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What’s your “ How did this crap get published?!” book?

521 replies

MrsGrindah · 20/12/2020 15:37

Just finished The Pretenders by Agatha Zaza. Gosh it was dreadful.Cannot understand how drivel like that gets a publishing deal. There was a scene where, in the middle of a “ dramatic” moment, one of the side characters crosses the room to his wife and “ took hold of the corner of her blouse” . What?! Who does that?! I can’t even picture it.

OP posts:
ShirleyPhallus · 22/12/2020 03:33

I loved “Behind closed doors” by BA Paris but the next one was such utter shite I can only assume she rushed through to get another one out

Eat, Pray, Love was awful

One Day was the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever ever read and I have no idea why anyone enjoyed it ever

DougalandFlorence · 22/12/2020 06:08

@hopeishere

Also Fleishman is in Trouble or whatever. Not worth the hype.

And Polly Samson's Theatre of Dreams. Worst book I read this year.

Oh god, Fleishman drove me crazy. The sudden switch of narrator so halfway through a chapter it’s basically someone else talking - was it just me that was confused and irritated every time? And nothing happened, and he was a creepy little man.
ThePawtriarchy · 22/12/2020 06:15

@Greenteandchives

Adam Kay This Is Going To Hurt. His misogynistic references regarding older women with gynae problems made me furious. I’m glad he gave the profession up. I haven’t read the sequel, obviously. I’m still cross. Also agree with Nine Perfect Strangers, Eleanor Oliphant and Crawdads. AlsoThe Tatooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey. Both awful. I also disliked the MN favourite, The Heart’s Invisible Furies. A totally unbelievable set of coincidences in order to make the story work.
Yes, this!!! Me too! His patronising attitude towards pregnant women and older women. Smug and a faint whiff of disgust. It hugely bothered me but I’ve never heard anyone else say it.

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Books
TrickyD · 22/12/2020 07:24

I subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, which is an inaccurate title , as you can only 'borrow' ten books at one time.

Each month you are offered one or sometimes two books to keep, out of a list of around eight. These are always utter crap, mainly the most dreary chick lit or American crime stories.

'The Secret History has been mentioned several times, not favourably. It is one of my favourites, I have read it several times. The Goldfinch, on the other hand, impossible to get through..

BloodyFreezingOutHere · 22/12/2020 07:31

Time travellers Wife.

And then I watched it to see if they'd made something decent of it.

They hadn't.

BrandyandDeath · 22/12/2020 07:39

I liked The Time Traveller's Wife, but the author's follow-up supernatural book about the twin girls in London was a bit of a mess.

winewolfhowls · 22/12/2020 07:55

Catcher in the rye is the most overrated novel ever. Can't stand it
I liked wolf Hall though.
Most books recommended on radio 4 that sound amazing but then aren't. Got one called convenience store woman that was great for a bit but then meh.
For kids I dislike David Walliams and those pooped a whatever style books

winewolfhowls · 22/12/2020 07:58

Although I think Stephen King is underrated as just being horror, when many of his books are so much more. Insomnia where the elderly hero can hear an invisible death clock ticking as his wife declines is so poignant.

winewolfhowls · 22/12/2020 08:00

Jonathan strange is bloody amazing though, sorry disagree with you there!

TravellingSpoon · 22/12/2020 08:34

Just found out today they are making Nine Perfect Strangers into a miniseries with Nicole Kidman ( God she loves Lianne Moriarty) and Melissa Mccarthy.

Dull.

mammmamia · 22/12/2020 09:14

Really dislike Zadie Smith.
Hated the Secret History.
Loathed the Lovely Bones - absolutely awful.

rookiemere · 22/12/2020 09:49

@TravellingSpoon oh how I hate Nicole Kidman in anything now with her overdone plastic surgery face. It's hugely distracting and she still insists on playing the younger wronged wife when she'd be far better in a different role. In "Nine Perfect Strangers " it would be good to see her as the spa owner as that would be something for her to get her acting (but not moving) chops into, but bet she isn't.

Sorry, sorry for book derail!

I've also been greatly disappointed in the last few Philippa Gregory novels I've read. They used to be densely plotted and full of interesting historical detail, but the more recent ones seem really churned out and padded with unnecessary, page consuming dialogue.

IrmaFayLear · 22/12/2020 09:54

I think Nicole Kidman must have something in her contract which decrees that she must be filmed through a pair of 60 denier tights. She is always in a soft haze.

