I'd agree with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and add Henning Mankell's Wallander books. The first four, anyway. Overlong, leaden and generally pointless.
Have to agree with most here - v disappointed by TTWife, Dragon Tattoo, Life of Pi and House at Riverton.
Also can't get into Dan Brown at all - not for me, I'm afraid
Most disappointing prize has to go to Captain Corelli's Mandolin - it irritated me tremendously, think I only got through about 10 pages, just couldn't read it.
Unlike many here I love Discworld and most other Pratchett books - The Unadulterated Cat is my favourite.
I read Catch22 in the early 70's and it was brilliant - read it again in early Noughties and was disappointed. I think it was more relevant 30 years ago and life has moved on and left it behind. Shame, because it had a big impact on me back then.
I managed about 3/4 of it before literally throwing it across the room in sheer frustration. :mad:
I started reading that, got really into it then got up to the bit where they went to Bulgaria (I think it was Bulgaria, it's been a while since I read it!) and totally lost interest. It went completely downhill.
The Curious incident of the dog in the night - I just didn't get it
DaVinci Code - a good book but was so overhyped by the time I read it I was expecting to be blown away by it.
The Memory Keepers Daughter - the story promised so much more but failed
A short history of Ukrainian tractors - again I just didnt get it
The Road, definitely. Boring, bleak and overwrought. The number of people who recommended this book to me, and specifically told me that it was the kind of book I "would love" is worrying...
The Kite Runner, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, My Sister's Keeper are all books that were recommended to me as well, and that I thought were pretty weak - not terrible, but just not that good.
Vernon God Little is probably the weakest Booker Prize winner that I've read.
And Twilight. God Twilight. Like others, I was recommended it by fellow Harry Potter fans, and like others I was disappointed, to put it mildly. While the other books I've mentioned were just not as good as they'd I'd been told, Twilight was something else. This is a really bad piece of writing. It's like a teenage girl just wrote out their masturbatory fantasies with mediocre style, and somehow not only got published but managed to sell those stories to millions more teenage girls around the world. How anyone can compare these books to the complex, funny, moving Harry Potter series is beyond me.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thomson - Terribly overrated. The jist of it being not much more than a case of "Wow look here's a guy doing a lot of drugs and aint he mental". :yawn:
The catcher in the rye - The character annoyed so much that i just gave up at the point when he goes to new york ,im just not very good with persevering with books im not enjoying .
Oops. On the bright side, not everyone hates it. Good idea storywise, but I found it clunkily written, with stereotypical characters and hugely patronising. Given the massive publicity this has had I was very disappointed. In fact, I hate it and it very nearly chucked it in the bin at one point.
Let me know what you think.
I thought it was a bit rubbish, so much so that I skipped over whole pages.
Atonement - Dull. Lovely dullness but dull none the less
The Da Vinci Code - the single worst book I have ever read. Makes me despair for the future of humaity if people actually think this is good. Ripped off ideas, exposition dumps and shoddy writing.
Twilight - I like him/I don't/I do/But I can't/Oh but he's lovely/But strange and scary/But so loverly.. aaargh. (Perhaps being a father to the target audience doesn't really help me here)
Northern Lights - really disappointed - OK, but again nothing special
The Lord Of the Rings - I'm a massive fan of fantasy, but I'm always amazed that this is the definitive tome. Wordy, badly written, and the songs :eek:
Atonement - Dull. Lovely dullness but dull none the less
The Da Vinci Code - the single worst book I have ever read. Makes me despair for the future of humaity if people actually think this is good. Ripped off ideas, exposition dumps and shoddy writing.
Twilight - I like him/I don't/I do/But I can't/Oh but he's lovely/But strange and scary/But so loverly.. aaargh. (Perhaps being a father to the target audience doesn't really help me here)
Northern Lights - really disappointed - OK, but again nothing special
The Lord Of the Rings - I'm a massive fan of fantasy, but I'm always amazed that this is the definitive tome. Wordy, badly written, and the songs :eek:
Catch 22 - Not funny.
Good call!
I ditched The Golden Compass midway through and I almost never leave a book unfinished.
It didn't capture my imagination or attention at all.
I've been ( patronisingly ) told in the past that that is because I didn't understand them - no, it's because I thought they were overrated drivvel.
I'd also say the same about Kafka's The Trial.
I often wonder if its the age you are when you read catcher in rye , that makes you love it or hate it .I read it as an adult with children of my own and i spent the whole book wanting to send Holden to bed with no tea
I found if I read cloud atlas as a series of short stories rather than the way its set out I enjoyed it a lot more.I know its a cop out doing that ,but all that stopping and starting a new story then getting to the middle and finding that the stories restarted really annoyed me.I skipped the middle story altogether the pigeon english in it just annoyed me.
I hated lord of the rings too all that awful poetry and fake legend
This is kind of the other way round - I really really Enjoyed reading 'The Beach' ... and to be honest I was warned against watching the movie, and I think the movie destroyed all I had imagined while reading the book. Sometimes only the book will do.
I can understand why some people don't like Dan Brown's books, but they're intended as entertainment, and, in the case of the first four, the writing keeps you turning the pages.
