Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Disappointing Bestsellers

678 replies

LittlleMy · 22/08/2025 12:13

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!

OP posts:
TragicMuse · 22/08/2025 23:23

WhatterySquash · 22/08/2025 21:27

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.

Show quote history

I loved Enduring Love. Saturday is utter trash and he has a complete tin ear for dialogue. I HATED it!

I have a problem with a lot of modern fiction. I also hate being told what to read or that I’ll love something. I’m a contrary old mare and just think ‘no i won’t’ out of contrary spite! Conversely, some might say perversely, I do love recommending books!

Anything ‘heartwarming’ can fuck off. Anything where the title is something like Eleanor Oliphant is really ok, or we are all completely normal etc can also fuck off. So can Sebastian Faulks. Ditto most of the Booker list!

I read poetry, a lot of cheap romance (and some expensive ones!), thrillers, and I’m going to read or re-read some classics.

hangerup · 22/08/2025 23:27

I love this thread! sometimes I have questioned if there is something wrong with me when I have read a book others label profound or life changing & Im like meh. Clearly Im not the problem 😆😆

Hankunamatata · 22/08/2025 23:29

Tortielady · 22/08/2025 15:24

I enjoyed The Ministry of Time - I listened to the audiobook, which may have made a difference in helping the characters to come through.

Naomi Novik's A Deadly Education fell as flat as the proverbial pancake for me. My DH loved it - he really enjoys her books - but I struggled to get to the end of it and wouldn't have bothered if I'd had to physically read it rather than listen to the audiobook. What a lot of overwrought adolescent tosh! (OAT.)

Fourth Wing - Rebecca Yarros - where it's good, eg, the dragons, Violet's terrifying mother - it's brilliant. Where it's not - the, shall we say, romantic stuff, it's yet more OAT.

Show quote history

I like deadly education - its in YA adult genre, do prefer spinning silver

Fourth wing series I really enjoyed but as with this kind of genre the sex scenes are either over hyped or long. I adore a court of thorn and roses by sarah J mass but iv had to forward through some of sex scenes as some of them seem to interrupt the actual story rather than adding to it

I listen to audiobooks quite a bit and often the narrator makes all the difference. I particularly liked one for Fourth Wing

Hankunamatata · 22/08/2025 23:33

Only book I haven't been able to finish (or even really read much of it) is Cloud Atlas. Sat on bedside table for 6 months before I gave up.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - given as a gift. It was awful

KTheGrey · 22/08/2025 23:38

Sidebeforeself · 22/08/2025 12:29

Where to begin?! 😁
Midnight Library
Beekeeper of Aleppo
Wolf Hall
Broken Country
Normal People
Yellowface
Remains of The Day
Any Jodi Picoult

Agree with all but Wolf Hall which is superb and which I re-read every couple of years to revel in different aspects of the whole darkness of it. Admittedly it improves as you get into it.

Hankunamatata · 22/08/2025 23:38

hangerup · 22/08/2025 15:41

As per so many of you Where the Crawdads Sing, and the Housemaid was just point horror style writing for a slightly older audience!

I feel like Point horror was actually better than these recent attempts or maybe that's my teenage brain misremembering.

I did finish 50 shades and Twilight but the writing was so bad in parts.

I loved point horror books and t f most of the othe point series

Hankunamatata · 22/08/2025 23:45

Loads of the fantasy/romance books recently seem to be classified as young adult.

Iv found once get past first one or two book in series authors like mass, yarros, scarlett st claire, Armentrout - they cut down the ridiculous long sex scenes and actually concentrate on the story. Perhaps sex sells so they are told to put more in their books on the beginning

Tortielady · 22/08/2025 23:45

Hankunamatata · 22/08/2025 23:29

I like deadly education - its in YA adult genre, do prefer spinning silver

Fourth wing series I really enjoyed but as with this kind of genre the sex scenes are either over hyped or long. I adore a court of thorn and roses by sarah J mass but iv had to forward through some of sex scenes as some of them seem to interrupt the actual story rather than adding to it

I listen to audiobooks quite a bit and often the narrator makes all the difference. I particularly liked one for Fourth Wing

Edited
Show quote history

I listened to the Fourth Wing audiobook and will definitely move onto the others. Where Yarros is good, she's brilliant. My favourite in the genre so far is Samantha Shannon's Bone Season and although there is an undue fixation on the love interest (even for me and I fancy him too) the long, graphic sex scenes that are a feature of Fourth Wing aren't there. Nor does she have her central couple smash the room up when they finally get it on 😆

EnglishGirlApproximately · 22/08/2025 23:46

Oh just thought of my biggest ever disappointment! Having loved The Corrections and Freedom I was so excited to read Purity when it came out. I pre ordered it, duly went to collect it on publishing day and what a load of shit! That must be ten years ago and it still sits on my bookshelf so I can try again sporadically but I've never made it past chapter 3.
I hate it so much I can't even bring myself to re read my previously loved Frantzens.

KTheGrey · 22/08/2025 23:50

Bearlionfalcon · 22/08/2025 13:45

Also find the complaint about Foley ‘basically writing the same book in different locations’ very interesting because actually what authors are being advised at the moment is that ‘consistency and predictability of offer’ is what builds loyal readers and sells more copies - if you think of authors who do well in that space like Claire Douglas and Gillian McAllister you can arguably see that sort of pattern - publishers at the moment seem quite nervous about authors taking risks and doing things that are different

Nothing wrong with doing one particular thing well - signed: the woman who has read every one of Georgette Heyer’s regency romances and doesn’t care who knows it.

