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Original poster

Books I wanted to like but didn't

199 replies

Rayn22 · 12/03/2023 23:31

I so wanted to like The Thursday night murder club but it was not what I expected. I thought it would be a gritty thriller. I disliked it immensely but noticed people are raving about Richard Osman books on other threads.

Another one is The midnight library. My friends kept going on about it. Kept it for my holidays and found it really slow and dull.

Anyone else got any others they were excited to read and were disappointed in?

I hate it when it happens as it puts me off reading for a while as I feel cheated. Silly I know!

OP posts:
EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 12/03/2023 23:38

I felt the same about both those books.

I thought Where The Crawdads Sing was very mawkish and overrated

RightOnTheEdge · 12/03/2023 23:42

Yeah I love a cosy, murder mystery type book so I thought Thursday Murder Club would be my kind of thing but I really struggled with it. I wish I'd given up on it but slogged on to the end to see the murderer get their comupence but it wasn't worth it.

ourflagmeansdeath · 12/03/2023 23:48

So agree with The Thursday Murder Club, it just wasn't very entertaining and I didn't find it funny either. Had to skim to the end to see who the murderer was (although I do have to admit that twist was quite good!). I did quite like The Midnight Club but it was definitely an overhyped book and more suited to a teen audience.

Does hurt to see another poster say they didn't like Where the Crawdads sing as that's one of my favourite books!! But completely get that everybody has different styles. The movie wasn't good imo.

ourflagmeansdeath · 12/03/2023 23:48

I didn't like It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover. Felt very immature despite what should have been a good storyline and the writing was awful. Felt incredibly overhyped but I think a lot of new controversy has come out about her and more and more people are disliking her and her books.

cassiastatham · 12/03/2023 23:53

The Midnight Library was awful. I thought it was supposed to be uplifting but it just seemed to present different variations of bad things.

I respect Haig but I dislike him as a writer.

Deadringer · 12/03/2023 23:53

Crawdads, a little life, a secret history, and the goldfinch, all well written but way too long with quite ludicrous plots.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 12/03/2023 23:53

@ourflagmeansdeath

Hey we can't all like the same, I bet there's lots of books we agree on!

cassiastatham · 12/03/2023 23:55

Rachel Cusk, Arlington Park

Not much fun reading the whole book about one.day.

Somanycats · 12/03/2023 23:55

A little Life

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 12/03/2023 23:55

@Deadringer

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned The Little Friend, an absolute turd and easily the worst of Donna Tartt's and so long 12 hours of my life I will never get back

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 12/03/2023 23:56

@cassiastatham

Oh my God yes that book is dreadful, unbelievably tedious

Coxspurplepippin · 12/03/2023 23:57

Most of the bloomin' Booker shortlist for the last 15 years. DH used to buy the shortlist for me for Christmas but by gum most are hard going and I gave up in the end.

ourflagmeansdeath · 12/03/2023 23:59

I agree with all the comments about A Little Life. So much trauma was in there it just seemed as if the writer was putting it in for shock value.

Deadringer · 12/03/2023 23:59

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 12/03/2023 23:55

@Deadringer

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned The Little Friend, an absolute turd and easily the worst of Donna Tartt's and so long 12 hours of my life I will never get back

Haven't read that one, thanks for the heads up.

ourflagmeansdeath · 13/03/2023 00:02

Oh I also didn't like And the mountains echoed by Khaled Hosseini as much as I thought I would. His other two books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are absolutely beautiful, so well written so I had high expectations. While I still liked this book, it wasn't as good. It did make me cry a ton though which is expected with all of his novels!!!!!

ourflagmeansdeath · 13/03/2023 00:02

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 12/03/2023 23:55

@Deadringer

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned The Little Friend, an absolute turd and easily the worst of Donna Tartt's and so long 12 hours of my life I will never get back

God that book is absolutely dreary I hate it even though I actually do quite like The Secret History.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 13/03/2023 00:09

I have read all Hanya Yanagihara

Abuse is an ongoing theme.

I also really liked The Secret History

MintJulia · 13/03/2023 00:11

A Suitable Boy.

I tried my hardest to finish it but it bored me to tears.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 13/03/2023 00:13

The Midnight library was badly written, quite cringeworthy and more like teen fiction. Sorry, Matt. I’m glad you’re successful but it’s not a great work of literature.

Linnet · 13/03/2023 00:14

All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr. My friends loved it, raved about it, I eventually got round to reading it and I couldn’t finish it. I wasn’t enjoying it at all so I gave up. I did read the last chapter so I know more or less what happened but it was a no from me.

aliasname · 13/03/2023 01:26

I liked The Thursday Murder Club... I guess we can't all enjoy the same books.

I've tried to read Wolf Hall 3 times, and each time I give up. I really want to it, it's my kind of book but it's just so irritating

sausagekitten · 13/03/2023 01:34

I hated the midnight library too to the extent where it actually made me cringe. I had such huge expectations but it was such an obvious, poor read.

chocolateisavegetable · 13/03/2023 05:47

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. Was very bored but kept reading it because I was convinced that it HAD to get better, being written by such a successful author. It didn’t.

hattie43 · 13/03/2023 06:26

RightOnTheEdge · 12/03/2023 23:42

Yeah I love a cosy, murder mystery type book so I thought Thursday Murder Club would be my kind of thing but I really struggled with it. I wish I'd given up on it but slogged on to the end to see the murderer get their comupence but it wasn't worth it.

This . I thought I must be missing something and expected a step change at some point . Very disappointing.
Also captain Corelli, hated that .

So1invictus · 13/03/2023 06:29

Kite Runner/Splendid Sons.

Just because a writer takes a tough argument and writes a novel round it doesn't make it good writing.

Robert Galbraith would have been dissed by publishers galore had he not been JK.

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