Margo’s Got Money Problems
AND, it was way too long…only finished it because it was for
a book club discussion. 8 women…and no one liked it!
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Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.. This was not for me.
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Verity by Colleen Hoover. Absolute drivel.
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I truly agree on this one. This book was not a favorite of mine.
Highly over rated, first portion is good, second is not up to author’s standards.
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Made a far better movie than a book. Almost felt like it should have been the first in a series of mysteries using art as a starting point. Seems to me that’s been done, though.
What about the reverse, here? One book you absolutely loved and everyone in your Book Club detested it?
I loved North Woods. Only one of about 20 of us seemed to like it as much as what I did. Made me really question myself.
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Ha! A fun twist here @Elizabeth_M2 . I read many books that are out of the mainstream so wouldn’t be appreciated by casual readers but the book that quickly comes to mind is one read with my book club many years ago that still gets disparaged. It is Blindness by Jose Saramago and I think it was me and the person who nominated it that liked it then and to this day continue to admit liking it.
And I LOVED Northwoods. I’m very excited about his new book coming very soon. It sounds super weird but I’ve been a Daniel Mason fan through quite a few titles now so I will give it a read.
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Too funny. Sometimes it happens. My Book Club is such a diverse group of women from all walks of life and experiences, until I feel, for the most part, we do a great job of accepting, and reading, each other’s choices.
North Woods was suggested by a new member to the group, and I was a bit surprised others did not like it. At least I was pleased they could defend themselves, and the reasons I could see, but still . . .
Reasons why are the most important aspect. At least it gives fodder for discussion when everyone hates the books.
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Read it in a Book Club, and thought it was OK. Sometimes, when we land on a book, I finish reading it, and think to myself ‘would something nonfiction have been better?’ A friend of mine, retired military, suggested it, so I read it with the others and found things to discuss,
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That’s a great take on the question, @Elizabeth_M2!
The only book clubs I’m a member of is the one here, and generally I agree with our members’ assessments.
The biggest issue I have is with my reviews. I definitely come across some books that I love, but that I suspect will be polarizing. The one that comes to mind is The Antidote (the one by Karen Russell, not the one that keeps showing up in the book bar below). I know @Anne_Glasgow liked it (she & I have similar tastes) but a number of other members here didn’t.
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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six. Hated them both. Totally giving up on Taylor Jenkins Reid. I don’t like the writing style which I think is uninspired and the storylines bored me completely.
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To big NO’s for me are The Four Winds by Kristen Hannah - It was a selection for my book club and I could not even finish it. I always finish book club books so that I can justify what I did/didn’t like about a book, but I couldn’t even finish it, it was so bad. I have to agree with others that I didn’t like The Women either. I have enjoyed several of her other books but these felt like she cranked them out to get something on the shelf.
The other is The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks - haven’t even tried any of his others because this one was so very bad.
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Haha @Kay_L I think Nicholas Sparks belongs in a category of his own.
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I can’t stop at just one. And, I hope I don’t sound negative but I do have … opinions.
I feel like this is a confession. Please don’t hate me for not liking these books! 
James by Percival Everett – I found it way too predictable and didn’t see what was so great about it? 
ETA: I just remembered that I didn’t “absolutely hate” it; it was okay. I got sidetracked thinking of books I’ve rated lowly that were popular with others.
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson – I strongly disliked how fictionalized this supposed nonfiction was. It is one of those books that I wanted to figuratively throw across the room at times (I read it as an e-book)! Too many embellishments or suppositions, scenes from the author’s conjecturing. (E.g., he imagined they could have toured the stockyards, but in reality there’s no fact backing this up, yet he wrote it as if it had happened?!)
I could not finish The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride – too much of a male gaze going on (I think it was this book) and it was uninteresting for me.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke – less said the better.
On Trails by Robert Moor – ditto. It came across as less about trails and nature and more about the meanderings of a privileged male. Maybe its title and marketing was all wrong for me (giving me the wrong idea of what to expect)?
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane – ditto above. Less about nature/rivers than his traveling around and rafting. It’s the first book of his I’ve read, and I’ll probably not check out his other works if they’re anything like this one.
NB: I haven’t read any of the books in the images here, save for Educated (which was like watching a train wreck but in book form; it was an okay read for me).
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Oh, thank you, Lisa! I’m new to the group and didn’t want to admit that The Book of the Year (James) was one of my least favorite reads. I found it overrated and utterly predictable.
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The Correspondent. Posted this on Goodreads:
Are you kidding me with these ratings? If I offend anybody with these harsh words, sorry.
This is book club lit: a boring set of caricatures from the lock jawed pompous Sybil to Dezi to Theodore to Felix. Sybil was the garden clubbing pseudo Wasp. The threatening thug character was, surprise, an Italian immigrant. The German neighbor had, surprise, Holocaust trauma in his background. The gay brother probably spoke with a lisp and left his lover in, surprise, Paris. And don’t get me started on the Help Desk character. So predictable.
The epistolary construct added nothing but repetition of zip codes. Customer service emails are not an interesting literary format.
The recurring “here’s what I’m reading” list of contemporary book titles was an annoying, name dropping device. It had zero intertextual meaning. We believe that you are well read, but these references were a trivial pursuit set.
Sybils law career gets scant attention except in relationship to the boss. Apparently, she was a skilled criminal attorney. Speaking of relationships to men, Sybil is the ridiculously lucky septugenarian with multiple romantic opportunities. Gag me.
Some important lessons shone through:
The letter writing tradition is tragically dying out. Its extinction will be a great loss to humanity.
A parents’ grief is one of life’s deepest torments and can not be underestimated.
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Thanks for this! It feels nice to know I’m not the only one who felt this way! 