JustSawJohnny · 22/08/2025 23:55

CarpeVitam · 22/08/2025 12:19

Yes. The Midnight Library, Matt Haigh.

So boring!

I hated it.

Everyone in my book club raved about it but I just knew from the off it was going to be disappointing and it really was.

I left the book club in the end. I cannot read any more 'popular' fiction.

JustSawJohnny · 22/08/2025 23:57

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - given as a gift. It was awful

Another piece of book club torture.

Awful.

hangerup · 23/08/2025 00:05

Loads of the fantasy/romance books recently seem to be classified as young adult.

What I find really odd is this genre has some serious themes eg poverty, war, brutal deaths of loved ones etc so the characters have hardship and have to grow up pretty quick. But the love & sex relationships are from a 14 yr old perspective. You can go into battle & are happy to sacrifice your life for your friend but you are too embarrassed to act on the longing stares you give each other in case of rejection. I don't get it!

Grammarnut · 23/08/2025 00:20

NetZeroZealot · 22/08/2025 16:53

They are so badly written

Show quote history

They are Enid Blytonesque, so work for kids. The Strike novels are much better.

ChiliFiend · 23/08/2025 01:16

HRTQueen · 22/08/2025 12:29

A Little Life by the end I just didn’t care anymore

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo it went on and on and on

Eat Pray Love I had to put it down the author so unbelievably smug and pretentious

I loved Yellowface

A Little Life is probably my most hated book - just gratuitous misery and pain, as if the whole point of it was to make the reader witness awful scene after awful scene, just for the sake of it. I wish I hadn't bothered to finish it.

SouthernNights59 · 23/08/2025 02:54

AntiBullshit · 22/08/2025 17:38

Anne of Green Gables series of books, I just cannot get past the first half of the first one. On and on and on about not much. I absolutely love the tv series (80s) but the books just waffle on and on

I loved the books and was a bit worried the TV series wouldn't do them justice. I needn't have worried, I loved it. I haven't read the books for many, many, years but was captivated at the time.

SouthernNights59 · 23/08/2025 03:00

WhyamIinahandcartandwherearewegoing · 22/08/2025 21:24

Currently battling The Pillars of the Earth…

sticking with it though…

Oh I love The Pillars of the Earth, a gem of a book.

honeylulu · 23/08/2025 03:52

Oh dear, I'm on holiday atm and have brought Butter along (not started yet). I'm dreading it now, not many positive comments on here.

Unlike many other posters though I loved Crawdads, the Da Vinci Code, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Harry Potter ... so who knows! Thought the Salt Path was boring, the real/scandalous truth is much more interesting. Really enjoyed the first two thirds of Yellow Face but the last third just seemed to turn in circles with the author unsure how to conclude and the ending was a bit weak and tailed off. Most gripping recent holiday read was Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent.

I'm currently reading Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty which i picked up at Heathrow About 5 years ago and forgot it was in the pocket of my rucksack. A couple of chapters in i realised I had watched the TV adaptation with Nicole Kidman a couple of years ago and thought it a bit meh and can't even remember what happened. Yet I'm enjoying the book much more so far ... hope I'm not disappointed.

Notsurewheretostarthere · 23/08/2025 05:40

EnglishGirlApproximately · 22/08/2025 23:46

Oh just thought of my biggest ever disappointment! Having loved The Corrections and Freedom I was so excited to read Purity when it came out. I pre ordered it, duly went to collect it on publishing day and what a load of shit! That must be ten years ago and it still sits on my bookshelf so I can try again sporadically but I've never made it past chapter 3.
I hate it so much I can't even bring myself to re read my previously loved Frantzens.

Oh but have you tried crossroads? It's sublime. Loved it. My gateway to Franzen.

EnglishGirlApproximately · 23/08/2025 07:29

Notsurewheretostarthere · 23/08/2025 05:40

Oh but have you tried crossroads? It's sublime. Loved it. My gateway to Franzen.

Show quote history

I haven't, I was so annoyed by Purity I've never picked up another of his books! Maybe I should forgive him and try it. I see it's cheap on kindle so I'll add it to my reading list 🙂

Chemenger · 23/08/2025 07:38

AnOldCynic · 22/08/2025 23:06

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

Because it’s boring. As is the film. I know it allegorical but it would have been better for me if the tiger had just eaten him. Similarly Jane Eyre would have been vastly improved if she had caught consumption from her friend in the first chapter and died. Would have saved a lot of tedious mimsy nonsense.

Chemenger · 23/08/2025 07:42

Just remembered one I didn’t finish - Angela’s Ashes. Just unrelentingly miserable.

I quite liked a lot of the books that are mentioned, including Orbital. I find it quite difficult to find books to read these days, everything seems to be either crime or a thriller, neither of those appeals to me.

CoffeeCantata · 23/08/2025 07:57

KTheGrey · 22/08/2025 23:50

Nothing wrong with doing one particular thing well - signed: the woman who has read every one of Georgette Heyer’s regency romances and doesn’t care who knows it.

Show quote history

Good for you! Yes, she stuck to her particular niche and did it well (GH).

HerewardtheSleepy · 23/08/2025 08:02

Going back many years, but Midnight's Children was truly awful. I really did not care about anyone in it and chucked it (literally) after 3 chapters.

IsItSnowing · 23/08/2025 08:02

I loved Wolf Hall, I’ve read everything of Mantel’s and I love her style. I also like We need to talk about Kevin.
Top of my list of disappointing books would be anything by Martin Amis apart from Time’s Arrow. I loved that and was serially disappointed that nothing else he wrote comes anywhere close to it.