The book club pick that completely fell apart halfway through

Last month my group picked a thriller called 'The Hollow Hour' for our monthly debate. I was excited because the cover looked cool and the blurb promised big twists. But by chapter 8 I was so bored I couldn't even tell you what the main character wanted. The pacing was all off, every scene dragged, and the big reveal at the end was something I guessed on page 30. I brought it up at the meeting and everyone else nodded along. Three people admitted they quit reading halfway through, which is crazy for a group of 12. We ended up spending the whole night arguing about whether the author even had an editor. Has anyone else had a book that just broke down like that for you?

2 comments

2 Comments

clairec785d ago

The Hollow Hour was my group's disaster pick last spring but for a different reason - we had 8 out of 15 people not even show up because the first 50 pages were so slow they couldn't get through it. It's like these authors are trying to copy the success of slow-burn shows but forgetting that books don't have visuals to keep you interested. I've noticed this same thing happening with a lot of new thrillers where they front-load all the setup and then rush the ending because they ran out of pages. Don't you think publishers are pushing books out too fast now without letting them breathe?

ninamartin4d ago

Eight people bailed? @clairec78 that's brutal, I can't even blame them.