To ask about the worst book you have ever read.

[Whereisthecoffee]

Title says it all really. What book or books have you absolutely hated and why?

I have a rule... A book gets 30 pages to get me interested. If it hasn't by then, I give up. Life is too short for rubbish books!

A few "popular" titles stick in my mind... "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel. Unreadable.

"The Lovely Bones". Again, unreadable.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. I was so excited to read it because I love Medieval history and it was a best-seller so I assumed it would be entertaining, if not "high brow".

Turns out it's badly written, a slow plot and waaaay too long. The only interesting characters were the villains. I gave up after about 250 pages and I VERY rarely give up on books I've started.

How to be both - pretentious drivel.
One Day and On Chesil Beach, both about totally unlikeable people. Couldn’t care less what happened to them.

I couldn't get in to Labyrinth at all.
I think one of the worst has to be Richard Madeley "Some Day I'll Find You".
My mum lent it me for a holiday read and it was so so bad. The characterisation was awful. The way he wrote women was very telling I think of how he sees them.

I finished one recently that was so bad I've forgotten the title but it was set in Ireland about a woman who owned a hotel. It could have been really good but all the possibly exciting plot leads were inexplicably ignored in favour of the dullest imaginable.
I need to learn to stop reading if the book is bad, but there is something in me that needs to finish. The eternal optimist that it might get better.

@Lemonredwood
The Miniaturist. I'm still cross that I kept going with it in the vain hope something interesting would happen.

Yes me too!

Labyrinth was awful, so boring.

Sorry I keep reading more of the thread and coming back!
I enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant, I thought it was sweet and I didn't have to think about much else. Sometimes I need books like that.
One Day - I enjoyed but more for the memories and feelings it brought up for me of my time at uni rather than the book itself.
I've not read the Goldfinch. I couldn't get into The Little Friend, it was so self indulgent, so have given up on her a bit.
The Girl on the Train, The Couple next Door etc etc. Dull dull dull. I love crime fiction. Really love it. I understand why these books are popular but if you are a big fan of the genre then these are obvious and boring.
Love Mo Hayder but can only read so much before I need a break.

One Day. Tried to read it twice, but I just didn't get it. A friend wanted to see the film, and I thought it would be better, but it was rubbish.

The Goldfinch rambled on without much point, just like her previous one, The Little Friend, so I didn't finish either. Shame, because I loved The Secret History and read it twice.

Dawn French's first novel was a massive disappointment. I usually avoid celebs who write novels, but it was a present so I felt obliged to read it. I thought as a comedy writer it would at least be funny, but it was lazily written and unrealistic.

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith was another present. Loathed it. The main character was a tiresome, judgemental woman who I thought was in her seventies because she was so old-fashioned. Turned out she was only about forty, which shows how well he knows women. And I held out for a big reveal but the ending was a total cop out.

‘Oh and Ian McEwan Atonement. What a nob, that was by far the smuggest book I’ve ever read.’
So agree.
I also couldn’t get going with Wolf Hall but I adored the Goldfinch and I’m debating about watching the film as often I find films of books that I love disappointing.
Donna Tartt takes 10 years to write each book so I’ll probably be reading novels in the library in the Next World by the time her fourth book is published.

If I Die Before I Wake by Emily Koch. So unbelievably dull.

Tried to read The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty but couldn't get into it at all. Particularly when the blatantly obvious secret was told midway through the book... Which was a shame because I loved Little Big Lies

Didn't enjoy Into the Water by Paula Hawkins either.

I did love Eleanor Oliphant, I'm surprised at how many didn't!

Her Fearful Symmetry. What a load of cobblers. There's suspending disbelief and there's hoisting it up a pole never to be seen again.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

So appalling I binned it halfway through. It's the only book from our Reading Group I haven't finished, and I'm the one that suggested it.

Also, for sheer brutal ugliness, The Bunker by Kevin Brooks. The ending was so horrific I threw it to the other end of the sofa and couldn't stop thinking about it for days. And it's marketed as a children's book. Foul.

So many of my favourites being slated on here!

The chip sister book was called “We are all completely beside ourselves” or something and yes, when I found out Fern was a chimp, I closed the book immediately, which is rare for me. This book immediately sprung to mind when I read the title of this thread.
Anything in the “Shopaholic” series by Sophie Kinsella. Horrible consumerism at its worst, making the main character miserable and depressed, but dressed up in a fluffy way. IF the author ever writes “Shopaholic goes for CBT/counselling” or “Shopaholic takes Antidepressants” I might reconsider.

AnastasiaVonBeaverhausen

@Lemonredwood
The Miniaturist. I'm still cross that I kept going with it in the vain hope something interesting would happen.

Yes me too!

Me three started so we'll just sort of petered out. I did learn though that if you intend to write a novel you need to know how your story finishes before you write the amazing beginning you've thought of.

'Also, for sheer brutal ugliness, The Bunker by Kevin Brooks. The ending was so horrific I threw it to the other end of the sofa and couldn't stop thinking about it for days. And it's marketed as a children's book. Foul.'

Omg, yes. I had blanked that one out, it was so awful.
Didn't it win prizes too?

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I keep reading his books in vain hope that I might enjoy one! Read When We Were Orphans, Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day and didn't like any of them. I found them very soulless

The Man in the Iron Mask.
Pages and pages in and nothing has happened. Lots of waffly prose about nothing relevant. Got bored, gave up.
Moby Dick. Why is this considered a classic? It's terrible! I got half way through the book and they'd only just got on the bloody boat, nothing happening and lots of waffle about nothing. Got bored, gave up.
And I've read all the way through The Lord of the Rings.

I really like all the true life books by Cathy Glass but she released a fiction novel under the name Lisa Stone. I can't remember what it was called but it was awful. No real storyline, mistakes in the story that hadn't been corrected. I gave up on it.

Countess It won the Carnegie Medal for Children's Literature

I could just imagine loads of well-meaning parents and aunties and godparents buying this for unsuspecting kids, because it has the medal embossed on the front and is therefore 'quality'.

I'm an English teacher, bookshop owner and was a school librarian, as before I read this book I was vehemently against censoring what kids read in any way, shape or form. But that book is totally without hope or redemption. I restricted it to year 10 and above in the library, and I don't stock it in the shop.

I just don't like it.

*and, not as.

You see I did know that too once Mawkish, I had just blanked out the horror of it having won the Carnegie Medal!
When you think of all the truly great books it will sit alongside...

It's not even badly written. It's definitely gripping. But it's just so nasty.

Not a children's book at all, imo.

Yes, absolutely.
I read one of his others, Road Of The Dead, and that was also well written but left me with a bad feeling. This one, just, WHY? There's a reason why horror films have an 18 certificate.

'Hannibal Rising' was the most incredible pile of dross. Completely unreadable, to the point of embarrassing. It was as if some film producer got on the phone to Thomas Harris, and said "Oi Tom, we fancy doing a totally unnecessary film about Hannibal Lecter's early life, so d'you feel like knocking out a quick book first yeah? Doesn't need to be any good, you won't even have to get out of bed, plus it's a few quid innit?"