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?

The Bridges of Madison County was just dismal (I quite liked the film though).

Couldn't finish The Stone Man mentioned above - and bought it based on recommendation on here.

I think Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the most over-rated writers ever but he peaks in Never Let Me Go which is vapid, pretentious, twaddle. Julian Barnes can be a bit of a fraud on the reading public too.

I also had to make a conscious effort to finish on the road.

I read it because ds was reading it in high school and it nearly killed me. Why on earth someone thought this be a good book for the average gloomy teen to read is beyond me.

When my 14 year old dd and her class read Jane Eyre, it was very funny listening to them talk about it in the car pool. They thought Rochester was a creepy old man and were disgusted at the "happy ending".

Can I count 50 Shades if I only managed to get to chapter five? I'm assuming it didn't get any better.

@ellesworth, you did better than me then. Everybody at work was reading it, and when they found out that I hadn't seen it, they lent it to me. I'm not sure I even got to the end of Chapter 1, it was so badly written. I flipped through it looking for the juicy bits (which were equally toe curling, in content and in writing) and then gave it back with some kind of non-commital comment.

Eloise by Judy Finnegan. Dire.

@fuckbrussel I did read the review of the last book and it sounded equally as dodgy. It's on Buzzfeed somewhere.

@ellesworth, thanks - I might look that up! The books may have been dire, but some of the reviews were comedy gold.

The Alchemist.
Siddhartha.
Twilight.
50 Shades of Grey.
The Husband's Secret.

Angielou, I understand how you feel about prequels and sequels by different authors but an outstanding one, if you haven't read it, is The Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys. It's the story of the life of Bertha, the first Mrs Rochester, who we usually meet latterly roaming the corridors.in Jane Eyre. HIghly recommend to anyone who's read Jane Eyre.

yes The Wide Sargasso Sea is excellent.

Speaking of sequels, PD James' Death Comes to Pemberley was about as bad as you can get. Shame as her earlier novels/detective novels were really superb.

Practically every book written by a tv person, as if being on the box is evidence of immense literary talent. It isnt, Judy Finegan, Dawn French, Jenny Eclair, Russell Brand, etc. please stop.

Yes to TV people. Read something truly dire by Richard Madeley whilst I was on holiday. Can't recall the title, but it was set in the lake district.

longwayoff ah that sounds promising; my DS is asking me which book to buy me fir Christmas so I'll suggest that one, thanks.

I’m surprised by the hate towards We Need To Talk About Kevin - thought it was brilliant. I also adore The Casual Vacancy - brilliant characterisation and incredibly accurate to parish council life.

Angielou, hope you enjoy it.

I used to plough through anything I started even if I hated it. A good few years ago I decided that there were too many books and life was too short.
Some of my pet hates - sorry I can't remember all the authors.
The Rowan Tree - hated every single character.
50 SoG - time I'll never get back.
The Man in the High Castle - great premise, just unreadable shit writing
Anything by Zadie Smith - self indulgent crap
Charles Dickens novels, except A Tale of Two Cities, and even then I wanted to slap Lucie Manette into the middle of next week.
Eons ago read the Shirley Conran shite
I've just finished the Tom Hanks short stories - I really wanted to like them, but just couldn't not hear Tom Hanks' voice being ironic all the way through. Going to pass them onto a friend to see if IABU.
The Kay Scarpetta novels started off well enough but hated the last ones and didn't finish any of them.

Feel your pain mrszola, fortunately I too have reached the time in life where 'straight to recycling' is now a reasonable choice for anything thats not caught my interest by chapter 3. Too many to mention.

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennett by Colleen McCullough. It even tops 50 Shades for the most godawful piece of tripe I've ever read. How it ever got published is a mystery. All of the Pride and Prejudice "sequels" are bad but this is breathtaking in its' poorly written awfulness

I haven't read all 600 replies to this, I do apologise.

I would be genuinely surprised if no-one else has said this - Brick Lane by Monica Ali. It was badly written, there was absolutely no soul or feeling to any of the characters in it, it wasn't believable in any way shape or form. I hated every moment of reading it, but I'm the type of person who will always finish a book that I've started. I read the book because my mother lived just off Brick Lane for years, she tried to read the book as well and couldn't because it was so poorly written.

I've heard other people say similar things about other books by Monica Ali, but after reading one of her books I've never bothered to read another.

Shantaram. Simply awful.

I read 50 Shades, so that's the absolute worst.

But more recently, The Tattooist Of Auschwitz. I don't understand the hype. I thought it was badly written, and is apparently not historically accurate, for all the author says all efforts were made with the research.

Bible. Horrific.