To ask what is the worst book you ever read?

[Joey1471]

And why

I would say mice and men , had to read it for my GCSEs , so boring

Could not finish Moby Dick. Endless pages of whale descriptions. There is no way that book needed to be so long!!

oh and Don Quixote - so very dull.
I got as far as the bit where Don Q treats two blousy whores as lovely ladies and then fell asleep...

Gone Girl - was surprisingly shite. Couldn't finish it. Hated the characters.

Never read 50 Shades as I know I'd hate it. See the same for Twilight.

OMAM is one of my favourite books

Oh I loathed Da Vinci Code. Angels and Demons is laughably bad.

Billy and Me by Giovanna Fletcher; actually anything by her)
How such tripe gets published is beyond me. It reads like it's been written by some lovesick teenager.
Just awful...

PS I love you by Cecilia Aherne was shite even by trashy chick lit standards.
I couldn't get into Life of Pi. I gave up halfway.

"One Day" - a host of unsympathetic characters doing nothing much.
Anything by William Boyd - I just don't "get" him.
But by far the worst was "Galileo's Daughter". Pretentious twaddle. Such a shame after "Longitude", which I thought was brilliant.

Silas Marner - the only book I read in school that I didn't like. I have a feeling I'd love George Eliot's other works, but I can't quite bring myself to give her another chance.

End of the world running club was so boring. I was skipping pages just to get to the end to see what happened. Nothing much as it turned out.
Anything by Barbara Taylor Bradford. How do some authors keep getting published? They even make them into tv series - why?
Most books by celebs are usually disappointing!

I wanted to give Emma in 'one day' a bit of a talking to. To spend so much time mooning after awful Dexter - she deserved better than him. Starter for ten was much better.

I would say 50 shades - but it was so bad I only read three chapters.

I often find I like one book by an author and hate another one so I loved Name of the Rose but hated The Island of the Day Before, like the Odyssey but couldn't finish the Illiad. Others I just don't like the subject matter eg Of Mice and Men The Hobbit and To Kill a Mockingbird.

One of the worst I've read recently was Lola Rose by Lucy Worsley (teen fiction but wanted to check its suitability for a 13yo). Drivel and a terrible indictment on Historic Royal Palaces that their Chief Curator can't get basic historical facts right. Give me Jean Plaidy or Hilary Mantel any day...

I could not get past the first few pages of Gone Girl. Others I also could not get into are The Life of Pi andf The Time Traveller's Wife.

The Girl on the Train I actually quite enjoyed but I do not think it is quite worthy of all they hype. To me It was a fairly average thriller.

Worst book I read all the way through? One that springs to mind is a young adult book I read as a teenager in the 90s called The Fat Girl by Marilyn Sachs. Basically about two high school seniors in the US. The boy hates this obese ugly girl in his class but ends up dating her (after falling out with his pretty girlfriend IIRC?) and encouages her to lose weight, patronising and belittling her whilst playing the part of "nice kind boyfriend". Then he tells her what dress she should wear to prom and she wears something different and he loses his rag with her. I look back on that book now and think it was basically about an abusive codependant relationship. Horrible.

The PP who mentioned Piers Anthony, I did not read The Colour of Her Panties but my gran gave me another one of his (Can't recall the title) when I was about 14, thinking it was just an nice fantasy book. That partcilaur book also seemed obsessed with panties and the female heroine in it was written about in such a sleazy way, I was like WTF??

The Lemon Grove. Massive pile of shite! Vile, unlikeable characters and just general piss poor writing.

Whoever mentioned Fingersmith, I agree with you. I was given a copy for World Book Night and it was just the most bollocks read ever.

What To Expect When You Are Expecting. I shredded it rather than give it to a charity shop, and I've never done that with any other book.

ArcheryAnnie excellent call! Along with What To Expect the First Year. I had DD close to the US and this was required reading .... there was a list of milestones that the baby should have reached at the end of each month. I seem to recall an obsession with the ability to pick up a raisin between thumb and forefinger among many of the monthly lists, along with advice at the end to consult your healthcare professional if your baby wasn't meeting most of the milestones.

Eat Love Pray or whatever it was called, OMG I wanted to slap her and really really didn't care how she ended up. Couldn't finish it and was so terribly disappointed when Julia Roberts starred in the film.

The Lighthouse - not a paragraph in sight. Boring.

Oh yes, Giovanna Fletcher. Utter, utter drivel.

I also hate the fact that she was able to get a book deal through having a famous partner. It's definitely not through talent, and is terribly unfair.

A book called Belladonna - a young girl was kidnapped and sold at auction at a private gentlemans club to highest bidder who keeps her as a sex slave. She escapes years later and seeks revenge. Awful awful awful book. I kept hoping it would redeem itself, it didn't.

Can't remember exact name but something about a new bride. I was bought it by my mother (!!!!) around time I was just married. Clearly she hadn't read it before hand. The dear bride was so sexually frustrated by the monogamy of her new marriage that she sought her sexual thrills a variety of 'interesting' ways. Awful book.

That Dan Brown thing. Utter tripe.
Also J K Rowling. Vastly over rated.
Also a Pat Barker novel shamelessly and lazily ripping off details from the life of Vera Britain and her brother.
Enjoyed her earlier novels but was incensed with that . Kate Atkinson did a superb job with similar ideas, producing something gripping and original.

Captain Corelli. Hated it
The miniaturist. Ditto

If we are talking books with lots of hype but the experience is a massive letdown - agree with A Little Life (the characters were utterly irritating), Cloud Atlas (ooh look I'm such a clever writer and I can do all these different styles!!!!). Finished the former but wished I hadn't, couldn't finish the latter.

More controversially - Anna Karenina - reeeeally hard work...

I thought Gone Girl, Girl on the train etc were not pretending to be anything they're not - they are easygoing page turners and pretty enjoyable ones at that.

Whoever nominated Dave Eggars Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - noooo! I loved that book!

Eloise by Judy Finnegan. Soz judy!

The other hand has just come flooding back in hideous glory. That book was truly shit, never met anyone who liked it . Think mine was a 3 for 2 from Waterstones.

The only reason I finished labyrinth labrat was because I was stuck on a train with nothing else to read. I would have given up otherwise.

Some mentioned James Patterson, didn't mind his earlier stuff but got very samey and determined to make his hero suffer.

Digital Fortress was shite and shows Dan Brown can't even Google let alone god forbid visit his locations (Seville Cathedral for example).