Disappointing Bestsellers

[LittlleMy]

Hello everyone 🙂

I just wondered if anyone else has bought a ‘bestseller’ that otherwise wouldn’t have appealed without that status only to be hugely disappointed?

So I realise I’m slightly late to the party but I just finished ‘The Housemaid’ by Freida McFadden and it was such a struggle to get through! It felt more like it was written for the Young Adult market. Barely any descriptive text, always telling rather than showing, ridiculous coincidences, underdeveloped characters, juvenile writing especially sentences like ‘’there was something about that room that was very scary” “his expression sent a chill down my spine”. Highly predictable in parts, silly in others and just so very average!

Don’t come after me if you loved it, this is just my opinion of a recent book that really shocked me that it was able to reach the dizzying heights of becoming a bestseller.

I thought it might be fun to hear from any fellow disgruntled readers if they’ve had similar experiences! With Autumn just round the corner, and me needing a new list of books to read, this post may help some of us avoid similar disappointments!

I like Richard Osman as well, I think he needed a better editor. It was just really badly written, which surprised me.

Ah this has me worried as I also dislike White Teeth and Caledonian Road, and I have All the Colours... iny book pile to take on holiday next week!

Confessions of Shopaholic. Sophie Kinsella. I think there is something wrong with my sense of humour. Lots of reviews saying it made them laugh out loud and I don’t find it funny at all

Agree with A Court of Thrones and Roses

Have to add Game of Thrones. I read the first one but I just don't like the way they are written. I found I had to go through the book and read all the chapters on Jon Snow, then go back and read all the chapters on Tyrion and so on.

I get frustrated when you have so many different threads you get invested in the group/person and the next chapter is about another group/person.

I was also bitterly disappointed by Where the Crawdads Sing, it defied all credibility.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was just a massive advert for Apple.

I want some entertaining books that are well written, any recommendations?

I also trudged through Butter, it does not get better. Every time it looks as though an interesting plot line might happen the author manages to revert to tedium.

It’s so funny how people have such different experiences. I was entirely captivated by the midnight library and was sobbing when I finished it!

The Da Vinci Code.

Dan Brown owes me hours of my life back.

I have the same affliction 😂But I did allow myself to give up 50 Shades a few chapters in because the writing was so terrible.
Many years ago I bought a copy of American Psycho to read on the train home from London, hated it so much I threw it in the bin when I arrived at my destination.

I didn’t mind Midnight Library or the Richard Osman books.

I love the Thursday Murder Club books. Really love them and can't wait to see the adaptation but bloody hell "We Solve Murders" was fucking awful. Only one faintly likeable character, the rest were just so noisy and annoying. I made myself finish it because it would have nibbled away bits of my sanity had I not but fuck me it was awful. I hope he quietly abandons that particular thread.

Midnights Children by Salmon Rushdie. I just couldn’t get into it and hated the writing style. Have read and enjoyed other Booker Prize winners and other books in a similar theme.

I love Freida books! But I do think they are very easy reads and you have to be in to that to enjoy it. I prefer books that are shorter , a nice twist , not too descriptive. Reading is relaxing , an escape … I like to devour it in
a night !

For me, I heard so many people raving about Alice Feeney , so I read ‘sometimes I lie’ - it was awful , far too descriptive ( I remember pretty much a whole page just describing the character opening and drinking a can of pop ! ) and nothing happened it was just weird. Would never pick up another again.

Also , Colleen Hoover books .

Have you tried Mick Herron's Slough House series? Brilliant and also now adapted for TV (Slow Horses)

@YouMightThinkThat no I have not but I do the TV show is one of the best things I have seen.

Thank you!

Yellowface. Plotless drivel. I threw it away.

Couldn't finish Thursday murder club either, and I very rarely end. Boring, patronising twaddle.

Also don't understand the fuss about Sally Rooney. All her characters are such immature self centred bores. And not only do the characters have no awareness of this , Rooney doesn't seem to have noticed either. She also wrote the worst description of a young woman with endometriosis that I've ever read.

Finished butter a couple of days ago and still don't know what I think about it.

I did however really like crawdads.

I've certainly enjoyed some of the books on the hate list here. Okay, one or two. I'm going to add another to my 'I don't get it' list, and that's Harry Potter. I'm a grown woman, and not the target market. That said, I still read children's books from time to time, HP seemed wildly popular in all age groups, so I thought I'd give them a whirl. Just couldn't get into the hype at all. I'm sure as an eight year old I'd have swallowed the lot at great speed, but I couldn't for the life of me see what adults - friends - were getting out of it.

Eat Pray Love made both me and DM want to haul our own eyeballs out our skulls

The Miniturist

Agree with others re the Da Vinci code : enjoyable trash.
Similarly I didn’t totally hate the housemaid ones either although I did read them when I had very little brain space-might not have been so tolerant another time.
Neither do I hate Thursday murder club but they definitely don’t warrant the hype.
i think I’m the only 40 something woman to have not read 50 shades. I know I’d hate it for multiple reasons.

It’s the pretentious bestsellers that I get most disappointed by-Normal People being a chief offender!

Also recently finished the Bee Sting (only because I didn’t have anything else). What a load of drivel.

Loved All the Colours of the Dark though.

I read Thursday Murder Club and found it entertaining. I won't read any more though because it's just not my preferred genre. I'm looking forward to watching the film.

I never even picked up 50 Shades. Yes, it's a bestseller, but it's no secret that it's not great literature and is basically soft core porn, right?

Court of Thorn and Roses and the ilk are super popular, but again I wouldn't pick them up for myself because fantasy/romantasy are just not my thing.

I enjoyed Yellowface and Lessons in Chemistry but they weren't life changing and haven't stayed with me like some of the best books do.

I read Orbital and wasn't blown away, but it was so short that I never thought about DNFing it.

I had heard great things about Audition by Katie Kitamura. I read it but felt like I didn't understand what had happened.