Is there anyone else on here who didn't love The Book Thief?

[TunipTheVegedude]

I was told to persevere with it and I'm now 63% through and it's annoying me more than ever.
I'm finding it pretentious and dull and while some of the characters are fine, the girl is totally unconvincing - she reads like someone has sat down and decided on some interesting characteristics to give her ('I know! I'll make her good at fighting and football!') rather than the character growing naturally.
Is it going to get better in the last 37%?

What does IPAOT stand for?

Kite Runner also meh, also forgotten.

I liked The Kite Runner but loathed A Thousand Turgid Suns.

Hully, tell LRD what IPOAT is..

pleeze

Oh God, 1000SS was truly awful. Glorified chick-lit.

Its author knows less about Afghanistan and Islam than he does about women, having left the country as a child to go be an American in San Francisco.

I have noticed that fans of The Book Thief also tend to like 1000SS. I have heard it said in adoring tones that both books make the reader cry buckets.

Insane Posters On A Thread. Even I know that, and I'm not even Mumsnet royalty.

Who'd have thought a fred in adult fiction would turn out to be so much fun...

Ahh.

Thanks hack.

You have been on MN longer than me, to be fair. And MN royalty rarely share their secrets.

I've read it a while ago but I remember nothing about it. Which means it wasn't that great imo.

On the subject of ya literature, I've just reread His Dark Materials and loved it even more.

I want Peter Jackson to make it into a trilogy and replace that awful first film.

oh get thee hence with yon royalty shite

I think book threads are always fun

we are /were having a lovely old chat on a fred about books pour moi just a day or so ago

Except that I went a bit mad and bought 30 new books off mad bad amazon and let's not even count those hiding on the kindle

Shhh - don't mention HDM on a thread with Cote on! :)

HDM was OK but I had expected more, I suppose.

I think I would have really loved it if I read it in my teens.

bollocks to royalty...everyone welcome on IPOAT...there is a splendid new recruit name of tallia or summat...

we have to fight MNHQ to allow us to be on AIBU otherwise we get shoved somewhere totally inaccessible where even we can't find it.

ITs a great sadness to me that no one ever refers to me as royalty, despite all my best efforts...not even with contempt.

I've been here forever. I had no idea what IPOAT was and am as far from MN royalty as possible, I think. I'm not even a wrinkle in the red carpet of MN royalty.

Cote - I know you don't like YA books, but there really are some very well written ones nowadays. I like them as my, 'bath books' in the same way I'll revisit Conan Doyle for things I don't have to think about much, but which are not just trite nonsense.

Don't demean lovely YA by attempting to sell it to Cote.
She should never ever read YA and then there will be all the more for me.

My DS is just turned 13, for the last couple of years we have been sharing books...there are some stonkers out there.

I recommend Charlie Grigson's zombie series. bloody brilliant.

As is Michael Grant...

There has been a real dystopian future thang going on, but its about over now in publishing.

Robert Murchamore, whom my ds loves, grates upon me terribly. I mean really really badly.

You mean Higson.
Are they funny?

Yeah, Higson, DS always telling me off cos I get it wrong all the time. Read it wrong once, and its stuck!

Not funny, but set in London, and really thoughtful. And gripping. totally.

Michael Grant - the first couple are really good, but they get more and more clumsily written imho and the ending is daft.

Absolutely Remus. The last two were so disappointing. And the last one just was shite. But the first few were brill.

I think the Gone series would have been better if nobody had powers. Would more people have died, or fewer?

Mr Higson, otoh, delivers consistantly.

As do the Time Riders series by Amex Scarrow. However I am worried he is going to same way as Michael Grant...