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?

I thought Her Fearful Symmetry when I read the title, before I got to the OP... If you think it's bad now just wait til the ending. rolls around on floor in annoyance

Oh yes - Parades End. I tried, and tried, and tried - but it was probably one of the dullest, most protracted books I've ever had the misfortune to read.

The Alchemist. Not the 17th century play by Ben Jonson - that was great. I mean the turgid pile of wank by Paulo Coelho. God I am still CROSS that I read so much of it - almost all of it - waiting for it to make sense and achieve some kind of content. Loads of people had recommended it and said it was really meaningful! It was pretentious twaddle and SO BORING.

The Runaway - Martina Cole

Now this is a brilliant book, complete page turner, kept me gripped yadda yadda UNTIL I got to the end and found out what happened to Joanna, it was just so annoying.... She had such a hard life, been through so much and then the book ended on such a bum note. I know in life sometimes there are no happy endings and this book reflects that, but it was just so brutal and unnecessary I thought. It ruined the book for me and left me very annoyed.

Oh god Chesil Beach. Embarrassing.

I ploughed through a whole 7 pages of The DaVinci Code...

Another vote for A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Ash by James Herbert. Used to really like him, but this one was just appallingly written. Ploughed through because I wanted to see if the end was worth it, but it really wasn't.

Oh god, really, RabbitRabbit78? :/

I'm about to take myself off to a coffee shop for some cake so I can at least mitigate the pain while I read the fecking thing...

Loved Her Fearful Symmetry, Love anything by Fowles.
Hated The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Agree that Dan Brown not worth picking up, nor Jilly Cooper.

I've completely missed the point of the thread lol, I didn't hate the book, just the end.

I hated The Slap - what was the point? I didn't like any of them.

A Suitable Boy - 600 pages of nothing, only to discover you have to read another two volumes.

A History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

I had to read Frankenstein for A Level and hated it. I had been really excited about reading it, and just thought it was awful. Closed Book exam so I had to remember loads of quotes as well.

Atonement and Saturday by Ian McEwan. I was really disappointed by them, I had been really looking forward to reading them.

Rabbit speaks the truth. :(

Just try not to hit anyone in the coffee shop when you inevitably hurl the book across the room.

This thread has reminded me of so many crap books! Shopaholic, Chesil Beach, One Day, 50 Shades, etc. I can't technically have any of those because I didn't manage to finish them. Well, I might have finished One Day, but I genuinely can't remember, it made that much of an impression on me.

I've just been reading the reviews of "Her Fearful Symmetry" on Goodreads - quite funny, some of them!

Yy to Labrynth snore
Da Vinci code. Actually didn't, threw it across room.
When I was 16 Emma. I now realise what an idiot I was.

When God Was a Rabbit - by some talentless numpty whose name I have forgotten. It was chic lit drivel, but dressed itself up as a quality read. I read it for my book club & we concluded the author must have had a fantastic publicist to get such sub par nonsense onto book club reading lists.

Then We Came To The End was the book i left til the end of my holiday once and i hated it.

I agree with Labyrinth by Kate Mosse- i really WANT to like it but i couldn't get into it.

Enjoyed Susan Hill's first Serrailer book, but the second one did get a bit annoying. Fantastically virtuous characters gathered round the aga playing with the cat with a posh name. I was disappointed.

the seraillier books are a bit light

obv Hill thinks she is the plucky doctor, doesnt she? So smug

I started Captain Corelli's Mandolin twice, and both times gave up about page 100. But then I ran out of books while on holiday abroad, and in desperation gave it another bash - and discovered that around page 110 the whole thing suddenly takes off and starts to work properly! And all the boring and irritating bits about the first few chapters do turn out to matter after all.

Hester - I so agree! DD had it for A level English Lit - was truly awful. Long, long sentences with no apparent meaning. Terrible book!

Gone Girl, I kept going because I'd read there was a twist so I figured it better be good, god I was disappointed, it was ridiculous!

50 Shades would go into this pile too, but I never actually finished it, had to give up before I hit someone over the head with it!!

I forced myself through 3 out of the 4 Twi-shite books, and all of the Fifty Shades trilogy (which are basically the same thing). As I was reading them I kept getting angry at just how bleeding awful they all were, but I hate leaving books unfinished, so I just had to plough on through.

I actually loved in the Time of Cholera...definitely disliked The Mill on the Floss, but the prize for the most boring and overblown piece of melodrama has to go to The Drowning People by Richard Mason. It was so over the top and formulaic...Dev mourning Sunita looked subtle and restrained in comparison

Pity this thread isnt in books really

where it might serve as a WARNING

Hated The Slap. Every single character in it was awful.

The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out... was really really dull. Don't understand why everyone raved about it.