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?

I almost feel embarrassed to admit that I like Ian McEwan's novels now. I haven't read everything he's written, nor have I loved all the books of his that I have read, but I did enjoy Atonement. It had sat, unread, on my bookshelf for ten years before I picked it up and read it, but found myself really enjoying it. And, yes, I like tricksy endings to novels. Probably On Chesil Beach is the one I enjoyed the least. I've just ordered his new one, Nutshell, from the library. Sounds odd, but intriguing.

its an old one, but I hated Lake Woebegone Days.
Everyone going on about how funny it was and it was the most boring drivel I have ever read

I have shit taste in books

I find American Psycho oddly compelling. Disturbing, yes, but I've reread it several times.

Love the stand. I don't think the book is inherently sexist, but stu redman is. I suspect in a post-plague world woman's rights would take a significant step back (not saying they ought to do, just saying I reckon they would)

Also loved game of thrones...although do find the writing in the first book clunky. Don't recall the 12 year old princess sex scene though - no, yes I do, I think you're referring to the Danerys's wedding night.

Did hate WAACBO though with a passion and thought the mianiaturist was a load of shite and the most pointless book ever written.

"If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things" by Jon McGregor was recommended to me by a friend, who gushed about how brilliant it was.

I hated it. It was written as though someone had thought, "hm, I'm going to write a meaningful book which will win awards" without giving much thought to anything else!

I like Ian McEwan, you're not alone

The Time Traveller's Wife. Only finished it as on holiday and only English book I could find eventually swapped it for a woman Iin White. I got the better deal. Boring rubbish badly written crap.

Yeah the time travellers wife was shit.

I can't help but think it odd that the amount of time he spent grooming Claire is suddenly ok because they were always going to get married anyway.

I hated Atonement but very much liked On Chesil Beach....

50 Shades went in the bin - utter dross!

I loved Gone Girl and The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo...--

I love anything by Jane Austen unsurprisingly and adore the Morse novels by Colin Dexter.

Glad I'm not alone, Memoires :) Enduring Love gave me the shivers, was that good. But I'll never want to reread The Child in Time - that scared me. The DC were young then and prone to wandering off in supermarkets. Enjoyed The Children Act very much - love any literature that is law related.

I think the word 'girl' in the title is a good indicator to avoid a book.

I liked Atonement as well. And Birdsong.

Lots of these books I've really enjoyed (A Little Life, The Slap, Outlander, Girl With Dragon Tattoo).

But I totally agree with Disclaimer (unreadable) and a book called 'Only Ever Yours' from last year which was touted as The handmaid's Tale for teenagers. Drivel.

I can't read Terry Pratchett. - visceral reaction to his smug self referential meta narrative. Struggle with maigcal realism - tried to read new one by woman who wrote When God Was a Rabbit and it was just nonsense. (A Year of Marvellous Ways I think it was called.)

The worst reaction I've ever had to a book was At Swim-Two-Birds which is supposedly a modernist classic but within 15 pages I was ready to kill.

I love Ian McEwan too. Even Saturday. And I'm afraid "If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things" is one of my favourite ever novels (although I can see how it might be a bit marmite)

The Big Rewind by Libby Cudmore is one of the worst things I've ever read. Ever. It was so incredibly awful.

Eat Pray Love

I hated it so much I have written an entire novel where the main character hates it so much that she writes a terrible review on her blog, inviting her readership to send her their copies so she can rid the world of the navel gazing scourge. She is quickly inundated with more books that she can handle and the accidental story hits social media. The original publishers offer her a deal to trace Elizabeth's footsteps and write about the experience - putting her in the exact navel-gazing position that she loathed so much in the original. Anyway she does it and eventually comes face to face with Liz in that fucking ashram. Set up by the publishers.

My book is shitter than the original. I carried my hate for years, but have in the last year listened to some Liz Gilbert interviews on writing. And I quite like her. I suspect I hated the book because I recognized her fucking irritating need to pontificate about herself as a personal characteristic laid bare, and someone was paying her to pontificate.

I'm over it. Sort of.

I haven't read lots of the others mentioned as there are only so many books I can write about other people's crap literature, and I recognize my own limits. (Unlike the majority of these authors).

I am pontificationcentral and I have a reading problem.

Oh and I cried at me before you. What can I say, I was pre-menstrual. it is tripe, but conveniently packaged light reading tripe. Like watching a chick flick. Or reading written by numbers Jodi picoult. Formulaic but worth an hour of your time if you fancy playing spot the plot twist. I got caught out years ago with the first one and got hit in the face by the sledge hammer plot twist on an intercity bus. Now I know the layout I appreciate her unsophisticated but mildly amusing habits.

pontification I haven't read Eat Pray Love and I'm pretty sure I would hate it for all the reasons you give. But her book The Signature of All Things is actually brilliant. A massive story about an amazing woman that doesn't end in love and marriage. It might help you in your recovery from the other one

Da Vinci Code - complete and utter shite! - and worse than that - BADLY-WRITTEN complete and utter shite!

Also agree that John Grisham's "The Chamber" was bollox and there was another one I dumped (actually in the bin - not even the charity bag) it was so bad, but I can't recall the title.

And the Patricia Cornwell books are really going off have gone right off lately as well. I think some writers get up themselves, others get stuck in contracts to churn out umpteen books a year and just haven't got the ideas coming, and some are just bad writers and you wonder how they ever got published to begin with when your own superb novel, every word pure gold, languishes in a drawer in the spare room.

Oh - another one! - "The Virgin Suicides"

Can't remember the author. What a load or tedious non-narrative that was. Couldn't believe they made it into a film.

It was certainly worse than synchronised swimming, and possibly on a par with listening to the self-justifying rants of Jeremy Hunt.

Mentioned in this thread more than a few times already, but I am just so disappointed with A Little Life. I thought I would love it, am about 200 pages in and really struggling although not quite at the point of launching it across the room . Think I will give it another 100 pages and then see.
I have Shantaram sitting on a shelf for years but I have this hunch that it may be better if I don't actually ever read it. Seems to evoke strong reactions from anyone I know who has read it.

That book with the doughnuts on the cover. Ironically I think it's called something like 'this book will save your life' or other nonsense. Biggest waste of times ever.

I hated Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White'. The way he described women made me want to scream.

I adore The Woman in White and think Marian Halcombe is one of the best female characters in Victorian literature.

Anything by Giovanna Fletcher.

My DD bought "Billy and Me" to take on holiday this year. She warned me it was drivel but I thought it would be an easy read for the beach.

It is literally the worst book I have ever read.None of the characters were likeable and the story was so lame. It sounded like it had been written by a love sick teenager who had just discovered adjectives...

What was worse was the fact that she has had 6 books published in the the last few years.

Seriously, how do books like this get published?

I feel slightly ashamed for saying this, but I'm currently reading Les Miserables and my god it's hard work.

I'm on page 86,mand yes mr Hugo, we have established that the bishop is a genuinely nice guy, and Jean Valjean is a victim of misfortune rather then a proper baddie, but ffs will you get on with things!

All that's happened so far is Jean Valjean has halfinched the silverware and the bishop has covered up for him. I reckon about 70% of what I've read so far could have been cut without it impacting on the readers perception of the characters, or the story itself. Verbal diarrhoea indeed.

Les Mis is torture. All that waffling on about the sewers.

Completely Beside Ourselves was utter utter drivel. I hated the following too:

A Year of Marvellous Ways
The Goldfinch
The Bone Clocks

No plot to any of them.