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Worst book(s) you read in 2020

136 replies

makingitupaswegoon · 29/12/2020 11:55

So I haven't participated in the 50 book challenge this year and was planning to ask for your best / worst reads during 2020 but see someone else has started a thread on best reads.

But I also want to know what to avoid. What did you spend your time reading that you really wished you hadn't wasted your time on or gave up on partway through?

Usually there's a good few 'must reads' that are absolute pants ... 'girl on the train' and 'we are all completely beside ourselves' spring to mind ...

OP posts:
Missingyoupapum · 31/12/2020 19:19

@Kote

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams was probably my biggest disappointment of the year.

My other contenders for worst book (none are new releases):

  • Himself by Jess Kidd
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  • Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
  • The Lido by Libby Page
Totally agree on Queenie and Himself. Queenie really felt to me like a 6th former trying (and failing) to write an edgy novel.
Unspeakably · 31/12/2020 19:24

Not sure if it was this year, but I couldn't agree more with whoever said Eleanor Oliphant, which I hated.

The Catch was also terrible. I'm also battling my way through The Woman in the White Kimono and am not keen at all.

Unspeakably · 31/12/2020 19:24

I thought Queenie was ok actually. I didn't love it, but I got through it without totally rolling my eyes, which is unusual when I read novels.

EmpressPenguin · 31/12/2020 20:14

I listened to Queenie and Eleanor Oliphant on BBC Sounds (abridged versions) and while I didn't hate them, I wouldn't have been delighted if I'd paid cash to read the printed versions.

Like many others I hated A Little Life, I cant bear it when I feel like my sympathies are being obviously manipulated. I did get through it, but not sure why I persevered, by the end I was almost disappointed with myself for not giving up sooner.

I've not read much this year though, I'm finding it too hard to concentrate. Best read has been The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead.

Quizmas · 31/12/2020 22:00

Surprised to see the poor reviews on here for Crawdads. I loved it so much, it was my standout book of the year in 2019.

Quizmas · 31/12/2020 22:02

The trouble was Oliphant was that it was genuinely an engaging read for a while but some way before the end you just realised it was completely unrealistic - that a woman in her situation, even with the aspergers, would not be so unworldy. The author wrote her as though she had just stepped off a spaceship, when she had been in and out of the care system all her life and would have been more streetwise than many of us.

RAOK · 31/12/2020 22:06

I enjoyed The Lido but it did go off the boil a bit towards the end. I hated Nine Perfect Strangers.

Standrewsschool · 31/12/2020 22:17

@Quizmas - You’ve summed up Eleanor O well. In many ways, it was an engaging read, but at the same time, someone who went to university, and became a manager for her company would not be that ignorant on life.

LooneyLovefood · 01/01/2021 08:43

@EineReiseDurchDieZeit

My worst of the year were :

IT by Stephen King
The Gift Of Fear by Gavin De Becker
Delta Of Venus by Anais Nin

and

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

I would agree about Crawdads and Normal People not quite as bad as those listed BUT a pair of overrated shockers

Come back to 50 Books OP! We are mostly doing roundups now.

So glad to see someone else dislike IT! I love Stephen King but hated that book. I read it on holiday years ago and it just seemed to go on and on and on. You could cut half the book out and it would be great, but as it stands it's way too long and far too dull.
OnlyToWin · 01/01/2021 08:55

Girl, Woman, Other

Just could not get into it and had such high hopes. The lack of full stops bothered me.

TheTurn0fTheScrew · 01/01/2021 09:22

Fleishman is in Trouble.

He deserves to be in trouble, he's a twat. Irritating rich people problems written with no sense of irony or affection.

CountFosco · 01/01/2021 09:55

Another vote for Crawdads and Eleanor Oliphant. Both nonsense. Although I enjoyed both at the time and was quite happy to be swept away by them. Every diet needs a bit of junk in it.

Normal People I hated the characters and wanted to knock their heads together but think Sally Rooney is a fab writer and hope she is allowed space to grow so when she's lived a bit more I can read the books she writes in her 40s.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 01/01/2021 13:51

@LooneyLovefood

And the sheer level of racist language had me wincing too, realistic to the era or not

Greenteandchives · 01/01/2021 18:07

Normal People. Just dull.
Crawdads. Ridiculous book, hyped up on here, otherwise I’d never have heard of it.
Nine Perfect Strangers. I still can’t believe I finished it. I feel a bit ashamed of myself.
And I always mention This is Going to Hurt, by the smug misogynist that is Adam Kay in these threads. I’m still furious at him for writing about the gynaecological problems experienced by older women in such a dismissive and faintly disgusted way, all for a cheap laugh.
I’m currently reading The Snakes by Sadie Jones, and hoping something might happen soon.

