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.

I just finished Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow. It was readable but not amazing. I keep hearing about how to solve your own murder or something like that.

For me the book We are Completely Beside Ourselves was a major disappointment. So overhyped, I can still remember the moment of the denouement and my reaction... what a waste of time. I loved On Chesil Beach and really enjoyed Crawdads although I found the poetry extremely cringey. Loved The Heart's Invisible Furies although the plot was far-fetched, the characters were great .

Couldn’t finish that Trespass book that seemed to be trendy. Didn’t like any of the characters was an older man perving over a younger girl.

I loved loads of the books on this thread, especially Wolf Hall, but maybe I'm not as sophisticated as some of you.

I did give up on Lessons in Chemistry - even the exciting bits were boring. You may recall the hype around The Davinci Code many years ago - everyone was raving about it. I tried three times to read it and each time threw it across the room. Terrible writing.

I know you mean about Piranesi. I enjoyed the world building and I thought it was very clever, but I wouldn't have wanted it to be any longer.

I'd forgotten The Essex Serpent - that was dull!

Oh, yes. A promising premise but just so boring.

Ellie Griffiths' Norfolk series. They get a lot of love here but I can't stand them, which is a shame as the combination of archaeology and crime fiction should be a winner for me. I bought a box set of ten and insisted on working my way through all of them in the hope they'd get better but no. Even threw one across the room in annoyance which I've never done before or since.

@AprilShowerslastforHours ahhhh nooo I love Ruth and Nelson (although can totally see how they get formulaic!) In a guilty pleasure sort of way!

Books I've struggled to finish that were massively hyped: Hamnet was so overwritten with such purple prose it became unreadable. Dirty Havana: nothing to say except never again! The leviathan (basically the same plot as the Essex Serpent) and also Song of Achilles (far too much golden rays bouncing off muscles!)

I've got another. Bournville, by Jonathan Coe. What a Carve Up is one of my favourite books, but this would honestly never have been published if it didn't have a famous author. So boring. So disappointing

Yes! I am just over halfway through it and am wondering why all the praise for it. Blackadder Goes Forth has more wit, insight and pathos.

Circe... I gave up halfway through, it was just a bit boring

Yellow Face. So annoying.
How to Kill Your Family. Put it down in annoyance.

Anything by Sally Rooney.

Absolute drivel.

Her popularity makes me fear the levels to which we have sunk as a general readership.

Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. Mind numbingly dull. An object lesson in not believing the hype coming from all those famous people.

I've just started In Memoriam 🤔I reckon there's at least one character who's going to annoy the living daylights out of me.

I am a fussy, voracious reader whose favourite contemporary novelists are Olga Tokarczuk, Annie Ernaux, Anne Enright, Miriam Toews, Hilary Mantel and Magda Szabo, and I still think SR has something. Not entirely to my taste, but I certainly think her work has interest (though I like her first novel more than the subsequent two), and will read Intermezzo when it comes out.

The Slap - so many completely unsympathetic characters set up so quickly.

Haweswater - kept trying and kept giving up. Shouldn’t have been as dull as it was.

I tend to avoid anything hyped.

Just finished Pine by Francine Toon it was a slow and confusing mess in need of some thorough editing. I think the author was aiming for eerie and mysterious gothic but ended up with head scratching WTH? Apparently it won the McIlvanney Prize 2020, was shortlisted for Bloody Scotland's Scottish Crime Debut of the Year 2020 and longlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2020. No idea why it won or was short-listed for anything. Stupidly bought the book on the strength of the good looking cover and the blurb.

Omg yes! I mean it was a fun, easy read but not what the fuss was all about. His writing in general (sorry).

Couldn’t get through the crawdads book.

Also found the Robert Galbraith books overrated. I love JK and all.

I’ve just finished Mania by Lionel Shriver and hated it. I get the point she’s making (but don’t agree with it really)but it was so belaboured over such a great number of pages full of unsympathetic characters.

@Covetthee not read Piranesi - it was on my to get list. What's up with it? Have read others of Susanna Clarke's and loved.

@MrsPringledusts love your name. I have an almost full set of Miss Read - is that where it's from?

The Slap was rubbish - read one page in a charity shop and knew straight away how drivelling it was.

Matt Haig is terrible at adult writing - I want to like it but I can't - but actually quite magical when writing for children. Me and DS spent a happy December a few years back curled up listening to some of his Christmas stories each evening at bedtime.

Allthe year round - yes - it is! Ironically -unlike Mrs P - I dust as little as possible! And I love Miss Reads books - I've just found a page on FB, so may have to join that!

Ooh @MrsPringledusts can you send me the FB link? I am shocking for not dusting. It only gets done quarterly here so Mrs P would NOT be impressed with my slovenly ways.

I love Miss Read, so well written, joyful and funny. Obviously some social attitudes have changed since Dora's time (or maybe not, in some villages round where I live) but I think we have all long suffered a colleague such as Mrs P.

I know someone at work who stomps around like mad when in bad temper and I inwardly chuckle thinking of Mrs Pringle's 'bad leg'when she takes umbrage at something.

I often think of her when our house gets in a jumble. My word, wouldn't Mrs Pringle would be frowning and bringing her cloths round for a 'good bottoming' (possibly a phrase which can no longer be said at booming volume).

Have you read her autobiographical books - A Fortunate Grandchild and there's another one or two? I have a whole book shelf devoted to Miss R.

If ever I'm feeling down or am in bed with a virus, she's my comfort read, along with My Family and Other Animals.

I loved Tomorrow and Tomorrow!!