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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

726 replies

pandarific · 02/02/2014 13:22

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?

OP posts:
limitedperiodonly · 03/02/2014 00:18

Lovecat did you read or like The Children's Book?

I really did plough through it. It took me almost three years in total because I got bored but usually once I've started something I'm going to finish or die.

I finished it this summer because the weather was lovely and I had two days in the park. If it had been rainy it would probably still be on the shelf.

I took so long over it I can't tell you what I thought of it except that it took a very long time to reach WWI and then it romped home.

It's probably best that I'm not a book reviewer.

limitedperiodonly · 03/02/2014 00:25

Also lovecat I love A Widow For One Year by John Irving. I've read loads of his books, but that's the only one I like. But I only really like the first third. The rest of it turns into a murder-mystery potboiler which is okay, but only a bit.

Though as a woman of a certain age, I do admire the way he admires women of a certain age.

Lovecat · 03/02/2014 00:34

=D Can't say I have, Limited I hated Garp so much, then was persuaded to try A Prayer For Owen Meany by a housemate who kept laughing aloud reading it. HATED it. So no more JI for me, unless I literally have nothing else to read (and I'm talking cereal packets here).

The Children's Book sounds great from the Amazon review, but if it took you that long, perhaps I'll give it a swerve... Confused I do like her Frederica Potter novels and I loved The Djinn In The Nightingale's Eye and Morpho Eugenia.

Caitlin17 · 03/02/2014 00:56

I recall being on a train pre - kindle days and finding the terms and conditions on the back of the ticket more riveting than the book I had with me,Peter Carey's The True History of the Kelly Gang.

Adeleh · 03/02/2014 01:03

Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda didn't do much for me either. One of Jose books with a brilliant beginning, and then just about interesting enough to keep going, but overall pretty dull.

Motherinlawsdung · 03/02/2014 01:12

The Unconsoled by Ishiguro. About a musician who has lost his memory. The book soon loses the plot and the reader feels as if they're losing their mind. It goes on and on and on and round and round in circles. Tedious beyond belief.

absoluteidiot · 03/02/2014 01:24

The Road.

I'm thinking "Kill the kid already!"

HelpTheSnailsAreComingToGetMe · 03/02/2014 01:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Motherinlawsdung · 03/02/2014 01:39

Also agree that The Slap was terrible. I threw it away when I had finished it, as it represented such a waste of my time. I hated it. And Paul Coelho's The Alchemist is a pile of pretentious rubbish.

Welshwabbit · 03/02/2014 07:03

Possession is fine. The Children's Book, on the other hand, is rubbish. The only book I can honestly say I struggled to finish is the mayor fof Casterbridge. Put me off Hardy for good.

minibmw2010 · 03/02/2014 07:21

The new Bridget Jones, it's rubbish!!

Morgause · 03/02/2014 07:23

The Name of the Rose - grim and dull
The Da Vinci Code - recommended by a so-called friend. Badly written tripe
Anything by George Eliot. Tedious.

LaTrucha · 03/02/2014 07:25

Atonement. 400 pages of middle class tosh so that, as far as I can see, he could write one paragraph about authorial responsibility that must have come to him in the bath.

SelectAUserName · 03/02/2014 07:30

This has reminded me of many more.

I'm another who was scarred by The Treatment. I actually threw it away rather than charity-shop it as I didn't want anyone else to be traumatised by it.

Enduring Love - dull, unlikeable characters who deserve each other, quite frankly.

Jude The Obscure. Like Hardy with a side helping of extra Hardy. "Because we are too menny" FFS. I threw that across the room too.

I remember being terribly disappointed by Wuthering Heights when I studied it for A level. Possibly my first exposure to the concept of a book I really wanted to like but didn't.

The Lovely Bones. Pretentious (and silly) wank.

Labyrinth. I know I read it but it was so turgid I've blanked any details about it from my memory, and I don't feel any regret about that.

I loved Wolf Hall though. Am just about to start re-reading it preparatory to reading BUTB for the first time.

SelectAUserName · 03/02/2014 07:31

Oh and - heresy - the His Dark Materials trilogy. I read them all, I wanted to like them but they just left me cold.

ChaircatMiaow · 03/02/2014 07:39

The Wolf of Wall Street. Could not even finish it, what a hideous arse he was. And I would normally read anything.

Funnily enough though, I would maybe like to see the movie. Good lord, what is wrong with me? Am I that susceptible to advertising?! Confused

KnockMeDown · 03/02/2014 07:42

My offerings:-

On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Both sets of characters had absolutely nothing to endear them......

ThomasLynn · 03/02/2014 07:56

The Handmaiden's Tale- Margaret Atwell. Finished it, was bored to tears the entire time.

Merry-go-round by the Sea. Can't remember the author, don't want to. 400 pages of total wank, all about growing up in country WA and how hot Geraldton is in the summer.
If I'd wanted to know about growing up in country WA I would have asked one of the other boarders who was from the bush (so, er, 98% of them), not read a tedious, tedious book. Year 11 English, how I hated you.

Sillybillybob · 03/02/2014 07:56

Omg! The Handmaid's Tale is my absolute favourite book! It's outstanding!

LottieJenkins · 03/02/2014 07:57

Wild Swans........ I got as far as the footbinding and no further!

Sillybillybob · 03/02/2014 07:59

Lottie I'm not sure that counts as ploughing through a book Grin

SelectAUserName · 03/02/2014 08:13

I'm with Sillybillybob, The Handmaid's Tale is a brilliant book. Deffo in my Top Ten Favourite Books Ever list.

pointythings · 03/02/2014 08:29

There are loads, but so far my absolute winner has to be Dean Koontz's 77 Shadow Street. He's been going downhill ever since he turned into a conspiracy theory Tea Party loon, but that book has decided me never to read anything new of his ever again.

LividofLondon · 03/02/2014 08:32

The Millenuim trilogy (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc). I loved the stories but they were hard work to read because of the dire use of language. They just didn't flow well, bad sentence structure IMO. I only hope this was due to them being translated from Swedish rather than the author's fault.

SmellyFartado · 03/02/2014 08:36

I'm with you on Cloud Atlas.

Shantarum - egotistical pile of shit. Got to the child market bit and threw the fucking thing at the wall wanting to throttle the bastard that wrote it for being so casual about what he was describing. I later shredded the fucking book, such was my rage.

The latest Bridget Jones one was esp bad.

Sophie's world - how I finished that, I don't know