to ask what was the most annoying book you have ever ploughed through?

[pandarific]

I am reading Her Fearful Symmetry for bookclub and I'm a fifth of the way through and hating it. It is just striking me as very cutesy and mimsy wimsy and I have eyerolled so many times in the past 100 pages. (Children, in 2010, in London, happily playing croquet - really? Oh and then there's a ghost. And some creepy twins! Great.)

It wouldn't be so bad, but the fecking thing is 500 pages long.

I know it's a matter of taste as the author's books are massive bestsellers. And I may be being unfair as I seem to just really dislike magical realism in general. And I am open to reading all kinds of different books (last one A Game of Thrones, before that The Kite Runner), and anyway, half the point of a bookclub is to read things you wouldn't pick for yourself. But but. The salesperson at Waterstones even went on about how great it was when I was buying it, ffs! Waaah, boo, disappointment, 500 pages of life wasted etc.

Anyway, I definitely will finish it as it's only fair to give it a real chance, and I will try not to BU and judge so quickly, but I have to ask - what books have you made yourself finish, bookclub or no, that you've hated?

The knife of never letting go.

Hated it. And the others in the series.
Couldn't believe such awful brutal and antisocial crap is a best seller and been made into films.
I feel like I live in a parallel universe sometimes.

I'm so jealous of you being a Swedish speaker, Quint - it's such a great sounding language.

I love the fact that the word for good is 'braw' (sorry, no idea how to spell it) because where I come from (Glasgow), 'braw' also means good! As in 'they sausages were braw, gies more!'

Profondo - I just searched my Kindle copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and have to say that it is not the author calling Lisbeth "anorexic", but characters who don't know her and who are judging her in her appearance. "... that anorexic bitch" etc.

The Spire by William Golding. I had to read it for A-level and I was bored to tears after three pages.

Most of the "classics" Dickens, Austen etc. Boring and overrated.

I always give up.

There are too many good books out there waiting to be read to waste my life reading tripe.

I love most books about the Tudor period but Wolf Hall was a struggle. Currently reading Bring Up the Bodies and I am enjoying it more but can never work out who's speaking - she frustratingly goes for paragraphs just saying "he said".

Enders Game was horrendous - endless passages about gravitation or lack of it - quite good twist at the end though.

Finkler Question - I gave up.

Anything by Kate Mosse or Victoria Hislop - yawn

And I'm ashamed to say I bought some twaddle called Tangled Lives by Hilary Boyd recently and it was awful.

... by her appearance, rather.

I am a huge Miranda fan but her book......never finished it. Part of her charm is the way she says things and her expressions and it didn't come across in the book. Sorry Miranda. I am coming to see you live in April though.

The Dome (Stephen King)

Such a cop out lazy ending

Gravitation? Is that even a word? Gravity!

I hated Cloud Atlas too!

I watched the film and really loved it, so read the book. My god, such a tediously written book. I don't especially like books written as diaries or letters and this was like it all the way through. I ploughed through to the end, god knows why.

Her Fearful Symmetry was really shit. Really, really shit. So disappointing as The Time Travelers Wife is one of my favourites.

I have ten untouched books by Garbiel Garcia Marquez - bought them as a pack from the Book People, and just cant't abide his style of writing. The colours on the covers are nice though

Eat Pray Love

One Day

The Lovely Bones

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas - awfully written, didn't enjoy it at all and skipped through it despite others telling me how awesome it was

Prayer for Owen Meaney is one of my all time faves (although do agree re John Irving's weirdness in general)! Loved American Psycho (but that was about 20 years ago or whenever it first came out - would probably find it deeply irritating now). Thought the Larsson trilogy started off ok but gave up 100 pages into the last one - dull, dull, dull.

Perks of being a wallflower

what an absolute pile of shit...I kept waiting for something to happen...then it ended...it cost 29p on the kindle and I want my money back...and those hours of my life

Agree with Kerala on Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies - loved them but am struggling with A Place of Greater Safety - about 800 pages of very small print about the French Revolution - can never remember all the French character names and it's been on the go for about 6 months. Makes me feel highbrow reading it though

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - I read it all but couldn't honestly say I enjoyed it - it was a long time ago now but I just remember it being a real endurance test

I have loved some of the books that others have hated, Wolf Hall and The Road for example. I thought When god was a rabbit was utter rubbish. We read it for book group..no one rated it at all and we felt it was as if the author had been on a creative writing course and had tried to put everything she'd learned in the book..very badly! I also really don't like The Lovely Bones which I know others have raved about.

Time travellers wife was very hard work. Da Vinci code likewise. And I never got round to finishing Pilgrims Progress.

New York Trilogy. Kept going to the end expecting something to happen. I was wrong. I was so annoyed I threw the book away.

Also something by Iris Murdoch featuring a lot of idle rich people.

I quite enjoyed The Slap.

Yet another bad one - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I found it very, very, very pretentious. Tossed it after about 30 pages so I may be being unfair, but I was disappointed, as I liked the idea.

On Her Fearful Symmetry, have just got to the bit where the twins inherit 2.5 million quid. Of course they do! (I would have fecked it at the wall by now, but it's my first attending at this club and it seems rude not to bother, even if it is like pulling teeth. Now how do I avoid venting my spleen on the evening... wine? Wine!)

Ooh and that reminds me the lovely bones. Creepy and twee.

Oh yes - Lovely Bones. Awful. Same with Time Travellers Wife - started so well and then just fizzled out, as if the author got bored writing it.

I didn't mind Her Fearful Symmetry. I preferred it to TTTW, which I hated with a passion. Almost as much as I hated Life of Pi. My God, that was shite.

Agree with everyone who said The Slap, though with regards to the OP's question I didn't actually finish it.

Worst ever was aTorchwood book when I was about 15, massively into the show and loved reading fan fiction. The book was worse than the worst of the fan fiction, horrifically written and completely bizarre storyline that read as though te author was about 13 and fancied himself as the glamorous villain. Huge pile of shite.