Sophie Hannah - a game for all the family

[SouthWestmom]

Now I know,why it was only £3 - one of those books where nothing would happen like that.

Did you make it to the end? I got bored with all the staffing and the heavy emphasis on grammatical accuracy.

This reminds me not to read another of hers, I think I've read three now with increasing disappointment, but I suppose that's more than a lot of other authors.

If she writes her own blurbs though she has a huge talent for that as they are always mouthwatering.

Yes and I thought it was ok iirc. Mind you I read it on holiday and was quite drunk relaxed.

Yes, they also sound amazing from the blurbs. Great premises. And I enjoy the actual books if that makes sense - she's a decent writer. It's just the whole falls flat. Reading reviews online lots of people seem to like it and to be fair she's trying to push the genre a bit beyond the 10000 "If you liked The Girl on the Train" Kindle clones, so I give her credit.

I agree - I just couldn't be bothered to keep reading once it seemed clear who'd done what. The writing was less engaging than usual - like Brian says it's not the writing its the plot. Although I found the dialogue appalling in this one. I'm quite disappointed.
Same thing happened with Sophie kinsella - I read the latest shopaholic last night and it was really bad. I remember loving the first couple.

Oh my goodness what a total pile of pooh this book was
I kept reading because it was so bad I couldn't believe it was that bad and there must be some amazing plot twist or device to suddenly make it all seem reasonable, but no, it was just utter drivel.
The characters, the dialogue, the plot, beyond dire
A bit like one of those terrible cutesy American detective novels with a theme, like the heroine breeds dogs or bakes cupcakes or runs an antique shop but solves crimes on the side, except those are better !

The blurbs are always great, which is why I've been sucked into reading so many.

The person writing those blurbs deserves a pay rise. Unless it is SH herself, in which case she needs to give up writing novels and just write blurbs for other people's books.

I enjoyed the first two I read but then I realised that I already have so much convoluted over-thinking crap in my head , I have no space left for Sophie Hannah's.

I agree with everyone on here,they are a complete let-down. Reviews on Amazon are very mixed,with many one star reviews, but what puzzles me is that she can do no wrong with the newspaper critics, who give her rave reviews each time.

I wondered that but I suspect it's a small incestuous world.

Lisa Jewell
Jojo Moyes
Cecelia Aherne
Judy Astley - loved the old stuff
Tricia Daly
Any self published kindle book
Nick Hornby - loved the old stuff

Agreed.

I read Little Face twice (or rather I read the first 50 pages twice) what a load of tosh.

Re the above list I think Andy Weir's The Martian was self published but that was a huge exception.

I don't fancy The Martian, I think I'd prefer it as a film. I've just read The Widow and have downloaded The Good Neighbour to try.

Well I finished this last night. You lot had lowered my expectations so much I was quite good :) plus about two thirds of the way through I started to worry it was going to end as all being in justones head which would have been so wrong.
However. .It was crap. And the thing I found most astounding was ringing up a woman you've met once or twice before and asking if yiu and your family can move in for the open ended future!
I'm singe the aibu thread.

Yes the real contact with dogwoman was:
Knocking on her door, saying you had a weird feeling about her house and being given a free puppy
Ringing her, her visiting the very next day
Talking on the phone to her about all your problems
Inviting yourself to stay to hide away from the mad lady (conveniently dogwoman has a wife so moves out)

So weird.

Noeuf, you forgot asking dogwoman to help you dispose of a body of a woman you had murdered in her house 😄

Oh yeah, think I'd lost the will to live by then

And we never did find out if George and Ellen get married :o

Oh hat was another fucking stupid side story, your dd tells you she's going to marry her gay friend she's known five minutes who has a crazy mother and you come round to the idea after five minutes and beg her to tell her dad.
It's like I'm missing something here. Maybe dogwoman really was allandine?

:)
I'm starting disclaimer next, another one with good blurb, anyone read it?

Disclaimer was an odd one.

It's hard to say why without spoiling it, but I didn't find the reasons for the book existing to be very believable, it was all a bit odd.

Better than anything by Sophie Hannah, but still a bit odd.

Hmm. Well I still have the one to finish that I put aside for the Sophie Hannah one and then disclaimer is next. I've already got it out of the bookcase.

Who wrote Disclaimer?
I'm reading The Good Neighbour which is equally bad - it reads like a troll thread in Relationships

Ok The Good Neighbour is terrible

Renee Knight wrote Disclaimer. It's not terrible, but it is another one where you have to wonder why people don't just talk to each other at some point.

I have The Good Neighbour on my wish list, but I might not bother with it now. I don't have time for terrible books.

Have a look at the reviews on Amazon - either 1 star or 5 star. Suspicious?