is far superior for a story about generations of witchcraft, handing down female knowledge etc

I've only read a few Scarpetta books but my mum was quite into them at one point, we seemed to have loads lying around. She (Scarpetta, not my mum!) always came across as a massive author self-insertion/Mary Sue - she's beautiful! She's brilliant! She's rich! She cooks! Give me a break.

Just come to this thread and IMO Cornwell went rather strange after The Last Precinct. Up to then she was very readable and the plots had an anchor in reality. After that they just went bizarre.

Oh Weyward was dire! A definite DNF for me.

I am currently trying to decide whether or not to finish an Ode To Orpheus by Natasha Pulley. I adored all her other books but this one has just had something happen that is so so so stupid and needed to be foreshadowed a bit more clearly. Also the protagonist is a bit thick.

A friend gave me a book, Weyward by Emilia...Something. Three generations of women who all have vague, unspecified, witchy powers. It tries to be poetic and, to me, was just pretentious and plodding. They're all victims of male violence. I doubt I'd have finished it if it wasn't for aforesaid friend. The natural history they were all so in tune with was just wrong. Insects and plants out of season, in the wrong place, cows being turned out to pasture in the depths of winter. What did it for me was a fairly detailed description of using tansy (which grew year round in deep shade) to induce abortions. It seemed very irresponsible. I checked, it might work but also very dangerous. There was so much to dislike about this book, but that really annoyed me.

Oh heck, this is on my shelf ready to read.

I'd love someone to explain why The Names has such amazing reviews. I found it utterly depressing and a bit lacking.

A very well known author of many books, who has also written episodic works in a famous newspaper, made a huge error at the end of one of his books. It was something he really should have known because of his other profession.
I put it down to the volume of books he writes however I decided not to let it go, it was too big a mistake, so I did email to point it out and got a lovely , charming response. The error has been corrected in subsequent editions of that book.

Hasn’t put me off his books, as he is a lovely man

I also hate it where a writer thinks they are setting the scene just by reeling off the list of street names a character is walking along.

"He walked along Oxford Street, then turned left long Argyll Street, passing the London Palladium...". It adds nothing to the atmosphere, it just sounds like directions

!!! YES! I was three-quarters through a fairly compelling 'is or isn't he a psycho' kidnap/murder book when the heroine 'suddenly' remembered that her husband used to torture animals and hurt children when he was younger ...
FFS! Terrible!

I love Ellie Griffith's Ruth Galloway novels but the one set during Covid times really did my head in. It was so soon after when I read it that I could remember well enough the situation we had all lived through and her 'version' of it was just wrong. I did do a complete re-read a few months ago and it didn't annoy me as much so I suppose time passing helped with that.

Yes. But only because I had heard previously about research and experiments where people raised animals alongside their own children, in order to compare development.

This has since been massively discredited.

The Slap was awful, The Names was amazing - stuck with it!!

I read one recently, terrific plot, thrilling developments, good characters, and you really wanted it to all come good. Got to about ten pages near the end and was reading with bated breath for the final exciting denoument, and it fizzled out into a damp squib.

It was almost as though the writer had decided they'd reached their word count and completely lost interest so finished it off unsatisfactorily without much thought at all, leaving half the plot lines dangling. Aarghhh.

Can't remember what it was now, and I was so annoyed about investing all that effort for no return. It went straight to the charity shop.

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat I suspected that she can't have heard the final version!

@HoppityBun He sounds like a very unpleasant man and may well have written some of the Ripper letters, but I think now none of them are believed to be genuine. My mum has a lot of the Scarpetta books and I enjoyed reading them, especially The Body Farm (fascinating!) but Kay just got too saintly for my liking, and I could never understand how she wasn't the size of a house with all the pasta and red wine she keeps knocking back!

Ah, ok. I just heard her talking about it and heard podcasts but didn’t read the book. I have read that Sickert was obsessed with the murders and probably wrote fake confession letters or something. But I think I’d got so fed up with her novels that it was the final straw. I don’t mind gruesome in principle but the plots seemed to me to be away with the fairies and I’d started off by loving them

Was that one of the County Guides to Murder books? I really wanted to like those but the plots were so bad I couldn't. Although I do love the Dandy Gilver books and they also can have quite ludicrous plots but they are better written and I love the period, scenery and characters which makes up for it.

Agree with Babel, and Year of the Locust which was bizarre in the extreme.

Haven't read many of the others (thankfully) but I have just finished The Wedding People which was recommended to me several times.

Can't see what the hype was about and all the characters were just highly annoying, except for the kid. And it had the same meandering thing going that Babel has. I think I am in a minority though!