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!

Sorry - the Bryony Tallis bit is of course in Atonement. Should have made that clear.

I’m really wary of bestsellers as everything seems to need to have a twist rather than a logical ending which makes a lot of books very unsatisfying to read imho.

Neatly put 👏

Completely agree. I thought the writing was self-consciously performative. I was overly aware of the author's voice going "Fine writing, Maggie. This'll get me on the Booker short list.'

One Day - David Nicholls. Disappointing was a good word for it. Not very good, not bad enough to stand out for all the wrong reasons, just meh. A friend who reads more contemporary literary fiction than me loved it, so I had high hopes. Meh. On the upside, I only paid 99p for the Kindle edition.

Same! Thought I was the only one

Currently battling The Pillars of the Earth…

sticking with it though…

Completely agree @Cinaferna
Where the Crawdads Sing and Lessons in Chemistry were hugely disappointing, and felt like they were written with the intention to be made into blockbusters.

I also could not stand (and did not finish) the Thursday Murder Club.

I like McEwan in my 20s/30 and thought Enduring Love and Atonement were good. Then he started to get on my nerves, Saturday pissed me right off, no Ian you're not Virginia Woolf, and On Chesil Beach was just the last straw, Ian you are also not Kazuo Ishiguro. Just bombling about, misery, awkwardness etc are not great novelistic material in themselves, you need to actually be saying something or trying something new.

I hated it so much, I literally threw it in a rage. Seeping with suppressed misogyny and manufactured pathos, urgh.

And for my third mini rant I'm glad there's someone else on the planet who doesn't think Maggie O'Farrell is the best writer in history. I find her writing really cliched, if in a "I'm so literary" way. Her first book got all these rave reviews about its amazing writing and I was thinking huh? Have I got the wrong book?

You're right. Maybe I'm giving it more credit than it deserves.

I’ve seen him interviewed a few times and he does seem to take himself very seriously - a bad omen for any artist!

You can see from the interviews and from his work that he so wants to be a Great Writer. But he is a powerful writer…in small sections.

Hated, hated Hamnet. I’m fascinated by Shakespeare’s life (we know so little) so am a harsh judge of attempts to recreate it.

I couldn’t be doing with the Witchy Woman stuff re Anne Hathaway.

I listened to part of this on audiobook and it kept sending me to sleep. So dull.

I do agree he can write and has a very lucid, skilled literary style (unlike some other authors panned on this thread!)

Oh this thread is breaking my heart! Wolf Hall and Hamnet are two of my favourite books of all time!

Oh my. I loved the Safekeep. So beautiful. But All fours was dreadful.

The Twyford Code!!! Christ that book is terrible. A twist so shit I was fuming

I enjoyed this, liked the "sliding doors" theme. But I do follow him on Instagram so I may be biased.😊

I loved Her fearful symmetry!

Life of Pi. So long ago since I discarded it I can’t remember why.

OP I thought the Housemaid was utter shite.

Eleanor Oliphant for me too. I actually wondered if I’d got the right book, I couldn’t believe everyone banged on about how great it was. A snooze fest about a massive weirdo who goes to the hairdressers. Dreadful

I find it ok as an audiobook

Ah, I had forgotten about White Teeth. I slogged through it, but it was really not great...certainly never felt the need to read another Zadie Smith novel.

I enjoyed the Thursday Murder club books, easy reading , finish in a day, like Lee Child's Reacher series and Milly Johnson books, don't have to think too hard, formulaic but entertaining.
Have brought Lessons in Chemistry on holiday with me, along with Traveller's in the Third Reich and a bit of a work related book in With the end in mind by Kathryn Mannix , plus a wild card, The Skeleton Key.
I guess my suggestion for the thread is Catcher in the rye, I really wanted to slap the main character !