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

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks

Savafe Garden - couldn't fiish it was very uninterested in the whole plot/characters.

I think I may have put this on here AGES ago but that 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' - something like that. I couldn't finish it what a weird, boring pile of shi*te. Life's too short.
Mark Haddon's latest book is fab also LOVE anything by Christopher Brookmyer.

tenth circle - jodi picoult
dull rambling, sickly narrative with characters i could not care about. dragged. i will never get that time back one for the recycle bin

M,rsMuddle - agree with you about Arlington Park !

also,The Alchemist - shite

Not recently but reminded as it is about to come out on film - The Nanny Diaries. A pointless book.

NAB3 - read that some years ago and I really liked it !

this thread gets seriously snobby at times

and surely the best reads are those you know are awful drivel but you just can't put down....

Interpretation of Murder - feculent. The Alienist was far better written if you like this kind of thing.

I read something on holiday called "the Nanny" and it was utterly cr*p, even for a trashy holiday read.

Not recently as I haven't succumbed to the latest craze since then, but The Da Vinci Code- what a load of crap.

Oh sorry- why: Absolutely illiterate, bristling with factual inaccuracies, pile of paranoiac tosh. Will that do.

I must disagree with the Louis de Bernieres and Annie Proulx naysayers. AP is one of my alltime favourites- try Accordion Crimes for size (could also be used as a doorstop if necessary).

the Da Vinci Code was brilliant.

brilliant, heart-stopping rolla coaster ride.

the film was utter crap, hanks as a swave US proffessor - gimma a break!

I know I'm probably in the minority, but I couldn't be bothered to finish the first Harry Potter, or read any of the others. Over wordy, and D.U.L.L

Harry Potter - could never get dd interested in the series as we agreed the writing was so poor (felt like voices crying in the wilderness at the time). Friends assured me she got better. Tried a few pages of the last one and.... no.

Mrs Merton, another voice in the wilderness! Hurrah !

The Island. Historically very interesting but the story and characterisation were very weak.

Mrs Muddle - quite agree about Arlington Park. Rachel Cusk goes from bad to worse - I quite liked her early novels (much better than chick-lit), but On Motherhood was really grim and bore absolutely no resemblance to any experience of mine and Arlington Park is just silly/bad.

Mrs Merton - agree. I read about 30 pages of the first Harry Potter (and forced myself to see the first film). Completely beyond me to understand why everyone was so excited.

anna - boo hiss!

harry potter is pure escapism, i love the books so there!

[stick tongue out emoticon]

Casbie, we're a very small group of three in the wilderness, and we obviously have no appreciation of the finer points of HP, but - sorry - the writing IS dull [bravely standing up against the hoardes of HP fans running at her with stakes emoticon)

"I believed in his power of verisimilitude, of true emotion, of human understanding. I believed in his art. I imagined the serious book group convening in a new and luminous spirit, reborn, having felt the incomparable benediction of recognition, of the vanquishing of time by truth. I imagined them becoming ... serious."

Chekhov, master of sparse simplicity, will be turning in his grave.

Saturday by Ian McEwan, I was so looking forward to it, my experience with McEwan so far has been good and Saturday started promisingly and then turned into a wading through concrete experience. I persevered because I thought it would get better but it didn't. I think I was so captured by the opening scenes and then the book disappointed me.

the five people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom-a right load of drivel

The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards, pretty dire I thought.