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Original poster

Disappointment with long-anticipated read...

37 replies

Lilmzsnowflake · 14/12/2020 16:12

I tend to stalk the 99p kindle daily deals for popular reads, and keep lists based on posts and reviews etc, making ticks next to those I see recommended again and again.

I was so excited to get A Little Life a few weeks back on offer. So many good reviews, life affirming, blah de blah.

I’m about a third of the way through, and it’s awful, I’m so disappointed. I thought it would be interesting, lively, following these very different friends through their lives. As it is, I can hardly bear to pick it up. I’ve been reading it now for 3 weeks. I normally would read a book a week.
I keep losing track of who all the characters are and the jumping first person narrative is driving me insane. Who are you? Are you ever not miserable?

Already I can see what the ending will be, and I don’t care. I hate that this is the case. But I don’t think I can be bothered to carry on with it now, over 700 pages of misery is more than I can stomach this year.

What books have been a massive disappointment for you?
Anyone else feel the same way about A Little Life?

OP posts:
TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 14/12/2020 16:14

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood was lightweight ill thought out crap. It didn’t deserve half a prize.

shumway · 14/12/2020 16:16

Didn't like either of those books. Such an annoying feeling when you have to force yourself to finish reading a book isn't it.

Nore · 14/12/2020 16:23

Not only does A Little Life not get better, it gets far worse, and turns into a total extravaganza of misery porn focusing on Jude. It's like Hana Yanagihara had a bet with herself as to how much misery she could pile on to one character while keeping people reading. If you've read the kind of gruesome teenage hurt/comfort fan fiction where Death Eaters capture, rape and torture Harry Potter and Snape has to participate so as not to blow his cover, and then they kiss in a dungeon and fall in love, and then Snape is discovered trying to break Harry out and gets the Dementor's Kiss for his pains and yadda yadda -- then you've pretty much read it, only with a lot more horrifying, rather prurient details of child abuse delivered late in the narrative.

I was also mildly disappointed in The Testaments, which felt like a competent novelisation of the TV series, but then I think Atwood went off the boil starting from Oryx and Crake -- I have to remind myself how good her earlier novels were.

I was also slightly disappointed in Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light -- she's a genius, but it was just not as good as the previous two novels in the trilogy. Partly the absence of an overarching narrative drama of Henry's (getting rid of Catherine of Aragon, replacing her with Anne Boleyn, getting rid of Anne Boleyn etc), partly I suppose because it's always a bit depressing watching someone start to fail, discover meetings are being held without him, realise he's falling out of favour etc.

pollyhemlock · 14/12/2020 17:54

A Little Life is awful. My belief has always been that the author watched a lot of episodes of Friends in her younger days and thought- I could write a book like that. Except the friends will have weird twisted lives and be mostly gay. But there won’t be any references to AIDS although much of the book is set in the 1980s because that would be too complicated. If you’re not enjoying don’t bother.

CaptainMyCaptain · 14/12/2020 17:59

I read A Little Life for book club. We all hated it - misery on misery on misery. Just as you think it might get better, it gets worse.

The Testaments wasn't as good as The Handmaid's Tale but it kind of tied things up. I haven't read The Mirror and the Light yet.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 14/12/2020 18:31

I am reading The Mirror and the Light now. I am enjoying every moment of it but agree it doesn’t move forward the way the other two did. Also it is starting to get uncomfortable- I am not sure the last third will be very pleasant.

StillWeRise · 14/12/2020 18:36

OP, life is too precious to waste like this!
Please, step away from the book!

theskywasallviolet · 14/12/2020 19:46

I was so excited to read the Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer cos I loved The Interestings but I found it really naf and predictable.

I found A Little Life pretty compelling I didn’t hate it but I did think aspects where really stupid. Like how one of them was a mega successful artist but all he painted was his 3 friends (one of which was a famous movie star)!

Original poster
Lilmzsnowflake · 15/12/2020 17:08

I’m giving in, those descriptions have decided me! Misery porn is most certainly not my preferred genre. That sounds horrific tbh.
I’m reading the HP series again with DS now and I really don’t want those images in my mind when dealing with a 7 year old, yuck.
Not that I needed permission to stop reading it, but it’s nice to know that I’m not alone in hating this book!
Off to find something fluffy and light to compensate 😁

OP posts:
hopeishere · 15/12/2020 18:03

A Little Life was good but depressing. I'd read it and y colleague was reading it and kept saying "it can't get worse" and I was "yes it can!"

