Books I wanted to like but didn't

[Rayn22]

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!

After reading one of Taylor Jenkins Reid's books I genuinely thought she was a "gimme my book deal" YouTuber. I don't understand why she is so hyped. I did like the historical parts of Evelyn Hugo, but the modern day bits were pointless. I read Daisy Jones after reading Espedair Street and Utopia Avenue, so it didn't stand a chance.

A book I really wanted to like was Ducks, Newburyport. I liked the cover (shallow of me) and I liked that it was stream of consciousness, I like that style.

If anyone reading this thread is thinking about reading Ducks, please save yourself! You will have "the fact that, the fact that, the fact that, the fact that, the fact that" haunting you for months. They could easily have cut out 200 pages without affecting the story, probably even more.

@purpledalmation Ditto re Hôtel du Lac by Anita Brooker. Shockingly boring - lost respect for the Booker Prize after that.

Wolf Hall

I will give it a go, thanks. I so admire Sassoon and Graves. People are quick to sneer at the officer class of WW1, but many of them were incredibly brave and honourable men. And far from being callous snobs, they often cared deeply about the men under their command. Tolkien, for example, (who has been an officer) makes Sam the hero of Lord of the Rings. And Sam is clearly a working-class British Tommy. C S Lewis, who was also an officer in WW1, writes of his love and admiration for the men he commanded, and so did MacMillan, the Prime Minister (a former infantry officer). Graves and Sassoon even wrote letters to one another in which they agreed that, though the war was insane, they had to go back for the sake of their men.

I agree that it’s boring. But it is beautifully written. Today the judges seem more interested in who wrote it, and whether they tick the right boxes. I pretty much ignore the Booker. I’ve also lost trust in book reviewers, literary critics and arts journalists. In fact, I barely read contemporary fiction. I stick to the classics instead. And if I want a trustworthy guide to great literature, I use Harold Bloom. I would advise an intelligent young person, who is serious about literature, not to bother with university. Just read everything Harold Bloom wrote and read the books he recommends.

@JoonT haha I didn't think Hotel du Lac was beautifully written (mind you, I read it a long time ago). The other Booker approved disappointment was "Oh William" by Elizabeth Strout.
Thanks for the Harold Bloom recommendation - I will definitely check out what he has to say! 🙂

People are quick to sneer at the officer class of WW1, but many of them were incredibly brave and honourable men

Their fatality rate was appalling - junior officers had a life expectancy of six weeks from arrival at the front. A lot of the 'lions led by donkeys' came from the 1960s and a book by Alan Clarke

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions_led_by_donkeys

I love Hotel du Lac so much bubbling away under the surface. Vastly prefer it to most of the Booker winners of the last 20 years!

Siegfried Sassoon, from his writing, such a self deprecating man. There's a passage in Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man about a village cricket match which I love for it's sense of very low key peril .

Rumer Godden writes about a meeting with a very elderly Sassoon in her autobiography. It's an incredibly poignant chapter.

Lessons in Chemistry - utterly dire. No one spoke like that in those times. All the characters were completely unbelievable. Author started ideas and then took them nowhere - the hyper-intelligent dog, for instance.

A Fatal Crossing, murder mystery set on board ship in the 1920s. Heavily hyped by Waterstones. Terrible book. Poorly written and plotted. Abrupt ending. The author must be sleeping with someone at Penguin, that’s all I can think.

I have to admit I was waiting for something really dramatic to happen in Hotel du Lac but (and I admit that it's years since I read it) that's what she's saying - what you are and what you have might not be that exciting compared to other people and what they expect you to be, but if you're happy with yourself, so what?

I agree with you about the Thursday Murder Club. I found the characters rather irritating and the plot too slow.

However, I have just read the second book - The Man Who Died Twice, and it is so much better. Looking back I think the first book was to introduce you to the characters. The plot is much more interesting and there are some clever twists.

I really disliked The Midnight Library as well.

I loved Where The Crawdads Sing, but I love descriptive writing about places.

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

It was my understanding that they didn't know it was her. I love the Cormoran Strike books.

The 100 Year Old Man who Jumped Out the Window - boring and endless.
Shuggie Bain - very gritty. If it had been a TV drama or a film I would have had to switch off. I read it with a horrific fascination.
Life of Pi - so boring I gave up

One that hasn't been mentioned - The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam. It was a book club book, and the only one that no-one liked, even the English lit teacher

I read such good reviews of Still life but it was awful.

I have absolutely no desire to read Matt Haig, Crawdads, Room or most of the ones already mentioned!

Loathed My Brilliant Friend. I finished it because I love Italy. But god, her writing is tedious. And the people are all unbearable. I read another of hers about a doll. That was awful too.

Also hated The Kite Runner. My main thought throughout was 'it's not all about YOU'. The narrator was selfish.

As for The Bookseller of Kabul, she goes on and on about how poor they are and yet is happy to take from them. And yes, I know there's a huge hospitality culture to deal with, but it seems like she doesn't even consider that. They're poor and she still takes from them. A terrible book.

I've realised that I really hate what passes for modern lit fiction, it's usually formulaic, badly written, and doesn't being anything new or insightful to the world.

I read for a lot of reasons; comfort, education, to be transported...if it doesn't do that I will chuck it quicker than a bad shrimp.

I HATED Middlemarch. I tried so hard, it's a classic, I wanted to love it. But I wanted to slap Dorothea by page 3 so that was a massive DNF. I could t root for her she was just annoying and idiotic!

I have a tricky relationship with Dickens. Love the stories, HATE the writing. And the ridiculous names. They drive me demented!

Wuthering Heights - you have to abandon any thought that it's a love story. It's not. It's about obsession, and passion, and cruelty, and nature Vs nurture, and the concept of 'the noble savage'. Almost everyone is hateful, no one is a 'good' person. And it's not about love AT ALL!

Your slapping priorities are all wrong, @TragicMuse 😉

Dorothea is naive but idealistic, and it is tragic that - because she is a woman - she believes she can only achieve her intellectual ambitions through the ghastly Casaubon.

Everyone in Wuthering Heights, OTOH, richly deserves a good slap. Self-indulgent Emos.

Another vote for 'Lessons in Chemistry'. I was expecting an amazing book. It was ok but not amazing.

I'm reading that right now and not loving it.

Awww,I loved Lessons in Chemistry. Favourite read this year.

I disliked the much raved about Piranesi.

Eleanor Oliphant

What did posters love about Lessons inchemistry?

I found the style of writing irritating. I admit that the book got better when Elizabeth started her cookery show, but the book haasn't made me want to read anything else by the same author.

@Chikapu Nine chapters in, not looking good.

@Taytocrisps

I agree and I bought it in a newly opened bookshop in the next town and in the spirit of supporting them I bought it full price, just checked and could have had it from Amazon for £5.00 that would have burned less.

Agreed. So boring and predictable.

I was very disappointed by The Midnight Library. Lots of people were raving about it but it left me cold.

I've had 4 books I can't get into including A little life. All 4 people rave about, I can't work out why they aren't working for me.