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Books to avoid like a bookworm on a diet

BossArky

We have threads for:

- 10 books to read before death
- books we are currently reading
- general book threads and queries.

How about a thread which highlights books to be avoided at all costs? - i.e. waste of reading time, no educational value, biased, waste of ink, paper and some poor writers nerves.

Of course, most books no matter how bad teach us something.... but there must be a few gems out there ready to clobber the unwary reader into an early snooze.

Try to give a brief desciption of why you want the book on this list.

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clappyhappy

Biggest load of shīte I have read recently was "the goddess village" by nuala woulfe. It was recommended for our bookclub. Never read anything like it absolute drivel, gave it 1 out of 5.

JustAThought

Decided to edit my comment out ; was thinking how sad it would be to bean author googoling your book & finding it listed here :0
Feelingguilty

manningsrachel

mills and boon, me to

Borboletinha

A million little pieces by James Frey

I regret every second I wasted reading this book. It was sold as a memoir that turned out to be a bunch of lies!:mad: And the funny thing is I hated the book even before I found out that none of it was true. I had no simpathy for the main character who comes off as aggressive and arrogant...
Anyway, dont waste your time like i did...:(

noveltea

Room by Emma Donoghue, hated it.stopped reading it half way through could not care if they got out of the room or not.

Bill Shock

Just finished "The Hidden Child" by Camilla Lackberg the current "Queen" of Scandinavian crime writers.

Stay welll away from this mawkish tripe!!!

hairyprincess

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, absolutely dreadful reading. Avoid it like your life depended on it

Stargazer7

hairyprincess wrote: »

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, absolutely dreadful reading. Avoid it like your life depended on it

Could not disagree more I'm afraid!

neris

Hannibal pride of carthage by david durham. Boring as hell long winded uninteresting Historical novel. Took the best part of a year to read as couldnt get into the book and kept putting it down After a few pages

highlydebased

It's been mentioned before I'd say, but to reiterate, The Pompeii Syndrome is quite awful. Easily one of the worst books I've picked up.

annascott

50 Shades of Grey. the writing is appalling

Irishchick

noveltea wrote: »

Room by Emma Donoghue, hated it.stopped reading it half way through could not care if they got out of the room or not.

I thought the same. I couldn't understand what everyone was raving about. It was mediocre at best.

Books to avoid:

50 shades of grey/darker/freed
The Road - utter drivel. Full of stunted conversation. It reads more like a play.
Me & My sisters - Just one long add for Prozac
The slap - I wanted to slap them all when I finished.

Whippersnapper

Irishchick wrote: »

I thought the same. I couldn't understand what everyone was raving about. It was mediocre at best.

Books to avoid:

50 shades of grey/darker/freed
The Road - utter drivel. Full of stunted conversation. It reads more like a play.
Me & My sisters - Just one long add for Prozac
The slap - I wanted to slap them all when I finished.

I couldn't finish The Road, dirge. The Slap, what a waste of time. Watch a few soaps and you have the same thing.

judgefudge

Irishchick wrote: »

noveltea wrote: »

Room by Emma Donoghue, hated it.stopped reading it half way through could not care if they got out of the room or not.

I thought the same. I couldn't understand what everyone was raving about. It was mediocre at best.

Books to avoid:

50 shades of grey/darker/freed
The Road - utter drivel. Full of stunted conversation. It reads more like a play.
Me & My sisters - Just one long add for Prozac
The slap - I wanted to slap them all when I finished.

The road?! I'd have to disagree with you there. That's up there amongst my favourites.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse recently as I'd heard they were making an "epic" mini series out of it, so I thought it must be good if they're making it for TV, right?

Wrong. Load of balls, basically.

It made very little sense, was really confusing at times as to who or what the author was talking about. At one point she was calling a character by the wrong name. Just a load of nonsense really.

Apparently it's a massive seller and has made the author filthy rich, just goes to show being on the best sellers list isn't always a sign of quality.

Irishchick

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

being on the best sellers list isn't always a sign of quality.

It Rarely is.

femur61

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse recently as I'd heard they were making an "epic" mini series out of it, so I thought it must be good if they're making it for TV, right?

Wrong. Load of balls, basically.

.

