Books to avoid

[Redglitter]

Plenty of threads for recommendations but what books would you advise people to avoid

For me it's 'Her' by Harriet Gray

A total non story with a dreadful ending. I actually thought my kindle had forgotten to download the last chapter. Don't know if the author was running late for her deadline or what but ugh avoid

Life of Pi. I will never get the time back I wasted reading it. Pile of shite.

Ditto for the Time Travellers Wife. More shite.

?Something about bones by some American writer, about a dead child looking down on her family and friends? Even more shite.

Hare with the Amber Eyes-oohh look at my ornaments. Better than a dose of Temazapam to help you sleep.

Madame Bovary-suggested by my book club-everyone loved it bar me who couldn't get past the first few pages.

PS I adored Brick Lane :)

The minaturist really stupid plot

Oh yy to the recent Marian Keyes bear. Is it me or is basically the same as The Other Side of the Story?

Love The Time Travellers Wife and Life After Life though

We Need To Witter On About Kevin

A Prayer For Owen Meaney - so, so overlong. Would have made a far more satisfying short story.

Pat Barker's, 'Toby's Room' - for somebody who is supposedly a critically acclaimed writer, she doesn't half write some shite.

Kate Atkinson's, 'Human Croquet' - bloody awful

'And the Mountains Echoed' - I cannot tell you how much I hated this book. It was like the writer had set himself a tick list of 'issues' which must be covered to make it have mass appeal and be deemed a thought provoking and worthy read. It wasn't - it was a steaming pile of crap. I loathed it.

Gone girl was rubbish. i did make it to the end but Lord knows why.

Oh yes and we need to talk about Kevin. Horrible ghastly book.

Yy to Girl on the Train. Really didn't get what all the hype was about.

The outcast by Sadie Jones. I feel mean as it was her first novel, but it is terrible.

Both Great Apes and also the Book of Dave by Will Self. I don't mind crap books, put down, move on. He writes really well written books that stick in the mind but I found both deeply unpleasant and depressing in a bad way. (I don't mind dark books usually)

One day by David Nichols. Spent the whole time waiting for them to get together and then that ending happens. 2 days I'll never get back.

The Finkler Question

The savage garden by mark mills

I read it because it was a Richard and Judy Book club recommendation.

Pretentious load of anachronistic twaddle with lots of pointless and unbelievable sex shoe-horned in. The garden building was by the bye.

R&J bookclub also pretentious twaddle.

'The Outcast' felt like a poor copy of, 'Atonement' to me - and I absolutely hated, 'Atonement'!

Jojo Moyes - Me before you, awful, patronising nonsense that implied that no-one in the real world knew how to behave normally around someone who was disabled, utter crap, hated it

Gone Girl, I'll never get those hours of my life back :(

50 Shades - don't know if this goes without saying but repetitive, badly written misogynistic claptrap

I love some mentioned up thread: Cloud Atlas; Norrell and Strange.

I wish I had avoided:
Us. Didn't care about the characters, dull.
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle - disturbing.
Midnight's Children - long, weird, indulgent, boring.
The Third Bridget Jones - can't remember the title but it was unfunny, tedious, unnecessary.

I agree with Cloud Atlas - trying to be clever and failing

One Day - the clichés were nauseating

I've got The Girl on the Train to read, I am not expecting it to live up to the hype!

thunder - I would really love to hear about the books you find clever if you thought Cloud Atlas wasn't clever enough. I though CA was very clever indeed and would love to read better-constructed and more intelligent books, if there are any out there that I don't know of.

The Miniaturist. Ridiculous. Bad characters and then the plot went all soap opera towards the end. Would have been fun in footballers wives but not 17th century Amsterdam. As someone above said, no resolution or even a hint at an explanation either. No idea why it got such glowing reviews.

I also really hated The Famished Road by Ben Okri and Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - I was going through a Booker winners phase but didn't get on with either of them.

I remember flicking through a Cecilia Ahern (is that her name) chicklit thing and getting the rage straight away but it wasn't a serious reading attempt.

Anything by Sophie Hannah.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
The Casual Vacancy
Apple tree Yard.

We are all completely besides ourselves, what a load of tripe, cannot understand why it was so popular.

Oh yes The Goldfinch.
Just give back the painting.

I keep reading Sophie Hannah books and then remembering that they annoy me. That bloody policeman (Simon?) is so irritating. Probably doesn't help that I've read them out of order so their relationship makes even less sense. And when the denouement comes I still usually feel like I've missed something.

How to be Both was a pile of pretentious crap. Had to laugh at one Amazon reviewer who said it's the kind of book that some people like to have displayed in their home to show off to visitors about how clever they think they are.

Losing it by Helen Lederer was the worst kind chick-lit and I don't recommend it at all.

Loved loads of these

My little blue dress by somebody. The pain has faded but it was so poor.