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?

They got better. I wasn't sure about the first one but it was recommended to me so I carried on. I just took them for what they are, light hearted and totally unbelievable, although the deterioration of one of the characters was actually more moving than I expected.

Behind her eyes…I was so angry with the terrible ending. Wasted hours on that book. Cannot believe they made it into a Netflix series and the books now a best seller 😱

On Chesil Beach
One Day
both for largely the same reason - awful, unlikable characters that I couldn’t give a toss about. I read On Chesil Beach years ago and I’m still angry about it.

My Brilliant Friend - so boring, couldn’t finish it.

A Spool of Blue Thread - mind numbing. It was a book club read and I actually left the club because, by that time, I was so fed up with wasting my time on such nonsense books. In fact I’ve never read as few books as I did when part of a book club.

Can’t get through The Mirror and The Light for some reason, it’s just not grabbing me even though I loved Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies.

However, two of MNs ‘love to hates’ that I did like are; The Essex Serpent and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. So…what do I know?

Thursday Murder Club was out on Borrowbox so I went for the second one in the meantime - oh my god. Total shit. The main woman spoke like a cliche, like someone set out to write Clever Ex-Detective and made her speak like a shitty noir protagonist. When she was finishing her ex's sentences and giving "smart" quips (and him doing it back) I returned it. Absolute tosh.

I was about to give Crawdads a second try... but I don't think I'll bother after reading this thread. For the record, I have thoroughly disliked Piranesi, Time Traveller's Wife, B A Paris, and have been underwhelmed by some others mentioned repeatedly, but I've only skimmed the first four pages here!

There were so many characters in that book, I had a hard time keeping track of who was who. I don't think I'm a stupid person, but they just didn't stick with me for some reason.

I just read one that wasn't bad per se, but it was poorly edited. The author used the word "preceded' when she meant "proceeded," which was not correct. She also described a man's scent as "inebriating," when I think "intoxicating" was a more standard use.

I couldn’t get into American Gods (Neil Gaiman). DH liked it, which was just as well because I picked it for him as a present 😂 but I found it way too rambling with too many literary gimmicks.

The Island, Victoria Hislop.

What? Amazon didn't warn you about the lesbians? The bastards!!!
I loved Girl Woman Other.

Midnight Library on the other hand is dog shite.

This made me laugh...these are probably my two least favourite books of all time!

Little life is truly awful!

Totally agree

Not a fan of the Thursday murder club ones either...

But was given one of those 100 epic books scratch off posters... and some of the popular ones really suck!

Fahrenheit 451... Great premise, epic story, great characters, really, really tedious writing... why use one simile when two hundred and forty six will do!

Oh, and Jack Reacher books. Written in small sentences. Simple sentences. Gets tedious. Really want some prose.

I wanted something in between... then (back to the poster) I read Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy ... perfect!

Maybe she did mean inebriating? I remember watching Sister Wendy, years ago, commenting on some or other Christian fresco and described it as ‘Stunning!’, going on to explain ‘and by that, I mean in the original form - like a blow to the head’ 😂

Very glad to find fellow A Little Life haters - this is the only book I've ever read that actually makes me angry when I think about it because I detest it SO much. Imagine going to see the stage show! The mind boggles.

I loved The Midnight Library but I read it during a time when I needed to hear a positive message. But… I absolutely couldn’t get past the first page about the family dog being put down and then decided that Matt Haig actually didn’t come across as a very nice person. Can’t remember why I came to this conclusion, but I did. Perhaps misogynistic too…

To The Lighthouse.

I got three quarters of the way through and suddenly got so incensed with it, I threw it across the room. What a load of pretentious shite.

Call me a philistine. I won't care

Not the worst but certainly the most disapointing
Iolani by Wilkie Collins
One of the greatest murder mystery writers
But this book originally called Tahiti was found in an attic of a previous home of his and finished posthumously by others.

I waited probably 2years for it to be finished and published
What an utter disappointment
Who ever finished it did not do so in the manner of Collins

If you’re looking for a really good read of his go for
Moonstone or/and
The women in white.

Oh reminded me -conversations with friends.

Nothing happened! It was naval gazing twaddle!

Thursday murder club, I didn’t get past page 20
Tedious

I'm so glad to find out there are other people out there who didn't enjoy Crawdads! I usually stop conversation and get wide-eyed stares when I admit I hated it.
One Day was probably the worst book I ever read. The ending was so bad I threw it across the room when I finished it. Hated all the characters in it.

The In-Laws by James Caine. A decent enough plot but really badly written and, as far as I can tell, not proofread at all. Total overuse of the word smirk (I don’t think the author actually knows what it means), someone had cancer but was in recession, and towards the end he started using italics in nearly every sentence. If I’d had a hard copy rather than reading on my kindle I’d have gone through it with a red pen and sent it back to him.

Joining the Haven't They Grown, yes it's terrible club.
Thanks to all who have spared me from A Little Life.
My worst was My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. Talk about an over privileged,entitled whiner!

Absolutely AGREE - Oliphant is bollocks!

YES! Anything by her is dire.

I read Twilight many years ago on recommendation from a colleague and I despised it so much that I physically hurled the book at the wall when I'd finished. Absolutely dreadful.

However, I think it may soon have a rival in the worst book stakes because today I started reading Verity by Colleen Hoover and OMG, it's absolutely appalling. I don't think there's been more than two consecutive pages where I haven't cringed myself inside out. I get through about 60-70 books a year and I think Verity might be the worst thing I've read in about three years, if that gives you some idea of how bad it is. It is mercifully short though, so I might finish it just to see if it carries on as badly as it started. I've never read any other Colleen Hoover books and I gather this one is perhaps a different genre from her others, but I don't think I'll pick up another book by her any time soon.

However, I've seen Piranesi, The Luminaries, Where The Crawdads Sing and A Little Life in this thread and I really liked all of those, so it just goes to show how personal a thing reading is. No judgement from me if you loved the books I hated!