Crime, Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

Can you remember the absolutely worst book you've ever read?

Into Darkness by B. A. Savage. Here's the review I wrote on it:

I counted 20 word, grammar, and punctuation errors in Chapter 1 and 26 more (15 of them punctuation mistakes) in Chapter 2.

And then I gave up on this disaster.

I won’t even talk about the stilted dialog on the 21 pages I managed to slog through.

The only good thing I can say about this book is it was free.

The bottom line is this book never should have seen the light of day.

I can certainly remember the worst book I've read in the past year!

Zodiac

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

My worst book I have ever read is


Marlborough Man by Alan Carter

However, this book does have high ratings on Goodreads.

Worst mystery book or worst book in any genre? Nowadays, I drop the book if I hate the first half. However, the last book I recall finishing and really hating it was Dying for Dinner Rolls by Lois Lavrisa.

Julesy wrote: "Worst mystery book or worst book in any genre? Nowadays, I drop the book if I hate the first half. However, the last book I recall finishing and really hating it was [book:Dying for Dinner Rolls|20..."

Any genre. I usually don't give up on a book and I know this won't be popular on GR, but I gave The Goldfinch 1 star. Did not like it at all and if I hadn't been reading it for my in person book club I would have thrown it in the trash half way through.

Sheri wrote: "Any genre. I usually don't give up on a book and I know this won't be popular on GR, but I gave The Goldfinch 1 star. Did not like it at all and if I hadn't been reading it for my in person book club I would have thrown it in the trash half way through."

Sherry, I totally understand feeling compelled to finish a book for book clubs. Unless I am leading the book discussion, I no longer feel obligated to finish because I have regrets later on wasting my time when the ending does not improve. I have not read The Goldfinch but that is one of those books that was hyped up and folks either love or hate it.

Ann, I felt the same way about The Goldfinch! I finished it, but did some serious skimming through the last 100 pages or so.

I have found through painful experience that if a book is one everybody raves about (like The Goldfinch) I find it terrible - usually dull and plodding and full of angst. One like that that sticks in my mind is A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson.

I've had the same bad experience with books recommended by this or that celebrity's (like Oprah or Reese Witherspoon) book club.

I'm glad I'm not the only one about The Goldfinch. :)

I have stopped even thinking about what celebrities recommend. A friend and I bought a book Oprah recommended once and it was the biggest piece of trash you can imagine. We both agreed and didn't even want to give our books to another person. I will usually plod through anything, especially if a friends has liked it, but this books was bad.

I do try to finish books though, especially if it's for a discussion, because other people will bring up motives or plot lines that I've totally missed, and it sometimes changes the way I think about the book.

Sheri wrote: "Julesy wrote: "Worst mystery book or worst book in any genre? Nowadays, I drop the book if I hate the first half. However, the last book I recall finishing and really hating it was [book:Dying for ..."

Sheri you, not the only one that gave Goldfinch rating of 1 on Goodreads.

For me, there are too many books to read for me to read books that do not engage me after the first couple of chapters.

for the mystery genre, it is . the murder didn't take place until chapter6. I found that utterly ridiculous coz it took so damn long! in the cover it features the black cat but in the book, he was only seen as a minor character that adds nuisance to the new bookstore owner. I felt sorry for that lustrous, mysterious feline. I never do DNFs, so it felt like a chore to read every page. there were times I didn't want to pick it up but I had to finish it once & for all.
for any genre, takes the cake. in my opinion, the most annoying main character in the world can be found here. all he did was whine & complain at everything. I just couldn't understand why this became a classic. it was a meandering, pointless book.
BTW, where did you get that amusing image above?

Jezzy wrote: "for the mystery genre, it is . the murder didn't take place until chapter6. I found that utterly ridiculous coz it took so damn long! in the cover it fea..."

I don't like books that take too long to get to the murder either. When it's the point of reading the book in the first place, it should be close to the front.

You made me smile. There definitely is a lot of whining in Catcher in the Rye. Can't say that it's one of my favorites.

I can't remember where I found that image but it's so cool.

I'm gonna tell you guys a secret. A while back I got a message on GR's from an author asking me to read his book and give and "honest review." One of the worst books ever. Run on sentences. Sentences that didn't make sense. Needed editing. So I gave a somewhat honest review of 2 stars, when it should have been a 1 star or less but I wanted to be nice, and this guy kept messaging me about it. Said he guesses some people just like to say mean things and he couldn't let it go. I deleted my review and blocked him.

