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?

Oh, and I couldn’t get past the first couple of chapters of the first Cormoran Strike book. The description of the main character was reminiscent of a Mills and Boon book, which put me off altogether.

My Absolute Darling was one I couldn't finish. The scenes of the man raping his daughter were just too much. Just distasteful. People raved about the book, claiming the descriptions of scenery etc. were so fantastic but for me there was nothing exceptional about the writing. Not a book I'd ever re-visit.

Not many Mills and Boon heroes are described as having one leg and hair like pubes 😁

(Obviously you don't have to like the book!)

I love McEwan , am collecting all of his books - there's something so clean about his writing I just find them so easy and compelling to read.

The Miniaturist I thought vastly overrated and the writer really didn’t know much about Dutch baby houses and how they were created and furnished.

The Midnight Library annoyed me because the author was stacking the odds to prove the heroine’s real life was the best out of all the possible alternatives to drive home a Victorian-style moral.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was such a disappointment. It’s hard to see how a novel seemingly inspired by the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands could end up such rom-com slush. Give me an accurate historical account any day.

I HATED Enduring Love. I invented a drinking game where you have to take a swig every time he uses the word "beauteous" to describe his wife.

I liked The Child in Time, though.

Last year I attempted to read The Midnight Library; Robert Webb's novel; and A Man Called Ove. I think they were all billed as heart warming/life affirming etc. Hated all of them. In each the premise was person miserable in life, gets a chance at redemption, takes chance and finds hope once more. Load of guff. I also dislike A Wonderful Life for the same reason.

Thanks to this thread I've given myself permission to ditch How to Kill Your Family, so hurrah! I also recently gave up on The Starless Sea. I used to be someone who felt obliged to finish books, but life is definitely too short. I just hope I find something to get be back into reading, the last book I enjoyed was The Seven Husband's of Evelyn Hugo in October. About to start Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson, which I see has also been mentioned.....will give it a go anyway as I've loved a few of hers.

Yeah, The Road is one of the greatest novels of its time, quite stunningly brilliant. Sure, you want to be reading some light trash either side of reading it but to dismiss it because it's not very optimistic is a huge mistake.

I haven't read any of the 50 Shades books but when it first came out I skimmed through it on the shelf in Morrison's. I read a passage where Christian Grey removes her Converse and socks and sucks her toes. Having had Converse on all day ... It made me feel sick.

@Humanwoman - I love Susanna Gregory. Personally, I preferred the ones slightly later in that series where the plague was a factor, but generally, it’s a fascinating period and ( I thought ) well written. Also worth trying her series set in Cambridge too.

As for loathing, I’ve just finished The Twyford Code. I thought I knew what was going on, although wasn’t particularly gripped by it, got to the twist, realised that I didn’t, and didn’t care enough to go back and double check.
it might have been very clever, but I didn’t like the characters enough to spend the time.
perhaps that says more about me than the book though !

I felt the same but am having another go and it's getting better.
See also Wolf Hall. I struggled with the present tense thing for a long time.

I know this is a thread about books we don't like, but anyone who loved the Evelyn Hugo book would also (I think) love Mr Wilder and Me.

Yy to this. I remember reading a book that covered my job and an illness we have in our family. Every part related to either had me gritting my teeth in frustration. Once I'd got to the end I checked and, of course, they had never worked in that field or had that condition.

I gave up on this 90 pages from the end. I just couldn't take anymore & didn't care enough to see how it ended. I loved her first book.

Don’t quite get the loathing for Thursday Murder Club and sequels. I regard them as a bit of lighthearted fun. Obviously if you want gritty realism Richard is not your guy, but I like his intrepid pensioners. A Little Life on the other hand is a terrible book. Sentimental and prurient with cardboard characters.

@Emotionalsupportviper

I suspect it's a little bit of both. I do like him, but his writing is very samey, so he's doing a fair amount of rehashing even if on different topics, and the more you've read the less charming it becomes.

Dh Lawrence and breastfeeding
He was right

He isn't at all like that though. I like the Cormoran Strike books.

😱omg! That's dark

I can't remember who wrote it or what the title is but it was about a guy who goes to some remote cottage with his new girlfriend/wife and wierd things keep happening to them.
I got it from a community book (Tele)phone box. It was awful, apparently there was no way anyone could guess the twist. Well I did about 1/3 of the way through. It was so dire I couldn't believe I actually read the whole flipping thing!!! More fool me!

I adore the Thursday Murder club books.

Easy to read, pleasant characters, and I read them in Richards Voice 🤣

I thought a PP was joking about the family where everyone has sex with the one male member of the family (without any coercion, just because...) so I looked it up - omg. What was that author thinking???

That's not as bad as That Scene in It by Stephen King.

What was that book about, anyway? A monster who feeds on fear? Oh, OK...so you defeat it by overcoming your fears and therefore destroying its power, right? What? No? You go into a trance, have a conversation with a huge turtle and then bash the creature to death when it turns into a spider?

Ok then.

How many pages?

I see The Historian has had a few mentions. I really enjoyed most of it but bloody hell the ending is just so rushed and pointless.

Re The Miniaturist, I loved it but the main conceit did seem totally irrelevant to the rest of the story. It's telling that in the dramatisation they had to give the miniaturist a bigger role and more explanation.

Agree with the comment about the Earth's Children series. I started reading them in my teens and was obsessed, forgave the bad sex writing and endless unnecessary inclusions of the author's research (Plains of Passage goes on for ever), but was desperate for the final book to come out. What a pile of shit it was when it finally appeared.

This thread has saved me a fortune in books that I was going to try but now won't bother with.