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?

there were some raucnhy sex bits in the slap iirc

Another vote for Brick Lane. What a load of overhyped, tedious nothing.

50 shades. Was nagged into reading it, and it was absolute bilge, no redeeming features whatsoever.

I loved The Book Thief and Jodi Picoult.

I studied English Literature at university and the one book that I struggled immensely with was 'AVindication of the Rights of Woman' by Mary Wollstonecraft. It was unintelligible as it was written as a stream of consciousness with very little punctuation and as such I feel did not show that women could write with clarity and intelligence.

I also cannot get through A Clockwork Orange - the writing style makes my brain hurt.

Ulysses
Time travellers wife
Catcher in the rye

I loved the Ukrainian tractors though and wolf hall.

Doesn't actually qualify because I still can't finish it, but I have made repeated assaults on The Luminaries.

Pat myself on the back every time I finish a chapter but then start the next one and after a few pages realise that the characters cropped up in the chapter before last, but they are so forgettable and the story so impenetrable that I have forgotten who they are, what they did and why they matter, and what's more, I don't care.

Why am I still reading it? I turn to it when I'm having trouble sleeping...

Effing One Hundred Years of effing Solitude

I don't care that it's universally acclaimed, I don't care that it's an international classic. It is DIRE. The plot makes no sense and the characters all have the same names. It is nothing more than a headache - I do not recommend it for your bookclub, no matter how good everyone else says it is.

HATE magical realism! Had to read Ulysses for a literature class and still couldn't finish it!
Ugh for Twilight!
Ugh for 50 Shades!

Well you all have excellent judgement (apart from The Cloud Atlas and Princess Bride haters who are just wrong)as you've identified some real stinkers.

I'll add Donna Tartt's The Little Friend and The Goldfinch. What complete wastes of time and both desperately in need of editing.

If you enjoy really atrociously so bad they are hilarious books then The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie.

Catch 22 Failed twice to read it.

The Catcher in the rye. Stupid

On Chesil Beach. I wanted to bang their heads together and say "Just have a shag and get over it."

Ploughed through The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry because my daughter raved about it and made me borrow it. Why didn't he just get the train?

The Snow Child ditto above What was she on when she wrote it?

New York Trilogy i never actually made it thru. I couldn't get past the first few pages of the 2nd/middle book. It just made no sense to me at all. I kept re-reading the same page over and over again. In the end i gave up. I think i must be very thick tho, because everyone else i know raves about it.

The Dice Man i stopped reading because i hated the characters so much.

A hundred years of solitude was pretty hard-going for me too. Hate magical realism.

Amelie Nothomb's "Hygiene of the Assassin". Disgusting.

Actually mine didn't really count as I hadn't finished them apart from Wolf Hall, which whilst a tad more tedious, doesn't count as the worst book ever.

A bad one I didn't finish was that one where the man had two children and he gave one away because she was disabled or something - I can't remember the name of it, but it was gawdawful and twee to boot, but quite short.

A close second is Madame Bovary - who I could not sympathise with at all, and who is so far the most annoying character I have come across in a book.

(Posting from the coffee shop - it's not going very well)

I loved Catcher in the Rye. I didn't read it for school though, and just a year or two ago. I thought it was kind of lovely really. And it felt honestly written and not trying to make a point for the sake of it, iykwim?

Glamourama - the last third of the book just spiralled into ridiculousness.

Oh, yes, Brick Lane. It was so well reviewed that I thought there was something wrong with me when I didn't like it.

I didn't much care for Ian McEwan's Saturday, either. I liked his early stuff but that put me off a bit.

Two classics that I've struggled with over the years are Anna Karenina and The Ambassadors. I've tried them both twice and gave up in more or less the same place both times with each of them.

I am determined to crack them this year.

I quite liked Cloud Atlas. It was OK. Nearly fell off my chair when I saw it on one of these 100 greatest books of all time lists, however.

I can say with no small degree of pride that I have never felt the slightest urge to pick up 50 shades, and I hope that never changes

The Thirteenth Tale.

What a load of old shit. Could not believe it was adapted for the television.

Surely 50 Shades has to be the worst book ever, I read the first one because I wanted to see what the fuss was about.
No book ever has given me the rage like that one did, and I only skimmed through it because it was so bad.
I deleted it from my kindle as it would have just left a bad memory.
And who the fuck, having read it would honestly go on to read books 2 and 3?

Disgrace by J M Coetze. A booker prize winner but it was fucking awful, in fact I'm still angry at how bad it was and yet his up it's own arse it was to think it could be that bad and still get published.

Also Howard's End. Dire and boring.

Eat pray love. Crock of crap. Read the book then watched the movie. Made dh suffer through it. Awful awful stuff.

If you enjoy really atrociously so bad they are hilarious books then The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie.

Oh, god. I thought I was the only one. My mum picked it up for me to read when I was in hospital. There are no words.

I also feel vindicated in my loathing of The Slap. Worst book, ever. I tried, I really did, but with every sentence I just imagined the sad, bitter author, wanking furiously as he types pathetic sex scenes with the other hand.

All that 'Clive (or whatever the name was) stared unhappily at his grey,flaccid penis, as he thought of his wife's shrivelled thighs, and compared them to those of the teenage girl next door'

Rubbish, utter rubbish.