Books that were recommended to you but turned out to be absolute pointless drivel - the wasted hours you'll never get back - a warning list for others!

[MadreInglese]

These immediately spring to mind:

Kate Mosse - Labyrinth
(also her The Winter Ghosts - should have known after I read one of hers that another would be just as crud)

Paulo Coehlo - The Alchemist

Audrey Niffeneger - Her Fearful Symmetry
(first half was readable then she appears to have taken some strange pills before embarking on the rest of the book)

Stephanie Meyer - The Twilight Trauma Saga

My Sister's Keeper - trite, formulaic pap that seemed to think it was covering serious ishoos in a clever way. Yawn.

Capt Corelli .... zzz never made it past the first few chapters after numerous attempts.

Eat, Pray, Love - I think I have deleted innocent braincells in reading this tripe.

Anything by Jodi Piccoult
Captain fucking Corelli
Twilight which my goddaughter assured me I couldn't fail to love...Jesus it was awful

Lovely Bones was drivel.

Almost everything by Ian McEwan (especially Amsterdam) apart from Enduring Love

But I did enjoy the Steigg Larssons and Snow Falling on Cedars and Brick Lane and HP so I am conflicted.

Eat, Pray, Love - passed on to me by my mum with the words 'unreadable, but you might like it' yes it was, no I didn't.

House at Riverton - Tedious in the extreme.

Wuthering Heights (I know some people love it beyond anything - I'm not one of them.)

I did like The Little Stranger, which has been metioned I think, and I loved Wolf Hall (best read as much as possible all in one go - if you pick up and put down a lot, you'll lose the thread).

It's a bit worrying when people recommend crap with the assurance that you'll love it, isn't it?!

It's a bit close to saying, I think you love crap.

Another Time Travellers Wife here - one of the few books I have not finished!

I thought The Road was a great book.

We Need To Talk About Kevin - have tried 3 times can't do it.

Enjoyed the first two Steig Larsson books, but can't get into number 3 at all.

Hated The Time Traveller's Wife.

After reading so many opinions about it on here in the last week, I'm looking forward to reading The Slap just to see what it's really like.

I read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but became increasingly bothered by the amount of coffee being drunk. It started to get ridiculous and I could only think that the main character would have to be in the loo the whole time instead of doing heroic sleuthing and bedding the mad girl.

I have enjoyed We Need To Talk About Kevin and probably 1/2 of the others mentioned. I have Tractors of Ukraine waiting at home to be read. Sounds like I need to put Labyrinth on that list too!

Have started and never finished Captain Corelli more times than I care to remember.

Capt Corellizzzzzzzzzzzz thud (rubs forehead)
Laberyinth - beyond dreadful
Time Travellers Wife - ceased to care 1/4 way through - have been given another book by same author but can't face it
Anything too descriptive or worthy = dull
Liked Lovely Bones
and Stiegg Larssons does that make me a bad person (hangs head in shame )

The Slap was one of the few books I've given up on. I just can't understand how it was published, let alone how it won awards. The characterisation was so poor that I have serious doubts whether the author knows any other human beings.

gramercy -I totally agree - so awful was The Slap I had blocked it out of my mind.

mumpa, I liked TTW and Steig Larsson books too, so budge up on the shame couch

Agree with Jodi Picoult

Also Dorothy Koomson, read her Ice Cream Girls book for our book club, every single one of us hated it!

no one buy skippy dies

its shit

Lovely Bones, painfully dull.

The Poisonwood bible - I hate to give up on a book, but I did with this.

captain Corelli
Time Traveller's Wife
Wolf Hall
One Day
Unsuitable Boy
Labyrinth

I loved the first 2 Larssons, but couldn't get into the 3rd at all.

Worst recommendation of the past year-The Children's Book- AS Byatt- I keep picking this up, and reading about a page....there are too many characters for me to keep up with. I've read about a quarter of it- but can't tell you what it is about!!
I did like TTW and even 'Her Fearful Symmetry"-( though it was far fetched drivel)

Lovely bones was ok- but tried to read a couple of her other books, and can honestly say have never read such badly written tosh!

The Da Vinci code. Wish I could get that time back.

So many -

Kate Mosse - shite
Steig oojimaflip - crap written by a trainspotter
We Need To Talk About Kevin - no, we really don't
Poisonwood Bible - soooooooo boring
Twilight - oh dear, I'm bleeding - bite me - bite me - ouch
The Little Stranger - pretty cover but so cliched and unoriginal
Enduring Love - stupid characters
Never Let Me Go - just wanted them to hurry up and die tbh
The other one of his about the butler - yawn
The Outcast - good god
The House At Riverton - pretty much like Attonement and that was crap too

I did like Tuesdays With Morrie though and parts of TTW.

TTW, Twilight, the Spanish one by Victoria Hislop, the Abortionist's daughter, the Memory keeper (starting to spot a pattern? I have now sworn never ever no not never to touch another of RichardJudy's arsewipe recommendations)

Philip Pullman left me WTF as well.

I second the Kevin book- utterly awful. In fact judging by the latest one serialised on the wireless I suspect I'm not going to like any of Lionel's oeuvre.

Belligerent Ghoul at bleeding, that was what was so bad about it all.

"I fancy you"
"I fancy you too, but there's a problemo"
"what"
"I'm actually a vampire"
"Oh, doesn't matter"

I mean, in 4 stonking doorstopper books, could she not have given us a bit of build up to th Revelation???? It was like a lesson in how not to creatively write.

Time Travellers Wife. I was quite gripped as I read it and then got to the end and thought 'Actually that's TOTAL bollocks'

Also anything by KAte Atkinson other than Behind the scenes at the museum - and even that's not brilliant tbh.