That moment when the book turns terrible

[TofuTuesday]

You know when you are reading something great, and then the character says or does something beyond belief, or a character appears, or the dialogue fails? I’ve just hit it with the book I’m reading. I’m now in the ok this is stupid phase, and making myself read it.

I threw My Sisters Keeper across the bed I was so enraged with the ending

I haven't read the book, but I read a plot summary and thought the ending was a total cop out which didn't address or resolve the issues at the centre of the book.

In a book group we were reading "Disgrace" by J M Coetzee. Near the beginning there is a female character with a lot of dogs. I said I had a horrible feeling about the fate of the dogs. Someone who was further ahead just said "stop reading". So I did.

I hate books where the author needs to have their character experience trauma/display emotion, so they kill off a pet.

On the subject of dogs.
Stranded by Rosalind Tate
The protagonist has a dog which we are reminded of on every page. This was already annoying me by chapter two but I stuck it out because the idea behind the book had so much potential.
Not only do they travel back in time but the past is different. Other people preceded them in the same way and none have found a way home.
The main character is a bit wet. The writer runs out of ideas half way through.
But mainly that bloody dog.

Hmm, I think you're being too kind to Nigel. I thought he had a plan to stop Sylvia from continuing dancing after they were married? He's totally controlling, I can't imagine him letting his wife have a life outside of him.

Even Sebastian says some awful things, pressuring Veronica to give up her career.

Must reread and remind myself!

Awful book. For some reason my mum let me read it when I was about 10!

I found the ending of Magpie Road really unconvincing, despite the rest of it being good.

“We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves”. The protagonist’s sister, Fern, turns out to be a fucking chimpanzee halfway through the book. She disappears then, I can’t remember exactly why, but as the parents were experimenting on animals, I think it was back to the lab for 20 Benson and Hedges, some coral shimmer lipstick and a shit tonne of heart pills.
I stopped reading it when Fern was outed in the book. Bloody stupid.

Yes to behind her eyes!

Jodi Picoult has written some excellent books but that wasn’t one of them.

I felt this way about the ending to yesteryear

Last Seen by Lucy Clark. Where to start. A women in her 30s early 40s that has never had an email account, lives on a sanbank with no electricity but at some point she mentions a mobile phone being charged. Rings up the fertility clinic and is given her husband's sperm count results over the phone, without his knowledge. And so much more...zero editing

Behind Her Eyes, This book is so bad it made me think I could write a book and get published.

Was it Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers?

No it was an Adele Parkes one, which has a mousetrap like warning not to share the ending.

I enjoyed Babel but don't remember the plot well enough to recall the ship thing. However I have ranted on here before about Katabasis by the same author, which keeps referring to the "campus" when talking about the University of Cambridge. Ditto Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries.

Omg! The year of the locust. I’m still convinced I had a printers error book, which stuck 2 books together.

Same.
Utter tosh

Butter. I started it on holiday, left it behind accidentally. Bought another copy, and really, really wish I hadn't bothered. It intrigued me at first, and as it started to get worse I kept hoping it would redeem itself. It didn't.
There's another book that was so bad, I ripped it up and binned it because I didn't want to be responsible for anyone else picking it up from the charity shop. I'm trying to remember what it was, but I've blanked it out!
Also that one where sister is a chimp. Good grief.

Loathed that book, didn't make it past when they got to Oxford. It seemed like a rehash of Philip Pullman Northern Lights to me.

We're all different, but i thought that book was a masterpiece
I can't remember if it won the pulitzer (sp?) or the Nobel, but thought it totally deserved it. Stunning, stunning writing

Absolutely this one- rarely does a book annoy me, but this one did.

Also guilty of buying a certain book in a charity shop @SecretSquid, and binning it!

There's an Australian book whose plot hinged around someone who had been in a bad car accident and was in an old people's home as a young person with nowhere else to go. She had difficulty accessing wheelchairs etc.

In Australia. The country with the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme). The scheme that would pay for OT and physios, wheelchairs and home modifications. Not mentioned even once.

I gave up on The Slap. Realised I disliked all the characters and didn't care what happened to them.
Have just started reading The Names and have put it down again. If I'd realised how it was structured I probably wouldn't have bought it in the first place. Has anyone here persevered with it?

I love The Names, but I like alternate reality books, like some of Kate Atkinson’s. My Bookclub voted it out best of 2025

But my contribution would be the 7 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Gripping start, but I kept giving up because I couldn’t bring myself to care who killed her. Have just sent it to the charity shop with 1 chapter to go.

This was a good few years ago now, but DH still occasionally mentions my outraged cry of "What a load of absolute FUCKING SHITE!" as I launched The Hornet's Nest by Patricia Cornwell across the room.

I'd read quite a few of her Kay Scarpetta novels but was getting bored with them as they were really samey so thought I'd try this one. I mean, WTF? A cat that helps solve the crime by trying to do some sort of bizarre charades and using props (yup, really). Utter, utter shite and the last time I ever picked up a book written by her.