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

but i did finish it through pure bloody mindedness

and i liked the lovely bones

whhhhyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeee?

billy elliot is as bad as it gets really

jodi picoult pales into insignificance

I once ended up reading a lot of jodi picoult when had fininshed my own books on holiday-there was an inexplicable abundance of them on the camp book swop shelves . They ARE strangely compulsive.

I would say the absolutle, absolute worst is that one about the two kids where one of them kills the other. But they are all pretty rank.

, moony. No, but I lived with a Jewish guy for a couple of years and his mother and I go on like a house on fire.

Jilly Cooper - Wicked. Could have done with some serious editing, and lots more sex.

I had to read "The Other Boleyn Girl" for my book club recently and ti was the biggest pile of crap I've read for ages

shadow of the wind >

I started the memory keepers daughter but found it pretty awful and jumped to the last chapter to see what happened. WOnt read the rest.

Mo Hayder's Pig Island was awful beyond belief and had to give up but at least I knew it was meant to be trashy from the outset. Winner of all time has to be White Teeth; nothing has quite surpassed that yet.

Autobiography of Ellen Mcarthur.
Can't even remember what it's called.

I will sumarise it for you.

I am in a big expensive sailing boat.
I am very wet, and very bruised and very very tired.
There is some more sea.
Did I mention how tired I am?

I know lots of people loved it but I hate hate hated Time Travellers Wife. I hated it so much it made me cross reading it. But I finished it because DH had given it to me for christmas. I disliked all the character so much.

Can't think of much else. I struggled with the Kate Mosse book about the Cathars - interesting history but I didn't like her writing style.

I liked The Other Boleyn Girl. What I can't stand are books that pretend to be literary when they are not.
Have to read Labyrinth next for Book Club and not look forward to it at all.

pig Island was awful. Very bizarre book but not in a clever way.

I agree also about the time travellers wife and couldnt get into the Labyrinth at all.
I did enjoy Kevin book though.

I agree with you OrmIrian about TTW.

Slubberdegullion - I can't see Ellen Macarthur without thinking of the Dawn French things from ages ago.

girl with a pearl earring - it is so SLOW

Oh I had completely forgotten about that Jackie. Hilarious. Yup that's the book alright

oh I'd forgotten about Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk. Badly written, not a single character to empathise with and well, about 20 years too late

Wild Swans - actually, I didn't read it all, gave up after a third.
It was utterly depressing and written in a really difficult-to-read style.

During the christmas hols I read something by Clive Cussler, which was hilariously awful. It was like some kind of parody in its terribleness - I had to laugh out loud several times at particularly breathtakingly bad bits. but apparently he is a bestselling author with a huge following

Any of that shopaholic rubbish - cant stand those books and also Lovely Bones.

OMG I read Lovely Bones years ago and absolutely loved it. Cried virtually all the way through (but I'm a Scot and we love a good downer). Not sure I could read it now I have a daughter though.

That stupid bloody IRRITATING Shopaholic woman.
DW borrowed one from her sister and I had a look at it. It appears to be about a woman buying stuff. And whingeing that she can't get her life in order because she is... buying stuff. The solution would be staring me (and, indeed, most males) in the face from about page two. Oddly, she doesn't seem to get it.

That Jasper Fforde is ghastly too. And don't get me started on that whinging ninny Rachel Cusk. Did any of you read A Life's Work?