Unfortunately I found his latest one, Lost Symbol, absolute rubbish. The plot never really makes any sense, and the "surprise" at the end is anything but.
I really liked Notes From A Small Island, didn't reckon the others much though.
I would tend to agree - having been a fan of Bryson in the past, I have found more recently that his acerbic put-downs and contrived stereotypes conform to what has become quite a lazy style of writing; there's always a mean hotel manager, a mad country hick, etc. His humour revolves largely around the misfortunes of others and their stupidity. While this can be very funny, I feel that some of the people featured in his books do not deserve this amount of vitriolic criticism.
Have to agree with most here - v disappointed by TTWife, Dragon Tattoo, Life of Pi and House at Riverton.
Also can't get into Dan Brown at all - not for me, I'm afraid
Most disappointing prize has to go to Captain Corelli's Mandolin - it irritated me tremendously, think I only got through about 10 pages, just couldn't read it.
Unlike many here I love Discworld and most other Pratchett books - The Unadulterated Cat is my favourite.
I read Catch22 in the early 70's and it was brilliant - read it again in early Noughties and was disappointed. I think it was more relevant 30 years ago and life has moved on and left it behind. Shame, because it had a big impact on me back then.
That's what I thought, but I perserved for a couple of chapters and it's now one of my favourite books.
Those who didn't like "The House at Riverton" - have you read Kate Morton's other one, "The Forgotten Garden"? I much preferred that; it has better twists
Comments
Also can't get into Dan Brown at all - not for me, I'm afraid
Most disappointing prize has to go to Captain Corelli's Mandolin - it irritated me tremendously, think I only got through about 10 pages, just couldn't read it.
Unlike many here I love Discworld and most other Pratchett books - The Unadulterated Cat is my favourite.
I read Catch22 in the early 70's and it was brilliant - read it again in early Noughties and was disappointed. I think it was more relevant 30 years ago and life has moved on and left it behind. Shame, because it had a big impact on me back then.
'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke (though I love her second book, 'The Ladies of Grace Adieu').
Anything by Jane Austen, or Charles Dickens.
I started reading that, got really into it then got up to the bit where they went to Bulgaria (I think it was Bulgaria, it's been a while since I read it!) and totally lost interest. It went completely downhill.
DaVinci Code - a good book but was so overhyped by the time I read it I was expecting to be blown away by it.
The Memory Keepers Daughter - the story promised so much more but failed
A short history of Ukrainian tractors - again I just didnt get it
The Kite Runner, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, My Sister's Keeper are all books that were recommended to me as well, and that I thought were pretty weak - not terrible, but just not that good.
Vernon God Little is probably the weakest Booker Prize winner that I've read.
And Twilight. God Twilight. Like others, I was recommended it by fellow Harry Potter fans, and like others I was disappointed, to put it mildly. While the other books I've mentioned were just not as good as they'd I'd been told, Twilight was something else. This is a really bad piece of writing. It's like a teenage girl just wrote out their masturbatory fantasies with mediocre style, and somehow not only got published but managed to sell those stories to millions more teenage girls around the world. How anyone can compare these books to the complex, funny, moving Harry Potter series is beyond me.
So was I - I couldn't be bothered to even finish it.
I thought it was a bit rubbish, so much so that I skipped over whole pages.
Don't get me wrong, I rate all three, but they weren't as good as I anticipated they would be following the hype surrounding them.
Atonement - Dull. Lovely dullness but dull none the less
The Da Vinci Code - the single worst book I have ever read. Makes me despair for the future of humaity if people actually think this is good. Ripped off ideas, exposition dumps and shoddy writing.
Twilight - I like him/I don't/I do/But I can't/Oh but he's lovely/But strange and scary/But so loverly.. aaargh. (Perhaps being a father to the target audience doesn't really help me here)
Northern Lights - really disappointed - OK, but again nothing special
The Lord Of the Rings - I'm a massive fan of fantasy, but I'm always amazed that this is the definitive tome. Wordy, badly written, and the songs :eek:
Catch 22 - Not funny.
Good call!
I ditched The Golden Compass midway through and I almost never leave a book unfinished.
It didn't capture my imagination or attention at all.
I can't understand why it was so popular.
I often wonder if its the age you are when you read catcher in rye , that makes you love it or hate it .I read it as an adult with children of my own and i spent the whole book wanting to send Holden to bed with no tea
O me too nightmare of a book that was
I hated lord of the rings too all that awful poetry and fake legend
The White Tiger is the worst booker prize winner I've read. Still can't believe it won over the wonderful shortlist it was up against.
Twilight - I could write an essay on how bad it is.
Unfortunately I found his latest one, Lost Symbol, absolute rubbish. The plot never really makes any sense, and the "surprise" at the end is anything but.
I would tend to agree - having been a fan of Bryson in the past, I have found more recently that his acerbic put-downs and contrived stereotypes conform to what has become quite a lazy style of writing; there's always a mean hotel manager, a mad country hick, etc. His humour revolves largely around the misfortunes of others and their stupidity. While this can be very funny, I feel that some of the people featured in his books do not deserve this amount of vitriolic criticism.
That's what I thought, but I perserved for a couple of chapters and it's now one of my favourite books.