Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is such a shit book isn't it

[WWGD]

I am having to read it to DS and I hate it so much. That is all.

😂

Yes! In complete agreement here. I generally love the Roald Dahl books but this one really doesn't live up to the others. It's weird and wayward and I was glad when DD and I finished it!

Yes! It’s awful. Feels really lazy and like it was phoned in as a reluctant follow up to C&TCF. Perhaps his publishers nagged him into a sequel so he thought fuck em.

Yep. Funnily enough I actually chucked my old copy in the paper recycling recently. I never enjoyed it as a kid and my kids read a couple of pages and abandoned it.

Agreed. The first book left such an impression on me, the second one I can’t recall what happens. I think they push buttons or something.

DS is absolutely insisting on continuing with it even though neither of us like it - he's a finisher. Gah

Isn't that the one where the Vermicious Knids appear? Floating space monsters that look like enormous turds? The book is a bit crap I agree, but on balance surely the world is a funnier place with giant evil space turds in it.

Oh yes, it's so wierd and such a disappointment after the brilliance that is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

Yes, its definitely not one of his best. Love that your son is a finisher! I was the same and didn't actually realise that one can abandon a book if you really aren't enjoying it, until I was at least 18 😂

I remember being at my DC primary school once, and the teacher was asking them all the name their favourite Roald Dahl book. All the usual things came out, then my DS said "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator". Teacher did a double take, wait what? that's no one's favourite!
That still makes me smile, I wasn't even aware that DS had read it at the time!

I’m mid 30s and while I rationally know this must be the case, I can’t bring myself to find out whether I can in fact just stop reading a book midway through 😂

@iNoticed Same! It wasn't until I read a book where someone quoted Sir Francis Bacon “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly" - that I gave up on bad books.

Maybe you can get him the audio book from the library / Libby app and he can listen to it and read along.

Ah, I loved it! The Vermicious Knids in the lifts writing SCRAM, the grandparents getting really, really old, zipping around sideways. I'd happily read it again.

We had it instilled into us, as children, that no matter how boring, etc, we must finish books. A habit that I took a while to get out of as an adult.

Yes, the sequel was a big disappointment I recall.

I loved it. The Vermicious Knids were properly scary to me as a child.

I have a theory about their name too: I imagine Roald Dahl typing letters on his typewriter, getting to the "Kind Regards" at the end and mistyping it as "Knid Regards" - "argh the Vermicious Knids!!!!!!" Rips paper out of typewriter, crumples it, throws in the bin, gets new sheet of paper, starts letter again.

I think of this every time I mistype the word kind (quite often, as I happens) and thank the universe I'm able to correct it!

I’d truly forgotten how awful it was until I re-read it to DS, who agreed it was “pants”. (And he’s hardly a discerning reader - Dog Man is his go-to read). 🙄

Yeah, they were the best thing in it and we only liked them because they were giant purple space poos.

Yes. I hate it too.

Too many references that mean nothing to the intended age group, aside from the nonsense of the plot and the vocabulary.

You are my people! DS lost interest in it thankfully and I am normally a committed finisher (of books).

Oh god yes! Just awful. I can clearly remember how painful it was reading it to DS and that was at least 8 years ago.

It just makes Wonka seem totally unhinged. Like Charlie and Grandpa Joe should get far away from him.

I quite enjoyed it as a child. The structure of it is odd but that didn't bother me when I was six. My edition had an illustration of the 300 year old Grandma Josephine that was frightening, in the sort of compelling way you can't stop staring at. The original illustrations were so much better than Quentin Blake's silly scribbles.

I really like it! My kids loved it when I read it to them too.

I have also edited the racist bits as I read. It’s a bed time book so he’s not following too closely luckily. I am shocked it’s not been cancelled!