Biggest disappointments - Which book you thought would be great but did not live up to your expectation?

[CoteDAzur]

I will gladly volunteer "The Quiet Girl", by Peter Hoeg, his 1996 book after a 10 year silence since "Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow".

I read the synopsis and I was so hopeful that I would love it:

• children with special abilities (great!)
• main character who loves Bach and talks about Bach's music throughout the book (brilliant!)

It turned out to be one of the stupidest books I have ever read, and that is against some competition. The plot is dumb and assumes the reader is an idiot. The translation is downright pathetic.

I want back the time I spent reading this rag

the one I'm reading atm
shadow of the winds by carlos something

long winded film script imo

The Lovely Bones. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

goodness knows why I bothered to stick it out, girly and predictable.

The Island -utter shite

On Chesil Beach. I love most Ian McEwan (sorry to the many MNers that believe him to be seriously overrated) but I found it intensely irritating.

great expectations

arfity arf

Da Vinci code

Agree about The Lovely Bones.

Also, Notes on a Scandle (yawn)

Atonement.
Er....there's no ending and no atonement as far as i can see. Very disappointing

White Teeth. Da Vinci Code.

Da Vinci Code.

was so appalling, I laughed most of the way through it. My 7 year old could write a better story.

Norwegian Wood. Everyone raved about it, and I waded laboriously through it. I thought the lead character was a tosser and all the women wee ciphers, and I grew to loathe the endless passages in which nothing happens, plus the forensic descriptions of food and drink.

I loved Norwegian Wood

I wanted to BE Midori

I vote for the Kite Runner - mawkish tripe

and probalby chesil beach - havent read it yet but think I am not going to like it

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oi i'm the tickler round this manor

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Oh UD agree re. Norwegian Wood. Didn't get the hype, found it very slow and very boring and couldn't stand the girl at the centre.

small island

Oh and anything by Martin Amis.

"...And then we went and drank more whisky. Midori was looking very beautiful. I said to her 'You are looking very beautiful.' We drank more whisky and watched the sun go down and then we had sex. I said to Midori 'You know you are looking very beautiful.' We had sex again."

And on and on and on until I wanted to shoot myself.

blackberry wine

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Also, does anyone get really irritated by "cheat" twist endings? Those which re done just to deceive the reader, and which rely on withholding something which would have been vital?

I eally enjoyed "After The Hole" by Guy Burt (filmed as "The Hole") at the time - zipped through it in one sitting - but the more I think about it the more I realise that it's one of those kinds of books. Basically, without giving too much away, if you are reading one person's subjective and inaccurate account of events then you have no way of knowing what really happened and the emotional "truth" of the whole book you have read is just blown apart.

Someone told me recently that there is a book by Sophie Hannah that does a similar thing?

Yes UD. Was told by friend the language was beautiful....