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?

Anything by:
Jodi picault
Dh Lawrence (pompous)
Celia aherne (very badly written)
The slap -read a chapter (yawn)
Tony parsons (self indulgent crap, which my husband insists on buying and keeping on MY bookshelf even though he has never finished one)
Ben Elton
Read first chapter of love in the time of cholera, about two years ago so probably not qualified to comment

For calibration I like most things by Margaret Atwood, Neil gaiman and enjoyed wolf hall, enduring love and game of thrones. Stoner has been sat on my bedside table for a year....

Oh I also hate the Woman who spent a year in bed or whatever - it was just crap. The ending was unbelievably crap.

True History of the Kelly Gang, I ploughed through it, cursing the author, because I was interested in the real story. To be honest most Booker / Man Booker prize winners that I've started I've not finished apart from Hilary Mantel's books and Midnight's Children (Did that win? I read it when it first came out and loved it, don't know what I'd think now.)

I read the Slap, no characters were likeable so I can't remember much!

I ploughed through one Julian Barnes set on the flipping Ark because I'd wasted a bit of my student grant on it and I was determined to get my money's worth. I've avoided his books ever since. In fact it caused such a reaction within me, poor penniless soul that I was, that I vowed to never waste my money on anything less than a hundred years old again!

I mostly stopped "ploughing on" as I grew up so I only have bad memories of a couple of chapters of Birdsong. (A forced loan from a friend).

I love Dickens - I skip bits of Pickwick. I reread a Christmas Carol in December waiting for my kid to do a sport masterclass, it made me laugh and cry in the corridor of the municipal sports hall!

Have to put in a vote for anything written by Paul Coelho. My mum gave me a collection of his books for a birthday, and told me they were fantastic.
Fantastically shit, yes.

I gave up on The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall. It was just...slow. I'll try again though, it's very well written.

teacake eater yes yes I forgot Julian Barnes . Annoying entitled middle class bore characters, and I probably am a middle class bore myself!

True History of the Kelly Gang, I ploughed through it, cursing the author

Yes, yes, yes teacake. I cursed Ned Kelly too. Surely he wasn't that much of an adjectival prig?

I tried Flaubert's Parrot. I didn't get it. Must be thick.

Birdsong is one of my most hated books. Possibly the most hated. Someone at work asked if I'd read it and unleashed an epic rant from me about every single little thing in it that annoyed me.

Eventually I stopped and she said quietly: 'I just thought was a nice love story.'

Poor woman

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. One of those endlessly slow-moving stories, with chapter after chapter of detailed description of foliage and architecture and 'atmosphere', where you think, well, there has to be a twist coming at some point. And then you turn the final page and realise that the twist was that there was no fecking twist.

Birdsong (well the chapters I read!) seemed a rip off of Stendhal's The Scarlet and the Black.

I tried with Marilynne Robinson too. I read Home. So utterly boring I couldn't finish it. When I gave it up it was like being set free.

But I did love Possession -skipped the poetry bits--

Another book which made me livid was Love Life, bu Ray Kluun.

My dearest friend bought it for me as a "just because" present, so I had to pretend to rave about it.

Jude The Obscure. Like Hardy with a side helping of extra Hardy.

Select That is brilliant, it really made me laugh. I know exactly what you mean.

Can't abide Hardy - with the possible exception of Under the Greenwood Tree. He was a miserable old bugger most of the time.

Interesting thread!

Personally I loved the 100 year old man, I genuiney found it hilarious.
I also quite like the Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine
Ditto Own Meaney
Ditto Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
Ditto The Girl with the dragon Tattoo

BUT I was also annoyed by One Day and Gone Girl
Could never get past the first half of the first book of Lord of the Rings

The most recent one I persevered with but wished I hadn't was Prep by Curtis Sittingfield.The main character wanted a good shake. I was just so frustrated by her - I kept hoping she would eventually improve and she just didn't

Wow. I've read (and hated) almost all of the books mentioned on this thread. Apart from Cloud Atlas which I enjoyed and the Time Traveler's Wife, which I LOVE and have re-read twenty times (not a fan of Her Fearful Symmetry though).

