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?

Anything by Karen Rose. I got so fed up of the same plot in every book. Woman is involved in some awful event, meets a male detective/firefighter/dr as a result of event, sleeps with him halfway through the book, has to be rescued by him at the end of the book 🤢

Yellow crocus

Read it for book club and it was fucking awful

Everyone else apparently loved it

The Casual Vacancy - all the characters were so unpleasant that I just didn't care what happened to any of them. Not even an anti-hero you could kind of root for. Nothing.

Most of these - and yes, Angelina, Alexander McCall Smith is atrociously overrated.

Mine by Susi Fox. I keep trying wth it but I can't get on with it, the main character annoys me.

50 Shades for a multitude of reasons such as:

1. So poorly written. Irritating words being repeated, plot just as bad.
2. Realising how dull other people's sex lives must be if that utter drivel was seen as being titillating. Made me look differently at some of my friends, for sure.
3. What is clearly actually abuse being sold as sexy
4. Making people think that's what BDSM is.

Persisted through book 1 for as long as I could but had to quit because I was worried I would go blind from all the eye rolling.

Agree with all the above about American Psycho. Wish I'd never read it but thankfully, the passage of time has blurred some of the details. What the fuck is going on in that authors mind to think up that unutterable shite makes me shudder.

A Prayer For Owen Meany. The SHOUTY CAPITALS drove me mad.

Of the books mentioned which I have read (a fair number), I agree with pretty much all of them - they are awful. Only 2 exceptions - Life of Pi and Poisonwood Bible both of which I loved.

Of the ones mentioned already that I’ve read I would have to say that the monkey sister one is def one of the worst. Just terrible.

Worse than that however is the book which produced the most expletive-ridden messages in our book group WhatsApp, and the book by which all other books are now measured for their crapness - I give you: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Utter tripe. It is the only book I have ever actually thrown out - I couldn’t inflict it on my worst enemy let alone a poor unsuspecting old lady in the charity shop. A character turns into a bloody chair! Enough said!

The most recent awful book I have read was Harry Quebert thingy.
It could have been really good. Instead it had the worst written dialogue I think I've ever read. I know it was translated but in that case, the translator AND editor should never work again. The exclamations !!!
I didn't like the thinly veiled whiff of child abuse/paedophilia either tbf.

Mo Hayder disturbs me. I love a psycho thriller but she has one sick mind to think of her plots.

I loathed Kite Runner/Splendid Suns. Serious subjects do not magic themselves into great literature unless in the hands of a great writer.

I also agree about Marian Keyes. Some are wonderful, especially the early ones. The ones set in America are unreadable.

Someone has beaten me to it, but The Slap gave me the rage. Bloody awful characters.

@chode -you’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s also read Monster Love (I actually didn’t mind it). Shantaram is bloody awful, but the worse thing I ever read was The End of Alice by AM Holmes - I had read another book of hers which I liked and just picked it up - really awful and disturbing

You are all so wrong.
The worst book ever written is a Pride and Prejudice sequel: Pemberley by Emma Tennant. Absolute shite from beginning to end. I think I hurled it out of the window.

(Agree Goldfinch frightful though)

50 shades, poorly written.

Girl on the Train, yawn.

Far from the Madding Crowd

Anything by Wordsworth

50 Shades. I did in fact read the entire trilogy by skipping the sex scenes after about halfway through the second book, more or less. Firstly for the crap writing. Secondly for being the only depiction of BDSM many people will ever experience, and portraying it as something that only mentally ill or traumatised people engage in, and is something that needs to be "cured". Roughly equivalent to claiming that everyone who likes a clean house is medically OCD and should be medicated.

Carrie Hope Fletcher’s books are dire. Especially her latest set in a theatre - everyone panders to the main characters and any other women are just bitches or there to make the main character look good. Was utter drivel.

I hated The Slap, such horrible characters. Also, the Cow by Dawn O Porter, I am too much of a prude it seems!

The diceman was awful, as was The almost moon. The ending of Captain correllis mandolin gave me the rage, ditto the follow up book to The silence of the lambs, ridiculous. I can't say I enjoyed the road but I don't think it was a bad book in itself. I have read and enjoyed lots of the books listed on here, not 50 shades though, I wouldn't touch those with a barge pole.

The Celestine Prophecy. What a load of shit

The Road is incredibly good!! But each to their own.
I didn’t finish The Goldfinch or The Lovely Bones.
The Da Vinci Code was very poorly written but the plot was intriguing.
The Instance of the Fingerpost really annoyed me for some reason.

I've read some awful books on holidays (when I normally like to read something lighter than usual) that I can't remember the names off, but by far the worst was 50 Shades. As a pp said, it made me look at some of my friends (who loved it) in a different light.

A few that have already been mentioned several times.

Read "Enduring Love" recently and enjoyed it until the last third by which time I just wanted to slap the main guy. The end was weird, just sort of petered out.

I usually like Ian Banks and have read many of his books but "A Song of Stone" was horrible. Had one of the nastiest endings to a book I've ever read.

I hate pretty much everything about Jodi Picoult - I find her a bad, obvious writer and I don't find her subject matters to feel authentic in any way. More like she has just picked whatever 'big' (nasty) issue she can think of and built a shock value book based around it. I find it really distasteful. I don't know how to describe it - her writing feels exploitative to me.

Some crap by Judy Finnegan.
Rainy caravan holiday in the middle of nowhere, so bored....so so bored and I gave in. Wish I hadn’t. What a crock of shite.

I loved the Cloud Atlas and the Dawn French Sylvia one was okay. One Day has an awful cop out ending.

Very much agree about ‘The Slap’, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ and ‘How to be a woman’.

50 shades of shit. I still can't believe the hype over such badly written trash and CG creeped me right out. I note she's not had the balls to try anything else, thank god.

Anything after The Man who made husbands jealous by Jilly Cooper. I loved loved loved her early stuff but she really needs to stop writing.

Like others have said, Jodi Picoult. Loved her first few, but too moralistic and formulaic.