Worst book you've ever read?

[CommunistLegoBloc]

Inspired by the film thread, what's the worst book you've read?

I think mine was The Miniaturist purely because it was SO hyped. It was completely overwritten, ridiculous, boring, and you'd think for that amount the author got paid, she'd have bothered to come up with an ending.

I picked up Captain Corelli multiple times and put it back. Then one day when I picked it up I just couldn’t put it down. I’ve read everything he has written and loved them all to some degree. Senor Vivo was the best.

I’ve only recently started not forcing myself to read things I am not enjoying. Her Brilliant Friend was overhyped and just not for me at all.

Things like 50 Shades etc, I agree not great literature or even particularly good but very light and easy for when I had deadlines looming. I didn’t hate them or some of the other lighter stuff mentioned here but they wouldn’t be my go to.

I started Riders but haven’t managed more than a few chapters and I’ve been reading Casanova for approx 4 years, i am 8% of the way through and read it a tiny bit when I am between books.

I also really like Wuthering Heights having reread it in lockdown. Yes everyone is awful, but that’s what I like about it, there is so much about the characters.

@ComfortablyGlum I'm about half way through machines like me and your post really made me chuckle!

The bible.

Just dreadful nonsense from start to finish.

😂😂😂

jenny the King James version has some rather rousing bits.

Grapes of wrath - couldn't finish
Gulag archipelago - nearly every page had a chunk of footnotes which really irritated me, so gave up
Eat pray love - complete drivel

and, sadly David Attenborough's autobiography. He just can't write to save his life.

We Need To Talk About Kevin. Everyone was so unlikeable. No humanity in it at all.

@MotheringShites

I’ve had several I hated this year, but none more than A Little Life. I HATED it so much.

Didn’t like The Testaments either.

This!! A million times this to A Little Life. Absolute bullshit misery porn.

@Fanthorpe

jenny the King James version has some rather rousing bits.

Yes, but the main character is clearly a nut job.

Says he loves everyone, but will make them suffer for an eternity if they don't do as he says.

Clearly a control freak, with deep issues and a misogynistic, domestic violence supporting, murdering, capricious, deeply unpleasant lunatic.

American Psycho, its one of the very few books in life I've actively not finished.

I came on to say Shantaram! I was worrying that people would think I was a literature oik as it's my friend's favourite book and I thought the genius and hype had passed me by. Glad to read others have felt the same way.

I really didn’t understand the hype over The Girl on the Train. It just felt a bit “meh” - and predictable. I am absolutely rubbish at working out solutions to thrillers normally. That said, I did keep reading it so it can’t have been that awful in a way.

I have stopped reading plenty of books in the past (ADHD and a messy house :o) but the only book I have ever deliberately stopped reading was Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. It was on the display of Banned Books when I started working at the library. I am no prude but it was just... ick. Too many body fluids and not of the fun kind! I stopped fairly near the beginning after a description of an unflushed loo, IIRC. 🤢

I also just remembered I actually returned a book on kindle once after a few pages - some self published thing and it was too graphic describing something nasty. I don’t normally shy away from anything (in a way it sometimes helps me deal with my own past) but it was more that it made me suspicious of the motivation of the author for writing it. It felt like reading someone’s fantasy. So vile I can’t even remember the name.

God sorry that was waffly 😳

Mercedes I’m going to read wuthering heights soon! Someone recommended cold comfort farm to me and said I’d get more out of that if I read WH first.

Well yes jenny when he put it like that the protagonist is a little overwritten 😆

Ooh I loved the miniaturist!
Mine is The House by the River, by Lena Manta. It was free on Kindle and just terrible, so boring and predictable.

Also hated "The pillars of the earth". My mum got it for me as I like cathedrals, but it has a really graphic rape description and is also just badly written.

When I was a teenager I walked into my older brothers bedroom to find him in full flow shagging his girlfriend.

The visceral, toe curling AAARGH feeling was nothing compared to the embarrassment and awkwardness of the second half of On Chesil Beach.

Who would want to be in that bedroom? Who? And why? Utterly ghastly.

@Fanthorpe

Well yes jenny when he put it like that the protagonist is a little overwritten 😆

Yep, talk about a god complex!

Anna Karenina OR A Room with A View.

Hated both of them, although I was so proud of myself for finishing Anna Karenina (it took me a LONG time).

www.amazon.co.uk/Note-book-everyones-talking-about-ebook/dp/B07175T6GY/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&s=books&keywords=THE+NOTE&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1595332834&sr=1-3

This - The Note, an Amazon best seller. In WHSmith too. Absolutely dire. 'Maya did this, Maya did that.' Primary school student could have written something more creative.

The bible. Just dreadful nonsense from start to finish.

If anyone had said The Koran, they would have been shot down in flames, reported and called racist.

I believe the Koran is beautifully written, but I’ve never read it so I can’t comment.

A bit obscure this one, but a book called The Darling by Russell Banks. I bought it because it was recommend by an author I admired.

I was horrible. The main character was a deeply unpleasant amoral person so I found it impossible to follow the story through her eyes. In any case, pretty much every other character was deeply unpleasant as well.

It is the only book I've thrown away, because I didn't want it in my house. Even still, I didn't like the thought of it in the bin where someone else might pick it up and be poisoned by it, like the book version of novichok.

@DOINGOURBIT

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This - The Note, an Amazon best seller. In WHSmith too. Absolutely dire. 'Maya did this, Maya did that.' Primary school student could have written something more creative.

To be honest, it doesn't take much to have a 'best seller'. Several of my books have hit the 'best seller' heights. One in 'education' another in 'dog care'. I write fiction.

Creative tagging by publishers can ensure that your book is practically the only one in its category. Bestseller status ensured!

I really loved Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light, I'll probably read them again soon!

Worst book I ever read was Behind Closed Doors by B A Paris. Relentless, unbelievable cruelty all the way through.