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 no Ilovealexa, I know the author of Goats and Sheep! She's a lovely lovely woman but the style of writing can be a bit whimsy, I admit.

It's been years since I read Lovely Bones, but I thought it was ok. And I rather liked Eleanor Oliphant.

But I couldn't abide the Da Vinci Code; couldn't get past the repetitive drivel of 50 shades; gave up on Time Travellers Wife; and gritted my teeth through a Sophie Kinsella novel because I got her mixed up with someone else I think. I read most of American Psycho but got awfully bored by the narcissistic rambling about clothes.

I also read something called Exoskeleton that got rave reviews. Finished it but it was so incredibly sick and dark that it made me feel peculiar.

I tend to listen to most books on Audible, I was going to download Never Let Me Go next...shall I not bother?

Thank god there are other who hated Shantaram. It was the biggest pile of self mastubatory wank I have even had the displeasure tonread. I finished, god knows why as I kept saying ‘oh for fucks sake!’ Out loud every five minutes

Hated how to be both - great story, lousy writing.

Couldn’t finish Clarissa and I love a bit of classics (adored bleak house!)

Hated the great gatsby too

Hate Sebastian faulks after that one set in London after the financial crisis. Talk about moralising 🙄

The Alchemist - dreadful - I read the whole book

On Beauty - awful - didn't get past chapter one.

cheeseoverchocolate oh God, Joseph Conrad... Nostromo. Couldn't get past page 50 or so, no matter how hard I tried (and I'll normally read anything). Unfortunately it was our A-level set text, and I had to write a bloody essay on what I hadn't read. Would explain my dire exam results

I loved The Goldfinch! Agree with a lot of the others, though.

Without a doubt the worst book I've ever read though has to be J. K Rowling's 'A Casual Vacancy'. Just unrelenting misery on every page. I felt vaguely sullied when I finished it. Horrid, horrid book.

FreeButtonBee Was that 'A Week in December'?

Awfully dreadful.

It's been a while since they came out & got all hyped up but....

The Time Travellers Wife and The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency

Both absolute dross

The Farm by Tom Robb Smith God, yes. Dreadful ending. It's as if he just got completely distracted / couldn't be arsed anymore.

Can't remember the title but I recently ploughed through a real steaming pile of a book recently - about an abusive marriage. The husband kept his wife in a beautiful gilded cage of a life but actually wanted to trick her disabled sister into living with them so he could lock her in the cellar. I've still no idea why. Utter bollocks.

Hated Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Made me irrationally tetchy. Read it aged 18 and I eye-rolled in a teenage fashion a LOT.

I liked the Goldfinch though

The Casual Vacancy, ugh! Prejudice at its most ugly.
Gone Girl. Horrible behaviour from every unlikeable character.
Twighlight, for spawning the 50 Shades fan-fiction...

The Harry Potter play. It probably didnt help that im not a Harry Potter fan but I had moved into a new house and couldnt get any internet set up for a few months. Its amazing how much you read when its the only option!
I could not get over the structure of the play! It made no sense to me. Ive read a lot of plays and the good ones always have the plot and the sub plot running alongside each other, creating dramatic irony. The cursed child has two plots but the first one reaches conclusion and the second plot suddenly starts. Its bizarre and I really cant understand why it was written like that.

Oh and Middlemarch. Life is far too short. I got a bit further than book one and decided to put it in the never picking that one up again pile...

The Goldfinch is one of my all time favourites, but a disappointing ending, same as The Little Friend. The Secret History, I couldn't get into so never finished.
Can't stand any Kinsella/Keyes types of books, well any chick lit really
Crow Road bored me shitless

Loved Never let me Go. Beautiful and haunting.
Loathed Eat Pray Love. Thought the husband she split with at the beginning had a lucky escape.

Sister by Rosamund Lupton. What a waste of valuable reading time. 50 shades of shite - need I say more. The da vinci code. When I see men on OLD sites that say "I love Dan Brown books", it's a definite move on for me.

And Apple Tree Yard. I almost wrote to the author and demanded a refund.

God I loved middlemarch. Couldn’t finish milk on the floss though

Momzillas. A fairly important character first appeared (say) p10, was introduced again around p20 and introduced for a third time at the end of the same paragraph as if she'd never been mentioned before, along the lines of 'Becky had a daughter called Megan ... blah blah about Megan ... Megan's mum was called Becky and Becky was from Manhattan'. Binned it.

And Now In November. Depressing shite. Like A Series of Unfortunate Events for adults.

Wizard, Jilly Cooper does write about someone thrashing about like a meningitis victim, but I think it’s in one of her earlier books. Maybe Emily? Hopefully not Harriet given the meningitis plotline!

A ‘novel’ by Julie Burchill left in a holiday let. It was so bad I burned it.
Agree One Day is shite.
I wouldn’t stoop to reading 50 Shades.
I loved The Goldfinch!

So many of these. And The English Patient. Struggled to the end on third attempt.

Insomnia by Stephen King

Another vote for American Psycho - one of the few books I couldn't finish - the torture and violence were just too sickening. Makes you wonder about the author.
I don't think I made it past the rat eating the insides of the live woman.

Geezer Girls. So bad, but then again, I should have guessed...

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

What a load of utter shite.