My Confession: I can't fathom why Stephen King is so popular.

I managed to get through The Stand but it was a slog.

I tried to read Needful Things but gave up after something like 250 pages because nothing - not one single thing - had happened by then except prolonged introductions of what felt like a zillion characters.

That was the end for me. I have never and will never pick up another King book again.

Sheri wrote: "I'm gonna tell you guys a secret..... Said he guesses some people just like to say mean things and he couldn't let it go. I deleted my review and blocked him."

If you're not prepared for an honest review, you shouldn't ask for one.

Quillracer wrote: "My Confession: I can't fathom why Stephen King is so popular.

I managed to get through The Stand but it was a slog.

I tried to read Needful Things but gave up after something like 250 pages becau..."

I agree!! I don't understand why people love him so much. I am fine with some of his earlier work but his short stories are terrible and he really should have stopped in the novel game long ago. I also love horror and it kills me that all people think about when you mention the horror book genre is Stephen King.

I think the best thing we can say about King is his reputation exceeds him.

Sheri wrote: "I'm gonna tell you guys a secret. A while back I got a message on GR's from an author asking me to read his book and give and "honest review." One of the worst books ever. Run on sentences. Sentences that didn't make sense. Needed editing. So I gave a somewhat honest review of 2 stars, when it should have been a 1 star or less but I wanted to be nice, and this guy kept messaging me about it. Said he guesses some people just like to say mean things and he couldn't let it go. I deleted my review and blocked him."

I don't understand people like that. If someone is pushing for an honest review, then they have to take the good along with the bad and ugly. If a book is riddled with errors or is written in such a way that it does not convey the thoughts that the reader can understand, then that is on the author. I often downgrade a review a half star when the book has many typos and errors, which could have been caught if a proofreader or copy editor was put to good use.

Barbara wrote: "If you're not prepared for an honest review, you shouldn't ask for one."

Exactly.

Quillracer wrote: "I think the best thing we can say about King is his reputation exceeds him."

I agree with you, Quillracer. I have not been able to engage with books by Steve King. I have read couple of his books because they have been nominated for BOTM reads. However, they have been awful.

Jenny, Nora & Quillracer; I also agree. I haven't 100% ditched his works just yet but a long hiatus from the last i'd read in yr2016, it was the Dead Zone. Stephen King is truly overrated. my main problem: he is very wordy. he strays away from the story that he wastes a huge chunk of ink & paper. no wonder he produces unnecessarily thick books! I enjoyed Pet Sematary & the Shining though. i'd seen Dr. Sleep's adaptation, so i'm planning to re-read the latter before I dive into its sequel. so far, the worst i'd read was Salem's Lot. there were too many characters to keep track, the plot drags so much & a lot of unanswered questions afterward. I own Bag of Bones but I'm still not ready for that yet. many horror genre authors deserve praise & recognition, too. SK should have taken a back seat from all of these accolades 2 decades ago.

I remember hearing or reading that he re-released one of his books - perhaps The Stand, but I could be wrong - that was half again longer that the first version. King insisted the new release be exactly as he originally wrote it and the publisher went along because it was a Stephen King book and would sell like crazy for that reason alone.
It sold like hotcakes at first for that reason but people who bought it quickly discovered it was bloated and dull and actually worse than the first version because all those extra words didn't add a single thing to the story but bloat.

Quillracer, never heard nor read about that. The Stand could be that book. it's so unbelievable... from (abridged) 800+ to almost 2,000 pages (unabridged). i'm still intimidated to even begin flicking its 1st page. i'd watch the adaptation instead.

I don't agree with everybody. A number of his books aree, how shall I put it, not to my likes (contrary to his first x books) but "the institute" is back to his great self.
I do thing writers who write books heavier than 300 pages could shorten their stories but as somebody said to me once: in the US writers do get much more attention the bigger the books.. So everybody tries to get their books as heavy as possible. Must admit, even the Lord of the Rings is somewhat..... (hum boring?) during the mid 200 pages eventhough I read it at least 5 times...

You could be right about The Institute, Nadine. But I'll never read it or any of his books because Needful Things destroyed any interest I might have in reading his work.

There are too many authors out there who can tell a whole story in the same number of pages he took to get to the first bit of action.