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!

Yes I thought it was shit and also didn't finish it. I couldn't understand why everyone was raving about it!

It was indescribably bad.

I loved it!

The Thursday murder club I had on audiobook - somehow it took me back to Crossroads ( not great soap about a hotel in the ?70s) . Didn’t fancy that.

I find Lisa Jewell books have really dropped off a cliff lately. It’s the same premise - a school, a village, an old house, a missing person, an unsolved murder, a self employed journalist/interior designer/jeweller/photographer moves into a new town…

I really love Marian Keys as a person, but her books are so twee and full of excess details and too many characters I just can’t read them.

I have loved Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books but I’m now on the fourth and again, it’s just writing by numbers. Burbling on about a character’s childhood and inner thoughts then it all gets tied up by the end.

I was given the Salt Path but decided I couldn’t face a heartbreaking tale of a couple’s last journey and his slow demise - 😂

This .
Also Captain Corelli back in the day .

Same here. We are probably the only two people who did, I thought it was just magical.

When you visit Highgate Cemetery they have the book for sale alongside all their maps and guides.

Buy second hand books. You can tell if someone read until the very end!
Otherwise I found Peter May’s latest, set on Lewis, as about eight or so in the same series, far from the same standard. And I paid full price!

Just finished Yellowface, was hopked into it at first but it got so slow and boring towards the end, finished it out of duress

Tha family upstairs was my biggest disappointment - I love, love, love Lisa Jewell books but could not bear this one.

I've just read "Dont let him in" and haven't got anything done apart from sit and read it, it was a great read. One of her best and would highly recommend.

It’s on my list, I’m prepared to give it a go!

When I told my cousin I had booked to see Salt Path, she lent me the book. It's good to compare the book and film version of a story.
Loved the film - seen before I knew we'd been conned.
Handed the book back to my cousin unread in disgust!

Reading is very subjective, so they always say there's no such thing as a bad book, only one which doesn't suit that particular reader. But I think every book you read should tell you at least one fact that you never knew before, or teach you the use of a word you didn't know. That way even if you hate the story, at least you learned something. Unfortunately more and more books are being written for the YouTube generation, with teeny tiny little simple words and a plot described for someone with no attention span. Which does not make great literature.

Re Angela’s Ashes - I think his native city (was it Cork? Limerick?) was not best pleased with it either!

I agree about MK. I do like Kate A, but there is a falling off. I’m sure it’s partly pressure from publishers to keep churning out more of the same even when the spark has gone out.

Oh heavens - loved Death at the Sign of the Rook - pastiche upon guignol upon cliche and Reggie Got Her Man (and his dog).

I also enjoyed the one about the club owning matriarch featuring an ex-knitting model and an entire police force of 1930s corruption. Just such fun.

Oh heavens - loved Death at the Sign of the Rook - pastiche upon guignol upon cliche and Reggie Got Her Man (and his dog).

I also enjoyed the one about the club owning matriarch featuring an ex-knitting model and an entire police force of 1930s corruption. Just such fun.

Normal People. What a complete waste of paper. Total shite.

I disgree that it was a short book, but yes! For the entire first third of the first book everyone pivots, and then they don't.
In the second book everyone grazes. Ok, the arrow grazed the front of her tunic, but her hand grazed his manly chin and his eyes grazed the text on the page. There's a word for that - skimmed! His eyes skimmed the words on the page!

It did make me think the prose was computer aided, although the world itself holds together quite well and the pace is compelling.

Oh, you’re not alone.
Pretty unrealistic too.
His mother was a raging alcoholic living in a shithole but, surprisingly, her beauty and desirability never faded.

Oh yes, I agree about the later MK books. Far too many characters, leaving you indifferent about all of them. I think it's all the kids putting their oars in that muddies the waters. Get them in a soap-style kiddie cupboard and we'll be grand. I don't care if they're 19. They can go to university, or move out.

Same here! I've tried - and failed - to get into Life of Pi about four times. Going to give up now.

The Slap. Nothing really happened and our was so slooooooow

O yes, and anything by Charles Dickens. Hypes up jokes about 3 pages in advance and then does jazz hands at the punchline.

Yes, yes, I know he wrote for magazines originally. It doesn't make it funny. Or interesting