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.

@ApolloandDaphne Speaking of the Luminaries and murder, I could bludgeon someone to death with that book! It's what? 700 to 800 pages? 😅

I loved Crawdads as well @Abracadabra12345

I found the series better than the book.

Why would you think Wolf Hall was going to be similar, though? The Shardlake series is genre fiction, a detective solving crimes against a Tudor backdrop, but with the tropes of crime fiction being the key thing. It shares nothing but its setting with Wolf Hall. It would be like thinking Dorothy L Sayers and James Joyce were going to be similar.

Lessons in chemistry is absolutely awful. Nothing bloody happens?

I loved I who have never known men though. I know nothing happens in that either (quite literally) but I thought it was absolutely haunting and bleak. I loved the unsatisfactory ending too.

I am reading a little life atm. I don’t know what to make of it. So far I am quite unmoved by the characters and don’t really care what happens to them so I’m not sure I’m going to find it as heart breaking as everyone else does. Plus I absolutely hate the cover (am reading on kindle thank god) but it’s just SO SILLY.

Fifty shades of crap. Still can't understand all the hype.

@VJBR I don't think 50 Shades or Twilight are overhyped like Damon Copperhead or Lessoms in Chemistry. People joke about it all the time and don't take it seriously.

Is that the Peter Hujar photo? It’s called Orgasmic Man, if you want to find it even more irritating!

@PaperStarred Crikey, has he been crying? He looks like he's in pain 😅

I liked I who have never had men. A book to make you think about various things

this will be controversial but I’ve just finished A Gentleman in Moscow and I found it too long and all a bit predictable

Apparently he’s in the throes of orgasm! It was 1969. Maybe everyone did orgasm faces like that then…?😀

Still Life - boring, no punctuation throughout, and crude references. Did it really need to say that a young girl “had the smell of the monthlies about her” and was taken off to be washed? Revolting.

The Island Of Missing Trees - the fig tree narration got ridiculous.

Oh yes - the island of missing trees was so predictable and paint by numbers. Like there was a tick list of issues to include

I am shocked, I just finished that book! I'd never heard of it before. I think I agree with you in the main. But the most disappointing book for me was Where the Crawdads Sing.

Should We Stay or Should We Go - finished it but really not sure why. Twaddle!

Lessons in Chemistry - didn't get past the second chapter.

Was so disappointed by The Island Of Missing Trees.

Thought Still Life was OK though

It was a selection in my book club. I put it down after the first chapter and skipped that month's meeting.

Love this thread...feel like I've met my kindred spirits (I loved Anne of Green Gables so much I gave my daughter that middle name "with an e").

Completely agree about Little Life...misery felt unbelievable. Similar criticism about Where the Crawdads Sing-could not believe the storyline about the poetry. That was out of left field.

Yeah, I found it trying too hard with the whimsy and I was distracted by some people behaving and talking in a way that felt too modern.*

@Echobelly Yes to the anachronisms! At one point in the 1950s, Carl says to Elizabeth, "if you do this, God kills a kitten." That was a 90s meme!!!

I have to stand up for Demon Copperhead. I am loving it. If you don't know David Copperfield I suppose it might be harder to get.

I liked Lessons in Chemistry. It didn't appeal to me at all before and I read it because I couldn't find anything else at the time.

Just read Strange Sally Diamond which I both really liked and really disliked.

The most disappointing book for me was the Kite Runner. Extremely predictable.

I like the Richard Osman books they have got stronger as they have gone on.

This Little Life. I'm reading it at the moment and really struggling to get on...so, following the comments here, I shall gladly give up!
Crawdads was the most awful steaming pile of shite!
Wolf Hall- best book ever!

I was reading another book which had a character in it who was part of a book club. Only they would buy X copies of whatever book, not really read it and then spend the evening drinking gin!

@Timeandtune I also love Marian Keyes books but have really struggled to get into Grownups.

Shantaram! 500 pages of pretentious nonsense.

And another one someone mentioned up thread - A Gentleman in Moscow. Can't believe it's been made into a series. Nothing happens!