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.

Twighlight ergghhh

Girl on the train,
Fifty shades,
Any Hilary Mantel....tried 2
That one about a wife that vanished....
I've stopped reading after100 pages if I dont like it . Life's too short!

We are all completely beside ourselves.
Yes, yes I was after reading that shite.

Another one who hated The Slap, I also read Barracuda which is another of his. Thank you for telling me what someone's shit smelled like for no apparant reason.

As soon as I see this thread title .. that bloody waste of time book popped back into my mind. LL Cool J.. what an absolute A hole of a man

As soon as I see this thread title .. that bloody waste of time book popped back into my mind. LL Cool J.. what an absolute A hole of a man

Pillars of the Earth is bloody brilliant!

Unlike Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

The Little Friend, Donna Tartt. Fucking interminable and nothing happened.

A Prayer for Owen Meany - such boring drivel. I actually can’t explain how angry this book made me feel.
Wuthering Heights - Boring and Irritating
50 Shades - so badly written.
Wolf Hall - boring and just over hyped.
Cloud Atlas - WTAF???

I don’t think I have ever finished any of them but stupidly persevered as I hate to give up on a book. How much of my life have I wasted reading this drivel?

Most of the other books mentioned on here I have enjoyed, and at least finished them.

I don’t think I have ever finished any of them but stupidly persevered as I hate to give up on a book. How much of my life have I wasted reading this drivel?

Ahem. By the power vested in me as a former Librarian, I hereby grant to you and anyone who reads this post permission to stop reading a book you do not enjoy and read something nice instead.

Unless you have to, of course, in which case suck it up.

My rule of thumb is: if you don't enjoy a book, give it 20 more pages. If it doesn't get any better it goes to the charity shop. Life's short. Have fun.

50 shades was utter trash wasn’t it?

Bridget Jones.

Yes to the Minituarist....dreadful.
Life of Pi...over-rated bollocks
The girl before....total shite
The Milkman ...more or less unreadable
Wolf Hall. ..ditto

I really disliked Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction.

I loved the earlier Adrian Mole books, but I found that one so dreadful. His "intellectual" ways were funny when he was a teenager, but the fact that he hadn't matured at all by his mid thirties made me lose all sympathy for him. I was screaming in frustration at the way he was totally spineless against Marigold Flowers and her vile family ("I found myself agreeing to this"), his highly unrealistic ways of dealing with swans ("they belong to the Queen; she is responsible for their behaviour, so Her Majesty could end up in court"), and the way he so carelessly got into huge debt.

White Teeth by Sadie Smith. The woman has a divine turn of phrase but there wasn't a single character that I could even like, let alone care about.

It's the reason I never buy prize winning books any more.

Also White Teeth was really annoying because it was so badly researched Re the tank in ww2 Bulgaria which travelled for miles on one tank of fuel and seemed to have no historical verisimilitude. Stuff like that annoys me.
Talking of badly researched guff A Little Life was fairly horrendous.

Torn between 'Out of the Silent Planet' and 'The Hobbit' English Lit, first year at Grammar school (now year 7). Why, just why?

Whoever saud Hilary Mantel, I loved the Wolf Hall series but I've only read A Place of Greater Safety by her- its completely bizarre and turns a huge dramatic event like the French Revolution into some tedious balls all about married women having affairs.

TV series I should have said.

I enjoyed all the Wolf Hall trilogy loved Time Travellers wife Goldfinch and Little Life so I don’t belong on this thread!

Enjoyed all Donna Tartt bar The Little Friend which i didn’t finish.

Didn’t like Eleanor Oliphant odd and dull and gave up on Normal People too.

"Haig's Command" by Dennis Winter. The author has an amazing ability to twist historical evidence and/or selectively quote it in order to support his very dubious opinions.

It is the only book I have ever thrown on the fire (literally).

@CinnabarRed phew I'm glad someone else hates The Time Traveller's Wife - I thought it was awful, unlike most of the book club.

In a similarly schmaltzy vein, I'll nominate 'The Five People you Meet in Heaven'.

Children's books, the absolute pits for me (didn't even finish it - said to my children 'I'm not reading this anymore; it's pants') was 'The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep'.

I really didn't get the hype about Eleanor Oliphant. I kept expecting it to get good.

My absolute darling was awful so disgusting the way the (Male) author kept referring a the genitals of a child sex abuse victim as an "engorged pussy" fucking creep

I think the point about We Need To Talk About a Kevin was that the mum seemingly blames herself for Kevin turning out the way he did and the lack of bond they had - when actually she is an unreliable narrator as to the reader's eye it's glaringly obvious that:

1. She suffered horrifically with PND
2. She only had a baby to please her narc of a husband who wanted his own little mini-me and too blinded by love for him to see that perhaps having a baby you don't want isn't such a good idea
3. that Kevin is a shit because his father let him get away with everything, undermined his wife at every turn, refused to discipline him and massively overindulged his mini-me

I think it's clever the way the author had the min narrating like it was her fault when clearly we can see it's anything but

@MsTSwift I must have reread The Little Friend five times at least but got about a third of the way through The Goldfinch and gave up. Like ok he's Russian. I got it.

All that Flowers in the Attic shit when I was a teenager. Jeez