Books that you have read that you are disappointed with....

Ok you're persuading me - I'll give him a go.

Jasper FForde is the best! stick with it, The first book, 'the eyre affair' is good, no.2 'lost in a good book' is even better!

Okay JFO I've just checked out Jasper Fforde's website and it does look completly mental! I'll be going to my library next week so I might just have a look and see if they have any of them - as long as he is not too bizarre and does actually have a plot you can follow then looks like he could be pretty good.

sorry, hijacking thread! ill but out now! x

snooks.. try jasper fforde. completely mental, in the second book he has the entire character list in wuthering heights, in counselling because they all hate heathcliffe, except cathy who is madly pathetically in love with him. he has to keep evading asassination! and has been hiding out in the real world, as a hollywood actor called buck stallion! jasper fforde is utter nonsense but I love him!

I also loved The Time Travellers wife and I've also read The Rose Labyrinth but I thought that was ok - but also can't remember the author.
I loved the Davinci Code but must admit I didn't really enjoy his latest The Lost Symbal much at all - I felt he was already thinking of the film as he wrote it and I thought the dialogue in was just really cliche somehow.
Another book I really wanted to love but didn't was Wuthering Heights - I was so disappointed in it and hated Cathy and Heathcliff.
I really hate giving up on a book though so I have on occasion ended up pratically forcing myself to finish something - just skimming through it to get to the end.

I thought The Time Travellers wife was FAB! Didnt like Her Fearful Symmetry (loved all the cemetary info, hated the story!) Also, I recently read a book called The Rose Labyrinth (cant remember the author). I loved The Davinci Code, all the Dan Browns, and anything historical,thriller/mystery, but this just left me feeling stupid. There appeared to be some clue/equation/riddle in every chapter, that I was meant to pick up on, (which were discussed in the appendices) but which completely eluded me! The basic story, was ok though. Seemed like a waste of time to me!

Couldn't stand the Twilight books!!! Utter gumph.

My brother bought me both books by Kate Mosse and they're rubbish too. Also The Historian (sorry, can't remember author) SHOULD have been fantstic but I found it rather boring, dp loved it though.

I loved loved loved Time Travellers Wife, but was sooooo disapointed with Her Fearful Symmetry.

Again, I loved The Book Thief, but with this one I can actually understand why some people wouldn't like it and would find it a bit dull.

I think someone mentioned F Scott Fitzgerald earlier in the thread and that reminded me of how bored I was when I read The Great Gatsby. I read it in school and for some reason decided to do a project on it zzzzzzzz

Oh, Lord of the Rings too. I've tried to read it about 4 times and the furthest I've managed is about half way through the second book. WTF is that chapter on Tom Bombadiel all about???

I was disappointed by Oryx And Crake. Middlesex was good but I like The Virgin Suicides much, much more.

The John Peel thing really annoyed me - it just seemed like name dropping all the way through and whatshername's bits were v badly written I thought.

On Chesil Beach has the most icky ejaculation scene I have ever read. Not a book I enjoyed.

Ooh, ooh I was going to say Middlesex!

Sound v interesting. Am currently struggling to fit in a Spanish GCSE around looking after a two-year-old but would love to return to studying lit at some stage. I can't help thinking that if I had my time again I would make so much more of the course than I did. What's that they say about education being wasted on the young?

I'm still not writing it at the moment actually - it's about monstrous bodies in recent literature, so lots of stuff about the interplay of technology, language and physicality. Other stuff I'm looking at includes World War Z, Darwin's Radio/Darwin's Children, Middlesex...

Great minds, eh?

Do I win a prize if I can guess another?

What was the subject of your dissertation if you don't mind me asking?

Haha Casa, Geek Love is another one of my dissertation texts!

hear heart

thanks Cyteen

Can confirm that I am loving Oryx and Crake this time round. Funny how some books can take a couple of readings before you 'get' them. I wouldn't have gone back to it if I hadn't read After the Flood I think, but am glad I did.
I think I found it tougher going the first time round partly because it comes from a male perspective and MA writes women so well. The background and hindsight that you get from After the Flood has helped me to channel Jimmy!
MayorNaze I would definitely recommend After the Flood if you haven't read it, much more like vintage Margaret Atwood and the female perspective is far more accessible. I think that quite often because her male characters are very much objectifiers of women they are harder to identify - and sympathise - with. ATF brings the whole thing down to a more human level.

Can you tell that I hear Margaret Atwood?

I know we're supposed to be talking about books we did't get, but if anyone wants a recommendation, Geek Love by Katherine Dunn is another strange one, dealing with genetic modification of a kind, but from a very different angle!

On Chesil Beach is just boring and awful. I must admit I enjoyed TTW and Lovely Bones but I have a special loathing for Paul Coelho after dragging myself thriugh 'Veronika decides to die'. What a SHIT book that was. I exchange books with my mum, and we have a running joke that occasionally we slip in a complete and utter dud, so I gave her the Coelho. She phoned me up in hysterical laughter at just how abysmal it was, and made me read a Cecila Aherne book as revenge.

i think if i knew it was going to be like the adventures of lister et al then i might have enjoyed it a bit more...instead i found myself constantly thinking eh?

maybe i will give it another whirl sometime.

currently reading margate of the marshes (john peel) v v g

That was one of the things I liked about it, Mayor , that it was so funny while being so packed full of disturbing ideas.

ChickieNobs

I did read it for my MA dissertation though, so was perhaps more likely to find it worthy of pontification in the first place.

oryx and crake made me think of some bizarre red dwarf style plot i was def v about it.

a pity because, as already posted, i loved alias grace and also the handmaids tale and the robber bride.

Funnily enough I loved the Book Thief, but hadn't heard any of the hype at the time which probably helped.

Atonement I absolutely hated; On Chesil Beach I found dire but unintentionally hilarious so kind of liked it in that respect.

I'm with you on Midnight's Children, knottylocks - that's exactly what I thought!

Further to my previous post on this thread, I should say that I've now finished Her Fearful Symmetry and it was actually less disappointing than I first thought. There are many flaws, mostly to do with character development and a certain lack of realism when it comes to London life, but a lot of the writing is excellent.

CasaBevron (great name! ), I loved Oryx and Crake and found it totally consuming.

Midnight's children - couldn't get into that at all. Mr Rushdie's flowery prose and magical imagery had me shouting, "Yes all very clever but get on with the bloody story!"

Totally agree, Kew. Hated Cathy, thought Heathcliffe was an arrogant selfish twonk. Didn't give a monkey's what happened to any of them. Now, Kate Bush is a different story...

Wuthering Heights.

Thats sevreal hours of my life I'll never get back and frankly could have just listened to Kate Bush and enjoyed it more.