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!

@Valeriekat This is amazing and gave me Proustian flashbacks (speaking of overrated books) to when my mum and I would race through those books together; complete addicts. The first one with the murderer smelling like maple syrup thanks to a rare genetic condition 😂

The first ones weren’t so bad, but as time went on and she added a werewolf, fake deaths, the brilliant niece with her helicopter skills falling for a serial killer who fooled them all, and every single one ended with the murderer coming after Scarpetta at the end having fallen in love with her elegance, intelligence and sophistication… And of course the counterpoint to Scarpetta’s taste, poor old Marino who went from being a mildly overweight, slightly uncouth cop to an appalling, brawling, sweaty rapist having a heart attack every other page out of jealousy that Scarpetta understands how to make Italian pastries while he is content with doughnuts.

I think you must have similar taste to me. The last 3 Lisa Jewell I've read (excluding the Marvel one - which I did enjoy but not to the same degree) have been unputdownable and I've been disappointed when they've ended. The last one Don't Let Him In, I couldn't go to bed until I finished it 🤣

Yellow face in this day and age of anti racism that she could claim to be Chinese seemed MOST unlikely.
Snuggie Bain - didn’t finish as the mother’s life was just tragic - maybe cause I’m Scottish it seemed too much. But people say they loved it !
Didnt finish Orbital -it was an interesting premise - who ever wonders about the hour to hour lives of astronauts - so I’m glad I read part of it,
Appljes never fall L Moriarty - a not great book about shallow people.

Yellowface started well then just got a bit silly for me think the writer lost her way.
i liked Thursday murder club first one second one ok ish but rest not so much
Never read 50 shades knew I’d hate it sounded a pile of rubbish
Anything by Cecilia Aherne that PS I love you was awful tosh can’t believe they made it into a film
Didn’t enjoy Wolf Hall or the tv series the main actor was wooden and made Cromwell look insipid.
Loved Captain Corellis mandarin and CJ Sansom’s Winter in Madrid, now there’s someone who knows how to write a good story.

I normally love Liane Moriarty books and started reading them before she became famous. However, her new book, "Here One Moment" is dreadful. I gave up after the first few paragraphs. Too many characters, boring and a non-existent plot.

I can’t read a badly written book. This sounds snobbish and pretentious but I just can’t. My attention is on the wrong things.

It’s simple: if the style is so banal and hackneyed or alternatively overblown and pretentious that I keep noticing it, it’s going to get in the way of my believing in the story or the world the writer is trying to evoke. Writing should be transparent and take you straight through to what is being said without making you stop to admire (or criticise) the WAY it’s being said. I don’t mean that you can’t have wonderful style, such as in The Great Gatsby (or any ‘great ‘ writer), but if it’s really good your brain won’t stop on the surface but pass through smoothly.

I can’t explain it any other way but I know what I mean!

Contrary to others I loved Lessons in Chemistry - read it twice! Also loved the tv adaptation.
re Poisonwood Bible - got to 100 pages and was going to call it a day but my DD said to plough through and I was glad I did.

i also loved Wolf Hall, etc although i agree it takes a while to get to grips with who is speaking.

one I would suggest you leave well alone is On Earth We Are something something by Ocean Vuong. So bad I only read a couple of chapters.

Also forgot, I recently read Rob Rinders book thought I’d like it but was disappointed. Thought it would be much better won’t be buying more.

I think sometimes writers have a great initial idea and it all goes well as they start the plot and develop the characters etc, but they haven’t really got a satisfactory ending to live up to these things.

John Fowles’s The Magus was like this for me - a spellbinding read which totally intrigued me and had me wondering just what the explanation would be, and then…a really naff, cheap ending. Aaaarrggghh…why do they do this? Why do editors let them do this?

(Off topic, but the French TV series Les Revenants, a few years back, was similarly disappointing. Absolutely intriguing premise and development but they clearly hadn’t thought it through to the ending. So deflating.)

Well you can usually read a sample online if the book is available electronically, or go old school and find the book in a bookshop (or library)_ and spend 5 minutes reading it...that usually gives one an idea whether it is a book you will enjoy (or not).

@YarrowYarrow sums it up perfectly. Bestsellers aren't necessarily the 'best' books. They're simply the ones with popular appeal, or that have been most hyped.
Personally I like to read a few pages from the middle of a book to see if I enjoy the writing style. I read reviews (and check who has written the review) but only as a guide. And I'm always prepared to give up a book after a few chapters if I'm not enjoying it. No pleasure in struggling to the bitter end...

🤣 And no doubt she pees vintage champagne and has her poo discreetly removed at a top Mayfair salon.

Sorry to lower the tone.

I do like LOTR/The Hobbit but have to be in the right head space to read it because of the meandering descriptions, complete with lengthy songs. You've reminded me of this

I’m afraid I’m probably the only person on the planet who actually loves the chapter-long description of Egdon Heath at the beginning of The Retun of the Native…in fact, for me it could be longer.

Oh God, Lucy the niece got right on my tits. She was seemingly brilliant at absolutely everything. You expected her to absail out of a helicopter, into a shark tank to give the sharks a beating using her world class superior skills in an obscure form of martial arts, to then emerge from the tank with a pearl clutched between her teeth, having utilised her Olympic gold winning skills in freediving which she would then incorporate into a museum quality coronet she had designed herself.

If you did only read a few pages and ordinarily enjoy Liane Moriarty, I'd recommend having another go. It gets much better after the initial opening and I think it's one of her best.

I enjoyed it and other than Big Little Lies, which was fab, I’ve not liked that many of her books.

@YelloDaisy I didn't even mention Shuggie Bain because thinking about it sends me into such a rage. I found it to be poverty porn (I assume written for a middle class and /or American audience) it wasn't tragic or touching to me at all in how it was done. None of the characters had any humanity just relentless degradation. Shuggie himself was barely a character he was so thin. The anachronisms in language irked me as well, no one in the 90's in Glasgow was calling anyone a 'grifter'. I hated that book more than pretty much any other.

One I haven’t seen mentioned was The Luminaries.

A very, very long self-indulgent Dickensian pastiche with a deeply pedestrian murder plot at its core. Booker - wtf.

I couldn't agree more, though I read it through because it was for my book club, so rude not to.

Strongly disagree. I absolutely loved it and think it would make a great TV series.

Books can’t be all things to all people though.

I thought Crawdads was wonderful because of the nature and wildlife descriptions and the atmosphere the author managed to create. The story was just something to hang this on.

I thought Demon Copperhead was really well written and enjoyed it enormously. I read it just after reading David Copperfield which may have made it more interesting to read.

50 shades is basically porn, so it is a bit ridiculous to expect a great plot and amazing character development.

As others!
yellowface - all PR budget, no substance
midnight library - drivel
lessons in chemistry - book ok, not worth hype & tv series vv disappointing
tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow- trash
marian keyes - tried a couple of these but I just find them so long winded

@YelloDaisy @GiddyDog

I'm so glad it wasn't just me with Shuggie Bain - I don't think I've ever found anyone else who dislikes it as much as I did!

I’m interested in what makes people choose the books they do. Are people buying books because they’re bestsellers, because they’re on the tables in Waterstones or supermarkets? (As an aside, if you possibly can, please don’t buy books in supermarkets. They are the worst.)

For example, I’m surprised that so many people are surprised that 50 Shades is drivel. That always seemed pretty obvious to me, no matter how many copies it sold.

Do people not pick the book up, read the blurb, have a flip through first?

Is it not having the time but wanting a book, so being guided by the bestseller lists and front of store tables?

I’m intrigued!