I no longer feel so bad about having more or less dropped reading as a hobby once DS was born in favour of mumsnet. I can see from this thread that I was wasting a metric fuckton of hours on books that were So Not Worth It.

Particular demerits go to:
The Post-Birthday World (Lionel Shriver)
The Finkler Question
Saturday (Ian McEwan)

Three of the biggest regrets of my reading history.

Yes yes to Birdsong. I've only recently got round to reading it, and had it down as one of those "must read" classics. I cannot for the life of me understand what all the fuss is about - it's so highly thought of it's on GCSE syllabuses (I think) - just why?

It really is quite liberating to be able to say these things!

Under the Greenwood Tree is lovely. It must be the only one where no one dies. I like The Trumpet Major as well and recall the bit where they thought the French had invaded as being quite funny.

This might be sacrilege but I've found all of Margaret Atwood's novels "a long toil up a muddy field"

No recollection of how The Slap ended.

I too thought Bridsong was/is ridiculously overrated. Didn't care about Stephen, didn't care about his dull love story, didn't think the dual time line thingy worked. The only story line in the book that moved me was that of his friend Weir.

Oh I loved Birdsong

Hated The Lovely Bones, mawkish. And We Need to Talk Abgout Kevin - hated it, skipped loads, felt it was trite.

Oh I loved Birdsong. And Saturday.

YY to Corelli (yawn) though and the Slap (hysterical nonsense), Gone Girl (utterly ridiculous ending), One Day (mawkish). Also The Casual Vacancy - there's a few hours of my life I'll never get back (felt I had to finish that as the dcs had bought it for me! Grrr.)

I'm having a clear out at the moment and giving lots of books I have started, hated and then kept cause I thought I should give them another try, to the charity shop - it's incredibly cathartic!

Anything at all by Thomas Hardy. Had to read Jude the Obscure for A level and have hated his work ever since. It's kind of tied in for me with how he treated his wives.

I did read his biography by Claire Tomalin in the hope I would find some redeeming features, but no.

There's a book by Jo Brand which I picked up thinking it would be a good read that turned out to be an apologia for DV (among other things). If it hadn't been a library book I would have thrown it across the room and shredded it!

The girl with the dragon tattoo - yy to the super studly hero which was clearly thinly veiled wish fulfillment by the author. And what was with the endless descriptions of technology?

That book needed some serious editing. Not awful but not in the same class as (say) Henning Mankell.

I am much better at putting aside shite books in a 'life is too short' kind of way.
However, i forced my way through the execrable Shantaram. It was long. Mind you it got to the point where I was enjoying reading out the sex scenes to whoever happened to be around. Now they were funny. People rave about this book. Why?

Haven't read the whole thread yet but YANBU about Her Fearful Symmetry! There are no words to describe how much I loathed that book!

I rarely finish books that I hate but another one was something by Paulo Coellho - I can't remember which one but a boyfriend at the time gave it to me and kept asking if I had read it, so felt obliged to do so. Nothing happened! They just drove around Spain and talked for 300 pages! I am getting annoyed just thinking about it!

Anything by Martina Cole. They used to be great but now she puts in gratuitious violence for the sake of it.

LOTR books-pages of trees singing! I usually prefer the books to the films, but not in this case!

That book needed some serious editing

I have to agree, flippinada. I like Mankell because he's very economical with detail and dialogue - just the right amount to pack an emotional punch.

All the Girl with... books felt too long and repetitive to me. Larsson seemed to be a great, brave journalist, but perhaps that intellectual rigour and researcher's sense of the importance of amassing every detail didn't translate too well into fiction, for me anyway.

I tried Tampa (Alice Nutting) recently because I read good reviews, and.....just no. All the stupid similes and metaphors and flowery language, nobody genuinely thinks like that. It didn't even make sense. I got a couple of chapters in and skimmed the rest to see what happened, but couldn't read it all properly. Far too annoying