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Disappointment with over-hyped books

67 replies

Bezalelle · 23/04/2019 11:51

I have a feeling that this post is going to come across as bitchy and churlish, but here goes.

Is anyone else frequently disappointed with over-hyped novels, especially debuts? I can think of three recent ones off the top of my head.

"The Girls" by Emma Cline. Million-dollar advance, huge hype. I bought it eagerly and read it, and felt massively let down. Poor characterisation, overwrought writing, unconvincing plotting (even though it was based on the true story of the Manson cult).

"Tangerine" by Christine Mangan. I started a whole thread on this, such was my irritation. Again, a brilliant premise, blighted by flimsy characters, turgid prose, and almost grotesquely-cliched (and racist/orientalist) depictions of Morocco and Moroccan people. A nice "psycho lesbian" element thrown in too...

"The Confessions of Frannie Langton" by Sara Collins. I followed the progress of this writer and book from its nomination for the Lucy Cavendish prize, and have to say that Sara was sold a pup by her agent/publisher/editor. Her original opening chapter and plot were brilliant, but the resulting novel smacks of over-editing in terms of plot, and under-editing for cogency/readability. There's a simile every other line, at least.

Really disappointing. For all we're told about how competitive and cut-throat the writing world is (I'm a writer myself), why are we constantly sold these over-hyped debuts that never meet up to expectations?

OP posts:
CarpeVitam · 29/04/2019 18:59

Life After Life, sooo dull!

PetrichorRain · 30/04/2019 12:11

HATED The Book Thief. Absolutely hated it. I threw my copy out rather than giving it to a charity shop because I didn't want to inflict it on anyone else.

Portulaca · 30/04/2019 13:19

My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante. Hated it. I've tried twice to read it and can't get past half way. Tedious and badly written or maybe badly translated.

Thiswayorthatway · 30/04/2019 13:26

The Goldfinch - too long.
A Little Life - horrendously depressing.
Lincoln in the Bardo - just didn't make any sense
Tattooist of Auschwitz - difficult subject matter handled very well
Eleanor Oliphant - fab
Little Fires Everywhere - fab
Elena Ferrante series - fab

multivac · 30/04/2019 13:30

Don't get me started on One Day

Oh god yes. Really trite, with awful, two-dimensional characters.

I loved The Goldfinch, and The Essex Serpent.

Gone Girl made me deeply, deeply angry.

Sigh81 · 30/04/2019 13:34

Goodness! I came on here specifically to criticise "The Girls" - lured in by the title alone - to see it's in the OP. Am so pleased!

IMO, it was derivative crap with one-dimensional characters and a deeply convoluted prose style. Definitely one of the few books I regret forking out for.

Charley50 · 30/04/2019 13:38

Hated the Book Thief and One Day.
Hype is just marketing. Of course not every book is going to appeal to every reader.

SihtricsHorseWitnere · 30/04/2019 13:40

'One Day'. Dire. My 13-year-old daughter has more self-esteem, thankfully. Silly young woman with poor boundaries meets dickheaded man. Then dies. The end.

ScrambledSmegs · 30/04/2019 13:55

There's a lot of pressure on books and authors these days to be This Year's 'X' - so much bollocks. It's a little unfair really. I try to avoid the hype and bestseller lists when buying books as invariably I'll be disappointed. I'm a sucker for a pretty cover though BlushGrin

I liked My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante but didn't love it. I suspect it lost a lot in translation. I haven't read the other 3 but might get round to it at some point, when I've ploughed through the Book Mountain a little further.

The Girl On the Train - didn't have high expectations, wasn't disappointed. It's a psychological thriller, it's hardly going to win the Booker.

The one book that did really disappoint me was Shantaram. It was sold to me as an amazing story, people kept recommending it to me as the best bool they'd ever read, the person who lent it to me said it changed her life. It was the self-absorbed ramblings of a grubby little drug-dealer. I hated it.

SamBaileys · 30/04/2019 13:56

Another vote for Eleanor Oliphant, I just felt it lacked something.

SihtricsHorseWitnere · 30/04/2019 14:00

Eleanor Oliphant - years of abuse and trauma cured with a boyfriend and one trip to the GP (who sends her to a brilliant therapist right away who sees her twice a week and prescribes the perfect anti-d). Yeah fucking right.

NamelessGem · 30/04/2019 14:07

Anything Matt Haig has written - utter dross!
I read the rave reviews and assumed all celebrities had been paid to rave about it, and anyone else just wanted some recognition Confused absolute rubbish!

