Most disappointing books you've read this year?

[whatausername]

Off the top of my head, mine are Modern Baptists by James Wilcox, Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding and Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert. The first two, to be fair, are very much of their time but even so they were incredibly unfunny and not particularly well written.

I loved Hamnet…. As I think did my book club. I didn’t mind Lessons in Chemistry although I didn’t think it was anything special. Sometimes it’s not about the book it’s about your mood and whether that book is striking the right tone for where you are in that moment.
My most loathed books this year were The Khan by Saima Mir which was so ridiculous and badly edited I couldn’t get through it. ( guy in Waterstones raved about it) and Babel by RF Kaung which barely has a bad review anywhere. I can’t believe that readers are able to accept characters in 1830’s Oxford coming out with lines like “ pull the trigger kid”.

Milkman by Anna Burns - just awful. Gimmicky: dense/no paragraphs/no names given. Extremely dull.
Agree. It was awful, a DNF. I hope the Booker judges squirm with embarrassment every time they remember they gave it the prize.

I also hated The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller. It actually made me cross I hated it so much. But it was back in January and I can’t remember why I disliked it so much!
Nooooo! It's one of my favourite books. It's everything that Lessons in Chemistry wishes it was, but done a million times better - a pissed-off, angry female using her wits to get back at the patriarchy on her own terms. The story and the character have such a strong narrative arc.

My sister the serial killer was a huge disappointment. Also Babel which was a huge read and in parts good but I just felt I did not get it.

Apologies: what is a DNF?

Did Not Finish

Someone lent me Zadie Smith. Wasn’t impressed. She is SO overrated and over-promoted. I don’t mean she’s bad. She just isn’t good. Other than that I’ve stuck to the classics, and have been so much happier for it. Although, tbh, My Antonia disappointed me a little. I read it at university and loved it. But re-reading it, 20 years later, it wasn’t quite the masterpiece I thought it was. Still very good though.

I think Messrs Osman and Coles should apologise to every tree they pass for sacrificing their arboreal relatives to produce such tosh.

Seconded

Fight Club by Chuck Palianyuk (sp). Very basic. Gave me new respect for the film and Brad Pitt's acting ability.

Interestingly, Lessons in Chemistry seems to feature equally on the Best book of the year thread and now here, as the worst.

Yes it’s very interesting to see the crossover, and Lessons in Chemistry does seem fit into the Halle Berry ‘Monster’s Ball’ category - she got both a Razzie and an Oscar for her performance!

One about a robot!

Hamnet and Demon Copperhead.

I really cannot be arsed with authors re-writing existing texts and expecting accolade for their new and original ideas.

although of course Hamnet did not rewrite- just rehashed.

I don't think Lessons in Chemistry was all that bad. It was just overhyped. I live under a rock and manage to pick it up and give it a go without having heard much about it at all. It was fine - a zippy read. If I'd been excitedly told it was the best book of the year by a long shot, I'd have been disappointed. I think Crawdads suffered the same fate. The best advice is to do as someone upthread said and completely ignore all reviews and go in without expectations.

In fact I just finished Tomorrow etc and from the breathless quotes on the cover you'd think it was the single most extraordinary book written this century. It isn't, but it was fine. Fairly intricately woven, and interesting character studies. The writer wrote a book that 90% of us could not have, and fair play.

I usually pick up random books from the Charity shop and dive in knowing nothing about them. Works for me.

Everything!!
I'm finding almost all fiction dull, trite, boring, repetitive. Maybe it's just me though...

I'm getting on OK with non-fiction though. Popular Science and Feminist Criticism mostly

Interestingly, Lessons in Chemistry seems to feature equally on the Best book of the year thread and now here, as the worst

Ah no, this is "most disappointing" rather than "worst". I've started plenty of worse books this year, but they didn't disappoint me as much because I wasn't so confident that I would like them.

A Little Life. A friend whose opinion I really trust recommended it to me. Struggled to half way and gave up. Hated it. Was so disappointed.

Someone lent me Where the Crawdas Sing and I just can't get into it. I'm not fond of books that flit between years at the best of times but Crawdads is slower than molasses and I suppose the pace fits the Deep South but Lord is it dull so far.

I absolutely loved Leonard and Hungry Paul. Gentle and heart-warming which isn't usually my thing. I can't be doing with A Man Called Ove, The Hundred Year Old Man etc however LAHP just worked I thought.

I didn't think Hamnet or Demon Copperhead were rehashed; admittedly the structure of the latter does echo that of David Copperfield but it stands on its own in my opinion. As for Hamnet .. in what way was it rehashed? My main objection to Hamnet was the constant use of three adjectives in a row. Once you notice it, it gets pretty annoying. I like Maggie O'Farrell though.

Have to agree on Lessons in Chemistry - the whimsy feel and feminism combo didn't work.

Also - Shrines of Gaiety. I usually love her books, but I kept wondering if she was ill when she wrote it because there were too many characters and the stories meandered, plus she usually evokes the time and place well, but not here.

Nina Stibbe's book of diary entries was pretty dull and very unfunny. She wants to be Alan Bennett, but...it ain't happening.

I’m glad it’s not just me . I got a lot further on than you because I normally try to persevere but in the end my daughter got fed up of me moaning and found a synopsis .

Another vote for Thursday Murder Club, so tedious, felt like hard work to finish it. Not sure whether that prejudiced my view of the Rev Coles one (can't even remember the title) but I gave up on that one pretty quickly.

You see I am totally into gaming and I found it meh!

I did like a previous one of hers that I read when waiting for this one from library.

My one wound be tackle by jilly cooper. Very uninteresting.

Yes to lessons and chemistry and shrines of gaiety being disappointing. We have how to stop time in bookclub next. Also had to read The housemaid which was as rubbish as I expected.

Spare. It was one long whinge and I’ll never get back the time I spent wading through it.