I have just read possibly the worst book in the world

[Mrsrobertduvall]

A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood.
Disclaimer...I bought it in Smith's on a buy one get one half price, and grabbed it as the cover looked good.
It's about a mother and son marooned in a small Lancashire village with unfriendly locals...a bit Wicker Man-ish. And of course there are witch/devil undertones.
It is utter tripe.
It is now in the charity shop for some poor sod to buy.

Elephants, thank you for pointing me us to those reviews, they're priceless!

This one for instance:
"I actually like long subtle narratives with meticulous historical detail, but this is a deeply dull book with poor characterisation, a narrative flow like lumpy porridge and two of the very worse audiobook readers I have ever heard. I abandoned it after the first 2 patient hours because it was intolerably dull and irritating.

This would be hard work if you were stuck alone in a lift, let alone anywhere else. It's quite the most unrewarding book I've come across for a long time. The only thing that might make it more tolerable would be to have it read by Stephen Hawking's computer simulated voice...

Avoid this audiobook if you're driving or operating machinery."

Those Shopaholic books by Sophie Kinsella, and anything by Cecilia Aherne are just awful.

They read as if a concoction of cupcakes, Malibu and sequins has been vomited onto paper.

(I love Marian Keyes' books, to call them chick-lit does them a disservice really as she tackles quite deep themes such as addiction, depression, abortion, affairs).

I hate Wuthering Heights too, and have tried twice to read The Time Travellers Wife and failed. It's dire.

I've always thought JKR's style was always a bit 'overwritten' but find it hard to explain what I mean; there is just too much 'telling the story' & dialogue that goes 'said Hermione', 'grumbled Ron', 'Harry wondered', etc. She needs to learn that sometimes less is more!

Whenever I've expressed this to other people they roll their eyes & go 'yeah but she's a CHILDREN's writer!'
I'd like to think most children are smarter than that & don't need to be spoon-fed every bit of the story...plenty of children's authors don't do that!

Having said that, she spins a great yarn & I love the breadth of knowledge in the Potter books; JKR is not afraid to dip into all sorts of mythology, classic literature & so on for her inspiration.

Sidge - I thought I was alone in not liking The Time Traveller's Wife. I tried and failed to get into it, but could work out why. It should have been readable but it just wasn't. Oh and I loathed Her Fearful Symmetry, also by Audrey Thingy. Shan't bother with anything else by her :o.

I agree with The Time Traveller's Wife. Tosh.

And I second 'The Shack'

Dreadful

In fairness to JKR, I think she was such a goose-the-laid-the-golden-egg her publisher just didn't want to edit her at all - some of the later books are just way longer than they need to be but I don't think anyone wanted to say "Jo, mate, how many camping scenes can one book REALLY have?"

Hi, I'm new to the site but have laughed so much (and nodded in emphatic agreement) at the 'alternative' book reviews. Hilarious!

If you found 'The Time Traveler's Wife' a hideous ordeal, then, for the love of god, steer your reading specs well clear of 'Her Fearful Symmetry'. It is shocking! Her publisher was clearly having 'issues with her medication' on the day she signed the deal for that....

It must be amazingly frustrating for unpublished authors to see some of the tosh that makes it - I can certainly see why you'd self-publish on t'internet. And perhaps get your mates to write reviews like 'not a bag of shite on a level of Her Fearful Symmetry'.

Cloud Atlas anther total waste of my time.

Penny Vincenzi - terrible writer imo
Northanger Abbey made me want to shoot the heroine
Also anything about yummy/slummy mummies.

Am about to read The Help

I mostly liked TTW but HFS is ridiculous - the ending is completely moronic.

Agree that Cloud Atlas is pretentious twoddle

It's always annoying when a sequel doesn't live up to the first - I loved Nervous Conditions but The Book of Not was such a let down

(and yes - JKR and Dan Brown are terrible writers - clunky - give me Bulgakov any time!!)

Vincenzi, that was it! Thanks! God, I must have blanked it out of my mind in some sort of fug of post traumatic stress.

I know it's not really about children's books but someone said Rainbow Fairies and they were 100% correct on the rubbishy rubbish that that is, however for all time dreary, boring bang your head repeatedly on the bedroom floor whilst weeping books, surely the Mr Men series wins?

Why why why? Why do my dcs always choose them for their bedtime read? Hours of my life have been lost to that drivel.

The free books on kindle. There is a reason why they are free.

We should set up a support group Mags

At least Mr Men books are short! Not like the fairy ones which seem never ending!

The slap was utter shite-well the ending was......

Mr Men books are awful. Adverb overload, and very disappointing endings.

I think the fairy books are written by that room full of monkeys trying to write shakespeare

So is the conclusion that:

• quite a lot of published fiction is drivel
• most, if not all, self-published fiction is beyond dreadful?

It makes being a keen reader feel like volunteering for torture :)

So many shit books, so little time...

Does my bum look big in this... Utter, utter garbage.

Anything by Jane Green.

The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury, totally my genre yet utterly unreadable.

Ditto Lucky Jim.

Gratifying to see you on this thread, Professor Zapp, but I have to disagree about The History Man which accurately depicts my time at university.