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?

Oh and I also thought The Lovely Bones was boring AF though I did finish it.

I didn't enjoy Middlemarch. I found it to be tedious rubbish. It's only the second-worst book I've read to completion though.

The worst was "Arslan", and the least said about that the better, but it's notable that it was only one-third the length of Middlemarch and I still resent the time lost to reading it more than for the longer tome.

The Green Road by Ann Enright

Me too. Soooo dull.

Which will teach me not to break my own never-buy-a-prizewinning-book rule. Serves me right.

Never heard of the Slap. Or One Day. I liked the Sellout, Goldfinch, Eleanor Oliphant and the Time Travellers Wife.

Some of the others mentioned here I would not read, like Me Before You, 50 Shades (I actually read half of the first one).

I'm not sure what my worst would be, I don't tend to stick with books I don't like... will have to have a think.

Actually I agree the Lovely Bones is boring and I found many Shakespeare plays boring (had to study).

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel please don't bother with it it's horrendous,

Sunset Song. It’s absolutely dire. The first part is actually unreadable. The rest is so boring you want to throw it away. They made us read it at school.

Breaking Dawn (the last twilight book) is awful. The first 3 are terrible but this manages to be worse. Total Mary Sue bullshit with an anticlimax (brought about by Mary Sue bullshit).

I found The Lovely Bones boring, too. I actually thought the film was better than the book.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like Wuthering Heights.

I enjoyed The Time Traveller's Wife, though; I've read it twice and it stood up well to the re-read.

Jonathan Franzen Purity. I have never read a worse book. Shudder.

I reread all the Brontes recently and while I very much enjoyed Wuthering Heights and thought it had a lot of verve and narrative thrust, it felt like something written by someone very young and full of imagination but not much experience.
It would be a shame if people felt it was up on a pedestal and must be treated as uncriticisable because it's a classic.

Disliked Eleanor Oliphant - the tone just really jarred with me- like Bridget Jones meets My Name Is it (I haven’t read the latter BYKWIM). Eleanor develops a crush on a musician and decides to have a bikini wax despite being too socially awkward for many less obviously embarrassing activities? Cue ‘faux awkward’ session...

Also found Sister by Rosamund Lupton incredibly irritating. Really stupid ending.

The Da Vinci Code. Thought it would while away a long plane journey, gave it to the cabin crew as they were passing through gathering up the trash.

The Goldfinch. Painfully dull.

The Hair with the Amber Eyes would definitely be up there,
very dull and incredibly pretentious, kept with it to the end as it was a bool club special and was very disappointed it was so awful

I declined to read 50 shades as it really didn't appeal to me

My friend and I were talking earlier about how much we disliked wuthering heights, @TheCountessofFitzdotterel.

50 Shades was utter crap. If that girl 'bit her lip' and looked pensive once, she did it a thousand times. And the writing was so bad. I gave it up after about 4 pages.

I persevered with The Goldfinch, but didn't like it.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - yawn.

Didn't like Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train either

But I love Dan Brown, JK Rowling and Hilary Mantel (except for A Place of Greater Safety which I really struggled with).

Mount by jilly Cooper.
Boring and Rupert Campbell black has long lost his sex appeal he just reminds me of a dirty old man.

I have a few contenders, most of which have already been mentioned.

Anna Karenina - just unrelentingly dull.

Wuthering Heights - none of the characters were sympathetic in the slightest, and to be honest I just didn’t care what happened to any of them.

Never Let Me Go - I can’t actually remember it but I remember I couldn’t finish it.

The Lovely Bones - Sentimental tripe.

Howard’s End - I’m not a fan of ‘talky’ books generally, so this was always up against it, but god it was boring! Another I didn’t finish.

A Short History of Nearly Everything - Turns out I only like to read Bill Bryson’s thoughts about travel, as I wasn’t massively keen on Mother Tongue either.

The Jilly Cooper book that was set in a school. Lots of underage sex in it as I recall.... 🤔 🤔 🤔

50 shades of grey couldn't finish it pile of shite

Anything at all by Henry James. Even by the standards of the late 19th century his style is turgid and self-regarding. And I'm well used to fighting through the first 200 pages to enable the plot to pick up.

Clarissa. Somewhere in that endless volume is a blockbuster and a half. But the story goes so slowly that if you start it this evening, by the time you have finished it the south coast will be somewhere near Coventry and we will be escaping to the North Pole for our summer holidays.

Oh God yes I had forgotten about On chesil beach, hated it.

malificent7 the secret with War and Peace is to skip the long prosy lectures on history and revolution and whatnot - basically anything that's not the story. You don't miss anything.

Gallicoscats - I'd forgotten Clarissa - I persevered as it was supposed to be good but really resent the time I spent on it (and it was in pre-Kindle days so I used to lug it around with me. Although Cecilia by Fanny Burney probably beats it hands down in the meandering around going nowhere stakes.

Ugh, The Farm by Tom Rob Smith.

I want those 4 hours back!

Whole book leading up to climax. Literally the worst let down ever. No climax. Think Crossroads dream ending.

I WANT those 4 hours back, damn you!