What is the worst book you have read recently and why was it so bad?

[Miaou]

I've been reading light stuff atm and just grabbed this off the "chick lit" stand at the library just before having ds2 - I struggled valiantly through to the end but was really disappointed in it. The story was turgid and predictable, the characters one-dimensional, and I felt that what could have been an interesting story with the potential for some really sinister turns, was in fact incredibly dull. The final "showdown" between the mother and son was jaw-droppingly badly written and really let the whole book down.

However I have had lots of fun picking it to pieces so maybe it was worth it

I tried to read her novel about adoption but tossed it across the room in disgust after a couple of chapters. It read like she had decided to research the 'issue' and then devised a plot and characters to animate her research. It may have got better but I couldn't be bothered to find out.

I did rather like "Other People's Children" though. Agree that she goes for a stoic acceptance ending to signify being a serious writer but since she gets so much aga-saga type flak which similarly formulaic male writers completely avoid, I'm not going to beat her with that stick.

I didn't read the worst book I've read recently, it was that bad. Or I didn't finish it anyway. But it was by Jack Higgins. I was sick of chick lit, so I thought I'd try a bloke book. It had mercenaries in it, and one of them was introduced to us as "a very dangerous man", because he wore paratroopers' boots. Later another man came along, also in paratroopers' boots, who was called "a very dangerous man indeed". I was looking forward to the scene where the dangerous man and the very dangerous man indeed took flying kicks at each other in their paratroopers boots, but then I thought about it and realized I wasn't looking forward to it at all. So I stopped reading and watched telly instead.

Lol, Bonaventura.

my sister gave me some chic-lit shite to read (hmm, I know now why she piled it all into my bag) Jodi Picoult - Perfect Match.. Utter dung. And some other crap called 'my Best Friend's Girl' - didn't egt further than the first 2 chapters. Can't remember author.

I am returning to the comfort of Sebastien Faulks and Ian McEwan.

What's wrong with MAs in Creative Writing? I was thinking of doing one.

What's wrong with MAs in Creative Writing? Writers of chick-shite have them, that's what's wrong with them.

aha

another thread has just reminded me how turgidly endless my life seemed in the brief period when I attempted to read 'Birdsong'

I'm reading 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth' by Malcolm Pryce. It's shite. Writing is flat and dull, plot doesn't make sense, and it's full of jokes that I don't find funny.

Normally I'd have abandoned it by now, but it was lent to me (well, thrust upon me really) by my boss, who thinks it's hilarious. I did consider pretending I'd read it but she'd rumble me, so I just have to soldier on, loathing every minute.

Highlander - well, how many of the writers that you actually like have MAs in writing?

I haven't come across one since McEwan and Ishiguro.

Whereas books I haven't liked by people with Creative Writing MAs have all been big on writing in different styles but without much conviction in the characters, and given to clever-clever methods of storytelling without the plot having the drive I want it to have.

Given how many really talented people must do those courses, I find it hard to believe they add much value.

That Kevin book by Lionel Shriver. It was an interesting schlock-horror idea but it was the worst written thing I have read for many a long year. Sheesh but it was bad.

Oh god have just read whole thread now. I agree with almost all of them. All of them I tell you. Except perhaps Mary Wesley who has got something.

If you think Kevin was badly written you should try her new one; The Post-Birthday World. I did better at school. Strangely gripping though...the worst one I can remember is Straight Talking; I got it free with a magazine, which says it all really. Total trash, awful writing, but I'm sticking with it for a bit of mindless escapism!

just skimmed this and popped in to say that although i too thought that labyrinth by kate mosse was utter * - we are off to the languedoc on holiday on friday because i read it!

In recent times, it would have to be the latest Harry Potter - am I allowed to say there here?

Ooops, sorry, didn't give reasons - erm, drones on and on and on and on and all-far-too-depressing-how-on-earth-are-kids-going-to-get-through-this-flabby-text followed by action-action-action clearly prompted by panics of a 'bum I've written 300 pages and not got very far towards the end' nature. Yawn. She's done well for herself, that's great, but I'll never understand why?

Forgot Sophie's World...! Not sure if it's a bad book or a bad translation (or both); how can you tell, without learning a new language and reading the original?

Oh Kevin was enough Lionel Shriver for one lifetime, thank you very much.

Louis de Bernieres. What a load of derivative drivel. Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but I doubt Marquez is flattered.

The only novel of LdB's that isn't, erm, paying homage to Marquez is that Corelli thing. But does anyone else out there think that it has echoes of Calvi?

Message withdrawn

Strangely I absolutely do agree with you, Q.

Has anyone read 'a heartbreaking work of staggering genius'.

Gift from dh (?) not sure if I can be bothered.

Can't remember the title, but that murder mystery about Sigmund Freud visiting the US. Jed Rubenstein or someone? Utter tosh.

Which book gets that puff jaynehater?
I used to know a jaynehater at school. We teased her because at age 12 she scammed a week off school by saying she was 'worried about French o level, four years away. [talking irrelevant nonsense emoticon]

Six, that's the title. Dave Eggers is a pillock and no mistake

Oh. I feel stupid now.