Madhairday · 22/12/2020 10:03

I love this thread, though have to admit as an author it makes me slightly nervous Grin Luckily I'm not writing a middle class woman called Kate who buries her face in her Labrador and then pads over to her Aga. Alas, however, one of my characters does have a son called Jake. He doesn't have a secret he will reveal amid much melodrama, though.

Anyway. Books. I found Me Before You insipid and ableist. The Goldfinch I couldn't get into. Wolf Hall I so wanted to love, I love historical fiction but it just frustrated me.
The hundred year old man who climbed out of a window. Rambling and tedious.
Life after life. Couldn't finish it, though I do like some Kate Atkinson.
Station Eleven. Just get on with it already.
I quite liked some mentioned here. Eleanor Oliphant, The Bees, Room, that first BA Paris one (though the next was awful.)
I'm reading a book called Three Hours at the moment and I don't get the hype at all. Slow moving, poorly written. On the edge of giving up.
Most terrible book I've ever read was Snatched by I think Steven Edger. Explicit scenes of child tape, terrible grammar and spelling, awful stereotypes, no research into setting, just one thing after the other. I wrote a very damning review on Amazon and seriously think it should be taken down, it made me feel physically sick.

Fuss · 22/12/2020 10:04

I was recommended a series, the first of which was called Mollie McQueen is NOT getting divorced
The husband was a deeply unlikeable cocklodger of a man child and I knew if she remained with him in this series I couldn’t carry on. Spoiler, I googled it, she did and I never got further than about chapter five.
I think I’d read far too much on here because I just wanted her to LTB.

Madhairday · 22/12/2020 10:05

Rape that should be. Horrible book. Angry

onewhitewhisker · 22/12/2020 10:49

The recent Lisa Jewells after she recreated herself as a writer of psychological thrillers. Why??? I really enjoyed her earlier books, they were fun, warm takes on chick lit and better written and more relatable than most of the genre. But the thrillers I find baffling, improbable and unnecessarily grim - the one with the kidnapped pregnant teen was horrible. And all beset by a bizarre shallowness where you can work out who the bad 'un is early on - it'll be the woman who has bad dress sense and not very nice hair. Surely she's successful enough that she can chill for a bit and not churn out a new one every year?

tisonlymeagain · 22/12/2020 10:54

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. Hated this with a passion, long, dull and bloody boring,

One Day - awful characters, nothing likeable about either of them.

Womanwiththegoldenbun · 22/12/2020 11:05

One Day also could have done with a good editor. The author randomly jumped from past tense to present, then back to past (ad nauseum) regardless of when the action was meant to have taken place. I remember thinking it read, at times, more like a screenplay and then discovering he had a background in screenwriting.

CoolCatTaco · 22/12/2020 11:19

A Certain Age by Rebecca Ray. It's about an unhappy teenager being groomed by an older man. It's aggressively bad.

OhWhyNot · 22/12/2020 11:20

I disliked with a passion The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and the follow up

I can understand why they got published (though I didn’t think it was a great thriller, similar in writing to Thomas Harris but no where near as good) but why was it so descriptive just seemed like added unnecessary words (like you do to expand an essay)

CoolCatTaco · 22/12/2020 11:29

Also Saturday by Ian McEwan, utter, utter nonsense, especially the ending when the daughter recites a poem to the crazy man who attacked them & humiliated her, and he's moved by it. Christ the night! Patronising, tone deaf rubbish.

BeanToCup · 22/12/2020 11:53

I think that book marked the point where McEwan fully embraced writing by numbers, although to my mind he'd always been in the area.

OnceUponAMidnightBeery · 22/12/2020 12:03

@winewolfhowls

Although I think Stephen King is underrated as just being horror, when many of his books are so much more. Insomnia where the elderly hero can hear an invisible death clock ticking as his wife declines is so poignant.
Totally agree
ShagMeRiggins · 22/12/2020 12:55

Nine Perfect Strangers—actually Nicole Kidman will be playing Masha, the spa owner, so that’s something she can her teeth into.

As for padded—not sure why all the hate, it’s a perfectly legitimate and specific word for walking!

As for “how did this crap get published” there are too many to mention but I can’t because they were just that forgettable. Usually I can remember at least one character or scene or interesting research or setting. Something, anything, that is memorable. But as I look at my bookshelves doing yet another sort out there are quite a few I’m looking at and thinking, “have I read this one?” Scanning the blurb doesn’t jog my memory either. Meh.