Glad I bought second hand, and regifted !

peachgreen · 30/04/2019 14:08

Most books I'm perfectly willing to accept that opinions are subjective - but I can't understand how anyone could not like Life After Life. It's magnificent! I loved The Goldfinch but hated A Little Life. So crass.

TheBulb · 30/04/2019 14:41

My Italian isn't fluent, and I read the Elena Ferrante novels in English, but was around friends reading them in Italian, and have read the odd chapter in Italian, and as far as I can gather, the translation is fine (though you lose all the transitions between Neapolitan dialect and standard Italian, obviously).

I read them all while on holiday with other friends and DH (all of whom really liked them) last summer, and didn't care for them. Obviously, they have their good things, and people whose literary opinions I respect adore them, but in general I found them tiresomely melodramatic, and reading them one after the another was a bit like being endlessly sung at by a very loud operatic contralto. And Edna O'Brien covered much the same territory more interestingly in the 1960s and 70s.

Don't start me on how much I loathed every misery porn page of A Little Life. It got to feel like that Derren Brown show where a TV studio audience got to choose what happened to a guy have his house burgled, have someone pick a fight with him in a bar etc in terms of 'Look what else I can do to this character, who is already a disabled self-harmer enduring chronic pain and a childhood of sexual abuse!'

PetrichorRain · 30/04/2019 15:43

The one book that did really disappoint me was Shantaram. It was sold to me as an amazing story, people kept recommending it to me as the best bool they'd ever read, the person who lent it to me said it changed her life. It was the self-absorbed ramblings of a grubby little drug-dealer. I hated it.

My lovely (now) DH bought me this for Christmas when we'd only been dating a couple of weeks. I never read it because I thought it looked dire, and he teases me about it at every opportunity. Glad to see someone confirming my irrational prejudice ;)

Charley50 · 30/04/2019 18:27

Ugh A Little Life. One book I wish I had given up on. What a gratuitous pile of misery.

Rabbitmug · 30/04/2019 18:35

I've never been so glad to finish a book as A Little Life, I did think it was ok but twice as long as it needed to be. Hated Elinor thing. Loved The Goldfinch apart from one bit that just went too far. Tangerine wotnot I ditched for Home Fire (brilliant).

ScrambledSmegs · 30/04/2019 18:36

Ugh A Little Life. One book I wish I had given up on. What a gratuitous pile of misery.

That's what I thought it looked like! Glad I decided not to read it now, despite loads of people telling me how good it was. I really struggle with misery-lit, whether it's factual (ish) or fictional.

Florence08 · 30/04/2019 18:56

I’ve just got round to reading A Thousand Splendid Suns and it did nothing for me! Now don’t know whether to bother with The Kite Runner which is supposed to be equally fabulous...

Rabbitmug · 30/04/2019 22:34

The Kite Runner is superior

multivac · 30/04/2019 22:54

My 12-year-olds loved The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I didn't not enjoy them... but was underwhelmed. I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist in between those two, and it had a hundred times the impact on me.

TheCanterburyWhales · 01/05/2019 09:43

Florence- I have always said, about both the Kite Runner and Splendid Suns that I thought everyone, from agents, to publishers, to booksellers, to the reading public, just didn't have the balls to say a harrowing subject does not necessarily make good literature. I found both two dimensional and badly written. It seemed as if the author had made himself a spidergram of Terrible Things that Happen in Afghanistan and then ran with it.

The Silent Companions left me thinking "what? Where is the scary bit everyone is banging on about?" As did Dark Matter.

I got rsi almost having to traipse backwards and forwards in the Time Travellers Wife to remember what period we were supposed to be in, and both characters irritated me to glory. I'll stick to the TARDIS for my time and space stuff.

One Day is a book I have reread, for easy chick lit comfort food. I graduated on the same day as them and can state categorically that nobody working class and northern would have been called Emma. She'd have been Karen or Alison. And he wouldn't have been called Dexter, no way. Lazy research. She was a drip, he was abusive and his mother was a bitch.

echt · 01/05/2019 11:26

HATED The Book Thief

Pity me. I had to teach the inflated dross. I'm scrupulous in containing my disdain for texts I have to teach. My class of 13 year-olds twigged it was waaaay too long.

Wearywithteens · 01/05/2019 18:24

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

CarpeVitam · 01/05/2019 21:20

I'm with you wearywithteens, it is a rare book, a wonderful story