Disappointing or overhyped books

[YaMuvva]

I have just finished reading I Who Have Never Known Men after 2 friends have harangued me into reading it for a while now.

What a total let down. I hate it when books build up a mystery with loads of clues as if you’re gonna have answers at the end, then…nothing! So frustrating. I’m so cross I wasted my energy and time on it.

I also hated Elenor Oliphant and kept wondering when the good part was gonna start. Nothing happened except that she got a makeover.

That book with no punctuation-ducks in Hyannis port or something. Interesting concept but I couldn't stand it after about twenty pages. Had anyone read it and did anything actually happen in the end?

I actually really liked it (assuming you mean Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport), but it’s a stream of consciousness and not one to read for the plot! I don’t think anything at all dramatic ever happened to the first-person narrator, other than her memories of being stranded on the roadside or being stuck in a mall during a storm, both in the past, and I don’t remember the exact ending of the mountain lion plot, other than her looking for her cubs…?

I loved Ducks, Newburyport. The plot isn't really the main thing about it - it's more about the overall impression given of the characters at a point in time.

I LOVED Demon Copperhead!
Could not get on with Hamnet and I’ve really enjoyed her other books 🤷‍♀️
Matt Haig - anything by him. I really don’t get the adulation.

I also didn’t like

Sorrow and bliss
Eleanor oliphant
Pine
Crawdads
The Power

love the secret history but the little friend was a bit of a slog. Not bothered with the goldfinch yet.

Forgot to add the Essex serpent! total snooze fest and annoying main character

Just given up on Seven Moons of Mali almeida . Effusive gushing reviews all over cover - couldn’t make head nor tail of it and I like abit of magical realism if done well.

I am not a sophisticated reader, so might need to get my coat on this thread, but Angela's ashes. So depressing within 5 pages I did not continue. Just read Richard Osman's Last Devil to Die (having not read the others), and although I finished it, and it was not hard to read, I would not rave about it.

Agree with Yellowface. I couldn't wait for it to come out in paperback but it was distinctly underwhelming.

I've also not got past the second chapter of A Little Life. May have to give that one another go.

To Kill A Mockingbird. It's okay, just okay.

Yellowface & the Bee Sting.
Yellowface dreadful start to finish.
Bee Sting is great for the first couple of hundred pages and then turns into rubbish.
I threw both out.

I've just given up halfway through The Secret History. Shame as I enjoyed the goldfinch

Not at all surprised the Richard Osman books are no good. I find him super clunky

Great Circle. I expected a tale of a trailblazing female aviator and her adventures, instead it's a bloated book full of dark themes such as peadophilia, parental abandonment, addition, suicide, etc. We get detailed back stories on people that are only loosely relevant to the plot.

I got about a quarter of the way through and wondered when the story would actually get going. According to the reviews I read, it's the last 80 pages (of an almost 600 page book), so I was happy to give up at that point.

I don't need a book to be full of sunshine and roses, and of course traumatic events will shape a character, but it really felt overblown and a bit of a soap opera. At times the portrayal of the main character and her mother as young children/pre teens felt extremely uncomfortable.

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime. Always popping up on must read lists and classics. Smplistic and condescending false stereotypes of autism from an author who claims to know nothing about autism. It's been over 20 years and it is still featuring on must read lists.

Loved Cloud Atlas!😁

Orbital, I just don't see the point. There's a few good bits, the clunk of the overhead lockers in a caravan, I can believe she's been in a caravan but it didn't leave me with a sense of location with the living quarters in the Space ship or looking at earth.
It's on the Booker short list and really short so this one will be cropping up at pseudo intellectual pissing contests.

I had problems with the Island of Missing Trees, as both my last house and this one have fig trees. We never took special care of them, in fact at times have drastically pruned them, and they survived just fine. In fact in my last house the figs ripened, and I'm not far south of London.

You were waiting for something to happen with Eleanor Oliphant? Like what, an explosion or kidnapping plot? That was an excellently written book. Maybe try James Patterson if it's action you're after 😂

Yellowface...shite

Ugh, yes, loathed it. The main character was one of those annoying exceptional-in-all-ways people and you could see the ending coming from miles off.

I reckon this description could be plausibly applied to every single book Lionel Shriver has written.