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!

I abandoned Wolf Hall. I couldn't abide the writing style. Sally Rooneys 'Beautiful World where are you' was awful IMO, I finished it through stubbornness but hated it, couldn't relate to the characters at all.

However as a very general rule I tend to enjoy bestsellers and classics, they are usually popular for a reason.

That Eleanor Oliphant one - dreadful.

Always highly recommended on here (and book reviews generally) is the Jodi Taylor Chronicle of St Mary’s series. Premise was wonderful and I was so excited. It turned out to be puerile drivel…worst thing I’ve ever read.

I loved The Beach

Describes The Da Vinci code perfectly, maybe because I had read The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail a few years before and I don't care what the court case said.............

I didn't mind Da Vinci, it was entertaining trash. The HB was a lot more heavy from
memory 😆

Haha. I can totally relate and completely understand your decision!

Anything by Sarah Perry

Ah that's reminded me of another one - The Fourth Wing. Waited for weeks to get it through the library every book club friends whose judgement i usually trust.
How many times can she use the word "pivot" in a fairly short book? Ridiculous writing

Yes, I don't mind a bit of entertaining trash now and again TBH, but it annoys me when it's not billed as such! I never got around to The Da Vinci Code, but I've read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, so that'll do!

@SpidersAreShitheads maybe i'll try a few chapters

Lessons in Chemistry.

Great marketing. Awful book.

I enjoyed Wolf Hall, I thought it was fantastic, but I know it's divisive.
I've never liked any Sally Rooney book I've tried.

Someone gave me the Salt Path but i read the back & thought it seemed boring so haven't touched it.

it was Hamnet for me. I felt the descriptors were excessive to the point of being annoying, why use 2 words when 27 will do. And I also didn't love the whole not naming Shakespeare thing, we all know who it is anyway so it didn't add anything for me. It was a very average read for me, and I expected to love it given the reviews.

I actually liked Butter and Yellowface. I also like crime fiction in general (Harlan Coben is a great comfort read and I loved Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books) so I had high hopes for All The Colours of the Dark. On paper should be my thing. Hated it. Overwritten and pretentious purple prose. I thought he was taking the piss at one point. I did finish it as I was on hols, but bitterly and resentfully! Another book that everyone raves about is White Teeth, but I found it a bit affected and ostentatious- like I was reading a sixth form writing project. More recently I have struggled with Caledonian Road. Just unlikeable characters and so long. I’d enjoyed hagan’s Mayflies and Sebastian Fawkes week in December which was similarly State of the Nation so I thought I’d enjoy it.

I read The Crash by the same author and wanted to scratch my eyes out and wash my brain afterwards. Total pish.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler was extremely over-hyped and extremely underwhelming. I struggled through it to the end, and it left me perplexed as to how it had earned the warm recommendations online that convinced me to buy it in the first place. The “incredible twist” to the story appeared much too early, and I had already guessed what it was anyway. A complete waste of time.

I haven't tried Thursday Murder Club, and going by the reactions here I don't think I will.
I too hated Val McDermid's version of Northanger Abbey. Another one that I didn't get far with was Catch 22. I found it hugely irritating.

Yes, we're in agreement about Catch 22 as well!

@fairfat40 I was going to try All the colours as I thought that looked good.

Everything by Freida McFadden, I find the ‘shocking twists’ absolutely ludicrous!

Thursday Murder Club; the slow fussiness of the main character was very tedious for me, I get that’s she’s old and supposed to be like that but I kept skipping forward 10 pages or so until she’d finished tying her shoelaces.

Wolf Hall and actually everything I’ve tried by Hilary Matel. I got a box set of her best-sellers but couldn’t get more than a 1/4 in to any of them and I read a lot of historical fiction.

Conversely, loved where the Crawdads sing!

Yes, entertaining trash is what The Da Vinci Code is,never pretended to be great literature.

I really enjoyed Wolf Hall but I can see why lots of people dislike the style. It took a bit of getting used to.

Yes, I agree, it's a real airport read, isn't it? I thought it was entertaining. A bit like the Scott Mariani books.

Definitely The Thursday Murder Club by a country mile. Can't believe it's been adapted to a film.

I like Richard Osman and thought he would be a great writer but I found it all very one dimensional, lazy writing and no character depth.

I agree that was horrible. I bought it in a charity shop so it went back there :).