Have to agree with you and the other book that was really hyped u was the The Historian.

zombiepaw

Worst book ever is seven deadly sins by corey taylor. A couple of hundred pages of rants by the singer from slipknot.

Ecarg

I have to disagree, I enjoyed both The Historian and Labyrinth. However regards a book to avoid, it has to be Anita Shieve's Testamony.

p to the e

Recently got about half way through "The Ice Man" by Philip Carlo. It documents the supposed true story of a mafia contract killer who's story is soon to be made into two high profile movies. However, how anyone could get through the entire book is beyond me. It was either the amateur writing or the extremely tall tails but I just couldn't take this serious at all.

Shiny Cactus

just finished going through this thread many of the "Greats" both novels and authors are put down, resulting in me putting some of them on the back-burner(going to read them sometime).

surprised no one has mentioned frankenstein, got to around page 70 and stopped to save my ability to enjoy a book also the Innocent Mage was rubbish after giving it a chance from others advise.

Honey-ec

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse recently as I'd heard they were making an "epic" mini series out of it, so I thought it must be good if they're making it for TV, right?

Wrong. Load of balls, basically.

It made very little sense, was really confusing at times as to who or what the author was talking about. At one point she was calling a character by the wrong name. Just a load of nonsense really.

Apparently it's a massive seller and has made the author filthy rich, just goes to show being on the best sellers list isn't always a sign of quality.

Agreed, absolute twaddle.

Ormus

Ecarg wrote: »

I have to disagree, I enjoyed both The Historian and Labyrinth. However regards a book to avoid, it has to be Anita Shieve's Testamony.

Labyrinth is tripe. I found the Historian to be an enjoyable caper though.

zyanya

Lately there's been an excess of books along the lines of: "Mister Whoeverton thought he had a normal life, until he finds himself with a (mysterious object) that links him with (some interesting period in history) and (its main characters). Now, he's in the middle of a quest that could change the way we see the world / the fate of mankind!" You can even make your own, with that template. There are several good ones, but in general, I'm getting sort of annoyed of those.

Thargor

David Moody writes apocalyptic sci-fi which is one of my favourite genres, his 2 main series are the Hater trilogy and the Autumn series but they are really really tiresome to try and read, they're so bland for one thing, like he never identifies the town/place/country he's in, never mentions the name of a product or tv channel or anything like that, all he says is stuff like "He remembered going into town to watch the local football team here in this place in the good times", it makes his worlds so dull and boring, seeing this in a lot of new authors these days, seems to be the more hype you hear online about a book the blander it turns out to be.

Ormus

zyanya wrote: »

Lately there's been an excess of books along the lines of: "Mister Whoeverton thought he had a normal life, until he finds himself with a (mysterious object) that links him with (some interesting period in history) and (its main characters). Now, he's in the middle of a quest that could change the way we see the world / the fate of mankind!" You can even make your own, with that template. There are several good ones, but in general, I'm getting sort of annoyed of those.

There was definitely a glut of them after the Da Vinci Code. I haven't noticed it as much recently.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Ormus wrote: »

There was definitely a glut of them after the Da Vinci Code. I haven't noticed it as much recently.

It's probably like trends in music. Something new and different comes along and is randomly very successful and then people start to notice all the similar books that were there all along. Like this trend for "Nordic Noir" at the moment.

Thargor

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

It's probably like trends in music. Something new and different comes along and is randomly very successful and then people start to notice all the similar books that were there all along. Like this trend for "Nordic Noir" at the moment.

Disagree, I think there's a new breed of parasitic writers out there ready to jump on any new trend and capable of crapping out a book in a month or two, just take a look at the new releases section in any bookshop these days

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Thargor wrote: »

Disagree, I think there's a new breed of parasitic writers out there ready to jump on any new trend and capable of crapping out a book in a month or two, just take a look at the new releases section in any bookshop these days

Well it's probably a mix of both. Some writers will have already been writing that kind of thing, some will jump on the bandwagon and pedal out as much as they can while it's the "in thing". Probably publishers and book shops have a lot to do with it too.

Wise Old Elf

Falling Man by Don DeLillo, hope it hasn't been said already.

+1 for the slap.

Reading part 3 of 1Q84 by MURAKAMI and struggling. Loved parts 1 and 2 but part 3 very slow.