The Testaments was a good story but not a groundbreaking work. I feel the TV series sort of constrained what she could do with the story a bit.

BobbinThreadbare123 · 15/12/2020 18:06

I have been disappointed by The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett. I was so excited to get another in the Kingsbridge series and it was a bit dull and rushed.
I'm reading The Mirror and the Light now. Not as zippy as the previous installments but we'll see.

ElspethFlashman · 15/12/2020 18:10

Just finished The Second Sleep by Robert Harris.

I'm sorry but it was total shite. Its like he dreamt up a good conceit and decided to run with it because it required no research and he could churn it out.

The story doesn't even get going until about 80% in. Before that it's mainly exposition. So then the finale is rushed and it ends apruptly and you're thinking "that was it?".

ElspethFlashman · 15/12/2020 18:11

I loooooved Voice #1 of The Testaments but had little interest in the other two narrators.

If it had just been Voice #1 in its entirety it would have been stronger, I think.

LooseMooseHoose · 15/12/2020 18:12

I'm also struggling with A Little Life. Been dipping in and out for about 12months now. It's depressing, sure. But I also don't particularly care for the characters.

The Mirror and the Light was a bit of a slog in places. But I thought the ending was magnificent. And the way she tied it all together was beautiful. You need the contents of the slogg-y bits to get the ending iyswim. The endings tension is built from the slow, drip, drip if stuff you barely notice earlier on in the book, like the reader is also absent-mindedly walking into the trap that Cromwell doesn't notice until it's too late.

TheRuncibleSpoonofDoom · 15/12/2020 18:13

I was so disappointed by The Golfdfinch. I looked forward to reading it for ages and in the end I didn't finish it Sad
I do know a lot of people who thought it was great, though, so I'm not sure why I had the reaction I did. I want to see the film version but it's got bad reviews so that's probably going to be disappointing too!

Tangledtresses · 15/12/2020 18:43

Also goldfinch!! I mean it just didn't go anywhere or even have any sense to it...

Little red shoes for me... i was really looking forward to that 😬

Ginfordinner · 15/12/2020 18:48

@BobbinThreadbare123

I have been disappointed by The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett. I was so excited to get another in the Kingsbridge series and it was a bit dull and rushed. I'm reading The Mirror and the Light now. Not as zippy as the previous installments but we'll see.
Oh no. I love the Kingsbridge books. I loved The Pillars of the Earth the best.
zafferana · 15/12/2020 18:55

I hated A Little life - couldn't get into it at all and gave up, but I loved The Goldfinch. Tried to read the first Hillary Mantel and gave up - couldn't get into that either, but I liked the TV series with Mark thingummy.

I'm long past the stage of persevering with books I'm hating. I'll give a book a few chapters, but life is literally too short to waste on shit books!

Lalalatte · 15/12/2020 18:57

I liked the Goldfinch, although it could have ended more succinctly.
I thought The Secret Histories was overrated, none of the characters were likeable. They were all either bad or morally dubious.

Drogonssmile · 15/12/2020 19:06

The thing I like most about The Testaments is that the actor who plays Aunt Lydia narrates it! Brilliant!

Personally I have tried numerous times to get into The Nightingale but can't. I can't get past the first couple of chapters. I don't know why either. It just doesn't seem to hold my interest.

Drogonssmile · 15/12/2020 19:07

I mean she narrates the audiobook. For clarity.

NeedToKnow101 · 15/12/2020 19:15

A Little Life is misery porn. Couldn't bear it, manipulative and just kind of seedy.
This generation's Flowers in the Attic.

Lalalatte · 15/12/2020 19:31

The Aunt Lydia actor is brilliant Drogon.

rookiemere · 15/12/2020 19:51

Oh my word, I listened to A Little Life on Audible and by the end of it I was ready to throw Jude down the stairs myself. It didn't help that they had his voice a little whiny .
Also struggled with The Mirror and The Light - first book I read during lockdown and took me a good month to plough through.

isitsnowingyet · 17/12/2020 13:55

I liked the Goldfinch - but have to agree it wasn't the best of Donna Tartt's books. I preferred the first 2.'

Sad to see that 'A little Life' is so unpopular - I've got it on my ready to read pile - picked up second hand - it does sound badddd.