The Vipers - Katy Hays

48%

03.05.26

This was beautifully written, with an eye on being lit fic - but pretty words are wasted when I have no idea what is going on. Too many flashbacks, too many inconsistencies, and withholding information from the reader does not, in itself, make a plot. Capri seems nice, though.

It Should Have Been You - Andrea Mara

48%

06.04.26

A very silly story that depended too much on coincidences, miscommunications and misunderstandings, with only its Irish setting to lend it some interest.

Writers and Lovers - Lily King

48%

29.03.26

I'm sure the author thought she was writing deep 'n' meaningful lit fic but really it was a plotless story of a weak, self-involved woman who inexplicably attracted two men before her life accidentally came together without much input from her. Writers on writers on writers is never going to be particularly insightful.

Susan, You're the Chosen One - Lauretta Hignett

48%

27.04.25

The idea was promising but the whole book just read like an introduction to the series rather than anything worth reading by itself.

Bad Bones / Bare Bones - Lauretta Hignett

48%

17.04.25

These books are, inexplicably, much duller than the Foils and Fury series - the 'found family' and 'secret supernatural' themes just aren't handled as well. I've almost forgotten I've read them.

The Final Gambit - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

 

48%

01.05.23

I should have paid attention to my own advice after reading the second book in the series. This book was a mess: poorly structured, full of awkward exposition and populated with one-dimensional characters. And how did all the drama of the three books culminate? In a very brief chess tournament. What a let down.

The Lamplighters - Emma Stonex

 

48%

09.10.22

Life on a lighthouse was dull and repetitive and a little dreamlike, just like this book. It was too lavishly descriptive for my taste, the characters too cold and similar, the magic realism and metaphorical flights of fancy too heavy handed. More 'hardgoing' than the 'gripping' and 'riveting' asserted on the cover.

Body Language - AK Turner

 

48%

28.04.22

The writing was awkward and the plot full of convenient loopholes but at least I learned a few things about working in a morgue, in case it ever comes up at a party.

Never Look Away - Linwood Barclay

 

48%

28.01.22

A by-the-numbers attempt at a thriller and by that I mean the 'twists' were so predictable that 1+1 = 2 every time.

Constance - Matthew Fitzsimmons

 

48%

17.01.22

Three main things made this 'thriller' relentlessly unthrilling. One: the confusing plot, bogged down with existential questions. Two: the characters with no character. Three: the effort that instead went into the endless, pointless descriptions, detailed to the extent of irrelevantly stating the race of even each one-scene bit-part - please let the reader construct their own visual world.

The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip Williams

 48%

20.08.21

You'd think I'm the ideal audience for this novel - I've studied, lived and worked in Oxford and work with words now. But the story was so dull, the characters so two-dimensional, the dialogue so unlikely, and the author so keen to show off her conscientious research and ruminations on the nature of words that I just didn't care.

Note: I'm might also start keeping count of books where women become pregnant after having sex once. Spoiler: It's most books with unmarried female protagonists, especially when they're set in the past.

New label: pregnant first time

Upstairs at the Party - Linda Grant

48%
09.08.20

This self-indulgent novel makes a huge metaphorical meal of an unsympathetic narrator (just for a change) and her boring friends going to university and then leading disappointing lives. I have rather less sympathy for the Boomers here than for the lost Millennials in Queenie, though neither set of characters is particularly likeable.

There's Trouble Brewing - Nicholas Blake

48%
17.02.20

A Golden Age murder mystery by the poet laureate of the time, which I grabbed randomly from the shelf as the library was closing. Unfortunately, it did not result in a serendipitous passion for Golden Age murder mysteries by poet laureates. I didn't dislike it - it was just dated and forgettable.

Death Wore White - Jim Kelly

48%
02.04.15

I should know by now that novels that are supposed to be set in my part of Norfolk are going to be geographically inaccurate but this was barely recognisable. It was therefore just another murder mystery hat I'll hardly remember in a few months, with rather a high body count and killer(s) with complicated and unlikely motive(s).

Charlotte Street - Danny Wallace

48%
16.08.14

I admire Danny Wallace but this novel is so forgettable that I just had to look up its name. Could Do Better.

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul - Deborah Rodriguez

48%
06.05.14

I wouldn't have finished this if it wasn't for my reading group. In fact, I read two other books in the middle. It's quite an achievement to make vibrant and violent Afghan culture seem so dull, but then it's run through the Western filter of irritating, self-obsessed American ex pats. It's just so patronising.

Oh Dear Silvia - Dawn French

48%
24.01.14

I like Dawn French. She is a charming, funny and intelligent comedian. Unfortunately, her novel is none of those things. I could list a whole lot of reasons why it was badly written but it was the poor punctuation (as evidenced in the title) that annoyed me most - incorrect commas everywhere and underlining instead of italics, which I've not seen in printed material since about 1996. Ugh. All evidence that if the name's big enough, editors and proofreaders are seen as an unnecessary extra cost. Well, they're not.

The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry

48%
10.02.13

In which characters are cruelly buffeted by the winds of fate and subsequently either die young and tragically or live long and miserably. Yes, we know that in Catholic Ireland some priests were of dubious morality and some women were treated unjustly but it all seemed too far-fetched and metaphorical to gain any emotional involvement from the reader.

Coconut Unlimited - Nikesh Shukla

48%

13.02.11

My husband bought me this for Christmas, being concerned for my psychological welfare because of all the miserable books I read. So on the plus side, this is upbeat and unchallenging, evocative of a particular time, place and culture. It's hard to overlook its lack of a plot, vague characterisation, semi-autobiographical self-obsession and awkward structure, but at least nobody dies.

One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson

48%
11.11.07




It looks like I enjoyed 'Case Histories' but this seems to have been written by a completely different author as it's not very good. I think she might be trying to re-create some complex literary narrative style, but only succeeds in creating an unconvincing mess peopled by two-dimensional characters. And, as so often happens (but never before with Atkinson), I didn't find the comedy funny.