Books you want to throw across the room

[tobee]

Over 20 years ago, on holiday I took The Chamber by John Grisham. I'd heard it had (at the time) the biggest amount for film rights ever paid. When I finished I literally threw it across the room in disgust. (Actually poolside area). It was such a load of hogwash! Now I look back and wonder I bothered to get that far.

Any books that have provoked a similar reaction in you?

[RavenQueen]

I'm another who hated Girl with the Dragon Tattoo , oh god it just went on and on. The film was loads better, lol.

[hooliodancer]

The Lie was rubbish, overhyped nonsense. Just truly bad. I felt so angry I wanted to throw it. It was on my kindle though!

[Lentilsmama]

Gone Girl - one of the most over hyped books ever. I absolutely hated it.

[marieliz]

The girl on the train.
So unintelligent I worked out the whodunnit before I've read half of the book. The "girl" who should've been called a "woman" given that her age in the book is early 30s; was one the most irritating characters from a story ever. There was so much buzz about this book because it came in the footsteps of Gone Girl, now that was worth every second spent reading it.
Still, the writer of it must be very rich now and my opinion she owes it to the media and the luck of her book being published straight after Gone Girl

[RepentAtLeisure]

Oh, I loved Gone Girl It's so rare that a female character gets to be evil and get away with being evil - POSSIBLE SPOILER - I expected him to kill her at the end, so what actually happened was quite refreshing!

[P1nkP0ppy]

Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, 50 Shades all went on the log burner.
I haven't found a decent book to read for months!

[bastardneighbour]

I haven't read a decent book in ages too. Hated girl on the train and cloud atlas.

[marieliz]

I get how Gone girl wasn't to everyone's taste. One read that I enjoyed from beginning to end was Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, I also found The Vegetarian an amazing book, not for everyone though, specially if looking for something light and soothing as it is shockingly visual, sad, dark, funny and very deep. Only 189 pages but I felt I wanted a few more.

[FellOutOfBed2wice]

Man and Wife by Tony Parsons. I flung it out of a window in disgust.

[missyB1]

Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph - full of patronising sexist assumptions and generalisations. The only sensible bits were basic common sense anyway! Never mind throwing it the damn rubbish needed to be burnt!

[Lentilsmama]

I've just remembered that I detested The Girl on the Train even more than Gone Girl. Absolute drivel. The main character was so annoying, and the 'mystery' boring and obvious. I also thought it was far fetched, and just badly written, tbh.

[n0ne]

Blood and Guts in High School was utter, utter drivel. Like diarrhea on the page, seriously. And Crash by JG Ballard made me irrationally angry, wanky, tortuous bollocks.

[Satishouse]

We are all completely besides ourselves. I was mad because it was the only book I took on holiday with me and I had nothing else to read. I couldn't even drag myself to the point where the big 'twist' in the plot was revealed.

[lljkk]

Girl with Dragon Tattooo... omg, she's waifer thin but does all this intense physical stuff & of course her mother's ex-boyfriend is head of some peado ring (of course, that would be the case). The guy is 20 yrs older but somehow attractive to our ghost like heroine. Who has amazing IT skills all self-taught. What a pile of tosh.

I loathe any murder/detective mystery book where the protagonist ends up being in mortal danger themselves or having to save someone they love. Then our hero does some kind of amazing feat to save lives... repeatedly. What a total pile of BS.

Something I've just discovered are Inspector Morse books. They can be crap in other ways, but at least they are simple detective stories where characters go home at end of day to whatever other life they have that is mostly completely unaffected by their work. The coppers smoke, fume over who goes first in the queue at coffee shop, drive 5 hours on boring twisty roads to go interview a witness, get hollered at to move the car from a no parking zone. The modern equivalents would be arguing with the self-service machine at supermarket and fielding PPI calls on cell phone when trying to ring someone important. I think I'm in love!!

[YouveCatToBeKittenMe]

I actually did throw The Horse Whisperer across the room. Horrible rushed ending really made me cross as I'd really liked the rest of the book.

Today I tried to read Betrayal by Aleatha Romig. Although I havent ever read 50 shades I imagine it is a bit like this. I hated it, I didnt finsh it, I only got about 35% through it. I couldn't actually throw it as it's on my Kindle.
It got really good reviews on Amazon

[frogletsmum]

The Somnambulist by Essie Fox. Ghastly faux Victorian twaddle.
Sister by Rosamund Lipton. Tiresome and predictable.

I hardly ever want to throw books across the room let alone burn them but would have happily consigned these two to a bonfire.

[frogletsmum]

Lupton not Lipton. Doesn't make the book any better though

[Deefer101]

As a writer of Brit thrillers this thread has been like a breath of fresh air and it's given me pause for thought. Maybe it's better to write / read a novel that has an effect on the reader (one way or another!) than have a "meh" experience. Years ago a friend recommended Celestine Prophecy to me and
I dropped it while reading it in the bath. It was a tough decision to fish it out again, but it was the charity shop's gain.

[HeartsTrumpDiamonds]

Wuthering Heights. I know it's a classic. I have tried and tried and tried to like that book let alone love it but I just can't do it. I get so confused with the characters and the locations and all the intergenerational stuff it just ends up frustrating me and I end up pissed off at all the doom and gloom. I have finally accepted that I am never going to finish it in my entire life. I consider it a personal failure

[Eolian]

The Magus (John Fowles). Unbearably pretentious.

[SwedishEdith]

The Miniaturist is dreadful. I've read lots of bad ones recently and sometimes I only realise how bad they are after I've finished them. Girl on a Train is pretty weak but I did find it a genuine page-turner. But The Miniaturist was just cliched nonsense.

Too many books now are written with an eye to being a potential film. So full of implausible, but dramatic, plotholes. And not enough editing.

[Memoires]

Yes, Swedish, good editors seem to be a thing of the past; likewise proofreaders (especially on Kindle).

[KingofnightvisionKingofinsight]

Wow, I thought A Little Life was one of the best books I've read in years. Disturbing, yes, but beautifully written and incredibly moving.

I just read Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, and it was beyond annoying.

[Cinnamon2013]

When I decided I was done with feeling guilty about having been stressed in my third trimester, put my child in childcare before the age of 3 etc etc I gleefully shoved Oliver Sacks' How Not To F**k Them Up in the recycling. What a load of shit that was.

[SwedishEdith]

I've got one chapter to go with Sebastian Faulks' 'Where my heart used to beat' - worra load of shite. Women are constantly just taking their clothes off in front of the dull, dull dull protagonist who is clearly Sebastian Faulks in his head .