I just read a terrible book

[Orangeis]

Bring me back, B A Paris.

What a load of absolute tosh. A man's partner dissapears, 6 years later he gets with her sister and lives with her. The big twist is.....the new girlfriend is actually the missing sister. He didn't realise this as she had a different hair do.
That's hours of my life I'll never get back. I feel like taking the book in to the back garden and burning the bugger.
What's your worst book and why?

Totally agree. I only bought a copy because a few people on MN recommended it. I like a “weird” plot ( really liked the idea behind Time Travellers Wife). This was utter bollocks.
Also I am not a fan of any stories that involve smug families. The devoted but slightly incapable husband ( at home only obvs, he’s very good at his well paid job) and the irrepressible children who despite a minor tantrum once in a while always turn out to be right. Fuck off the lot of you back to Insta houses.

"Where the Crawdads sing" gave me the rage...it was so close to being brilliant, but the straight-out-of-Mills-and-Boon main characters killed it for me. So disappointing

Bit hard on Manchester!

Tony Parsons is rubbish.

The Shadow of the Wind, how did that sell 15 million copies? 🤔🤔
It’s one of the worst books I have ever read, and I only finished it because it was a boiling night in Barcelona and I couldn’t sleep anyway and had no wifi.

Bella Mackie's book was only published (and only wrote for the Guardian) because her dad is Alan Rusbridger. She's a shitty shitty writer. Ilistened to part of the abridged How to Kill Your Family on R4 and was laughing at how bad it is.

For those of you who didn't like The Miniaturist, the sequel (House of Fortune) is imo much better as it focuses more on Amsterdam life and tangible characters rather than hyping up the random miniaturist who does absolutely sweet FA. She does appear but she doesn't dominate the storyline like the first book (which was much more interesting when it focused on Marin and Johannes).

I could not finish Eleanor Oliphant, it was just so dire.

Another one I started reading last year but didn't finish: On Division by Goldie Goldenbloom. It's about a hasidic woman who already has 10 children and finds herself pregnant again at the age of 57.
It sounded great but was so slow and non-capturing, that I didn't finish.

I thought the Coffin Path a really good read, but it wasn't as advertised. It wasn't a ghost story at all really was it?

A lot of terrible psychological thrillers. Most recently The Silent Patient and Greenwich Park

I have found my tribe!

The Luminaries - ended up using it to counter my insomnia)
The Goldfinch (please can someone introduce her to an editor?)
Sally Rooney's (all)

Currently reading Thursday Murder Club to try to understand the hype and failing. It's not funny? Or clever.

Absolutely agree with you-badly written, cliche driven and just deadly dull.

I would rather read a sauce bottle than another in the series.

That said, I did give Richard Coles' book-in similar vein-a whirl and it was so much better.

I hated Crawdads too,

I loved all three in the series! The biggest disappointment for me is having to wait until September for the 4th one!

Going back to Piranesi - warning SPOILER ALERT - was it just the ramblings of someone who's had a breakdown? I hated it but may as well try to understand it I suppose.

Just remembered The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. So long & so dull. I got there and he had gone, ad lib to fade.

Lady of Hay. Written in 1985 and I read it when I was a teenager and was quite obsessed with it. I was scared to go to the toilet in the night in case William got me. I went to Hay on Wye as well! I read it again about six years ago and found it irritating - it wasn't about love at all, it was obsession. People did stupid things because they were obsessed with this character Jo, who wasn't all that, really. I got sick of reading how beautiful she was. The male lead is a rapist, the female lead is supposed to be a hard hitting journalist - I've met tougher marshmallows. She makes excuses for the guy who rapes her. Nobody does any work, they race up and down the motorway because they're in love with Jo. No, obsessed, not in love. It was very dated, too, even in its time.

Sophie Hannah has gone mad!

Her early books are good but a Game for all the Family made me wonder if she was suffering from some mental aberration or was just having a laugh. I sincerely hope it is the latter but I won't be paying her any more money. I would think twice before even getting her later works out of the library.

Yes, How to Kill your family-a complete copy of Kind Hearts and Coronets. Shameless!

Well that's good. Adds a bit of balance to the thread!

the pointless bloody Miniaturist. I'm still a bit annoyed about that!

With regards to the book "The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman, I bought the audio CD of the book read by Lesley Manville and loved it. I have also have the CDs for Books 2 and 3. Once again I loved them. But, yes there is a but, I am 75 and I can relate to the comings and goings in the stories.
I feel these books/audio CDs are really for older readers/listerners, I cannot imagine me liking them when I was younger.

Agree her books are getting nuttier and nuttier.

I'm glad I've found you people - I thought I was missing something major with the Thursday Murder Club! I couldn't give a crap about any of the characters and the murder itself. It was sooooo dull. Worst part, DH saw me reading it and brought me the 2nd book as a stocking filler😅

I have read many really bad books, some of them by authors I usually love, but the absolute worst has to be 77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz. So glad I got it from the library rather than buying it. I still don't know why I bothered to read the whole thing. I don't read him at all any more, he's gone full conspiracy libertarian nut job.

The Snakes by Sadie Jones.

Not the worst book I have read by a long way but very disappoitning because Sadie Jones is a good writer and the premise of this book is very interesting. But it is just such a missed opportunity and has an unforgivably rushed ending.

I think I said out loud "Is that IT?" when I finished it!

I hated this one so much, but rest of book club loved it??
Boring, and written like the author expected it to be picked up for a movie. All telling, no showing.