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

Very good UD (and your earlier list-that 'divides their time' shit makes me want to apply a stout stick sharply to said writer's rump)

I also find Kathy Reichs really hard going
I read a book by Tami Hoag once - the word 'drivel' could have been invented for it. Lots of sex scenes with a bit of ghostly goings on when they weren't having sex. I don't think I managed to get to the end.

Tommy's Tale by Alan Cumming. The biggest load of self-indulgent-aren't-we-wacky-carefree-devil-may-care-bright-young-things-riding-the-zeitgeist I have ever come across in my life.

Tragically it has completely ruined Alan Cumming for me. Anyone who punctuates every "wacky" comment with an exclamation mark is obviously a tosser .

Don't read it. I beg you.

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To expound on UD's list, which is thorough and an excellent Guide to Reading Pleasure, I'd like to add:
-'Historical Fiction' - a la 'Girl w/the Pearl Earring' 'Galileo's Illegitimate Gecko' 'The Bolelyn Whores and Their Punters: Syphillis Mysteriously Absent'.

This tosh is this decade's 'chick lit', with 15th century chattels sporting some pretty 21st century ideas, all of which they effortlessly convince their 15th century peers to accept.

Yeah, right.

Agree Expat - the hero/heroine of poor historical fiction is always the one who looks and sounds Most Like Us.

I have another:
-anyone (with the three exceptions of Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro and Rose Tremain) who has studied Creative Writing at university level. They will write like graduates of creative writing courses.

Oh God I know I'm going to hate Labyrinth. Anyone want to give me the essential need-to-know guide so I can fake it for book group?

Agree - Labyrinth is dreadful. Also, imo, Captain Correlli's Mandolin. Just couldn't see the point.

Capt Corelli is also on my list of books I never intend to read. Also
Bridges of Madison County
Anything by Annie Proulx
We have absolutely no need whatsoever to talk about sodding Kevin
Please Daddy No (who COULD read something with a title like that) and anything else engineered to create maximum vicarious and higly enjoyable mawkish sympathetic suffering in the reader
The Da Vinci Code and all works of that ilk

and everything on UnquietDad's list too. Except the historical ones, cos a girls needs some tosh in her life.

Labirynth again falls into the category of books lent to me by a friend/colleague which i haven't managed to read because they were so dire but don't know what to say to friend/colleague so books are still sitting on nightstand collecting dust.

have to agree, Labyrinth was a load of old codswallop.

Can't stand anything by Tony Parsons- smug, pseudosensitive and generally nauseating.

near unanimity on this thread then.

(except for Brick Lane, which I enjoyed)

The Ukranian Tractors thing was total crap. I picked up another book in the bookshop yesterday, and it was endorsed on the cover by Ms Ukranian Tractors author - biiiig mistake, I feel. V offputting.

Has anyone noticed, a hideous tendancy lately to add an extra bookclub section in the back of the book, where the author explains his/her motivation behind creating the characters, and there are some leading questions ("Why is the book called A Pile Of Shite? In what way do Delilah and Dierdre face up to the terrible things that happen to them?") FFS! Weren't these people tortured enough at school in English Literature lessons?

rosa - if Labyrinth is the Kate Mosse book I mentioned earlier (it was so bad I'm not sure what it's called and it's in the bookshelf outside the bathroom so I look at it whenever I sit on the loo ) I can give you a synopsis of sorts. ...

actually no I can't. I can't actually remember much at all. It was set somewhere in southern France in the 14th C (??)where there were groups of Cathars who held some kind of heretical beleif involving that fact that Jesus didn't die on the cross and had children with Mary Magdalene. Which tended to make the Pope a bit cross. So 'crusades' were sent to wipe them out. There were other political reasons involved of course. There was one very seductive and evil sister and one simple and pretty one who was a good as her sister was evil. And the naughty one shagged her sister' husband I think. But the biggest bit of hokum was the present day (there was a dual time frame - clever device eh!!) which required some woman (who I seem to remember looked amazingly like the 14th C nice sister) doing some investigation and running up against a modern day equivalent of the bad sister and some sort of descendant of the Cathars that appeared to be a sort of Round Table with incantation and incense. And in the end there was some wierd happened with a cave and a light and some old chap .......gawd I can't remember but really.... couldn't you just go voluntarily blind ? It would be preferable.

Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley.

"Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley"

Blue stocking - you hate them, the worst books you've ever read? Just not sure.

Just because you've "dumped the Mum" there's no need to come over all Cod-esque elliptical!

Thanks OrmIrian. Sounds awful. Will take it on hols with me - maybe if our flight gets delayed or something it will come in handy. Or maybe entertaining three bored children will be more of a priority.

I think that entertaining 3 bored children would be more fun.

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Agree about Raffaella Barker's later books,Green Grass and A perfect Life were awful .Quite liked Hens Dancing and Summertime though.
Have Labyrinth and Interpretation of Murder on one of my bookshelves but never read them.

Sorry, don't want to be cryptic or elliptic. Both Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley strike me as very formulaic.

Joanna Trollope has two basic formulae:

1. Take one discontented middle-aged woman. Add uncommunicative husband, unappreciative teenagers. Warm thoroughly at Aga. Introduce extra-marital frisson, generated by Being Seen as a Woman Again. Veer perilously close to happy ending, decide it would be more literary if it all ends in tears.
2. Take one discontented middle-aged man. Add cardboard cut-out wife, use symbolism to indicate frigidity. Introduce extra-marital frisson, generated by expensively highlighted hair, beige cashmere and sheer stockings. Veer perilously close to happy ending, decide it would be more literary if it all ends in tears.

Mary Wesley sticks to a tried and tested formula as follows:
Set scene of faintly bohemian shaggery pokery just before and during WWII, alternating the setting between sooty London and idyllic countryside, insert force-of-nature woman (probably called Calypso), add uniformed stiff upper lippish men, stick in some hideous family secret and a bit of bereavement. Veer perilously close to happy ending, decide it would be more literary if it all ends in tears.

Shadowmancer by GP Taylor. Supposed to be the church's answer to Pullman but it's badly written, poorly plotted and, even for a fantasy, completely unbelieveable.