Greenteandchives · 01/01/2021 20:56

Just remembered Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris.
Badly written and disrespectful.

princessspotify · 01/01/2021 23:51

I agree with pp who said nine perfect strangers, I couldn't even finish it.

sofiathe2nd · 02/01/2021 00:12

Crawdads, a book I’d never have chosen for myself but so many people raved about it that I stupidly bought a copy. Badly written drivel.

Also, reluctantly, The Mirror and the Light. I don’t know if it was just the inevitability and finality of the plot but it just didn’t intrigue the way the earlier 2 books did.

Alltheprettyseahorses · 02/01/2021 10:11

Devil's Day by Andrew Michael Hurley and The Summer Visitors by Fiona O'Brien. I found both so bad I irrationally felt insulted that they were even put on the shelf to sell in the shop.

HappydaysArehere · 05/01/2021 11:05

Normal People. Cannot understand the hype. Disliked the main male character and found the relationship demeaning, miserable and nasty.
Got the Crawdads to read.
Just read Just My Luck as got it at the end of the year as aChristmas present. This author churns a book out every year and it shows in my opinion.

Mypathtriedtokillme · 05/01/2021 11:51

I re-read some Colleen Hoover books I brought forever ago and thought at the time were quite good and romantic. (And read on public transport to work)
I was young, innocent and obviously a moron. Now?

All if them are abusive relationships dressed up as romance. They were all shit.
I’m actually now horrified it was even sold as romance not as a cautionary tale of bad relationships you should run like your in fire from.
(Don’t actually run if your on fire...You stop drop and roll!)

Mypathtriedtokillme · 05/01/2021 12:06

Jamie McGuire also writes “romance” which is just abusive relationships with a frothy front of not even love, it’s barely like.
I’d of enjoyed it more if she called the police, took an AVO out on him, moved out, did a freedom course and never ever saw him again.
STOP WRITING ROMANCE THATS SO SHIT.
It’s not fucking romance. It’s domestic violence.

And they are the reason I read months of Zombie apocalypse books after and returned to Sci-Fi.

HarlanWillYouStopNamingNuts · 05/01/2021 17:35

Park Avenue Summer by Renee Rosen, which I didn't finish. Looked really interesting as it is set in the Sixties and was about the early days of Helen Gurley Brown's editorship of Cosmopolitan. HGB is portrayed as constantly being either on the verge of tears or calling her husband to help her out. Maybe she was like that in real life, but it doesn't seem likely. I finally ditched it when an office was described as having "Orla Kiely wallpaper", which was impressive as Orla Kiely was born in 1963.

Panticus · 08/01/2021 02:53

@SionnachRua

The book thief. I try reading it every few years. I always get a few chapters in, remember why I put it down - it's unbearable - and shove it back in the bookcase again!
The Book Thief is proper shite, I agree. If you want a good laugh, the first review on Goodreads is brilliant: www.goodreads.com/book/show/19063.The_Book_Thief

I'll also add:

  • Crawdads: so bad it makes me angry just thinking about it
  • Ducks, Newburyport: this wasn't bad per se but I just couldn't get into it. Which was sad because I really loved the idea of it.
  • An American Marriage: did not grip me at all, I dumped it very early on
  • I am Pilgrim: I found the narrator utterly unbearable
TheWindOnTheMoon · 08/01/2021 09:28

It's reassuring to see other people haven't liked The Book Thief. I read it last year and really didn't like it. Can't recall what I gave it on Goodreads, but just couldn't get on with it. I can't see what it is that other people love about it.

IntermittentParps · 08/01/2021 10:32

I agree Sweet Sorrow is rubbish. If a woman had written it (or any of his books actually) she'd be dismissed as 'chick-list'/'mum-lit'.

The Binding was promising but just didn't come off.

On Phillip Pullman, TBH I can well believe the new ones aren't very good; while I agree Northern Lights is a masterpiece, IMO the rest of the trilogy just gets worse.

I've managed to avoid or stop reading very early on anything really bad. I would say that Burnt Sugar, while not a 'bad' book as such, is a tough read though.

I will go to the wall for The Mirror and the Light. Love the whole trilogy.