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!

Her detective stories (well most of them) are pretty good too.

I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers.

I’d actually recommend this, except for one thing, and I need to avoid spoilers. I found the setting, characters and the central idea (of a terrible incident kept secret between friends) very engaging but to me the incident in question just seemed highly implausible.

But the relationships and the psychological impact on the characters were well done.

With The Secret History I think you have to be at the right age and time in life to enjoy it. I read it yearly all through my 20s, but if I picked it up now I would find it utterly pretentious. I had studied classics and ancient history though.

DH read it in his 30s and thought it was awful.

I couldn’t finish:

The Thursday Murder Club.
Where The Crawdads Sing.
Normal People.
Queenie.
The Help.

Just really badly written books. The Thursday Murder Club particularly annoys me, because Richard Osman has clearly used his knowledge of what shifts units to the masses and applied it to writing a novel, and it’s bloody worked, and now Spielberg has directed the adaptation. It’s a cynical cash-grab.

I think I’ve travelled the same road as you. I used to read the book reviews and enthusiastically seek out the Booker list/winners and be much more open to new novels. But I’ve become disillusioned over the years since my London commuting days when I looked forward to a good hour’s read each way.

I find so many contemporary novels pretentious and unsatisfactory, with nothing much to say. Is it because publishers are encouraging authors to write a certain type of formulaic book, and not the one they want to? Or is it basically that the novel as an art form is being superseded and the most original people are doing other things (writing/filming Netflix thrillers?).

I’ve now outed myself as an unashamed middle-brow reader and choose writers such as Kate Atkinson, Sarah Waters and good thriller writers. I’m done with 23 year old Oxford graduates living in Tuscany or North London trying to make out they’re profound. I think the older you get the more intolerant of pretentiousness you become. Actually I think your safer with American contemporary writers - for some reason.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Twilight by Stephanie Meyers

You’re safer, not your safer….autocorrect…aarrgggh.

My ideal writer would be a contemporary version of Daphne du Maurier - an unpretentious page-turner who takes you straight to the story and doesn’t try to be a stylist - yet whose work engages you deeply and haunts you with its settings and characters.

Suggestions?

'really didn't get on with Shuggie Bain - just relentlessly depressing and misogynistic.'

Yes!

@RaraRachael definitely, I read the latest one and after chapter 1 thought, I know who did it and it was.
Also, realised I'd read it before, but better. Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd

I would rather have teeth extracted without anaesthetic rather than have to read one of those all of the way through. A perfect example of a book only being published because the author is slightly famous.

Also looking at you Rob Rinder.

I think I'm fairly similar. I've definitely found my own path when it comes to novels.
I also discovered American contemporary lit a few years ago and have enjoyed a lot of it. Quite surprised actually as I'm not a big fan of most of the American classics (maybe due to a deep seated hatred of Steinbeck lol)

I did try a Kate Mosse and only lasted about 20 pages.

I also love her novels. Rebecca is one of my favourite books.

I loved the first two of those - Cloud Atlas and The Poisonwood Bible. Probably in my top 50 novels!

I feel a lot of the ‘big’ books that are marketed as popular are pretty rubbish. I tried to read Emily Henry’s books as the blurbs seemed promising and I knew people raved about how good they were - I couldn’t even make it through a chapter. It was so pretentious and it was doing too much, instead of saying the character grabbed her stuff and walked outside, it started describing things like ‘I walked outside and saw the blue of the sky that reminded me of my mothers eyes when I was 6…’. It literally went into too many irrelevant details that made it unbearable to read.

I like realistic books, that feel like real life. I read Jacqueline Wilson books as a kid and I loved the concept of the fact that they were real and raw. Now i have found a lot of adult authors, if they tackle hard hitting subjects - they make it so unrealistic and do it for the ‘shock value’ rather than for the fact that it makes sense to the story or characters

She was an interesting woman. She admired the Brontes and while it’s obvious that Jane Eyre inspired Rebecca (she was consciously imitating it), she said in an interview that a friend had to point out the similarities between Jamaica Inn and Wuthering Heights. I don’t think JI is anywhere approaching WH as a novel, but the idea of reworking existing plots is an interesting one if it’s done well.

Catch 22 I did not manage to get into at all. I’m usually stubborn and push on. But no. Even for book club.

That’s what kindle samples are for…. Often I’ll buy the book but if it’s crap I don’t.

On the subject of a contemporary Daphne du M, thinking about it, I would say that Sarah Waters comes close, for me. I think she’s a superb writer and The Little Stranger is a remarkable book with a powerful but subtle message.

I'm straight and I’ll confess I wince at the lesbian sex scenes in most of her books, but fair play to her - goodness knows, there are enough heterosexual sex scenes in novels, and Sarah is redressing the balance.

And - my point about reworking classic books - Fingersmith is based on The Woman in White, but it’s absolutely brilliant and THAT moment in the middle just hit me like a punch to the stomach. An amazing writer.

Tbf this has always been what people read, for as long as there's been a mass reading public. We just don't remember the penny dreadfuls and pulp crime that sold by the bucketload in its day.

I do think The Secret History has the absolute best description of being cold I’ve ever read, though! That bit where the main character has to spend a New England winter in a derelict warehouse….oh God, I could feel the biting cold. She’s a good writer but as with so many modern novelists, the whole thing doesn’t quite work as well as it should.

Yes!!! That section is excellent. The naive young guy from California who’s never experienced any kind of winter, let alone one in Vermont. A fantastic piece of writing.

One Day by David Nichols. Unlikeable main characters so just couldn’t root for them at all.

Ian McEwan annoys me a lot. I find him painfully pretentious. On Chesil Beach was the final straw, I did not care a jot what happened to them.

That's the problem with a lot of contemporary authors in my opinion. They try too hard. They forget that a novel is to be enjoyed not just analysed.