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

[MrsGrindah]

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.

Most recently, The Last Hours by Minette Walters. It's set at the time of the Black Death. The main character was educated in a convent, married to a nobleman aged 14, and has 21st century medical knowledge and social attitudes. I honestly thought there was going to be a twist revealing she was a time traveller, but no. And without spoilers, the characterisation and narrative treatment of her daughter was utterly appalling.

the tsokos novels - unecessarily brutal

Yes The Pretenders is very like The Slap and Blood Orange. Supposedly domestic thrillers but full of people doing stuff nobody ever does in real life

Most of Sophie Hannah's. They always start with an intriguing strange storyline, and then the ending will be unbelievably ridiculous.

Where the Crawdads Sing, really don’t understand the hype

Anything by Paulo Coelho
His writing is absolutely terrible

‘The mister’, same writer as 50 shades.

@sofiathe2nd oh yes, terrible book.

Normal People, it was just pages and pages of nothingness .

The sequel to Call Me By Your Name. The innermost thoughts of a nonce put to paper.

Graham Norton's first fiction book (on audible). It was an utter pile of shit. I kept reading it because I just couldn't believe it wasn't going to start getting better. But no. Shit from start to finish.

I like Graham Norton, but he was reading it himself, and just sounded like a pantomime dame!

Father Christmas Needs a Wee. It’s so awful. Doesn’t flood well at all and the pictures are shit

*flow well

Not only can I not understand how 50 Shades got published, I also can't understand how it got such good reviews, why so many people seem to like it, and why it was made into a film.

On Chesil Beach and The Children Act, goodness knows how they've been made into anything on screen as nothing happens. They read like an child's English assignment where they start off with a decent story with lots of beautifully descriptive language and then rush the ending because they've run out of time. They might as well end with ...and then she woke up and it had all been a dream.

Another one for 50 shades. There were LOADS left in the charity shops 6 months after publication. A great indicator of a rubbish read 😂

Maybe it's his prostate SwanShaped

@grapewine

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse.

@grapewine I loved Labyrinth, what didn't you like about it?

I don't like Jeanette Winterson's books.

50 shades was truly dire. Of course, I haven't read it - I'm still traumatised by finding out that my mother has read it.

Amsterdam - Ian McEwan. Not only did it get published it won the Booker Prize - must've been a quiet year.

Another vote for 50 Shades of Grey. Absolutely dire! Read like a 6th former had written it.

Normal People, it was just pages and pages of nothingness

Very much agree with this.

I’ll also add: any book ‘written’ by an Instagram influencer about parenting. I’ve never read one, but I don’t need to to know they’re shite.

'Keep Her Quiet' by Emma Curtis. Starts off with an emotive segment about a young woman with her new baby trying to get a mini-cab but no one will take her because she hasn't got a car seat, because she's too poor to afford one. OK, fair enough, scene setting, we're supposed to feel sorry for her.

Then she gets her cab and we get two pages of her backstory, yes, OK, have to fit it in somewhere.

Then she gets home to her crappy flat - what's the first thing she does? She rests the car seat against the back of the sofa. Yes, that's right, the car seat you spent several emotional paragraphs she doesn't have because she can't afford it.

How the heck did a continuity error like that get past the second draft, let alone the presumably numerous edits the book would have had on its route to publication?

It put me off the rest of it because I no longer felt the author/editor was taking it seriously - just churning out any old shit as quickly as possible. The tired plot bore that out.

A book called A House Of Ghosts. I read it on Kindle and assumed it was self published it was so bad - astonished to discover not only was it properly published but it had jacket quotes from big names and the author teaches creative writing at a respected university.

Blood Sisters by Jane Corry. It’s a truly terrible book!

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton. Anachronistic, two-dimensional, tedious drivel.