The worst books you read in 2017

[BestIsWest]

Inspired by @SouthEastDweller’s best books of 2017 thread, what’s your worst read of 2017?

Mine is unquestionably The End OfThe World Running Club. Just dire. Misogynistic macho drivel. And there wasn’t even much running.

Acts of love by Tallulah Riley. Awful Awful AWFUL

Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean. Poorly written drivel and a shit story too.

Crosstalk by Connie Willis
It was a bookclub choice and it was one of the worst books I've ever read.
Set in the near future, people can have brain surgery to emotionally link you for life to your partner. People do it before getting married as a sign of commitment. The main character has it done because her too good to be true boyfriend insists because he loves her too much. THe surgery goes wrong and she links to the geek in the basement (who then takes his glasses off and is really handsome but she had never noticed) There is more nonsense but I shudder to even think about it. If it hadn't been a bookclub read I'd have lasted about 30 pages.

That I read to the end - Things Can Only Get Worse by John O'Farrell - in fact I only finished it so I could slate it on the 50 books thread

I enjoyed J O'F's previous book 'Things Can Only Get Better' about growing up as a lefty in the 70s & 80s - lots of jokes and taking the piss out of himself. Sadly I found this one intensely annoying - in the intervening years he appears to have lost any wider viewpoint than that of a London-lefty-guardian-media type. The particular low point for me was his crack about people wanting parliamentary candidates to be local (the politest bit of this section is 'surely what matters is policy not people') when he was parachuted in as a candidate for Eastleigh in Hampshire. Writing off everyone who wants their MP to have firsthand knowledge/ understanding of local problems and issues as ignorant bigots is pretty typical of his approach to most of the world outside his little bubble as far as I can see.

I've read a lot of dreadful books this year, unfortunately.

The Magpie Murders - Anthony Horrowitz
Left for Dead - Beck Weathers
Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann
Black Out - John Lawton
Madonna in a Fur Coat - cba to look up the writer
Endless Night – Agatha Christie
A Christmas Party – Georgette Heyer
The Three Sarah Lotz
Howard’s End is on the Landing – Susan Hill
Elephants Can remember – Agatha Christie
Heroes of the Frontier – Dave Eggers
Powder and Patch – Georgette Heyer
The Sundial – Shirley Jackson
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore

This has been a terrible year for reading. :(

I second Madonna in a Fur Coat. Sentimental and overwrought.

The Name of the Wind. A ridiculous protagonist who is just really really special and good at everything - especially the lute - falls in love with a cardboard cutout woman because she is beautiful, plays something great on the lute, I mean it was brilliant, so brilliant I can’t really describe it you had to be there. But potentially the best song ever written. We follow him through Hogwarts University as he loses a lute, gains a lute, loses a lutezzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I fell about laughing when I looked on goodreads and saw, of all the books I’d read, it had the highest rating. What do I know eh?

I agree with The Name of the Wind. I love fantasy books and I did enjoy bits of the story but the main character is just so utterly unlikeable. He's even worse in the second book.

The New Republic by Lionel Shriver. Possibly the worst book I've ever read

Serious Sweet by AL Kennedy. Slow moving and waffly, especially the sections with the protagonists’ thoughts in italics. I can’t believe this was longlisted for the Booker!

The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald.

I've abandoned several books this year, but of the ones I completed, this was the worst.

The couple next door Shari Lapena..

Very odd. Written somewhere between third and second person. 'Rachel says fuck off you bastard' she's angry now.. why won't he leave her alone...

No story line and just lacked anything good but I still finished it incase it got better it didn't

Love the description of the name of the wind. It had such potential! The second one is 1000x worse.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. What a load of shit. Was really disappointed. Thought maybe I just didn't get it but looked online and it was slated by normal readers but of course received the highest accolades by some of the critics. Couldn't even finish it.

@teachesofpeaches, I’ve bern saving that one to read between Christmas and NY. What was so awful about it?

I quite liked The Name of The Wind but satsuki's review had me in tears of laughter! You nailed it. Think I have rated it four or five stars on Goodreads myself. I'm fairly undiscriminating, sometimes I need the flaws to be pointed out to me.

The Couple Next Door was also one I wish I hadn't bothered with. Like christmastits just kept reading hoping it would get better (and also incapable of leaving a book with a missing child in it unfinished, sigh)

Books that I wished I'd just given up on . .
Chaos Monkeys by Antonio Garcia Martinez, no matter how illuminating, I just couldn't warm to the author.

And some that I thought I would LOVE but just didn't get . . .
Alexander Chee's 'Queen of the Night' (possible don't know enough about opera!)
Ransom Rigg's 'Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children'

Got a few, unfortunately
The keeper of lost things - Ruth Hogan - ridiculous drivel - book club read!
Hot milk - Deborah Levy - too clever for its own good, hated the main character.
Into the woods - Tana French - huge unresolved storyline which was the only reason I read to the end!!
A street cat named Bob - James Bowen - feel so guilty about it and I know it was supposed to be a 'heart warming tale' but honestly nothing happened!
Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight
Silent Child - Sarah A. Denzil
Her perfect Life - Sam Hepburn
The missing - CL Taylor
Three of the above were again book club reads which everyone else loved! And I hated. Along with Her Perfect life I thought they were weak and full of plot holes.

Behind her eyes. Complete drivel

Girl on a train was utter shit!!! I don't even know why I kept on reading. I haven't seen the film cos I thought would be just as dire too!

The worst books I read were:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - a similar story to The Rosie Project but this book was even worse, with clichéd events and a ludicrously written and unbelievable main character.

More crapola in The Girls by Emma Fine. Slow and depressing, there was lots of flowery description here and the effect was that it felt like she'd been to a creative writing course and wanted you to know about it. Somewhere in the pretentious crap was a good story.

Ha! I didn’t enjoy The Girls either. R Bpppoioiiiiiin

Oh god yes Eleanor Oliphant as well. So bad.

I have bought the Howards End is on the landing for my DD as a Xmas present, I hope she likes it.

I found the Couple next door to be ok, nothing remarkable though. I won't read any others of hers. I've tried and failed to get into the Eleanor Oliphant book, I doubt I'll try again.

I have a 100 page rule but I didn't get that far with the Eleanor Oliphant book. I've got a collection on my kindle of books I've started and not finished over the last 8 years or so, it's got about 200 books in it

The Essex serpent

All that hype.

Oh I've got The Girls. I keep !meaning to read it but then I read the back and put it down again!

The Couple Next Door.

A page turner, granted. Otherwise very sloppy, unimaginative, hollow, unsatisfying, really poorly edited - where was her editor FGS? - every page I turned I knew I was being taken for a ride but I wanted to see what happened in the end.