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?

wildig yes of course it was. The Barker family has form for this sort of stuff. (We're so wacky and Bohemian and such free spirits) although Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia is pretty good as Scottish version of I capture the Castle.

I've never attempted Elizabeth Smart's version of the Barker ménage as she seems a monumental pita.

I hated the Time Traveller's Wife, thought it was twee and contrived.

Marrying the Mistress. Annoying, smug characters.

DoctorTwo

squoosh yes, fair point.

caitlin I don't think that's the one. IIRC it was an Irish author, but not Marian Keyes. I realise there's quite a few to choose from...

While we're on Chicklit (I hate the phrase) I also hate the Shopaholic books. I think you are supposed to find her charmingly ditsy. Instead, she comes across as a remorseless sociopath (compulsive lying, runs up debts she has no intention of paying, shallow affect, lack of conscience) with an empty, empty soul.

Hotel du lac

Won that literary prize

Total shite where NOTHING happened start to finish

wildfig Raffaella Barking-Mad used to write a column for the London Evening Standard nearly 30 years ago (yes, I am that old) where she'd trill about parties she'd been to in The London which was basically having spag bol and chianti round her mates' flats in Kensington and Chelsea.

Maybe a drop of Zinfandel if she was feeling racy.

I've lost count of the times we invited her round to ours in Walthamstow and Leyton.

She never replied.

Same with India Knight, who used to write The Diary of An Islington Housewife in the otherwise proly Today newspaper.

I do want to kill her.

If anyone, including India and her mates, want to complain about that I refer them to this Stewart Lee routine

This is All: Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn by Aidan Chambers - creepy (in a sleazy way) intimate thoughts of a teenage girl (lots on masturbation, orgasms, losing virginity etc.) and self-indulgant stuff about poetry, meditation, etc. Then someone tries to rape her. Dreadful ending after ploughing through it - it's very, very long.

Also...I feel a bit mean saying this, but I hated, hated, hated 'How to be a Woman' by Caitlin Moran.

The reasons I feel mean is because my lovely best friend (who really likes CM)bought it for me as a birthday present, and her taste is usually impeccable, so I feel I'm letting her down by not liking it.

Secondly, although I'm sure Caitlin Moran is a perfectly nice, rather intelligent woman I just cannot BEAR her self-conciously wacky persona and the irritating way she gurns in all her photos.

Absolutely agree with you flippinada about the Caitlin Moran book, absolute "look at me, look at me" (OK, I know it's an autobiography) drivel. My DH recommended it to me, couldn't get past the first chapter without wanting to kill her. Slowly.

Thank you Megrim I feel a bit less guilty now!

Oh me too re Caitlin Moran. Not read the book but read a brief extract about the joys of lying in a hammock finger combing untrimmed pubic hair which was toe curlingly wacky.

Honestly however did we manage to be women before she enlightened us.

Perfume. It just got ridiculous.

Anything by Cecilia Ahren, who became a 'writer' because of who her father is, and it shows.

I'd enjoy her writing so much more if she would just tone down the 'wacky bohemian' crap.

Having said that, it's made her wealthy so I don't imagine she'll stop doing it any time soon.

I've never attempted Elizabeth Smart's version of the Barker ménage as she seems a monumental pita.

By the Grand Central Station...? I read that years ago.
It was OTT, as I recall.

The English Patient
Twelve Tribes of Hattie

The French lieutenants woman. God that was painful to get through.

Whilst we're on wacky, Bohemian free spirits wafting around in ballgowns and wellies and Victorian nighties whose lack of money is no impediment to living in rambling but ramshackle farmhouses in Norfolk, crumbling castles in Scotland, faded palazzos in Italy or down at heel London townhouses in smart neighbourhoods is anyone else old enough to remember Lisa St.Aubin de Teran (or "Elsie Terrapin" as she whimsically called herself)?

She's mostly out of print now but you're not missing anything if you've not come across her.

The hare with the amber eyes - got it as a Xmas present - good god it was boring

Whilst I remember, I tried to work my way through Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying". Another one that hit the bin pretty quickly.

Caitlin the name rings a bell but don't think I've read anything of hers. Isn't she one of those 'free-spirited' types who wafts round the world in privileged fashion having lots of marvellous adventures at someone else's expense?

'Jude The Obscure. Like Hardy with a side helping of extra Hardy.'
That is inspired. I am going to repeat that for the rest of my life.

On re-reading I notice some posters commenting on 'American Psycho'. I don't much about it but I know enough to know that I will never, ever read it.

Read some other BBE (Less than Zero, Glamourama, Rules of Attraction) and he is a talented writer but..the best way I can think of to describe him is that he writes very well about horrible people.

Cloud Atlas and About a Boy are I think the only two books I have never finished.

Her fearful symmetry was very disappointing as I liked the Time Traveller's wife.

Someone else mentioned The Beach. I thought that was shit. Particularly so because my friend said something along the lines of "I think I get it because I've been to Thailand". Erm no, it was just shit and I hated all the characters.

I thought that Patrick Bateman was fantasising in American Psycho.

It was because in the interludes where he talks about Phil Collins and shoes and whatnot he makes mistakes.