Books that weren’t shit, just underwhelming/didn’t get

[KenForPM]

So we’ve had a number of shit books threads... how about a thread for books that we didn’t necessarily hate, but were underwhelmed by/were forgettable, if you get what I mean.

I read Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud a good few years ago. I remember getting to the end and thinking “what even happened in that book?” I remember thinking it just felt like there was no plot. I suppose it’s partly to do with the fact that the narrator is so young (four/five IIRC), but others seem to rave about it when I googled it. It made no sense.

I don't think I was paying attention properly. I think the folded corner is about a third of the way through.

A man called Ove (couldn't finish)
The bone clocks (couldn't finish)
Brick lane (couldn't finish)
A little life (wish I hadn't bothered)
Girl on the train. (Hoped for a brilliant ending)

Have just started Power. Disappointed to see this mentioned earlier.

Elena Ferrante. I need to try her again, maybe I missed something, but it just seemed pretty run-of-the-mill dull soap opera to me.

I've read so many mediocre books over the past few years. It's so hard to find anything outstanding these days.

On the 'meh' pile:

Carrie Fisher's last two books
The Child in Time
Into the Water
Standard Deviation
The Pier Falls
The Miniaturist
The Good Liar

Gave up on The Power and donated it to a charity shop.

Robert Harris is proving a bit plodding at present. Things have looked up as Hitler just made an appearance.

White teeth- dull

The handmaids tale (appreciate this is a mumsnet sin) it started well but just lost momentum i felt.

But then I loved gone girl and the girl on the train so my literary tastes are clearly abysmal

the goldfinch. Loved the beginning, the rest was just a slog.

Loads. Agree that there are too many books published. So much mediocre writing.
The Cement Garden. Creepy and dull.
Life After Life. Her earlier books were astonishingly good though. Human Croquet is superb.

Girl with the dragon tattoo

So drawn out and full of tedious, unecessary detail. Do I really need to be informed every time a character has a cup of coffee (and a LOT was drunk), exactly what everyone's eaten and every time they have a fag.

The Great Gatsby. Awful people, awful book, ditto Brideshead Revisited, which is also awash with inaccuracies about Catholicism.

Gormenghast - stuck at 100 pages after several tries. Given up.

The Miniaturist - Thank gawd it's not just me. Three attempts, now in the charity box.

Catch 22 - been trying this every few years for at least 25 years. Not got further than 60 pages.

I can read a 350 page book in about three hours if uninterrupted so a book has to be utter bobbins for me to give up.

Career of evil .... hard going. Only reading it because I read the previous two but this is it... definitely not reading another Strike book.

The Loney built up a great atmosphere of menace and then just fizzled out.

The Girl on the Train
The Help

I’m sure there are plenty others but those two off the top of my head.

The unbearable lightness of being

Ulysses

Oh Lord yes to The Loney. Definition of a let down!

Agree also about the Strike books . Inferior detective fiction ploughing all the seams of Midsummer Murders!

Apologies for mixed metaphor. I think you mine seams and that's normally not a bad thing. Not sure what I meant...

Talking of being informed about coffee drinking, the same thing happens in the Strike books with his bloody pints. Does JK have shares in Doom Bar?? I had never heard of it before reading Cuckoo and not it's seems to be everywhere!!

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.
Which is odd as I've read and enjoyed all his comics and other novels. Just cannot get into Neverwhere. Love the concept but the book defeats me.

Completely agree with Girl on the Train and The Road to Little Dribbling. I didn't even finish that one, and I usually LOVE Bill Bryson. Had a total air of 'will this do?' about it. (BTW I work in publishing and our company passed on Girl on the Train as didn't think it was very good. Oops.)

My recent disappointment was Golden Hill. Several people I trust raved about it, I read it and was just....meh. Found the cod 18th-century language irritating as well.

I agree with a previous poster, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters was the one that disappointed me - didn't enjoy it as much as her other works.

Friends recommended the bestseller The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman so enthusiastically, I felt a monster for not getting through it.

I'm nodding to about 90% of the books mentioned already.

Two mushy books that I found underwhelming were Me Before You and PS I love you. Just mediocre I felt and not worthy of all the raving.

The Great Gatsby bored me rigid.

Most of Ian McEwan's books leave me cold.

Then there are books I've thoroughly loved that receive hardly any attention.

Piggywaspushed Doom Bar is a beer bottled in Cornwall. JK Rowling went to Exeter University, so close, and has taken a lot of name inspiration from around that area.

I know that now as it's bloody everywhere - I thought the Doom Bar was because she wanted to build up (overly) the Cornish identity of Strike.

(She for Professor Flitwick from a train station in Bedfordshire, though : random fact!)

Secret History for me too. I had heard great reviews but I found it dull and underwhelming. Same with The Goldfinch, enjoyed the beginning but gave up half way through. Clearly Donna Tartt is not for me.

Pretty much anything by Ian McEwan, especially Enduring Love. I admire his writing and I do so want to like his work but I just can't for some reason

Gone Girl
The Power
American Psycho