Bad Books or wish I hadn't bothered!

Hated Wuethering Heights but loved Jane Eyre.Reread To Kill a Mocking Bird for my book club and forgot how much I’d liked it, read it first as a teenager. Love Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies , I’m looking forward to the last of the trilogy.

Hate anything by Austen but like Dickens . Modern books I didn’t like Gone Girl at all

I should confess that I only managed 10 or 12 pages Terribull

Callistemon I have "A Hundred Years of Solitude" on my shelf by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, bought a long, long time ago, always with the intention of reading it, then I heard his books are somewhat heavy going. Anyway we are all living what seems like a 100 years of solitude at the moment unfortunately!

I love C J Sansom as well tidyskate I enjoyed Tombland because my husband was born and bred in Norwich so it was interesting to him as well. The books are always so well researched.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Marquez
(Beautiful prose apparently according to pretentious friend)

Just turgid and boring
It wouldn't be a cheerful read at the moment, anyway.

Reading through the last few comments, read Secret History years ago and enjoyed it, didn't like the one she wrote in the middle, but thought The Goldfinch was wonderful.

Also thought Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine's books had a very special quality about them that no other crime writer ever nailed, for me at any rate. Occasionally wrote a few duds, but that's to be expected of any writer.

I liked this snippet from today's Sunday Times , Matt Rudd writes, apropos of the virus'. lots of video conferencing from homes gave an insight into colleagues bookshelves. A financial analyst based in Guildford spent more time analysing colleagues' books than portfolios. "You shouldn't make character judgements" he says, "but I know that the guy I have worked with for nine years is a huge, huge fan of Dan Brown and the Twilight books. We can get over coronavirus, but I can never get over that"...........clearly a Jodi Piccoult moment

I didn't mind Secret History, but thought Little Friend and Goldfinch were much better.

Agree with the comments on JPs books. Not terrible, just underwhelming.

Also underwhelmed by Ann Cleeves, the one who writes about Scarpetta and PD James.

I think I've been spoiled by Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine.

I loved the Secret History.

It is hard to remember titles of books I hated but I will try to later.

This thread is making me chuckle - people all saying the unsayable!

One that I’m glad I stuck with years ago is The Day Of The Jackal. The first chapter or so made no sense whatsoever, (this was before the film), but found it unputdownable as it progressed.

My neice ( well read teenager), her sister and her mother all raged about A Secret History by Donna Tartt. I forced myself to drag through it. I hated it, not one likable character and lots of intellectual snobbery. Perhaps it was just me as even Ruth Rendell thought it was good according to the dust sheet.I

Never happier to get it back to the library.

It was called Christmas in the Snow

It has lots of 5* reviews so it must be me. And my friend.

Hard Times by Dickens
I wish the televised version had been around when I struggled with it for exams.

Wolf Hall, I'm sure it is excellent but I cannot bear any book written in the present tense.

And a frivolous load of nonsense which I bought for a friend who was laid up. She gave it back to me saying she had only managed 30 pages, sorry.
I managed 32.
I can't remember the title or author, sorry, have blanked them from my memory.

Current book for our book club is 'The Color Purple'. Did not want to read it, but did and loved it. Other members were of a similar opinion.
The best thing about book clubs is that you get to read stuff you would never think of choosing, and then deciding whether you like it or not.
Read one Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum; loved it , but cannot get on with any of her other books at all..

It’s not just the sameness - it’s the awfulness of the sameness as she shoehorns the most unbelievable nonsense into her storylines.

I’m going to stop my JP ranting now - I’m sounding a bit like some spurned crazed superfan out to wreak revenge.

GagaJo maybe you were my friend ?
I just couldn’t get along with it. Or the one about anarchists and spies. Maybe it was his style. I don’t know.

Oh I LOVE Heart of Darkness. Such a critique of the evil at the heart of western colonialist societies.

Jodi P books are the types that read one, you’ve read them all.
Some people like them exactly because of the sameness. Nowt wrong with that, but not for me.
Conrad’s Heart of a Darkness. What that was about I never knew. My friend loved it.
Wm Golding's The Spire. I could have built my own spire by the end. Might appreciate it now,though.

I have to confess I have a somewhat unflattering mental image of the sort of person who reads JP and English teachers don’t feature in that! Shame on them - and if not liking Jodi P means I’m a literary snob as well then snob me up.

OMG yes, SC. And I know English teachers that love her. They are often the ones that call me a literature snob. Just because I don't read tripe.

Anything by Jodi Picoult. Quite why this woman is an international best selling author is beyond me - her stuff is formulaic drivel as she attempts and fails to deal with hard hitting issues in a believable manner. I’ve stopped even trying to read her books, they make my teeth ache.

Oh yes! Can't bear Dickens. It's now on the curriculum for GCSE Literature. Argh! I hate it. The kids hate it.

I also hate Harry Potter. I'm GRATEFUL to JKR for getting children to read but find the quality of her writing poor.

Jane Eyre
Most Dickens
Eleanor Oliphant
War and peace☹️

I hated Lovely Bones too. Why did I waste time reading it all.?It left me cold and gave me a few nightmares too.