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 Bride Stripped Bare. I had that nails on a chalkboard feeling the entire time I was reading.

I was disappointed by The Kite Runner too - but loved A Thousand Splendid Suns - an awesome book I thought.

Pinkerton's sister. I still can't believe I forced myself to finish it.

Any Harry Potter book.

I like The Djinn In The Nightingale's Eye too lovecat. As welshrabbit says the Children's Book is terrible. She must have done loads of research for it and put it all in so you find yourself reading great long descriptions of the founding of the Fabian Society.

That was one of the many things I hated about Enduring Love - tedious facts. Sebastian Faulks is another one for that.

Oh, Alias Grace and The True History of the Kelly Gang. It has hardly any punctuation in it which I think is supposed to be a device because Ned Kelly is supposed to be writing it. It just makes reading it even more of a chore.

Oh I love Alisa Grace, limited. But then I'm an Atwood fan in general.

Alias Grace (Alisa being her long-lost sister, obviously )

I don't persevere with bad books usually as I reckon the authors don't deserve my attention! However these have all made me think wtf?!
The Slap
The TT Wife
Gone Girl
Catcher in the Rye
Catch 22
Any Jane Austen shite
Wolf Hall
Incident of the dog thingy
Brick Lane
White Teeth
Captain Corellis fiddle

But I am an avid reader though honest!! Sometimes I just think the "hype" gets to me so if I'm not wowed when I've been told I will be I will get annoyed...

Another vote here for:

The Road (when does the plot start? And why don't they have names ffs)
The Shack (tedious shite)
The Zahir - actually reading this now and will probably finish it but I can see already why his wife left the pretentious twat
A Prayer For Owen Meany (boring)
Tangled Lives (nice idea, way to make drama as banal and tedious as possible)

and nominations for
Don't Let Me Go by Susan Hill (y'know, I don't think horrific child abuse and chicklit are good bedfellows)
Almost Moon by Alice Seabold. (totally unsympathetic towards any of the characters)

I loved Alias Grace too.

SelectAUserName I'm not an Atwood fan, and I really have given it a go.

God, how could I have forgotten Never Let Me Go?

I kept thinking: 'Why don't you just run away?'

Fans have tried to make excuses but I'm not having it.When I finished it I left it on the beach to be consumed by the tide as my own symbolic protest.

I prefer The Island - the silly Ewan McGregor/Scarlett Johansson film. If that makes me shallow...

In a perverse way I'm intrigued now as to how The Slap ended. Anyone who managed to finish it care to give me the potted version?

kerala - I'm with you on Charles Dickens! Except that I haven't read A Christmas Carol, only Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, and the latter of those was a child's abridged copy, which I read twice but still lost the plot after the Miss Havisham section so don't really have much idea what happened.
I keep thinking I should try David Copperfield, but really just CBA.
And I did try Pickwick Papers, since it was considered "so funny" in Little Women, but it's dull as ditchwater.

I would completely disagree that "We need to talk about Kevin" got any better. It didn't. Yeah, it resolved the story, but better? Nah.

Hated Fifty Shades and Gone Girl. Couldn't get passed the shit writing in it and didnt finished reading. Gone Girl (I wanted to slap the woman who's name I couldn't care to remember).

*past sorry phone making me look thick. my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Stunts I finished The Slap.

Quite enjoyed it (I seem to fly in the face of the opinion on this thread!) but am afraid I can't remember what happened at the end.

You know, I finished The Slap (although I was hate-reading by then) but I can't remember what happened either. The only impression it left on me was rage

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Won the Pulitzer Prize. I found it so dull, I felt like I was being preached at.

Also second Shantaram, and the Unlikely Pilgrammage of Harold Frye. Utter tosh.

I do quite like a bit of Dickens though

Another one who can't remember what happened in The Slap.

The Notebook. What an absolute load of utter bollocks that was.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Sskind made me really angry, I hated it all the way through but it had the worst ending ever.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garca Mrquez. I literally threw the book across the room at the ending of that!

The Wise Woman by Philippa Gregory, I normally love her books but this one was just foul.

This is a wonderful thread!

Gilead and Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson are still sitting reproachfully on my shelves. I've tried them both, twice each. What am I missing? How do they regularly end up on 'Best Ever Novels' lists?

I keep these books for years because I've bought them new. Perhaps I need to stick to the library in future.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who has trouble with Gilead... I did feel bad about it, but cannot bring myself to try again.

I'll vote for Love in the time of Cholera too, which managed to be duller than One hundred Years of solitude. So many people love Garcia Marquez though...

I've never managed to finish London Fields. I got about two thirds through and thought: 'fuck it. This is really annoying.'